Re: Hand-moderated role-playing PBM?

From: madcentral@aol.com (MadCentral)

Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2003 23:55:09 +0000

>>A poster in another thread said he wanted to see more discussion. So,
to play devil's advocate:<<

Cool.  And in the spirit of Devils and their advocates...

>>Why does it have to be a commercial game? The majority of the PBM-list
adverts on this group seem to be hand-mod roleplaying, and most of
them are free games. Surely one of those would provide you with the
game experience you're looking for?<<

No, they probably wouldn't.  There are *very* few free RPGs that offer the same
quality, reliability and experience that the few long-standing commercial ones
do.  There's really very little comparison.

There is, of course, much controversy about this.  But people who like
commercial games usually like them for three reasons.

(1)  They are, quite simply, usually much better.  Not always, of course.
There are bad commercial games and wonderful free ones.  But any game that has
run, successfully, and commercially, for many years, is pretty likely to be of
high quality... or it wouldn't still be running and charging.

(2)  You have some comeback.  If turns are slow, poor, or problematic with a
free game you can't say much.  its free after all.  If you're paying something,
you can rant a bit.  People like that.

(3)  Plenty of people feel a quality, tailored game service is worth paying for
and, rather than begrudging paying a few bucks, actually prefer to do so.  This
is because they recognise that if they want the game they love to run for
years, the GM is going to have to earn something.  otherwise, the vast majority
of them eventually (usually sooner, rather than later) move on and do something
else.  Again, there are exceptions, Im making sweeping generalisations and Im
aware of that.

>>Why are you so keen to spend money when there are free games around?<<

Because a *real* lot of them are diabolical.  They run slowly, or not at all.
They have very amateur GMs.  The quality of writing isn't great.  The ideas
unoriginal, or just plain bad.  Go look at a few of the websites.  You'll see
what I mean.

Its not at all uncommon to sign up for a free RPG and never hear from them
again.  Commercial games are not immune to any of this, but with a little
research you can find a classic commercial RPG thats run for years and get into
something which you know will be good, and is far less likely to disappear into
a black hole the first time the GM gets a girlfriend... ; )

Steve T.

References

Re: Hand-moderated role-playing PBM?
keenuward@hotmail.com (Rob Alexander)
Thu, 27 Mar 2003 11:35:34 +0000

Referenced By

Re: Hand-moderated role-playing PBM?
keenuward@hotmail.com (Rob Alexander)
Thu, 27 Mar 2003 11:35:34 +0000