Women In Gaming

Originally published at The RPG Times (www.rpgtimes.net) in August 2001.

In the final part of the Birth of an PBeM Game, planning for the future of the game and how to find players for the game once it’s ready to go are discussed.

In this fourth and final installment in which I am chronicling the decision-making process for the creation of a pbem game, it is almost time to get the ball rolling on getting the game started. The two topics covered in this portion of the creation process deal with the future of the game:

• Where will I find players for my game?
• How will I deal with things that happen in the future? Not to try and confuse you, but I will be dealing with the above questions in reverse order.

How will I deal with things that happen in the future?

A very important thing to remember is that you are not always going to be able to find players that meet all of your expectations and never cause any problems. It’s never going to happen. Things are always going to pop up. That’s the way life is. However, if you let your players know ahead of time what you expect, it will make for far fewer headaches in the future. One of the things I recommend is make up a list of rules for your game. No, not a game system, but a list of things that they need to know about how the game is run. For example, the GM’s word is law. If you think I’m wrong, and can show me in a civilized manner that I made a mistake (rather than flaming me), then do so and I may change my mind. This applies to rules decisions as well as the setting. Put up guidelines of what you expect from your players, from how to submit a character sheet, to what to do if they aren’t going to be able to play their character for a while.

You also ought to come up with guidelines for what will happen if the player screws up, such as they argue with you constantly, they harass and flame the other players, or if they simply disappear without a word for a length of time. All of the above will vary based upon your personality.

No matter what you decide, make sure you put it in writing and put it on your web page, or in the package of information that you send your potential players. That way they can’t whine “but I didn’t know that”, and you can use it as a reminder when you see things might be heading down the wrong path. Now, for the final step to creating a pbem game:

Where do I find players for my game?

If you currently run or play in a game, you already have a potential source for new players. Tell them about your game, and ask them to pass the word along to players that they think might be interested. This is an excellent way to find new players because it has a kind of built in safety net - you know the people who will be joining the game, and you will have a sort of prescreening for those people you don’t know. Just like when you ask a doctor for a recommendation of another doctor because you’re moving, he’s going to recommend someone he likes, and it’s often someone with a similar or complementary gaming style.

Here’s an example of what I might post if I was actually trying to get this game going:

The world is a dangerous place, far more dangerous than most of us know. Sure, we watch the television shows where there are vampires walking the streets at night, and movies where the heroes battle flesh eating zombies. It’s all fiction. Or is it?

There is a whole other world out there, hidden from sight. A world shrouded in shadows and half-known truths, where the Things That Man Were Not Meant To Know live. It is called the Eventide. A realm where the creatures from our myths, legends, folklore and nightmares live, it exists alongside our own. It is the source of all our dreams and inspires poets and writers. It is the source of all our nightmares and drives murders and lunatics.

“The Eventide” is a new pbem game looking for players. For more information, please visit (web page address), or email the GM at (email address).”

Some postings have more info, some have less, but this should be enough to get someone who is interested to go to your web site. This same information could be posted to a number of newsgroups, such as rec.games.frp.announce. There are other ways to find players, such as putting up notices at local gaming shops, but those are usually best for face to face games. If you are using an established game setting, or using a particular game system rules, try posting a message there saying that you’re looking for players (providing of course the rules of that list allow for people to post that kind of message).

Well, that’s about it. I have gone through the steps to create a new pbem game. I hope those of you who followed the articles found them useful, and please, if you have any questions, feel free to contact me!

Popularity: 82% [?]

Originally published July 2001, at The RPG Times Vol. 6, Iss. 7.

Last month I went through the first two steps for creating a pbem game -deciding who much time I’d be willing to spend on the game, and what setting I would be using. As a recap, here’s what decisions were made:

• I would probably need to spend three to four hours a week doing game-related stuff once the game was underway.
• the game would be a horror game and set in our world, but with a few changes.

This month I will be going through the results of the work on the background of the game, then move on to the next two items on the checklist (choosing a game system, and deciding what kind of pbem game to run).

Setting

Okay, I’ve settled upon a horror game, set in our world (with a few minor modifications). What I need to do know is find a way to describe it in a sentence or two, at most a paragraph. Here’s what I start out with:

The world is a dangerous place, far more dangerous than most of us know. Sure, we watch the television shows where there are vampires walking the streets at night, and movies where the heroes battle flesh eating zombies. It’s all fiction. Or is it?

