PBEM Fanzine, v92n2 From: gl8f@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl) Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1992 01:36:54 +0000 ====================================================================== ###### ###### ####### # # # # # # # ## ## # # # # # # # # # ###### ###### ##### # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # ###### ####### # # ====================================================================== A Fanzine for Free Computer-Moderated Play-By-Electronic-Mail Wargames ====================================================================== volume 92, number 2 (yes, volume 92 is the first) august 15, 1992 ====================================================================== Greg Lindahl, Editor gl8f@virginia.edu ====================================================================== Table of Contents: Opening Stuff o The Editor's Corner Articles o The PBM Habit, by Van Norton Columns o The Game Administrators' Corner, by Mel Nicholson Regular Features o List of Stand-By Positions o Game Descriptions & Information o Hints about sending electronic mail to other networks o What's this "ftp" thing anyway? o Archives and subscriptions by email ====================================================================== The Editor's Corner ====================================================================== Well, as you can see, I've opted to start publishing monthly instead of twice-monthly. This gives me more time to sit back before I panic and start badgering my friends for articles. Speaking of articles, why don't you write one? We've had some interesting suggestions for articles. First off, strategy articles for any of the games listed below. In particular, there seems to be a debate in the Galaxy community over the ship designs 33/33/33 and 40/20/20. Why hold your wisdom in when you can enlighten all of us? Second, an article on how to keep in character and out-of-character issues separate. This is something that seems to work out naturally in face-to-face gaming (people can generally tell when you're playing in character), but doesn't always work out very well in postal or email gaming. Or, think up your own topics. As always, I'm also looking for new games to list details for. -- greg (gl8f@virginia.edu) ====================================================================== The PBM Habit Van Norton ====================================================================== Recently in a game I was playing, the gamemaster took a week off. The game had been running on a standard one week turn-around for a number of months, but the gamemaster needed a week of down time. At first, I was frustrated. I found myself wandering in and looking the computer from time to time. I occasionally logged into the net before I remembered no turn was due. I was restless and anxious. I tried to pass the time by sending mail to other players in the game, but without a new turn to look at, I was rapidly losing interest. When the next turn was due, a short 12 days after I had received my last turn results, I barely had the interest to complete the turn. Was this the same game I was so anxious about? It seemed so trivial and tedious now. I believe that I was suffering from PBM withdrawal. I had become addicted to a game. After suffering the withdrawal period, I no longer had much interest in the game. My addiction to it had been broken. Laugh and point fingers if you will, but I believe many gamers suffer the same symptoms. As long a a game is running smoothly and REGULARLY, the unsuspecting gamer has no idea he has become hooked. After all, he is getting his fix at regular intervals. But watch out when a turn is missed! A forced break from the gamer's 'fix' and he becomes anxious and moody. There are other symptoms. Have you ever noticed how paranoid gamers become when their turns are late? The mailman obviously knows 'important' mail from junk and withholds 'important' mail from you. Or the gamemaster thinks you are doing too well in his game so he doesn't mail your turn until after everyone else's. Or perhaps the gamemaster receives your turn in time to process it, but intentionally loses it to set you back. How frequently do you log in when expecting late PBEM results? PBM games have insidious ways of working themselves into your life. It is nearly impossible to take a vacation from PBM. Abandoning you position for any length of time will doom the gamer to failure in most PBM's. And as one PBM winds down toward its finish, there always seems to be another worth joining. PBM gaming can be addicting. A mild addiction, certainly not as self-destructive as heroin or cocaine, but more in line with caffeine or chocolate. I have seen others spend major portions of their lives and incomes on PBM. Hopefully, by recognizing PBM as possible problem, you can keep the beastie in its place. I don't believe PBM itself is to blame. By nature, we humans thrive on power and routine. PBM provides both. