Re: rec.games.pbm Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

From: Lewis banks <bankfour@bellsouth.net>

Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

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Greg Lindahl wrote:
>
> Archive-name: games/play-by-mail
> Last-modified: 2000/01/17
> Play by Mail Games Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
>
>
> Play by Mail Games Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
>
> Welcome to rec.games.pbm! This is a newsgroup for discussing play by
> mail games, both ordinary mail and electronic mail, and both wargames
> and non-wargames.
>
> There is a PBM WWW homepage at: http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/pbm.html
>
> 1) What is Play By Mail?
> 2) What games get talked about here?
> 3) What other games are there?
> 4) Are there any FTP sites for PBM games?
> 5) Are there any mailing lists for PBM games?
> 6) Are there any free e-magazines for PBM games?
> 7) What if I can't FTP or WWW?
> 8) I read German or Russian or Italian. Do I win a prize?
> 9) Is commercial advertising allowed here?
> 10) How do I ftp that list of all PBM games? Be precise.
> 11) How can I generate trustable dice rolls?
> 12) How do I find oponents for board games?
> 13) Why do so few postings in this group identify
> what game they're for?
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 1) What is play by mail?
>
> PBM stands for "play by mail". Since this IS the Internet, we use it
> to mean both ordinary postal mail and electronic mail. Games like
> Diplomacy have been played via postal mail since the 1960's, starting
> with John Boardman's 'zine. The US commercial PBM market was started
> by Rick Loomis of Flying Buffalo in the early 1970's. Now there are
> commercial PBM companies all over the world. In addition, there is
> some activity in role-playing games via mail.
>
> Why play PBM games? Well, even though the commercial games are
> expensive, they offer some things that some people have a hard time
> finding face to face -- good opponents, convenient playing times, and
> games with lots of hidden information. Non-commercial games can offer
> the same benefit, as long as the people running it are dedicated.
>
> How do PBM games work? Generally you mail in orders to a moderator,
> human or computer, once a week, and they mail the results back to you.
> A PBM game can be as simple as a human running an ordinary Dungeons &
> Dragons game, or a 45,000 line program moderating a fantasy
> strategic/role-playing game with 50 pages of rules.
>
> PBEM games -- those conducted via email -- are generally played by
> mailing human-readable files back and forth. A few games require
> special software on your home computer; if so, it will be mentioned in
> the game desription, if there is one.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 2) What games get talked about here?
>
> Many postings on this group will have a game name mentioned in the
> subject line. If you post, please mention the game in the subject so
> that others who are interested in the same game will actually read
> your postings. Some frequently mentioned games are:
>
> Adventurer's Guild (AG): a commercial fantasy arena combat game.
>                          It has its own FAQ posting.
>
> Atlantis: a free or commercial strategic fantasy PBeM.
>
> Duelmasters (DM): a commercial fantasy arena combat game.
>
> Galaxy: a free PBeM written by Russell Wallace, with a space setting.
>
> Legends: a commercial D&D-type simulation in which 200 players
>          wander around a large map trying to become more powerful.
>
> Middle Earth (ME-PBM): a commercial strategic simulation of J. R. R.
>                        Tolkien's fantasy universe.
>
> Olympia: an open-ended commercial fantasy PBEM game. There's also a
>          beta-test of a new Olympia version going on.
>
> Quest: an open-ended commercial fantasy PBM game.
>
> Detailed information about all these games is in the PBM List, which
> is discussed in question (3).
>
> In addition, other PBM games are discussed in separate newsgroups:
>
> Core Wars and C++ Robots:  a game of battling programs. An email server is available
>             for an ongoing tournament. Discussion about Core Wars
>             generally takes place in rec.games.corewar.
>
> Diplomacy: a boardgame often played by email. Discussion for this
>            game generally takes place in the group rec.games.diplomacy.
>
> Board games: games such as Empires in Arms, Third Reich, and Axis and
>              Allies are discussed on rec.games.board, and are
>              sometimes played by mail.
>
> Chess: discussed in rec.games.chess.play-by-mail
>
> Fantasy Baseball and Football: discussed in rec.games.sport.baseball.fantasy
>                                and rec.games.sport.football.fantasy
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 3) What other games are there?
>
> The PBM List is a list of all PBM Games on the planet, pretty much. It
> has details about all the free games that I know of, plus a paragraph
> each on a bunch of commercial games, plus a list of all PBM Games on
> the planet courtesy of Flagship Magazine.
