PBEM Fanzine # 92-05 From: gl8f@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl) Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1992 19:15:32 +0000 ====================================================================== @@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@ @@ @@``````````@@ @@``````````@@ @@`````````````` @@@@ @@@@`` @@`` @@`` @@`` @@`` @@`` @@``@@ @@ @@`` @@@@@@@@@@@@ `` @@@@@@@@@@@@ `` @@@@@@@@@@@@ @@`` @@ ``@@`` @@```````````` @@``````````@@ @@```````````` @@`` `` @@`` @@`` @@`` @@`` @@`` @@`` @@`` @@`` @@@@@@@@@@@@ `` @@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@`` @@`` `` ```````````` `````````````` `` `` ====================================================================== A Fanzine for Free Computer-Moderated Play-By-Electronic-Mail Wargames ====================================================================== volume 92, number 5 (yes, volume 92 is the first) november 15, 1992 ====================================================================== Greg Lindahl, Editor gl8f@virginia.edu ====================================================================== Table of Contents: Opening Stuff o The Editor's Corner Announcements o New (small, variant) Galaxy game starting! o New game beta-test o PC Software available for 11-player email game o Galaxy version 3.3 source & rules are available for ftp Articles o Role-Playing in PBMs, by Luis Sequeira Regular Features o Game Descriptions & Information o Hints regarding sending electronic mail to other networks o What's this "ftp" thing anyway? o Archives and subscriptions by email ====================================================================== The Editor's Corner ====================================================================== I got a letter to the editor thanking me for writing in complete sentences. Gee, it's nice to be appreciated --- now I'll have to be doubly sure that I don't screw up while editing. As always, we encourage contributions from anyone about anything. It was very nice to get email this month about a beta-test of a new game, as well as new Galaxy openings. Game reviews, news of new games, strategy articles, random musings about PBEM gaming, you name it, send it and I'll publish it. Hope to hear from you soon. -- greg (gl8f@virginia.edu) ====================================================================== Announcements ====================================================================== Howard Bampton (bampton@cs.utk.edu) is starting 1 or 2 small (10-20 player) Galaxy games soon, using the variant known as "Blind Galaxy". This an offshoot of version 2.9, as modified by Tom Finn, Glenn Elligson, and Howard. He hopes to start sending setups out on November 28, so write him promptly for details. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Hogan Long is developing a new PBEM system and is looking for "sympathetic, understanding, and enthusiastic beta testers". The system is something like Walter Bright's Empire game, in which you capture cities and build armies and fleets, and sort of like Sid Myer's Civilization. You can contact him at Hogan@cims.cs.nyu.edu. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- I recently became aware of the game "VGA Planets", which is a shareware 11-player PBEM game with a graphical client program that runs only on PC's. You can ftp this game from ftp.ucsc.edu, directory "PC/vgaplanets-2.1". Source doesn't seem to be available. I mention it here mainly because it's a nice way to run a complex yet user-friendly game via email -- give the player a client program that helps them generate the turns. Unfortunately, without source it is of no use to those of us who don't do PC's. If you find this game to be interesting, it would be nice to set up an Internet server to run games. This game is probably also available on Compu$erve. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The rules and source code for Galaxy version 3.3 were recently uploaded to ftp.erg.sri.com, and hopefully will be moved over to the proper directory soon. If not, look for them in the pub/INCOMING directory. Galaxy is described in the "Game Descriptions" section below. I believe that Russell is running the only Version 3 game at the moment, but it's the wave of the future. The new, incompatible syntax is guaranteed to confuse you, but weapons and cargo have been modified a bit and make more sense. ====================================================================== Role-Playing in PBMs Luis Sequeira ====================================================================== This won't be an article about role-playing PBMs - but role-playing *in* PBMs, which is a quite different thing. In normal RPGs, where all players sit at the same table, and most players already know each other fairly well, there are some aspects of true role-playing which are often ignored, or simply overlooked. That is, most players will pick a character of their liking and which --- very often, at least --- reflects their own personality. A player who is shy and introverted won't ever play an extroverted merchant or bard. He