From: inb@creare.COM (Ian Brown)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp
Subject: Re: Tips on E-Mail games
Date: 8 Apr 92 19:17:32 GMT
Reply-To: inb@creare.UUCP (Ian Brown)
Organization: Creare Inc., Hanover, NH

In article <204354@unix.cis.pitt.edu> seawasp+@pitt.edu (Ryk E Spoor) writes:
>In article <12819@creare.COM> inb@creare.UUCP (Ian Brown) writes:
>>>	With solo games, this isn't a problem; the ratio of messages 
>>>to and from the GM is 1:1 and the player moves along exactly as fast  as
>>>the GM will allow.
>
>>My problem with this is that I don't want to put that much work in (I'm lazy
>>and I play a number of games, myself, in addition to work and other hobbies).
>>I've thought about running solo games and may do it some time in the future,
>>but I prefer the parties.
>
>	Hmm. That's odd, I always found that the solo games required much
>less work for a given number of players. Example: 5 players in a party
>vs. 5 solo games: you can have the same  setup used for  all  five players
>in either  case, but  in the case of the  party you have to design a very
>complex plotline to enable all  5 to participate roughly equally in the
>game, take into  account the multiple talents of all the players, etc.,

Not really.  I tend to GM things 'on-the-fly', rather than trying to design
things.  The two games I've run that have failed suffered from my
over-designing the initial situation to a degree that didn't allow for enough
flexibility.  The game that has worked, although it does have a basic plot
line, has worked because I've (mostly) allowed the players the freedom to
choose what they want to do.

To make this a bit more concrete, I'll describe the game as it has gone.  The
game started when someone in this newsgroup asked if anyone was interested in
running a PBeM AD&D game.  I said that I'd be willing to run a PBeM game, but
not AD&D (I run a homebrew system.)  I put out a feeler message asking if there
was enough interest and got enough to make an official call for players.

I got a lot of responses and said that I would take the first 10 characters.  I
got ten rather quickly and started to turn away people.  However, I got one
extra character who was very interesting (the character is a wandering
storyteller/historian, with minimal combat and magical skills.)  I still had no
real idea for the game.

One of the characters, a would-be knight, had written, next to his character's
appearance (which was average) "God, he's ugly."  That sparked an idea; what if
the character isn't who he thinks he is?  What if, in fact, he doesn't know
what he really looks like?  Given that idea, and the basic idea of my world (an
alternate Earth where magic works and the world is just recovering from a 1000
years of being ruled by powerful Wizard-Kings), the following prophecy was
born:

	A rope will dangle from above
	  not to be touched by mired glove
	A trip by ship through misty sea
	  to land of foggy dew

	There will dwell the shades of time
	  caged by their awful crime
	Amongst them you will find
	  an inconclusive clue

	The one who owns, has hidden fast
	  a visage of ancestor last
	At this point his path is set
	  back to Ahrack-Lu

	A need for BLOOD you'll have to seek
	  placed amongst the people meek
	The sound of Nine will sing on high
	  receive what is due

	Beware those who seek thee not
	  though aid will come, a sorry lot
	Hie thee to the temple space
	  to find the knowledge true

	A rope shall dangle from above ...

At this point, the group has made it to the last couplet and is on their way to
the temple.

That prophecy was *all* I had to work with for a plot line, plus an initial
setup which said that the characters were (except for a couple of minor
exceptions) fugitives from a war (some had been in the losing army, others in
towns belonging to the losing side, one had come through the enemy country and
had stolen something he would have been better off leaving alone, etc.)

Given that they seemed to be being followed, the group ran towards the nearest
city outside of either of the warring countries.  The original 'rope' line was
fulfilled early: an illusion of a rope dangling over their fire appeared.
Things went from there.

I haven't really made an attempt to set things up so that any particular
character (other than the would-be knight) was necessary; the players have done
things that made their characters interesting and useful, not always in
expected or predictible ways.

>while with the 5 separate games, you only have to focus on one person,
>you don't need to worry about the coordination of messages, and you have the
>additional bonus of  watching how differently the SAME situation unfolds
>with different characters...

Maybe, but you also end up having to interact with each of those characters on
a one-to-one basis: ie. they send you a message and you have to respond to it.
With a group, conversations can happen that don't involve the GM at all.

>	Well, demonstration in point: creature appears to party. Player
>A sends a message saying they will try to talk. Player B, having misread
>the first message slightly, thinks creature attacked, so says he draws weapon
>on creature and charges. Player C doesn't get message yet because net
>takes 2 days to deliver to him (I've  seen up to a week both ways).

I have, too, although most of my mail paths are a day or two, at worst.

>GM reacts to A and B, then B says wait, that was my misreading, I wouldn't
>attack without provocation. Meanwhile, C got GM and B's message, sends out
>his attack orders and strategy. GM accepts A&B's revisions, begins to work
>out the conversation. GM recieves C's attack orders. Now pause game, try to
>restructure. One  week gone, right there, before any meaningful progress made.

Assuming that the GM knew about the mail path problems, the GM shouldn't
respond to A and B until C has a chance to say something.  Of course, this may
be unacceptable, so I'd suggest the following solution: instead of allowing B
to 'change' hir mind about hir actions, decide that, from B's point of view
there *was* provocation - it happens to be imagined by B, but that can happen,
even in real life.

This may not be what the players would prefer to have happen (maybe they can
break off the attack before things get out of hand...), but it is a workable
solution.

>	Contrast with one player: Player sees creature. Isn't sure of the
>circumstances, asks GM for confirm/deny on ATTACK. GM says no attack, just
>appear. Player and GM exchange several phases of dialogue between PC and 
>Creature. End result is a lot more progress in a week. 

The problem wasn't entirely one of having multiple players, but of having one
player with a long delay.  If you are playing one-on-one with player C, it
would still have taken a week to get C's first response.

>	The first example only had three players. How you managed with 
>a constant 8 I do not know. I had one game which had 14 players, but 
>after three months of this kind of confusion (becoming major hostile
>argument) I just decreed "no parties larger than 2, and those two must
>be ready to  coordinate themselves", and the problems vanished.

One of the things that has really been helpful has been that the players really
got into the game and were willing to go along with whatever I decided was the
outcome of a particular situation (in at least one case, I ruled that a
situation had not occured - wasted some time, admittedly, in terms of game
progress, but the players had enjoyed the action, even if it had gotten out of
hand.)

In general, I think that, to make a large group work, one has to be willing to
allow the players to experiment with their characters.  They may head out on
their own for short periods (effectively breaking the large game down into
multiple small games).  In general, so long as the GM isn't trying to force a
direction on the game, things will work (the prophecy has been of the
self-fulfilling type, with the players getting interested enough in the outcome
to pursue it without my having to press them.)

In my latest game (currently with three characters, but I've gotten a couple
of messages expressing interest in joining and am willing to talk to others), I
allowed one of the players to come up with an interesting plot twist that may
direct most of the rest of the game.  My plan is to allow the players to come
up with their own reasons for having their characters do what they will do,
while providing enough background to allow them a setting in which to do
whatever.  Of course, that background may not always respond as they hope or
want.

If anyone wants to see some of the transcripts from the first game, I'll be
happy to provide them (I have around a 44,500 lines of text, totalling around a
megabyte.)

>				Sea Wasp


-- 
Ian Brown
inb@creare.com