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: The author is not a PhD in psychology from Harvard and does not have five years experience in clinical psychology specializing in addictions. He is not licensed to practice psychoanalysis in this state or any other state of mind. He is, in fact, merely offering his opinion. ====================================================================== The Game Administrators' Corner Mel Nicholson ====================================================================== Drafting a game Last issue I mentioned I'd write about dealing with playtesters. Well, I guess I lied, because this article has almost nothing to do with playtesters. This article is about taking existing games and rewriting them. The example I'll use is "Splat", which is one of the first games I ever wrote. I was six years old at the time, and the game (and the later versions of it) was pretty popular in the six year old circle (for whom chess was a bit too much to take for the most part --- too many rules, and chutes and ladders was too boring --- no action or control). This isn't an email game, but the principles of game drafting I'll eventually get to towards the end apply to all games. Of course, anyone familiar with my anecdoting knows that the prelude will be longer than the conclusion... Here are all the rules to Splat: Each player gets all of the numbers from one through nine. That's his team. The team must be arranged into a 3x3 grid The two players' grids are lined up face to face, and each side's columns' front number fights the opposing number. To resolve a fight, add the roll of a die for each player to the number fighting for that side. The higher total of number plus die roll Splats the lower. Ties meant both numbers got Splatted. The number would make battle passes where each column replaced losses until one side or the other had been wiped out in each column. The survivors would then regroup for another pass until one side or the other was unable to field a team (placing at least one person in each column). The really cool part of the game was the pieces. We folded pieces of paper into little triangular blocks with the numbers scrawled on the front. Whenever a piece was beaten, the victor got to "Splat" to vanquished --- literally and usually violently. After the "fallout" from less coordinated "splats" were put back into place, and the dead cleared off, the battle would rage on, usually generating enough noise to have the teacher show up, take the pieces and dice away, and "bench" us for recess. That was okay, because we would then play Splat on "the bench" at recess. (Pieces were easily remade, and there were always more dice, especially when the teacher left confiscated ones in easily retrievable locations) The Splat fervor lasted about two weeks. Then Splat-playing died out and Red Rover regained it rightful place as the Big Game. (Red Rover is a game where boys tackle each other very hard to prevent them from running from one side of the field to the other, sort of like Gridiron without a ball). While every once in a while a game of Splat would get played, the mania was gone. Then came the first variant: Super Splat. Super Splat started just like Splat, except that one empty row was left between the two 3x3's. On each players' turn, one piece was moved one space (no diagonals), staying within the imaginary 3x7 grid (the borders were not enforced until after the Great Runaway Chicken strategy was tried). When one piece tried to move onto another piece, a regular Splat battle ensued, and the survivor (if any) was placed in the defender's square. The winner was the first person to kill seven of the opponents. (You still needed three pieces to "stay alive", just like the old game) Super Splat survived a few years, though never with the sort of popularity that Splat had enjoyed as the "invented right here king of all games which will be around for ever", but it did entirely replace Splat, and eventually became known just as Splat. (Super) Splat stayed about the same until it finally was "outgrown" Then one day in the seventh grade we learned to fold pyramids (among other solid shapes) out of paper. As soon a I saw them, inspiration hit. 3D Splat! Each player got 9 (surprise, surprise) pieces, and had the same board as Super Splat. The pieces were pyramids. On the pyramids, the player got to use all the numbers from 1-9 (four times) with the restriction that no number could appear twice on the same piece. The rules were like Super Splat except for four changes: 1) On each turn you could move each piece instead of just one. 2) Instead of moving a piece could rotate 90 degrees. 3) The attack strength of the piece depended on the side of the piece facing the battle. 4) No dice were used --- the higher number won. In practice, the Splatting of the pieces was no longer done after the first few games of 3D Splat, and the pyramids were replaced with squares, due to the time involved in making the pyramids. The name 3D Splat stuck in spite of all the 3D and Splatting being removed. Okay, that's all the nostalgia you have to sit through: now I'll start with the real article. Game ideas, even dumb ones, can be revised by making simple changes to the structure of the rules. Only the main vision of how the game works need remain (or not). In the case of Splat, the main idea was this: two sides blast each other to bits in a series of one-on-one confrontations. It is interesting for me (and I hope you) to look back on the game series and look how odd some of the artifacts in the final version appear, yet how natural for those who had grown up with the earlier versions of the game they are. Take the victory conditions for example: why would the player lose upon having two pieces left? While it turned out that this prevented long boring stalemates with pieces chasing each other around the board, it didn't come about that way. I could have removed that artifact from the game, but it would have caused the game to be unplayable. The moral: not all good game design decisions are made on purpose. More importantly, revision is a Good Thing(tm). I seriously doubt if anyone on the net would be interested in playing Splat (the original), except as a game to play with/between six year old children that can help them with some number skills while not being too frustrating to learn or too obviously a Learning Game. 3D Splat, on the other hand, would probably still be an interesting game for most of