"Remote Command" Topic

Who enjoys making game decisions for remote players campaigns & battles via email?

If you haven't, would you consider it?
Why or why not?

If you have, how did it go?
To fast or to slow?
Too much correspondence/'work', or not enough?
What was the result?

What qualities and practices make a good 'gamemaster'?

What technology do you think would help the experience?

What, if anything, would make such a campaign/ battle game across the interet attractive to you?

Best,
R

I have done a fair bit of PBEM gaming (both for wargames campaigns and computer games like Tigers on the Prowl and Steel Panthers) as well as Play by Mail in the dim and distant past. The longest runign such game as a grand strategic simulation of the Napoleonic Wars which ran for seven years in real time… I suspect victory went to those with the most stamina rather than skill as most of teh French team had dropped out by the end.

And therein lies the rub. It is fairly easy to do this sort of thing for two players. You have more fun with multiple players, but the risk of loss of interest and dropouts become higher, so you need a system which can acoomodate that or alternatively keep it short.

One of the bst such games I played in a few years back was an SCW email moderated campaign resolved using Command Decision (iirc a few other TMPers took part as well). It used to have a really good website which described how it all worked but sadly the url is broken. We suffered slightly as our CinC had missed several kilometres on the right flank from his map (!) but player engagement was such that we soldiered on to the bitter end.

So, keep it short and focussed, or failing that, come up with a campaign whcih can cope with droputs.

Who enjoys making game decisions for remote players campaigns & battles via email?

I've played in one of Paul Leniston's games, it was reasonably enjoyable.

If you have, how did it go?

It went alright unti there was a contretemps involving the guy running the game and the French C-in-C IIRC and the campaign was aborted.

Too fast or too slow?

For me, it was too slow. I think that at the time we were trying to achieve one campaign move per week. There were very good reasons why it had to be on this kind of timescale, it isn't meant as a criticism at all, just a personal preference.

Too much correspondence/'work', or not enough?

It was about right. Formatted orders are the way to go here, with minimum room for messing it up through misunderstandings or 'over-creative' referee or player play.

What was the result?

In the end the campaign was fought to a completion.

What qualities and practices make a good 'gamemaster'?

The GM knowing exactly what is supposed to be achieved, hand-holding players where necessary, and being really clear what is, and is not, allowed. The GM having the necessary level of commitment to achieve the goal of the campaign (Paul had this in spades).

What technology do you think would help the experience?

E-mail. You could probably do some good stuff with IM, private chatrooms and Skype etc.

What, if anything, would make such a campaign/ battle game across the internet attractive to you?

The level of commitment I could give and the level of commitment a particular game required matching up. Absolute clarity on what the role of the player is. Total even-handednesses and that being seen to be so (this probably has some consequences for rules mechanisms etc.)

Hope that is of some help

Regards