may be not very brave in the real world and choose a bold assassin, but he'll stay behind the action and make a move only when he's really needed. The important thing here is to watch how each player's reactions are dictated not only by the character he chooses, but mainly by the other players in the game, his friends, and who expect from him his own reactions. Unless one is a professional actor, it is inevitable that one feels somewhat constrained by one's own personality while --- presumably --- playing the personality of a game character. This, of course, isn't an argument *against* role-playing games at all! To the contrary; as each player picks a character of his own liking, and one he is quite comfortable with, instead of a pre-selected one, the game is certainly more fun than a game where all players are "forced" to take characters they don't like, thus playing less enthusiastically, making the game dull and boring. As it is, RPGs are thus heavily influenced by the human factors involved in a meeting of good friends, knowing well each other. A fighter played by John will always look like another fighter played by John, even if the type of the game changes radically (and John's fighter is instead a marine soldier --- but its witty remarks will always be John's). But on the scale of PBMs, especially PBMs played by dozens of players from around the world, and unable to contact each other except through the game (assuming that most players are not at phone distance with each other, etc.), the nature of each player's decisions can vary much from the player's own personality. That is, if John does not make his witty remarks in a PBM, how will one know who is John and who isn't? Thus, PBMs are the realm of anonymity. If someone does not reveal his real name, and is hidden behind the name of his character in a PBM (and not only on a RPG PBM, but on all types of PBMs), nobody knows what his real personality is. He has more freedom of choice than in RPGs --- because he is not constrained by having other players watch him and expect certain choices from him. As it is, in a PBM, players are judged for what they do in the game and by their messages instead of being prejudiced by his own personality. Someone who you hate in the real world may become your best ally, just because both ignore each others' personalities and act solely upon what they read in the reports about the other one. Mark can be a real pain in the ass in the real world, but if he acts wisely in the game and offers much in diplomatic terms, he may become a good "friend" in the game --- even if the next morning at work you may be insulting him personally... or the reverse might happen, too. I always tell one of my favorite stories about my relations with a player in a PBM that I've been playing for the last year and a half. My neighbor was a vassal to a rival empire in formation, and I wrote a letter offering to trade with her. My intentions were to win support from a member of the rival empire in order to convince the emperor that the kingdom I belonged to was a peaceful one --- and as a token of peace, there was even flourishing trade between two of the border nations. The letter I received as an answer was signed "Princess Aurembiax" and accepted my offers. We established successful trade, and later on made several alliances and promises of mutual help. Six months later, I trusted "Princess Aurembiax" more than my own ruler (whom I knew personally and disliked in the real world, but, as a feudal vassal, I kept my bonds to the ruler of the kingdom --- and still do, despite his horrible diplomacy and strategy). We announced that invasion of any one of our two states was an invasion to the other. Both my king and her emperor respected this decision --- even when my king declared war upon the empire (because both players, known personally to each other, hated each other...). Later on, my character married this "Princess Aurembiax" and we joined our two nations. This was an obvious choice in a medieval game, where marriages were just another form of alliance, and which fitted naturally in such a setting. Because of this, her emperor spared my nation from the war, and even supported it when the northern barbarians came to wreck havoc upon the civilized southern states. What I find most amusing in the game is that I still never met "Princess Aurembiax" personally, and probably never will. I even don't know her phone number, just one address from where she sends her orders. We exchanged postcards on holidays, but not much more. I heard that she is some ten years older than I am, and going to be married in the real world soon. But in the game, she is my best ally and I trust her completely, more even than other players who I know personally for many years. I have also one personal experience as a counter-example. This time, I had established friendly relations with another player next to my nation. It was a duchy devastated due to civil war, and I financed part of its rebuilding, as I needed strong allies against the northern barbarians. The alliance was going under way, until