us at least for a few plays, with enough strategy to surprise the most hard core chess fan. (For those who only like games with lots of violence, use the pyramids and SPLAT them) Before you go off to revise every game which has ever been made, there is a caution or three. First, remember that simple is good. Most of the revision between versions of Splat involved REPLACING rules, not adding them. The tendency towards adding and adding complexity is a terminal one, which usually produces hideous monsters which are totally unplayable. In fact, some of the moves involved REMOVING rules (like the part about no longer rolling dice). Splat, Super Splat, and 3D splat are all of about the same complexity, at least from a rule-learning point of view. I don't need to repeat to this group the numerous examples in the commercial industry where creeping featurism has ruined an otherwise good game. Another thing to remember is to not lose sight of how the game works. It's okay to reshape the vision of the game, but if you lose the vision entirely, the game is going to suffer. For example, let's say I increased the number of dice in any version of Splat to five per player. The game would suck. The outcome would be random and frustrating. You might as well just roll the dice and forget about the pieces. (Which might also be a good game for four year olds, but that's another story.) The problem is the even in the original Splat, the important part was the the number of the pieces had a major effect on the outcome of the battles. That was what Splat is all about. Finally, and this is the hardest part: it is okay to reverse a design decision after it is made. Just because you used to use one method for doing something in your game, and you have since changed it into a new, improved method, does *not* mean that you can't resurrect the part of the old version you discarded. This is especially useful when multiple changes interact. Change A might be an improvement to the base game, and change B might improve the game with change A added in. But perhaps B without A would be better yet? In more detailed games with lots of design decisions, it helps consider how these decisions interact. Things which may not have made sense or worked right with one format may later turn out to be just right after the game has changed. To summarize, don't be afraid to make changes to games. Just remember that you should try to stay true to a vision of the game, avoid unuseful complexity, and to not be afraid to reverse decisions or reconsider them in light of other changes. I hope this helps. Next Issue: I'll talk about playtesters (unless I change my mind again). ====================================================================== List of Standy-By Positions ====================================================================== This section gives a list of available positions in existing games. Two new Galaxy games started between last issue and this issue, and both expect to have some positions become available because of player drop-outs early in the game. Contact rob@ccc.govt.nz or bampton@cs.utk.edu for more details. Be sure to clearly state that you're looking for a standby position. They also occasionally start up new games; hopefully they'll wait a couple of weeks next time so I can announce the new openings in the newsletter... There are *always* Diplomacy standby positions and games starting -- contact the Diplomacy server (details below) for a list. ====================================================================== 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. The author, Russell Wallace, is currently running 3 games, Rob McNeur is running 5 games, and a few other people are running a few other games. The rules and source code are available for ftp on ftp.erg.sri.com, directory /pub/pbm/galaxy. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Star Empires -- Star Empires is a simple closed-ended strategic space-opera-style game. Every star system is adjacent to every other star system, so good communications with all other players is the key to staying alive. The author, Roger Lincoln, is currently working on version 3, which will hopefully include a new combat system and a 2D universe to replace the current trivial topology. When he starts a new game, we'll announce it here, or you can contact rhl@mbunix.mitre.org for more information. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. Two games are currently in progress, and the author, Dougal Scott, plans to start 3 more games soon. 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 game is currently in beta-test, with turns running weekly and about 120 players involved, and it's been going for a little over 6 months now. For more information, send email with the word "HELP" to server@olympia.rt.com. You can retrieve the rules and back-issues of the Olympia Times newsletter from this server. I believe that the GM, Rich Skrenta, has a large number of requests to join the game that he has not processed yet, so don't hold your breath waiting to be added. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 August 1992, there are roughly 120 games in progress, and 750 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 ====================================================================== Hints about 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're playing Olympia, where a typical player might get 500k of email per month in 100 messages. 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 be ok and not that expensive. 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. ====================================================================== 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. Up