There is a whole other world out there, hidden from sight. A world shrouded in shadows and half-known truths, where the Things That Man Were Not Meant To Know live. It is called?

Hmm? What am I going to call it? World of Darkness is taken, as are most of the similar titles. And those that aren’t taken sound really clichéd. So, what do I do? I pull out the thesaurus!

Not having my huge, large rodent-killer-sized thesaurus handy, I resort to the one that comes with Word. Let’s look up evil. Nothing there that’s inspiring. Let’s try darkness. Same again - nothing interesting. How about nighttime. Hmm? Eventide. That sounds promising.

Let’s try this again:

There is a whole other world out there, hidden from sight. A world shrouded in shadows and half-known truths, where the Things That Man Were Not Meant To Know live. It is called the Eventide. A realm where the creatures from our myths, legends, folklore and nightmares live, it exists alongside our own. It is the source of all our dreams and inspires poets and writers. It is the source of all our nightmares and drives murders and lunatics.

There, that’s a good start. Yeah, so it expanded to two paragraphs. Who cares. They’re good paragraphs.

So, those two paragraphs should give everyone a very good idea of what to expect in the game, and is a jumping off point for you, the GM, to come up with the rest of the world.

Next, I need to decide what kinds of nasties there will be lurking in the shadows, just waiting for the unwary PC to turn down the wrong alley at night. From the descriptive paragraphs, I’ve already given myself a foundation for that, and given myself a very wide range. Also, I haven’t limited myself to one settings’ “rules” for what a vampire can or cannot do. I can base them on whatever I want, or even have hundreds of different types of vampires.

No, don’t start thinking that I’m crazy. There’s no way that I can detail each and every type of bogeyman that might appear in the game. That’s not my job. I’ll worry about them when the PC’s are getting close to encountering them (that will be part of the weekly work to be done while running the game).

Now that we have the setting defined, we need to decide where the actual game will be taking place. Since it is happening in our world, I could use an existing city. Alternately, I could create a town or city from whole cloth and use that. I think I will go for the latter option - a fictional town.

Let’s call it Gryffendell. Sounds occultish and mysterious. Where is the town located? To make my life easier (mainly because I know a lot more about Canada and the US than I do the UK), let’s make the town be somewhere in North America. Hmm. I think we need to be more specific. Let’s go with somewhere in the US. Massachusetts works. After all, that’s where the Salem witch trials happened. Gryffendell, MA. Sounds good.

There, I’ve set up the basic setting for the game, set the mood, and done the basic groundwork for the game.

Next I’ll need to come up with the basis of the first set of adventures. At this point, it can simply be a basic outline of what’s going to happen. One of my favorite things to do is to take a story from the genre and modify it to fit the game. For this pbem game I’d do a bit of research and find a horror story that can easily be modified to suit the player characters I will eventually be running a game for.

At this point I may need to decide if I want all the characters to be of a specific type (such as monster hunters, government agents investigating the supernatural) or a bunch of strangers drawn together by circumstance. That could really depend on the story that I choose, and will be addressed later, when I go to look for players.

I’m also going to have to decide if I want the game to go beyond this one adventure, or if I want it to be an ongoing game. If it’s to be an ongoing game, I’ll need to come up with a couple of adventure ideas. They don’t all have to be fleshed out now, as a lot of it will depend upon the PC’s that you get. The players are often the best source of adventure seeds a GM can find.

Also, if I want the game to continue, I probably ought to come up with at least a basic map and description of the town of Gryffendell. A basic rule of thumb is the longer you want the game to run, the more details you’re going to need. But don’t think you have to do it all now, before the game starts. Jot down a few notes, and then as the game progresses you can come up with stuff as you prepare your scenarios, or as you need it (when the PC’s say they want to go to the Puce Pagoda Chinese Restaurant and Laundromat).

Now, on to the next two questions.

What game system are you going to use?

Because of the setting, there are any number of game systems that I can use. At this point it really becomes whatever the GM is most comfortable with. For me, it’s the Hero System, so this pbem game will be done using Hero System mechanics.

What kind of game are you going to run?

