Tuesday, January 06, 2004
At this point, I figure the only people who are reading this page are people who know me. And so that means my entire readership knows I'm a gamer (video games, computer games, pen-and-paper roleplaying games, war games, strategy games...if it's a game, I'm at least up to giving it a try). In this case, though, I'm talking about pen-and-paper type of roleplaying games. Keep the geek comments to yourself, thanks.
When I didn't have time to run weekly or bi-weekly (or even bi-monthly) gaming sessions at my place on a regular basis or when I wanted to play or run something that my tabletop group wasn't into, I used to run and play in play-by-email (PBeM) RPGs. However, about three years ago or so, I swore I'd never run another PBeM. At best, they'd last about a year-and-a-half (and I only had a couple of campaigns that ever did that well). At worst, they lasted about as long as it took to make characters. Those worst case scenarios died out as soon as I lost my initial enthusiasm for them.
Anyway, here I am starting up another PBeM. My current tabletop group really isn't into Vampire: The Masquerade (well, some are, but they're not into the socio-political element -- they just want run around with fangs and kill shit), so I had little choice but to turn the Internet. I recruited a few players I either knew or had gamed with over the Net before and started up a Yahoogroup to run the chronicle.
In the past, I'd always used email and run games as double-blinds for the players. Players never communicated directly with each other. They only communicated with me, I whipped up narratives of what was going on, sent customized ones out to individual players and then waited for responses. It was bloody slow. Conversations could easily take weeks. Combat was hardly fast-paced and action-filled. That micro-management is probably also what would eventually cause me to lose interest in running the games. I think the campaigns just became far too much for me to handle and I finally ran out of steam each and every time.
However, this time the double-blind and micro-management is being taken out because the players will be interacting directly with each other in that above-mentioned Yahoogroup. The chronicle will be based on White Wolf's New Orleans By Night sourcebook and should be starting in the next couple of weeks.
When I didn't have time to run weekly or bi-weekly (or even bi-monthly) gaming sessions at my place on a regular basis or when I wanted to play or run something that my tabletop group wasn't into, I used to run and play in play-by-email (PBeM) RPGs. However, about three years ago or so, I swore I'd never run another PBeM. At best, they'd last about a year-and-a-half (and I only had a couple of campaigns that ever did that well). At worst, they lasted about as long as it took to make characters. Those worst case scenarios died out as soon as I lost my initial enthusiasm for them.
Anyway, here I am starting up another PBeM. My current tabletop group really isn't into Vampire: The Masquerade (well, some are, but they're not into the socio-political element -- they just want run around with fangs and kill shit), so I had little choice but to turn the Internet. I recruited a few players I either knew or had gamed with over the Net before and started up a Yahoogroup to run the chronicle.
In the past, I'd always used email and run games as double-blinds for the players. Players never communicated directly with each other. They only communicated with me, I whipped up narratives of what was going on, sent customized ones out to individual players and then waited for responses. It was bloody slow. Conversations could easily take weeks. Combat was hardly fast-paced and action-filled. That micro-management is probably also what would eventually cause me to lose interest in running the games. I think the campaigns just became far too much for me to handle and I finally ran out of steam each and every time.
However, this time the double-blind and micro-management is being taken out because the players will be interacting directly with each other in that above-mentioned Yahoogroup. The chronicle will be based on White Wolf's New Orleans By Night sourcebook and should be starting in the next couple of weeks.
// posted by Chris @ 9:13 PM 
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