I discovered that this player was married --- in the real world -- to one of the barbarians. Well, of course the husband of the player forced her to side against me --- despite of her being traditionally a member of the kingdom I belonged to. It's quite obvious that friends joining a PBM almost always side together against common foes. What perhaps isn't that obvious is that, in the game, new friends and enemies may appear, which have nothing to do with the situation in the real world. And it's easier to role-play this if you personally don't know your adversaries. It's a game in itself, judging your adversaries just from the messages you receive from them. Also, it's quite different to write to your buddy, whom you trust, than to write to someone else whom you don't know, but want to gain their trust, friendship, and support. Diplomacy is easier if you know how the others will react to your offers; it's harder and more thrilling if you don't. A careful diplomatic offensive, prepared for turns and turns, can be easily spoiled if suddenly you discover that your adversary is the person you hate most in the world. For instance, consider the classic vets-versus-newbies alliance. The newcomers have really no chances there. The vets not only grasp the implications of the rules better, giving them an edge, but they effectively rule out any chances for survival of the newcomers --- even if they *could* be superb players and strong allies. But just because they are newcomers to the game, nobody wants to have them as allies, and they are quickly disposed off (this may be an exaggeration --- *some* of them, after all, are spared). And being a vet does not mean one is a competent strategist --- it just means he has the advantage of knowing the rules, and how to twist them just to destroy that innocent newbie. Prejudices such as this one create abnormal tendencies in the game. Of course, nothing is fair in the real world, so games reflect this. But it is possible to measure an individual's strengths and weaknesses just by his abilities shown in the game, and not by what he is in the real world. Here's yet another personal example: in the PBM I joined long ago, most of the players are from two different real-world cities. Once one of the players from one of the cities made a treacherous (but, of course, legitimate) move against another player from the other city. Since then, a full-scale war has erupted between the players of each city, independent of former alliances or other organizations. They would attack only players of the other city, to defend the "brothers" of their own city. Players like myself who allied to other nations, ignoring the residence of its players, were soon labeled as "traitors to the cause" by fellow residents, and mistrusted by the players of the other city... well, one faction even created a religion just to explain their moves (at least, that was a valid role-playing act) against the other city. But being forced to ally only with players of your own city is certainly stupid. The situation has degenerated to the point where personal insults between the players have been exchanged. This is one of the worst examples of PBM role-playing I ever seen. Just to talk to a personal friend you have in the other city (which is only natural) is an offense and high treason "against the brothers", and you'll certainly become involved in a war just for that, if someone finds out. Nevertheless, this lead to an amusing situation: two brothers, living in the different cities, and thus members of rival empires, happily exchanged information between themselves. There was even a threat of violence between players of the two cities --- in the real world, I mean! Obviously, this has gone too far. Bad losers always exist; but this is a case of collective hysteria, between adult players (and a large group of them, too) who have forgotten that this is just a game. Forgetting the role-playing aspect of the game is bad enough; allowing emotions to be carried away outside the game is an exaggeration, a really stupid one. And the players didn't stop at that --- in other games, which players from the two cities have joined, the "conflict" is still carried on (not just on other games, but also on different types of games, too, which aren't connected at all with the original one). This would be barely acceptable with 12-year-old kids, but most of the players are university students, even teachers, researchers, and married couples with small children, all of them between 20 and 35 years old! Incredible, but true. I think, however, that in most games such personal conflicts are never carried that far. There is, of course, the classical case of the "friends' empire": a group of friends join the game with the single purpose of creating a strong empire. Even if they do not start the game in the same empire, they most certainly will forget easily any previous allegiances and work together for the common goal. Even if some of the members of the group leave the game afterwards, the initial conditions will easily give the other players an advantage. While