http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/ Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:11:17 +0100 MyBB http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1170 Tue, 09 Mar 2010 22:34:06 +0100 smurphboogie http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1170 JEFF HOLZHAUER describes the strange design of...

Kavernes: PBM for individuals

Kavernes at a glance

Adventure game for individual explorers. Players select 3-6 options a turn for $1.50-$3, or pay $5 for a hand-moderated innovative option. Rules are $5 with 2 turns, or $3 for rules alone.

WHAT is (are?) the Kavernes?

THE ANSWER to that question is more complicated than it might appear. Kavernes (the game) is a unique (in my experience, anyway) play-by-mail game. The Kavernes, the mysterious subject of Kavernes (the game), are... Well, I don't think anybody but Gamemaster Marguerite Dias really knows what The Kavernes are.

At any rate Kavernes (the game) is a role-playing game, with a setting I can only call 'contemporary horror'. In Kavernes, you control a single character in his or her attempt to gain some of the great wealth, supposedly hidden in or below an abandoned farmhouse. Although many individuals are playing Kavernes, they cannot interact with each other's characters, other than an exchange of information outside the game. Therefore, Kavernes should be considered a solo game.

The player character is named (by you), numbered (by Marguerite), and assigned 99 points to be distributed among nine statistics. These statistics can change as a result of your actions. You also begin with a great deal of starting equipment. While the setup does not include a list of this equipment, you can request a Possessions Update (same cost as a turn). You (the player) do not actually need to know that you have equipment in order to use it though. My character entered the dark basement and automatically used his flashlight, even though I had not requested a Possessions Update.

The rules to Kavernes are written in a surprisingly effective question and answer format and total four pages. They adequately convey all of the information necessary for full enjoyment of Kavernes. The per turn cost is an amazingly low $1.50.

Exploring The Kavernes

Each turn you select three numbered options for your character.

There is a wealth of options to choose from. The first turn contains 8 initial options. I have only chosen five of these, and, after following these paths for ten turns, have fifteen current options to explore. Although you only choose three actions per turn, the nature of this game assures that no two turns are ever the same. There are no repetitive actions, which take up much of your time in some other role-playing games.

Each turn you receive a cover sheet, detailing your current account situation and including a brief personal note from Marguerite, and three pages, one per action, detailing the results of your chosen actions. The personal note is a nice touch. I have had quite an interesting 'conversation' with Marguerite over the course of the game.

The responses to your chosen actions vary in length, from as short as one paragraph, to completely filling the page. The average length seems to be a little over half a page. Marguerite uses a wide variety of fonts to accent the turn reports. She uses different fonts to illustrate what you are reading, which could be anything from the journals of the mysterious David Tavestock, to carvings in the furniture, to psychic visions of past (future? current?) events.

Many of the turn reports are also enhanced with digitized graphics and photos. These also add very well to the mood set by Kavernes.

Most important, though, is the writing. The writing is fantastic. I have not encountered writing like this in any play-by-mail game. The writing is clearly superior to much of what passes for professional writing these days. Marguerite's prose does more to establish a mood than the fonts or graphics could even aspire to. There is no way that I can explain the feel of Kavernes, in a simple review.

In fact, the turns are so interesting to read that my wife, a certified non-gamer, has become interested and insists on reading each of my turn and helping decide our character's actions.

Miscellaneous

Kavernes has a couple of options which I have not utilized, but you might.

The truly impatient can submit a double turn, choosing six options and paying twice the fee.

The creative can perform a custom action. In a custom action ($5.00 fee), the player comes up with an action that is not covered by the pre-existing options. Marguerite will develop a new plot path resulting from the new action. This plot path will be available for the creator and all future players. Furthermore, the name of the creative player will be noted within the game, granting everlasting fame.

In Conclusion

I have enjoyed playing Kavernes very much. Even though my tastes run more to competitive war games, Kavernes continues to provide a welcome break from the fields of battle. And, I must admit, in the competition to see which game turn I endanger lives by reading on the way home from the post office, Kavernes wins nearly every time.

