AH Samurai PBEM? From: "Alan Poulter" <alan@poulter.demon.co.uk> Date: Sun, 13 May 2001 16:25:58 +0000 [NB Re-posted on behalf of Mike Duttera, who does not have newsgroup access.] From: mduttgames@juno.com Subject: AH Samurai PBEM? I'm thinking of playing/GMing a multiplayer game of Avalon-Hills "Samurai" within the next month or 2. I'm currently trolling to see if I can generate interest for a 4 player (ideally, 8 player) game of Samurai to motivate me to drawing up detailed PBEM rules for such. The drawings from the fate cup however will not have any fog of war attached as I plan on doing such by die rolls from an email dice server. So everyone will have knowledge of everybody elses holdings throughout the game. We'll be using lower tech methods in general, though if folks want to maintain records on cyberboard or equivalent that's fine; but we won't be playing the game using that sort of program exclusively. Player-candidates in excess of 4 will be turned away unless we can get 6 or 8 players. First come- first served. I'd prefer to have intraclan politics as well as interclan diplomacy be factors in the game, thus I prefer 2 players sharing each of the 4 clans. So if I have 6 players including myself, we'll play 3 dual player clans; 8 total players will be split into 4 dual player clans. Also, I want to lessen the role of fate over a complete game by playing a somewhat longer game by requiring 3 articles for victory rather than just 2, especially if we can get 8 players. Also I intend on slight alterations in rules so that complete elimination of a clan due to fate is less likely. This game will not be starting right away. It will likely be around 1-2 months at least before we get under way, due to the work going into completing coming up with a mechanism of play/rules. The game is very roughly similar to AH's Kingmaker, though there are aspects that I think make it a more interesting game though that might be because I'm much more experienced in Kingmaker and am basically sick of it. <g> My Samurai experience consists merely of 2 complete "4-player" solitaire games and one game with some nephews and a niece 3 years ago where quality of play left something to be desired.<g> I would ask that you've at least solitaired a "multiplayer" game of this at least once before we begin so you can appreciate the subtleties of play that aren't immediately apparent just from reading the rules and looking at the map. Anticipated pace ideally will be completion of each turn during which all players have done their phases in less than 2 weeks. Expect the game to last between 6 months and a year. Quitters not welcome. Please respond by email only, directly to: mduttgames@juno.com Mike Up