I have found that the most successful games I have run and played in have been “rules transparent”. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the term, it means that “rulespeak” (that is, game mechanics) are rarely, if ever, mentioned during game play. The game really looks (and feels for the players) very much like a freeform game, but there are rules for how success and failure are determined.

In a rules transparent game, once the character sheets are created, the GM takes care of all the rules - all the dice rolling and so on. There are times, however, where rulespeak does happen, and it is usually done OOC (Out of Character). For example, when a player states a specific skill they are trying to use (i.e. Can Joe use his Electronics skill to figure out how that lock works?), or when it comes time to spend experience points (i.e. I’ll spend two xp’s to increase my knowledge skill of Things I Should Run and Hide From).

Since I have had good results with this kind of game, that is how I will run it.

I will also need to figure out how many turns per week I’d like to try and do. This is really based upon how much time you think you will have for the game. I know would probably be able to put out at least one move per week for the game. However, this can really slow a game down if only two or three players are posting. A way around that is to have me post a compiled move to the game list, then have the players email each other (and me) with their reactions. I will then (at least once a week), compile what the players have done, add in stuff, then put that move out and start the process again.

I am using this method with all my pbem games right now, and it seems to be working. Some of the games are still slow, but they could be a *lot* slower if we had to wait for me to do everything once a week.

Next month I will look at how I plan to get the information to my potential players, and how I will run the game?

Popularity: 81% [?]

by Lisa Hartjes

Originally published June 2001, at The RPG Times Vol. 6, Iss. 6.

Greetings! By the time you read this, another summer has arrived. University students are home from school and relaxing (or working at summer jobs so they can afford to go to school in the fall), high school students are getting ready for their summer holidays or work and/or play.

So, what does this have to do with pbem games? Not a heck of a lot, really, at least not for high school students. For university students, it can make the difference between playing during the summer with the group you game with during the school year, or living in a gameless wasteland until classes start up again.

This article may be a bit late to help anyone out who may be facing a summer without a regular gaming fix, but it could help you prepare for the coming year, and even next summer.

I recently joined a mailing list, started up by a friend of mine, for people who GM (or want to learn how to GM) play by email games. There have been some interesting discussions, and I asked if anyone would be interested in a series of articles where I went step by step through the creation of a pbem game, from the inception of the idea to where I put out a call for players.

I guess you can say the response w
as positive, because here is the first in that series of articles. I’m not sure exactly how many articles the series will be, but it will be at least four (two topics per article). To show you that I know what I’m talking about <grin>, I will be following the checklist that I presented to you in the March 2000 issue of my column. As a reminder, here is that checklist again:

The Starting PbeM GM’s List

1. How much time and effort are you willing to, or will be able to, put into the game?
2. What setting are you planning on using?
3. What game system are you going to use?
4. What type of game are you going to run?
5. How are you going to get the information to your players (potential or otherwise)?
6. How are you going to run the game?
7. How are you going to find players for your game?
8. How are you going to deal with problems in the future?

If you want to learn more about each of these items, please visit the RPG Times archives.

Now, on with the process of creating a pbem game!

How much time and effort are you willing to, or will be able to, put into the game?

Well, I’m not sure if this game will actually get off the ground, as it is being created as an exercise and example, but I would have to say I’d need at least three or four hours per week, once the game is running, to devote to the game.

This time would be spent doing things like answering questions from the players, posting the moves, doing web page updates, doing up character sheets for the NPC’s, and other general move related stuff, like maps for encounters, and so on.

The actual amount of time will, of course, vary. Weeks that I do the web page updates will take up more time, but there are things that can be done to make that easier, and those will be discussed in a later article.

But the most important thing is how much time will I have to put into creating the background for the game. The more that can be done ahead of time, the less will have to be done during actual game play. As I have said before, and will say again and again, the more effort you put into the start-up of the game, the better it will be for everyone.

What setting are you planning on using?

Let’s see. What setting to use. Let’s try something different this time. I am already running two superpowered games and a fantasy game, so what else is there. Hmmm? How about horror and/or the occult?

Now, what setting to use? It is this decision that can make a big difference on how much time I’ll have to spend doing background work for my campaign world.