>
> In addition to being on the web in searchable for, the PBM List is
> available for anonymous ftp on ftp.pbm.com:/pub/pbm/PBM.list.gz. If
> you need detailed instructions on ftp, see question (11). The PBM List
> is also posted to rec.games.pbm once a month.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 4) Are there any FTP sites for PBM games?
>
> Two ftp sites are available with identical PBM information:
>
> ftp.pbm.com:/pub/pbm
>
> ftp.funet.fi:/pub/doc/games/play-by-mail
>
> The files on these sites are compressed using the "gzip" compression
> program.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 5) Are there any mailing lists for pbm games?
>
> There are several:
>
> PBM-AGORA is general PBM discussion focusing on moderator interests
> such as game design and marketing. To subscribe, write
> pbm-agora-subscribe@onelist.com saying anything in the body of the
> message.
>
> The PBMDEV mailing list is intended to serve game developers by
> offering a forum to talk about game design, to share resources, and to
> offer help and support. You can subscribe to the mailing list by
> sending an email to listserv@mindshiftdesign.com saying
> subscribe PBMDEV your-email-address@somewhere.com in the body of your letter. [ CURRENTLY DOWN. ]
>
> These mailing lists concentrate on particular games:
>
> Adventurer's Guild -- write majordomo@teleport.com saying
>            `subscribe guild-l' in the body of your letter.
> BSE (Beyond the Stellar Empire, RTG version) -- write majordomo@pbm.com saying
>            `subscribe bse-list' in the body of your letter.
> BSE (Beyond the Stellar Empire, KJC version) -- write
>            majordomo@pvv.ntnu.no saying
>            `subscribe uk-bse' in the body of your letter.
> DM (Duelmasters) -- write listserv@ambience.com.au saying `help'
> DungeonWorld -- write DungeonWorld-subscribe@onelist.com saying anything in the
> body of the message
> EiA (Empires in Arms) -- write majordomo@indiana.edu saying `help'
> Godfather -- write godfather-L-subscribe@onelist.com saying anything in
> the body of the message
> Legends -- write majordomo@listbox.com saying
>            `subscribe legends' in the body of your message
> LOTE (Lords of the Earth) -- write lote-L-subscribe@onelist.com saying
> anything in the body of the message
> ME-PBM (Middle Earth) --  (actually a newsletter) --
>             write kazandar@ix.netcom.com or mason@chara.gsu.edu
> MI (Monster Island) -- (another newsletter) write abb21@dial.pipex.com
> Midgard -- write majordomo@midgardusa.com saying
>            'subscribe midgard' in the body of your message.
> Mortis Maximus -- write MortisMaximus-subscribe@onelist.com saying
> anything in the body of the message
> Necromancer -- write necromancer-L-subscribe@onelist.com saying anything
> in the body of the message
> Polaris -- write polarismain-subscribe@onelist.com saying anything in
> the body of the message
> Quest -- write quest-subscribe@onelist.com saybing anything in the body
> of your message
> SDW (Stars of the Dark Well) -- write majordomo@data1.com saying
>  'subscribe sdw' in the body of your message.
> Star Fleet Warlord -- write sfw-list-subscribe@onelist.com saying
> anything in the body of the message
> Steel Fury -- write SteelFury-subscribe@onelist.com saying anything in the body
> of the message
> Third Reich -- write goldfarb@texas.net (Chris Goldfarb), he has a
>                list of people interested in PBM play.
> Victory! -- write victory-L-subscribe@onelist.com saying anything in the
> body of the message
> World War IV -- write ww4-list-subscribe@onelist.com saying anything in
> the body of the message
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 6) Are there any free e-magazines for PBM games?
>
> Yes, the PBEM Fanzine is available by email or other means, and has
> articles about all sorts of free PBEM games. If you only have email
> you can subscribe to a mailing list which distributes this
> fanzine by writing majordomo@pbm.com saying "subscribe pbem-fanzine".
>
> There has been at least one false start on an e-magazine covering all
> sorts of PBM games. The biggest problem is probably a dearth of
> articles. I certainly can never get enough for the PBEM Fanzine!
>
> There is a newsletter focusing on human-moderated role-playing PBeM
> games. Back issues are at the ftp sites. Email riba@magic.mb.ca
> with the subject "I subscribe" to receive new issues.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 7) What if I can't FTP?
>
> There is a way to use ftp via email. For details:
>
>      On the Web at http://www.netservs.com/mrcool/stats.htm
>      By FTP at ftp://ftp.cix.co.uk/pub/net-services/stats.txt
>      Mail to mailserv@netservs.com and say
>      get file stats.txt
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 8) I read German or Russian or Italian. Do I win a prize?
>
> Yes! There is a newsgroup de.alt.games.pbem with some interesting
> things going on, but it's all in German. Some German-language games
> are included in the PBM List mentioned in section (3) above.
>
> Likewise, there is a newsgroup relcom.games.pbem, which is mostly
