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Tuesday, October 27, 2009

So THAT'S why everybody don't run PBEM games!

Cuz that's a lot of work!

I've had to put the overlord game/experiment on a back burner after a month of game-time has passed - it's a shame because some neat things were going down, and I think that it's a viable medium - provided the GM has done enough prep. I don't think I did nearly enough of that - but more importantly, the scale was too large* and too small**.

* Most of the players were geographically separated by many miles from each-other, so there was little direct interaction - though that did allow for some widely divergent 'cultures' being generated in relative isolation.

** The granularity of 'powerful NPCs' is wonky - particularly in the two Free Cities. Councilmembers, Guild leaders, Tyrants, Lord Protectors, etc - a detailed city would itself be an interesting setting for the machinations of the 'overlords' that called it home.

The whole thing is something worth trying again - but I just can't sustain it for the time being. Too much going on in real life and too-many open ended gaming projects lying around needing attention - it is something I want to return to after I've cleared the deck a bit and can give more attention to. I'll collect the details in the near future and post them up - there was some really amazing stuff being created by the players.

In the meantime, I have this large tribe of goblins (95 of them, +10 leaders & assistants that fight like orcs!!!) living in caves nearby. I've put them in my thrall and I'd like to send some of them to raid your villages tonight - a band of 40 + 4 leaders. What forces are present there to defend?

2 comments:

Stephen said...

That got my attention.

Ragnorakk said...

Hopefully the militia captain wasn't indisposed as the farm families from the near north came running with barking dogs ahead and in tow.