this may seem "unfair" to other, individual players, the fact is that this somewhat mimics the real world, where groups of people with good relations are stronger than individuals with his own ideas. So, the principle of the "friends' empire", even if unfair for other players, is not necessarily unrealistic. It is worse, of course, if already existing structures fall apart just because friends in the real world decide so. So, the next time you begin writing your orders, think a little about your role-playing in the game. Forget about what they think about you, and what you think about them. This is, after all, a game --- and by role-playing your position, and not only by "being yourself", you can enjoy the game more. ====================================================================== Game Descriptions and Information ====================================================================== Galaxy -- Galaxy is a closed-ended strategic economic/military space simulation. The game typically takes place on a 100x100 2D map, with a few hundred planets and 20 to 50 players. Players compete to capture planets, which can be used for economic expansion. You may purchase technology in many areas, allowing your ships to fight harder and move faster. Galaxy turns range in size from 10k early in the game to 100-200k late in the game. Games are being run by the author, Russell Wallace, and also by Rob McNeur, Howard Bampton, and the Generic Association of Gamers at Western Washington University. Announcements of new games have been generally posted to the Usenet newsgroup rec.games.pbm. The last time that Russell started a game, he got twice as many players as he wanted. So it would be a good idea if there were more moderators, or if the GAG folks started up more games on their server. It would also be nice if new games got announced somewhere near the 15th of the month so I could publish a notice about them here, but that's probably hoping for too much. The rules and source code are available for ftp on ftp.erg.sri.com, directory /pub/pbm/galaxy. If you to get into a game as a stand-by for a dropped player or try your luck at getting into a new game, try sending email to some of the people who are actively running games, namely RWALLACE@vax1.tcd.ie, rob@ccc.govt.nz, and bampton@cs.utk.edu. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Diplomacy -- The Diplomacy Adjudicator is a fully-computer moderated gamemaster for Avalon Hill's Diplomacy boardgame. To get more information from the moderator, send email with the word "HELP" in it to judge@u.washington.edu. Some information is available via FTP from milton.u.washington in the public/misc subdirectory. All of the information up for ftp is also available via the email server. As of October 1992, there are roughly 130 games in progress, and 956 players are registered. In addition to standard Diplomacy games, several variants are available for either normal or anonymous play. Diplomacy is covered by its own on-line magazine, which you can subscribe to either by reading the newsgroup bit.listserv.dipl-l, or by sending email with the phrase: subscribe dipl-l Your Name to the address listserv@mitvma.mit.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Star Empires -- Star Empires is a simple closed-ended strategic space-opera-style game. Roger Lincoln is currently running game #2. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Celestial Empire -- Celestial Empire is a closed-ended strategic economic/military space simulation. Empires compete to capture worlds which produce many different types of resources, of which different amounts are needed to manufacture various items. The author, Dougal Scott, is currently running several games, and he periodically starts new ones. The rules may be ftp-ed from yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au in the directory /pub/celemp. After you've read them, if you still want to join a game, send your name to Dougal.Scott@fcit.monash.edu.au. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Olympia -- Olympia is an open-ended economic/military simulation in a fantasy setting, with a little role-playing thrown in for good measure. The beta-test just finished and hopefully the next iteration will be out soon, but Rich Skrenta is threatening to make it a commercial game... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Other games -- While these aren't wargames, they are PBEM games of a sort -- sports games. Generally these games have long seasons so you can't join in the middle, but if there's an opening, you might get in early. - Experimental Electronic Football League (EEFL): wickart@ichips.intel.com - United Electronic Football League (UEFL): billones@grebyn.com - World Electronic Football League (WEFL): sarge@cs.uq.oz.au - World Email Hockey Association (WEHA): creare!inb@Dartmouth.edu - S. P. Australian Rules Football (SPARF): mel@soda.berkeley.edu - Ultra Cricket: astley@franklin.cc.utas.edu If you'd like to see a set of rules, our popular columnist Mel Nicholson has an email server... for details, send email to