> in Russian. They play a lot of "Galaxy" in Russia.
>
> Likewise, there is a newsgroup it.comp.giochi.pbem, which is mostly
> in Italian.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 9) Is commercial advertising allowed here?
>
> Usenet is traditionally a non-commercial place, because many people
> who read the Net are actually paying to receive articles. Posting an
> advertisement is somewhat like sending them junk fax. However, there
> are three exceptions to this rule:
>
> A) There is an entire hierarchy of commercial groups, called "biz.*".
> These groups allow advertising. But this group isn't in that
> hierarchy, and biz.* isn't well propagated because no one wants it.
>
> B) Traditionally, a single, short, tasteful, fact-filled (not
> hype-filled) advertisement for a product will be favorably
> received.
>
> C) Most groups, like this one, have some informational postings which
> will list, in one place and in a consistent format, commercial
> information. In this case, the list is the "PBM List", mentioned in
> section 4 above, which is posted twice a month and is available via
> WWW and ftp.
>
> So if you are a commercial company and wish to make information about
> your game available on Usenet, (C) is your best bet. Send email to
> lindahl@pbm.com and I'll tell you what information I need to put you
> on the list.
>
> [ For more information about this Usenet tradition, please
> see http://www.cs.ruu.nl/wais/html/na-dir/usenet/advertising/how-to/part1.html. ]
>
> Other than posting basic information about your game, supporting your
> game on the group is encouraged -- if folks have questions, post and
> answer them. It's only repetitive hype-filled postings, or perhaps
> repetitive answers of the same question, that will tick off
> Usenetters.
>
> If you did post an advertisement, it might pay to use the [AD] keyword
> for it, but you might not want to use that for a single, fact-filled
> advertisement ((B) above) because people might ignore it, thinking
> it's a repeated ad. I haven't seen much use of this keyword yet, so
> I don't have much practical advice to give regarding it.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 10) How do I ftp that list of all PBM games? Be precise.
>
> % ftp ftp.pbm.com
> Connected to ftp.pbm.com.
> 220 ftp.pbm.com FTP server (Version 6.16 Thu Nov 5 10:24:57 PST 1992) ready.
> Name (ftp.pbm.com:lindahl): anonymous
> 331 Guest login ok, send e-mail address as password.
> Password:                                     (here I typed "guest")
> 230-Welcome, archive user! [...]
> 230 Guest login ok, access restrictions apply.
> ftp> cd pub/pbm
> 250 CWD command successful.
> ftp> ls
> 200 PORT command successful.
> 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for file list.
> PBM.list.gz
> ..
> 226 Transfer complete.
> 91 bytes received in 0.0098 seconds (9 Kbytes/s)
> ftp> binary
> 200 Type set to I.
> ftp> get PBM.list.gz
> 200 PORT command successful.
> 150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for PBM.list.gz (14925 bytes).
> 226 Transfer complete.
> local: PBM.list.gz remote: PBM.list.gz
> 14925 bytes received in 2.6 seconds (5.6 Kbytes/s)
> ftp> quit
> 221 Goodbye.
> hydra ~ % gzcat PBM.list.gz | more
>
> Note that the file PBM.list.gz is in compressed format. If you don't
> know how to read that format, just get PBM.list instead, and the ftp
> server will uncompress the file for you.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 11) How can I generate trustable dice rolls?
>
> Many boardgames and other self-moderated PBEM games need lots of dice
> rolled. One good way to do this is to use an email server: you tell it
> the address of your opponent, and it rolls dice and sends a mail
> message to both of you. This way, both sides can trust the answer.
>
> One such email server is:
>
> dice@pbm.com
>
> Send mail with "help" in the body of the message, and it will send
> instructions.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 12) How do I find oponents for board games?
>
> Eric Pass maintains a directory of gamers who want to play various
> board games by mail. You can contact him at epass@nyx.net or you can
> check out his WWW pages at:
>
> http://www.nyx.net/~epass/pbemlist.html
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 13) Why do so few postings in this group
> identify what game they're for?
>
> They actually do label their topics -- but your newsreader may be the
> guilty party. You see, several frequent postings on this newsgroup are
> digests of mailing lists, and some newsreaders split digests into
> individual messages, many of which won't have the appropriate words in
> the subject line.
>
> If your newsreader is "nn", you can tell it to stop doing this by
> editing your ~/.nn/init file and adding the line "set split off".  If
> you DO want a digest split, you can split it by typing "G" when you're
> looking at it.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> If you think of other useful topics for this FAQ, please send me mail
> at lindahl@pbm.com. If you're tired of seeing this posting, add the
> subject line to your kill file.
>
> Greg
> Lindahl
> (lindahl@pbm.com)