Because so much of the enjoyment of Kavernes comes from the feel of the turns, I urge you to give the game a try. The setup cost is only $3.00, so you can get the setup and play four additional turns for under $10.00. That should give you a good taste of the game, with a quite a minimal investment.]]> JEFF HOLZHAUER describes the strange design of...

Kavernes: PBM for individuals

Kavernes at a glance

Adventure game for individual explorers. Players select 3-6 options a turn for $1.50-$3, or pay $5 for a hand-moderated innovative option. Rules are $5 with 2 turns, or $3 for rules alone.

WHAT is (are?) the Kavernes?

THE ANSWER to that question is more complicated than it might appear. Kavernes (the game) is a unique (in my experience, anyway) play-by-mail game. The Kavernes, the mysterious subject of Kavernes (the game), are... Well, I don't think anybody but Gamemaster Marguerite Dias really knows what The Kavernes are.

At any rate Kavernes (the game) is a role-playing game, with a setting I can only call 'contemporary horror'. In Kavernes, you control a single character in his or her attempt to gain some of the great wealth, supposedly hidden in or below an abandoned farmhouse. Although many individuals are playing Kavernes, they cannot interact with each other's characters, other than an exchange of information outside the game. Therefore, Kavernes should be considered a solo game.

The player character is named (by you), numbered (by Marguerite), and assigned 99 points to be distributed among nine statistics. These statistics can change as a result of your actions. You also begin with a great deal of starting equipment. While the setup does not include a list of this equipment, you can request a Possessions Update (same cost as a turn). You (the player) do not actually need to know that you have equipment in order to use it though. My character entered the dark basement and automatically used his flashlight, even though I had not requested a Possessions Update.

The rules to Kavernes are written in a surprisingly effective question and answer format and total four pages. They adequately convey all of the information necessary for full enjoyment of Kavernes. The per turn cost is an amazingly low $1.50.

Exploring The Kavernes

Each turn you select three numbered options for your character.

There is a wealth of options to choose from. The first turn contains 8 initial options. I have only chosen five of these, and, after following these paths for ten turns, have fifteen current options to explore. Although you only choose three actions per turn, the nature of this game assures that no two turns are ever the same. There are no repetitive actions, which take up much of your time in some other role-playing games.

Each turn you receive a cover sheet, detailing your current account situation and including a brief personal note from Marguerite, and three pages, one per action, detailing the results of your chosen actions. The personal note is a nice touch. I have had quite an interesting 'conversation' with Marguerite over the course of the game.

The responses to your chosen actions vary in length, from as short as one paragraph, to completely filling the page. The average length seems to be a little over half a page. Marguerite uses a wide variety of fonts to accent the turn reports. She uses different fonts to illustrate what you are reading, which could be anything from the journals of the mysterious David Tavestock, to carvings in the furniture, to psychic visions of past (future? current?) events.

Many of the turn reports are also enhanced with digitized graphics and photos. These also add very well to the mood set by Kavernes.

Most important, though, is the writing. The writing is fantastic. I have not encountered writing like this in any play-by-mail game. The writing is clearly superior to much of what passes for professional writing these days. Marguerite's prose does more to establish a mood than the fonts or graphics could even aspire to. There is no way that I can explain the feel of Kavernes, in a simple review.

In fact, the turns are so interesting to read that my wife, a certified non-gamer, has become interested and insists on reading each of my turn and helping decide our character's actions.

Miscellaneous

Kavernes has a couple of options which I have not utilized, but you might.

The truly impatient can submit a double turn, choosing six options and paying twice the fee.

The creative can perform a custom action. In a custom action ($5.00 fee), the player comes up with an action that is not covered by the pre-existing options. Marguerite will develop a new plot path resulting from the new action. This plot path will be available for the creator and all future players. Furthermore, the name of the creative player will be noted within the game, granting everlasting fame.

In Conclusion

I have enjoyed playing Kavernes very much. Even though my tastes run more to competitive war games, Kavernes continues to provide a welcome break from the fields of battle. And, I must admit, in the competition to see which game turn I endanger lives by reading on the way home from the post office, Kavernes wins nearly every time.