munch@soda.berkeley.edu with the subject "help" to receive information about his game. And yes, I refuse to publish contact information for any form of PBEM Wrestling. ====================================================================== Hints regarding sending Electronic Mail to other networks ====================================================================== OK, so now you're wondering, "I'm using FidoNet or CompuServe or FoobieBlech and those email addresses he keeps on talking about sure look funny to me!". Welcome to the modern world of networking. See, there's this big amorphous network called the Internet that lots of other networks, like FidoNet and CompuServe (but not GEnie, yet) are hooked up to. And you can send email between all of them, if you know the right incantations. Often size or cost limitations will keep you from being able to play games on another network, but at least you can send me letters to the editor or articles. Compuserve: If your ID is [76515,1122] then your canonical Internet address will be 76515.1122@compuserve.com. The comma is replaced by a period, and that's your username. Compuserve.com is the name of your site. The .com on the end means that Compuserve is a business, and also generally means it's in the USA. This address is the one that non-compuserve people will use to talk to you. To send mail from CompuServe to the Internet, you use this sort of address: >INTERNET:gl8f@virginia.edu In this example, the ">INTERNET:" part indicates that the email is going to the Internet, and gl8f@virginia.edu is a normal Internet address (mine). Compuserve users have to pay extra for mail to or from the Internet. If you're a flat-fee user, the cost is 5 cents per 2500 characters, minimum 15 cents, and the first $9 per month is free. This can add up to a bit of money if you send frequent messages, or get into a Galaxy end-game where your turns are large. In addition, the maximum size for a given message is 50kbytes, and most Internet games do not split their game turns into pieces if they are too large. But you can try. Diplomacy, for example, should definitely be ok in size and volume if you play a no-press anonymous game. To go from FidoNet to the Internet and back is a similar process. Actually, it's not so simple. I have a document that describes this, but since FidoNet seems to be a bit of an anarchy, you can't even send netmail from some nodes and others may not be configured properly to send mail to and from the Internet. And, when you send email, someone is paying to send it, or maybe there is a local gateway and it's free. So, you should probably talk to your sysop first to figure out what's going on. Anyway, the long and the short of it is this: FidoNet users can send mail to the Internet by sending normal netmail to the user UUCP, and then on the first line of the message, put the line: To: gl8f@virginia.edu To send email from the Internet to FidoNet, you take an address such as "Dale Webber at 1:105/55.0", and turn that into dale.weber@p0.f55.n105.z1.fidonet.org. Again, this is subject to the same caveats above about the gateway and the costs involved. From what I've gathered (but I haven't asked recently), they ask that you keep messages under 10k bytes and to only send two or three a day. This is a fairly small amount that would limit your ability to play Internet games, but you can still submit articles to this fanzine (hint, hint). If you want to avoid the limitations, yet don't know how to get directly on the Internet, I can mail you a list of public-access Unix sites with Internet email capabilities. Just send me a short note, using the above info, to "gl8f@virginia.edu", and I'll mail a copy back. ====================================================================== What's this "ftp" thing anyway? ====================================================================== ftp is an acronym for "file transfer protocol", and it is only directly available to the privileged few who are directly hooked to the Internet using heavy-duty hardware. There is a way to use ftp via email, and if you can get email to me, I will send you a document explaining how to use it, or send email to ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com, with an empty Subject: line, and the word "help" in the body of the message. ====================================================================== Archives and subscriptions by email ====================================================================== PBEM is archived at "ftp.erg.sri.com". I will also be setting up a mailing list to distribute this magazine, but keep in mind that it will be posted on a regular basis to at least Usenet and CompuServe, so if you're reading it now, you probably won't need to get on the mailing list to receive it in the future. ====================================================================== PBEM is published monthly. Please redistribute it far and wide, but do not modify or delete any articles. PLEASE CONTRIBUTE! Our focus is primarily on free wargames, but we're interested in articles about anything relevant. Referenced By Up