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Path: news3.mia!newsfeed.mia!newsfeed.atl!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!news.algonet.se!algonet!newsfeed.gamma.ru!Gamma.RU!pln-e!spln!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!news2
From: lindahl@rt.com (Greg Lindahl)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pbm,rec.answers,news.answers
Subject: rec.games.pbm Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Followup-To: rec.games.pbm
Date: 26 Mar 2000 23:14:05 GMT
Organization: A guest, not representative, of pbm.com
Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu
Message-ID: <8bm5jt01cbp@news2.newsguy.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: p-697.newsdawg.com
Summary: information about various play-by-mail (snail & email) games
Xref: newsfeed.atl rec.games.pbm:1279148 rec.answers:1276280 news.answers:1931270

Archive-name: games/play-by-mail
Last-modified: 2000/01/17
Play by Mail Games Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Play by Mail Games Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Welcome to rec.games.pbm! This is a newsgroup for discussing play by
mail games, both ordinary mail and electronic mail, and both wargames
and non-wargames.

There is a PBM WWW homepage at: http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/pbm.html

1) What is Play By Mail?
2) What games get talked about here?
3) What other games are there?
4) Are there any FTP sites for PBM games?
5) Are there any mailing lists for PBM games?
6) Are there any free e-magazines for PBM games?
7) What if I can't FTP or WWW?
8) I read German or Russian or Italian. Do I win a prize?
9) Is commercial advertising allowed here?
10) How do I ftp that list of all PBM games? Be precise.
11) How can I generate trustable dice rolls?
12) How do I find oponents for board games?
13) Why do so few postings in this group identify
what game they're for?

----------------------------------------------------------------------

1) What is play by mail?

PBM stands for "play by mail". Since this IS the Internet, we use it
to mean both ordinary postal mail and electronic mail. Games like
Diplomacy have been played via postal mail since the 1960's, starting
with John Boardman's 'zine. The US commercial PBM market was started
by Rick Loomis of Flying Buffalo in the early 1970's. Now there are
commercial PBM companies all over the world. In addition, there is
some activity in role-playing games via mail.