Because so much of the enjoyment of Kavernes comes from the feel of the turns, I urge you to give the game a try. The setup cost is only $3.00, so you can get the setup and play four additional turns for under $10.00. That should give you a good taste of the game, with a quite a minimal investment.]]> http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1169 Tue, 09 Mar 2010 22:33:14 +0100 smurphboogie http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1169 JOEY BROWNING...

Centurion Diary - Sudden Death!

IT WAS our intention to continue carrying the (highly rated) Centurion diary for the next 2-3 issues, tracing the ebb and flow of the battle, and building to a dramatic crescendo. Sadly, reality has intruded, and with it the end of the diary. If you will remember, the Rebel forces went with a module of off-map artillery plus a number of heavy tanks, while the TOG player decided on heavy special purpose tanks and a large number of infantry. Only then did both sides get to see the map and victory conditions - occupy the central city. The telling point here was that the central area was off-limits to all artillery fire - thus negating 15% of the Rebel firepower.

Furthermore, the TOG forces had gone infantry heavy, which gave them mor total units with which to occupy terrain. These factors, coupled with the rapid TOG advance lead to a position at the end of the first diary with TOG forces (including infantry) in the city, and Rebel forces still on the outskirts. This left the TOG units in a pretty unassailable position. Since they knew they neednt fear Rebel artillery strikes, they had the luxury of concentrating all their tanks into a single hex. This in turn allowed them to erect a near impenetrable smoke screen, while their numerous infantry moved about outside the obscurement and busied themselves painting the Rebel tanks, and relaying targeting information back to the TOG heavies.

The Rebel forces hadn' t enough infantry to complete this maneuver as well, so the result was a TOG force that could fire at will on the Rebel forces, while the Rebels were severely handicapped in return fire. Seeing the hopelessness of his position, Lance (the Rebel commander) resigned, ending the game on about turn 6 or so, and giving Gordon the victory.

This brings up the interesting point of whether or nor players should be allowed to see the scenario rules before setup. In one sense, this would make for a better game, allowing the players to develop strategies tailored to the conditions. On the other hand, a real military unit would have to make do with what's at hand regardless of the mission, and it does give an edge to those players who can improvise on the fly. Wed like to solicit the readers opinions on this, so please drop us a letter or E-mail and let us know your thoughts!]]> JOEY BROWNING...

Centurion Diary - Sudden Death!

IT WAS our intention to continue carrying the (highly rated) Centurion diary for the next 2-3 issues, tracing the ebb and flow of the battle, and building to a dramatic crescendo. Sadly, reality has intruded, and with it the end of the diary. If you will remember, the Rebel forces went with a module of off-map artillery plus a number of heavy tanks, while the TOG player decided on heavy special purpose tanks and a large number of infantry. Only then did both sides get to see the map and victory conditions - occupy the central city. The telling point here was that the central area was off-limits to all artillery fire - thus negating 15% of the Rebel firepower.

Furthermore, the TOG forces had gone infantry heavy, which gave them mor total units with which to occupy terrain. These factors, coupled with the rapid TOG advance lead to a position at the end of the first diary with TOG forces (including infantry) in the city, and Rebel forces still on the outskirts. This left the TOG units in a pretty unassailable position. Since they knew they neednt fear Rebel artillery strikes, they had the luxury of concentrating all their tanks into a single hex. This in turn allowed them to erect a near impenetrable smoke screen, while their numerous infantry moved about outside the obscurement and busied themselves painting the Rebel tanks, and relaying targeting information back to the TOG heavies.

The Rebel forces hadn' t enough infantry to complete this maneuver as well, so the result was a TOG force that could fire at will on the Rebel forces, while the Rebels were severely handicapped in return fire. Seeing the hopelessness of his position, Lance (the Rebel commander) resigned, ending the game on about turn 6 or so, and giving Gordon the victory.

This brings up the interesting point of whether or nor players should be allowed to see the scenario rules before setup. In one sense, this would make for a better game, allowing the players to develop strategies tailored to the conditions. On the other hand, a real military unit would have to make do with what's at hand regardless of the mission, and it does give an edge to those players who can improvise on the fly. Wed like to solicit the readers opinions on this, so please drop us a letter or E-mail and let us know your thoughts!]]> http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1168 Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:57:42 +0100 smurphboogie http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1168 MARTIN DOUGHERTY joins Flagship with his role-playing commentary in...