White Wolf’s World of Darkness™ exists, but I don’t really like to use a “canned” world, so I think I will use a world of my own. How about a world just like our own, but with one difference - the monsters of myth, legend and our nightmares do exist.

Actually, when you really think about it, most of the game world settings out there now for horror games do use our world - with a few changes - as the basis for their games. It’s easier to create a feeling of horror when you present a world that the players know (or that their characters think they know), then hit them with the nasties.

So, now that I have chosen the setting, what will I need to do to get the setting ready for the game? Time for another checklist! <grin>

1. Create an outline of the game world.
2. Decide where the game is going to take place.
3. Do any research and/or creation required to get the world ready to be populated.

If I were using a published setting, like the World of Darkness™, a lot of the work that I’d be doing would be taken care of. All I would really need to do is decide on what books I would be using, and any changes that I would be making, if any, to the published info. Since I’m not, there is some work that I have to do.

For a bare-bones (if you’ll pardon the pun) description of the game world, we could describe it as I did above - our world where the monsters of our myths, legends and nightmares are real. Now there are some more questions we need to ask ourselves:

1. How did it come to be that way?
2. What kinds of monsters are out there?
3. Who knows about what’s going on, and what are they doing about it?

These three basic questions are very important, as it will provide the feel for the game. It will also provide your players with the ever so important background to create their characters. It will tell them where their characters fit in, provide them with motivations, and draw the players into the game. If the players don’t care, their characters won’t care, and the game will fail.

Next month, I will show you the results of the questions I have asked above, then discuss what game system might best be used, and the type of game that I would run (if I was going to run the game).

Popularity: 72% [?]

!Letter Games Written by Lisa Tomihiro

Introduction

The Letter Game (also called Persona Letters or Ghost Letters) has been around a long time. Some writers use it to increase their ability to create realistic characters. Caroline Stevermer believes that it originated as an acting exercise, one character writting a letter “in persona” to another. I first discovered Letter Games when I read “Sorcery and Cecelia” by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer. The book was baised on a letter game they had played over the course of a summer. In the afterword they explained how the game worked and the rules. I was facinated and immediatly tried one with a close friend. We utilized regular mail, and e-mail. I discovered that having e-mail made the game go much faster (especially since we lived in seperate states). So the Letter Game transformed from actual letters to e-mails (sometimes written more than once a day), a sort of two person PBeM with no GM or with two GMs depending on how you looked at it. The letters tended to be long on characters and background and have much less of an overall plot. That’s actually how the game tends to work out. Read “How to Play” and you’ll se why.

How to Play

First you need two players (you can do more but two really works best). Either you can decide between the two of you what you want the setting/background to be or the person who writes the first letter can decide. It usually helps if both of you at least agree on a genra (fantasy, space, science fiction, spy stories, whatever). The person who writes the first letter is responsible for 4 things:

* They must begin to define the setting
* They must define their own character
* They must say/imply why the two characters must write letters rather than meet in person (or phone or whatever).
* They must say something about the interaction between the two characters (ie they can claim the other player as a sister, or they can just be sending mail to an unknown pen pal but some relationship needs to be defined).

The person who recieves the first letter is responsible for:

* Building on the setting
* Defining their own character

Both of you must develop an idea of what the plot is but you must never tell the other person your idea about the plot. This is why the letters can get long on gossip and short on plot. The fun part of not knowing what the other person is doing is that you can accidently help their plot along (or distroy it) with one of your letters.

Continuation

As the letter game progresses you both add more things about your character, the background, and the plot(s). Watching the background get built up and seeing the characters change (or just learning new things about them) is exciting. If your characters know each other you may discover your partner regailing you with things you did as a child that you didn’t even know about. This game requires two people who are very adaptable (both about the background, and their characters and especially the plot). It is very easy to throw something at someone and completely confuse them. In fact that’s part of the fun. It’s intresting to see how the other person will react, when you turn their fiancee into a dragon for example (I did that to my partner in the first game) or send six knights to rescue them from the war (that was my partners retaliation). It helps if one person has played before but it’s not necessary.

If anyone had additional questions or wants to ask how to write a good starting letter write to me at Tomihiro@aol.com. I’ve played in eight now (only four of them really got going) so at least I have experiance! (Originally posted June 1997)

Popularity: 100% [?]