Why play PBM games? Well, even though the commercial games are
expensive, they offer some things that some people have a hard time
finding face to face -- good opponents, convenient playing times, and
games with lots of hidden information. Non-commercial games can offer
the same benefit, as long as the people running it are dedicated.

How do PBM games work? Generally you mail in orders to a moderator,
human or computer, once a week, and they mail the results back to you.
A PBM game can be as simple as a human running an ordinary Dungeons &
Dragons game, or a 45,000 line program moderating a fantasy
strategic/role-playing game with 50 pages of rules.

PBEM games -- those conducted via email -- are generally played by
mailing human-readable files back and forth. A few games require
special software on your home computer; if so, it will be mentioned in
the game desription, if there is one.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

2) What games get talked about here?

Many postings on this group will have a game name mentioned in the
subject line. If you post, please mention the game in the subject so
that others who are interested in the same game will actually read
your postings. Some frequently mentioned games are:

Adventurer's Guild (AG): a commercial fantasy arena combat game.
                         It has its own FAQ posting.

Atlantis: a free or commercial strategic fantasy PBeM.

Duelmasters (DM): a commercial fantasy arena combat game.

Galaxy: a free PBeM written by Russell Wallace, with a space setting.

Legends: a commercial D&D-type simulation in which 200 players
         wander around a large map trying to become more powerful.

Middle Earth (ME-PBM): a commercial strategic simulation of J. R. R.
                       Tolkien's fantasy universe.

Olympia: an open-ended commercial fantasy PBEM game. There's also a
         beta-test of a new Olympia version going on.

Quest: an open-ended commercial fantasy PBM game.

Detailed information about all these games is in the PBM List, which
is discussed in question (3).

In addition, other PBM games are discussed in separate newsgroups:

Core Wars and C++ Robots:  a game of battling programs. An email server is available
            for an ongoing tournament. Discussion about Core Wars
            generally takes place in rec.games.corewar.

Diplomacy: a boardgame often played by email. Discussion for this
           game generally takes place in the group rec.games.diplomacy.

Board games: games such as Empires in Arms, Third Reich, and Axis and
             Allies are discussed on rec.games.board, and are
             sometimes played by mail.

Chess: discussed in rec.games.chess.play-by-mail

Fantasy Baseball and Football: discussed in rec.games.sport.baseball.fantasy
                               and rec.games.sport.football.fantasy

----------------------------------------------------------------------

3) What other games are there?

The PBM List is a list of all PBM Games on the planet, pretty much. It
has details about all the free games that I know of, plus a paragraph
each on a bunch of commercial games, plus a list of all PBM Games on
the planet courtesy of Flagship Magazine.

In addition to being on the web in searchable for, the PBM List is
available for anonymous ftp on ftp.pbm.com:/pub/pbm/PBM.list.gz. If
you need detailed instructions on ftp, see question (11). The PBM List
is also posted to rec.games.pbm once a month.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

4) Are there any FTP sites for PBM games?

Two ftp sites are available with identical PBM information:

ftp.pbm.com:/pub/pbm

ftp.funet.fi:/pub/doc/games/play-by-mail

The files on these sites are compressed using the "gzip" compression
program.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

5) Are there any mailing lists for pbm games?

There are several:

PBM-AGORA is general PBM discussion focusing on moderator interests
such as game design and marketing. To subscribe, write
pbm-agora-subscribe@onelist.com saying anything in the body of the
message.

