Instant Endgame

I've been kicking an idea around for a while now - or better, a bunch of ideas have been kicking me around, I'm finally getting fed up with it. I started up a free forum some time ago, thinking to myself that it would be good to start running a bunch of play-by-post games there.
Have not yet started any, though I've populated and emptied, populated and emptied it a few times with different setting info and introductions and whatnot.

Never stuck - so I never opened it up for perusal or membership.

I've been running a 'sandbox' style PBP game at Vin's Trollbridge for a while now (roughly 6 months) and enjoying the hell out of it - first time I've been able to run T&T in too many years. Been dwarfing it up in noisms' Warhammer FRP for just as long. So I think that I've become somewhat accustomed to the peculiarities of online play.

So - what to do with the forum space I set aside for running games? I still don't know exactly, but my thoughts on the matter are turning ever more frequently to 3 ideas.

1. An Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1e, mostly BtB, no UA) game with this premise: Characters are loaded on a boat at the behest of some Lord or King, who sends them to clear a wild island, to make it safe for further colonization.

2. A fantasy wargame. Rest assured, I do not intend to implement the 'game' presented in Galloway's Fantasy Wargaming book...(has anyone actually played this?) - no, I've been thinking instead that it would be interesting to have the players take on name-level roles, to determine their retainers and forces, fortifications and incomes and such, and play something more in the spirit of play-by-mail - where players have default orders, issue orders for their realm, and also decide on actions for their character as appropriate. Have no idea what game system to use for this - tempted to use Tunnels and Trolls, as it is the game I have the easiest time adapting to suit any purpose, but Rolemaster or AD&D could be serviceable also...with a dash of Diplomacy...

3. The Wizards War. Legends of many worlds tell of a time that wizards of great power came to conflict and brought wrack and ruin to each-other, wrought artifacts of awesome power, etc, etc, etc - 2 & 3 could really be the same game...

I dunno. I like the idea of refereeing a game where players are not necessarily co-operative, and maybe play-by-email is more conducive to this style, so that orders sent in remain private, and only published results offer information on the game-state.

Any interest, suggestions, thoughts, ideas, etc, are appreciated.
Cheers!

Character's Ultimate Fate (when player stops showing up. 2d4. Stat modifiers applied to player's next character if they return.))
2	Wanders into the hills one summer afternoon. Eaten by a giant spider. -1 IQ.
3	Finds a cursed ring of invisibility and winks out of existence when it is put on. -1 LK.
4-6	Retires and fades into obscurity.
7	Converts to a religion and is exalted on comfortable passing. +1 LK.
8	Becomes Lord of the Spider Hills. +1 CH (son/daughter of said lord...)

whatevs

Tunnels and Trolls play-by-post is going pretty well. It's been going for about 2 weeks now. Some players bounce in and out, some are daily, some are 2-3 times daily - there's a total of 8 that have made characters, and all but one have participated to some degree. I'm glad to run a game again. It's been too long since I've run anything except what came to be one-offs, auto-aborts,
etc. I feel like I could do this for the rest of my life. I don't mean that in a dramatic sense - I mean it in the sense of 'as long as there's an internet and players' (both of which factors will certainly outlast me). I've tried to open it up as a sandbox and keep accepting players, but the idea was put forward to run an immediate adventure so that we could get out feet wet, get used to PBP. They're proving an inventive lot, really entertaining.

Warhammer FRP continues, in which I play a Dwarf named Yrkoll. The name: its all about the Yrk to me - I don't know why I've always been fascinated with that glob of letters. Yrkoon? That's the only citation I can think of (and only thought of it after I named the charater Yrkoon, and then remembered where it came from...early-senior-moment. One of those naming things...we're in the middle of out first combat, and I think I had a bursh with death in the form of an arrow graze, knocking my leather cap off...

The apothecary at Vedron's is starting an OD&D on rpol that I've joined, and I'm thinking about jumping into something really heavy over at AlternateHistory.

I'm trying to help the Swords & Wizardry project by categorizing creatures for the Monster Compendium encounter tables. It is exactly the kind of RPG-as-OCD task I love love love
and I think that S&W and OSRIC are both really relevant projects. It took some lurk time at the boards before I began to realize that I could help these worthwhile projects - to realize how easy it was even just to offer help.

Starting now to plan for GenCon. Never been. Kinda scared. But, I think it's time. I went to small local conventions in the Northern Indiana area when I was young. But the biggie? I generally avoid crowds as much as I can - and I'm pretty good at it. But there's just too much going on, and over the last few years I've really become very comfortable with how important gaming (and non-mindless escapism in general) is to me. Always has been. Gaming was a huge determinant in my life-of-the-mind (Barton Fink anyone? hoot hoot!).

