FAQ: rec.games.pbm Frequently Asked Questions

From: gl8f@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl)

Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1993 23:51:58 +0000

Archive-name: games/play-by-mail
Last-modified: 1993/03/22

Welcome to rec.games.pbm! This is a newsgroup for discussing play by
mail games, both ordinary mail, electronic mail, and both wargames and
non-wargames.

1) What is PBM all about?
2) What games get talked about here?
3) What non-commercial games are there?

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1) What is PBM all about?

PBM stands for "play by mail". Since this IS the Internet, we use it
to mean both ordinary postal mail and electronic mail. Games like
Diplomacy have been played via postal mail for many years. The US
commercial PBM market was started by Rick Loomis of Flying Buffalo in
the early 1970's. Now there are commercial PBM companies all over the
western world.

Why play PBM games? Well, even though the commercial games are
expensive, they offer some things that some people have a hard time
finding face to face -- good opponents, convenient playing times, and
games with lots of hidden information.

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2) What games get talked about here?

Many postings on this group will have a game name mentioned in the
subject line. If you post, please mention the game in the subject so
that others who are interested in the same game will actually read
your postings. Some of the common games are:

Galaxy: a free PBeM written by Russel Wallace. More details in (3).

Legends: a commercial D&D-type simulation in which 200 players
         wander around a large map trying to become more powerful.

DM: a commercial fantasy arena combat game.

Diplomacy: a boardgame often played by email. Discussion for this
           game generally belongs in the group rec.games.diplomacy.

Monster Island: a simple commercial game in which player characters
                wander around an island farting and hitting each
                other.

... and bunches of others.

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3) What non-commercial games are there?

In addition to Galaxy and Diplomacy (which you need to buy the
boardgame for, but can then play for free), there are other
non-commercial PBeM games. The best way to find out about them is to
look in the monthly fanzine called PBEM, which is available via
anonymous ftp from ftp.erg.sri.com. Here's a sample ftp session
getting the most recent issue. Issues get posted here when they are
issued.

% ftp ftp.erg.sri.com
Connected to ftp.erg.sri.com.
220 sparkyfs.erg.sri.com FTP server (Version 6.16 Thu Nov 5 10:24:57
PST 1992) ready.
Name (ftp.erg.sri.com:gl8f): anonymous
331 Guest login ok, send e-mail address as password.
Password:                                             (here I typed "guest")
230-Welcome, archive user! [...]
230 Guest login ok, access restrictions apply.
ftp> cd pub/pbm/PBEM-Fanzine
250 CWD command successful.
ftp> ls
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for file list.
pbem.9205.Z
pbem.9201.Z
pbem.9202.Z
pbem.9203.Z
pbem.9204.Z
pbem.9206.Z
pbem.9301.Z
226 Transfer complete.
91 bytes received in 0.0098 seconds (9 Kbytes/s)
ftp> binary
200 Type set to I.
ftp> get pbem.9301.Z
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for pbem.9301.Z (14925 bytes).
226 Transfer complete.
local: pbem.9301.Z remote: pbem.9301.Z
14925 bytes received in 2.6 seconds (5.6 Kbytes/s)
ftp> quit
221 Goodbye.
hydra ~ % zcat pbem.9301.Z | more

Note that the file, pbem.9301.Z, is in compressed format. you will
need access to the uncomprss or zcat command in order to read it.

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If you think of other useful topics for this FAQ, please send me mail.
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