The PBMDEV mailing list is intended to serve game developers by
offering a forum to talk about game design, to share resources, and to
offer help and support. You can subscribe to the mailing list by
sending an email to listserv@mindshiftdesign.com saying
subscribe PBMDEV your-email-address@somewhere.com in the body of your letter. [ CURRENTLY DOWN. ]

These mailing lists concentrate on particular games:

Adventurer's Guild -- write majordomo@teleport.com saying
	   `subscribe guild-l' in the body of your letter.
BSE (Beyond the Stellar Empire, RTG version) -- write majordomo@pbm.com saying
           `subscribe bse-list' in the body of your letter.
BSE (Beyond the Stellar Empire, KJC version) -- write
           majordomo@pvv.ntnu.no saying
           `subscribe uk-bse' in the body of your letter.
DM (Duelmasters) -- write listserv@ambience.com.au saying `help'
DungeonWorld -- write DungeonWorld-subscribe@onelist.com saying anything in the
body of the message
EiA (Empires in Arms) -- write majordomo@indiana.edu saying `help'
Godfather -- write godfather-L-subscribe@onelist.com saying anything in
the body of the message
Legends -- write majordomo@listbox.com saying
           `subscribe legends' in the body of your message
LOTE (Lords of the Earth) -- write lote-L-subscribe@onelist.com saying
anything in the body of the message
ME-PBM (Middle Earth) --  (actually a newsletter) --
            write kazandar@ix.netcom.com or mason@chara.gsu.edu
MI (Monster Island) -- (another newsletter) write abb21@dial.pipex.com
Midgard -- write majordomo@midgardusa.com saying
           'subscribe midgard' in the body of your message.
Mortis Maximus -- write MortisMaximus-subscribe@onelist.com saying
anything in the body of the message
Necromancer -- write necromancer-L-subscribe@onelist.com saying anything
in the body of the message
Polaris -- write polarismain-subscribe@onelist.com saying anything in
the body of the message
Quest -- write quest-subscribe@onelist.com saybing anything in the body
of your message
SDW (Stars of the Dark Well) -- write majordomo@data1.com saying
 'subscribe sdw' in the body of your message.
Star Fleet Warlord -- write sfw-list-subscribe@onelist.com saying
anything in the body of the message
Steel Fury -- write SteelFury-subscribe@onelist.com saying anything in the body
of the message
Third Reich -- write goldfarb@texas.net (Chris Goldfarb), he has a
               list of people interested in PBM play.
Victory! -- write victory-L-subscribe@onelist.com saying anything in the
body of the message
World War IV -- write ww4-list-subscribe@onelist.com saying anything in
the body of the message
----------------------------------------------------------------------

6) Are there any free e-magazines for PBM games?

Yes, the PBEM Fanzine is available by email or other means, and has
articles about all sorts of free PBEM games. If you only have email
you can subscribe to a mailing list which distributes this
fanzine by writing majordomo@pbm.com saying "subscribe pbem-fanzine".

There has been at least one false start on an e-magazine covering all
sorts of PBM games. The biggest problem is probably a dearth of
articles. I certainly can never get enough for the PBEM Fanzine!

There is a newsletter focusing on human-moderated role-playing PBeM
games. Back issues are at the ftp sites. Email riba@magic.mb.ca
with the subject "I subscribe" to receive new issues.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

7) What if I can't FTP?

There is a way to use ftp via email. For details:

On the Web at http://www.netservs.com/mrcool/stats.htm
     By FTP at ftp://ftp.cix.co.uk/pub/net-services/stats.txt
     Mail to mailserv@netservs.com and say
     get file stats.txt

----------------------------------------------------------------------

8) I read German or Russian or Italian. Do I win a prize?

Yes! There is a newsgroup de.alt.games.pbem with some interesting
things going on, but it's all in German. Some German-language games
are included in the PBM List mentioned in section (3) above.

Likewise, there is a newsgroup relcom.games.pbem, which is mostly
in Russian. They play a lot of "Galaxy" in Russia.

Likewise, there is a newsgroup it.comp.giochi.pbem, which is mostly
in Italian.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

9) Is commercial advertising allowed here?

Usenet is traditionally a non-commercial place, because many people
who read the Net are actually paying to receive articles. Posting an
advertisement is somewhat like sending them junk fax. However, there
are three exceptions to this rule:

A) There is an entire hierarchy of commercial groups, called "biz.*".
These groups allow advertising. But this group isn't in that
hierarchy, and biz.* isn't well propagated because no one wants it.

