How much time is needed to finish a PBeM? From: "Kristopher Andersen" <optimus@2d10.com> Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2000 00:00:00 +0000 I was wondering what you might consider to be a realistic real time vs. game time expectation for a role-playing game played through e-mail? For example, let's consider the following math. In a typical fantasy role-playing game (think AD&D) it might be reasonable to expect the characters to be able to save the world in 5 to 10 years of game time (they have to discover the secrets of the world, raise a vanquishing army, you know--they have a lot of work to do!). Let's consider playing that game through e-mail and see how long it will take to play the game out based on the following (perhaps ludicrous) assumptions. * Each scenario of the campaign might take 6 months or so. (Perhaps 1-2 months on-duty for the characters and the rest getting a little R&R and training.) * That's 10-20 scenarios needed to complete the campaign. * If each scenario requires 6 weeks of game time, that's 60-120 weeks of game time that needs to be role-played for the entire campaign. * What if it takes 2 weeks of real time (people actually sending e-mail messages back and forth) to get through 1 day of game time? * Well, since there's 420-840 days of game time to get through that's a whopping 840-1680 weeks of REAL time or roughly... 16 - 32 YEARS of REAL LIFE to finish a typical PBeM campaign. Where have I gone wrong? Can anybody offer any tried and true experience on game time vs. real time expectations? Cheers, Kristopher Andersen - optimus@2d10.com -- 2d10.com brings play by mail role-playing to the Web. http://www.2d10.com Referenced By Up