I started an email interview with the owners of the Griffon Bookstore in South Bend Indiana. This is the FLGS I grew up with. Grew up in is more accurate. The owners (Ken and Sarah) have taught Russian for many years, and provided the only real outlet in town for minatures, a variety of RPGS, board and wargames for more than 30 years now. Unfortunately, I have totally let myself get wrapped up in other things (mostly the games listed above...) and haven't finished it up yet. Dammit! Gotta do that soon...

EDIT: and now helping the computer-translator English of Epées & Sorcellerie become human-reader English. This game is really cool!

meh...general whatever

I think I'm getting my head wrapped around Play By Post. I've just started a game up at Vin's Trollbridge (had the last few days off to work on stuff...). It's primitive, and I'm wondering if all of the five players are going to 'show-up', but I think that running this is going to be a blast.

Oddly enough (!), playing more has cut into 'blog-time'...

The pace of online gaming is still a little rough for me but I'm getting used to it.I'm playing in a Warhammer FRP PBP and a couple of the players are in Israel, so there's next to no chance that we'll be online at the same times...so I don't have expectations of 'instant-action' or something...

This mode of gaming lends itself well to 'parlour-games', more abstract gimcrackery, woodshedding, strategy games. Thinking about the Play-by-Mail model - which I admittedly have never done, just read about it...I think it would be really interesting to run a sandbox game where every player<->GM channel had its own thread - or an approach that considered threads calving and merging a trivial thing.

I've been thinking about ways to deal with the absence of players. My inclination is to post up a table like this and let the players know that I'll run them as NPCs if I need to to progress the game. What player would want that? The DM is not to be trusted!

Cue Random Tables! It's just like AI!

Based on what kind of situation the characters are in, the actions of a character-sans-player are 'determined' by a die roll...

d6	COMBAT
1	Stumbles and falls down (momentarily helpless)
2	Decides to change weapons then changes mind (no action)
3	Moves to defend ally
4	Attacks nearest opponent/Casts sub-optimal spell
5	Attacks random opponent in reach or moves to nearest opponent/Casts optimal spell
6	Goes Berserk

d6	SOCIAL
1	Says something really insulting and wont retract it
2	Tangential mouth-mush leaves people confused and suspicious
3	Mumbles and grunts at some appropriate places
4	Doesn't say much
5	Lends good support to own or party's goal/agenda
6	Steals the show, very convincing arguments for own goal/agenda - may try to cast an 'appropriate' spell toward this end
*	"own goal" meaning maybe the GM's interpretation...

d6	EXPLORATION/STEALTH
1	Gripped my 2 minute choking and coughing fit (very noisy, takes no actions)
2	Lazy (-1 search or stealth or whatever negative modification os appropriate)
3	normal
4	normal
5	Is double-checking already explored areas/normally stealthy
6	Is searching (and finds 10 gp!)/sneaking at +1 (or whatever)

ha ha! wouldn't that be cute!

Online play 1

Well! We started off with a bang - kinda. The online game has covered something like a few hours (by my estimate) and already the party is split (!) (in the general safety of the town of Dachau...)
and one of us being taken to court...and there is another character that is supposed to be joining us soon.
Oh buddy!
The experience is strange - pretty compelling. We all seem able to hit the blog pretty early (except me for the next five days), so we've been pretty active - and the last two days have run into the late afternoon...
And we're really just flailing around trying to figure out what the fuck to do!
Awesome

I game!

It looks like I've got myself into a game being run on the web. Alexis has a subtle and AMAZING setting (Earth! Quasi-Historical Earth at that) and I'm psyched. Never tried a game on the net - curious to see how this is going to work.

So with the degree of detail and versimilitude Alexis has put into his side, I will admit to being a touch daunted. Really - if you haven't read his blog from the start, you should. I would like to have a character that "fits in" (that is, is historically plausible), but it is 1e AD&D, so obviously, there is some liscence...

I'm going with a Silesian cleric, a pagan pantheist. While the Catholic and Lutheran Princes marched armies against each-other, my character worshipped the old gods, the four-faced, the dragon at at the root of the World Tree, the Winter Sun, the unknowable and chimeral forces that govern men's lives, that watch as the men of Christ to kill one-another.

I've not played AD&D for many many years. Nevertheless, cracking open the PHB today felt like second nature.

Wish me luck!