B) Traditionally, a single, short, tasteful, fact-filled (not
hype-filled) advertisement for a product will be favorably
received.

C) Most groups, like this one, have some informational postings which
will list, in one place and in a consistent format, commercial
information. In this case, the list is the "PBM List", mentioned in
section 4 above, which is posted twice a month and is available via
WWW and ftp.

So if you are a commercial company and wish to make information about
your game available on Usenet, (C) is your best bet. Send email to
lindahl@pbm.com and I'll tell you what information I need to put you
on the list.

[ For more information about this Usenet tradition, please
see http://www.cs.ruu.nl/wais/html/na-dir/usenet/advertising/how-to/part1.html. ]

Other than posting basic information about your game, supporting your
game on the group is encouraged -- if folks have questions, post and
answer them. It's only repetitive hype-filled postings, or perhaps
repetitive answers of the same question, that will tick off
Usenetters.

If you did post an advertisement, it might pay to use the [AD] keyword
for it, but you might not want to use that for a single, fact-filled
advertisement ((B) above) because people might ignore it, thinking
it's a repeated ad. I haven't seen much use of this keyword yet, so
I don't have much practical advice to give regarding it.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

10) How do I ftp that list of all PBM games? Be precise.

% ftp ftp.pbm.com
Connected to ftp.pbm.com.
220 ftp.pbm.com FTP server (Version 6.16 Thu Nov 5 10:24:57 PST 1992) ready.
Name (ftp.pbm.com:lindahl): anonymous
331 Guest login ok, send e-mail address as password.
Password:                                     (here I typed "guest")
230-Welcome, archive user! [...]
230 Guest login ok, access restrictions apply.
ftp> cd pub/pbm
250 CWD command successful.
ftp> ls
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for file list.
PBM.list.gz
..
226 Transfer complete.
91 bytes received in 0.0098 seconds (9 Kbytes/s)
ftp> binary
200 Type set to I.
ftp> get PBM.list.gz
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for PBM.list.gz (14925 bytes).
226 Transfer complete.
local: PBM.list.gz remote: PBM.list.gz
14925 bytes received in 2.6 seconds (5.6 Kbytes/s)
ftp> quit
221 Goodbye.
hydra ~ % gzcat PBM.list.gz | more

Note that the file PBM.list.gz is in compressed format. If you don't
know how to read that format, just get PBM.list instead, and the ftp
server will uncompress the file for you.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

11) How can I generate trustable dice rolls?

Many boardgames and other self-moderated PBEM games need lots of dice
rolled. One good way to do this is to use an email server: you tell it
the address of your opponent, and it rolls dice and sends a mail
message to both of you. This way, both sides can trust the answer.

One such email server is:

dice@pbm.com

Send mail with "help" in the body of the message, and it will send
instructions.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

12) How do I find oponents for board games?

Eric Pass maintains a directory of gamers who want to play various
board games by mail. You can contact him at epass@nyx.net or you can
check out his WWW pages at:

http://www.nyx.net/~epass/pbemlist.html

----------------------------------------------------------------------

13) Why do so few postings in this group
identify what game they're for?

They actually do label their topics -- but your newsreader may be the
guilty party. You see, several frequent postings on this newsgroup are
digests of mailing lists, and some newsreaders split digests into
individual messages, many of which won't have the appropriate words in
the subject line.

If your newsreader is "nn", you can tell it to stop doing this by
editing your ~/.nn/init file and adding the line "set split off".  If
you DO want a digest split, you can split it by typing "G" when you're
looking at it.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

If you think of other useful topics for this FAQ, please send me mail
at lindahl@pbm.com. If you're tired of seeing this posting, add the
subject line to your kill file.

Greg
Lindahl
(lindahl@pbm.com)

--------------797358DA2E13--

References

rec.games.pbm Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
lindahl@rt.com (Greg Lindahl)
Sun, 26 Mar 2000 00:00:00 +0000