Campaign for Real Magic

Since the demise of PBM Scroll, I have had to keep my rantings to myself. Well, no longer! What we have here is the progeny of my old Scroll column, minus news (mostly). What I'm hoping to do is to offer some comments on the Roleplaying side of PBM, and maybe even set some people thinking. No doubt I'll offend someone along the way, but I suppose that goes with the territory. If you disagree, or have comments on what I have to say then please feel free to contradict me. This is only opinion, after all. It just happens to be my opinion.

I have played a lot of roleplaying-type games over the past decade or more, from the early hand-moderated party games, through the traditional single-character games, to the excellent Midhir, which is a roleplaying game where the characters are lords. Is that a contradiction? Well, maybe. But why not?

A common theme in many of these roleplaying games is the mixture of the mundane (which we can easily visualise) and the exotic (which makes the game experience different from the reality most of us inhabit). It is thus that we find descriptions of characters as armed and equipped as a Viking warrior, and bearing a Rune staff holding spirit-totems and a severed head, which denote his rank as a priest of Krall. From the real-history references we get a general picture that we can easily remember, upon which is hung game-world references, making the character something more than a picture from a textbook.

Intrusions of reality

This is a great idea, and one used unconsciously or consciously by many GMs and authors, mainly because it works. But does it always work? There are drawbacks, for example when Runequest players get used to thinking of Sun Dome templars as Macedonians, and then either forget about their leaders' ability to call down fire from the sun, or else start looking about for Alexander The Great and his Companion Cavalry. When this happens, the real-world connection has gone a little far, and the wonder and otherness of a fantasy world starts to be lost.

Nowhere is this more apparent than when that awful bugbear rears its head: magic, present in a hundred game worlds but a convincing, living part of amazingly few. We have worlds where men can fly -and so can a variety of other creatures - mages can hurl fireballs, become invisible, teleport, etc. Giants can smash walls with a single kick... so why do people build conventional castles? (More on this shortly.)

A shrewd GM can instantly come up with a million reasons, the best being perhaps money. A simple wall is cheap (relatively) and it'll keep out goblin hordes or whatever. Magical defences are far more expensive. Yet someone will have them, because security is worth whatever it costs.

So, let us consider simply the effect of that one factor on the structure of the game world. In our hypothetical game world there are magical creatures, mages with greater and lesser power, spirits, undead and all that kind of stuff. Now, most fantasy worlds are in conflict much of the time. It seems to be the fate of any place where there are Player-characters to be invaded, bombed, haunted and riddled with caves full of goblins (has anyone thought of just chucking the PCs out? Maybe all the other problems would go away.) This conflict is the reason for adventure much of the time, but it's also damned inconvenient for the locals.

A nation in conflict will, by definition, be in some way militarised (or it'll not be a nation for long). We thus see soldiers all over the place, armed with swords, pikes etc. Great! But what else stands between the local burgers and death by goblin horde? Not much, in many worlds. Yet there is all this magic about. Is anyone going to tell me that the only mages around are either dodgy old blokes with gout, locked up in towers dissecting bats (and making magic swords to leave lying about in dungeons), or else standing behind the ruler's throne looking shifty?

Military magic

What could the common, not very powerful, mage do in the military? Well, even assuming that said mage is of the ridiculous D&D school, and not allowed to carry a shield or a decent weapon, yet casting only one or two spells a day (just how do these guys survive past graduation?), this mage can be very useful to his master.

Imagine a battlefield where a unit of D&D style mages is fielded. Most likely they'd be totally useless; a single volley of Magic Missiles (about as good as arrows), then what? No significant combat capability; the unit gets ridden down by cavalry, shot up by archers or just stabbed to death, unable to fight with their daggers and staves. Useless? No.

Firstly, a mage is by definition a scholar. As a supporting staff officer he or she could no doubt be very useful simply as an advisor (Wraith; impervious to your weapons. Let's run like hell!), or as a backup with detection magic, or to act as some counter to magical attack, as heavy firepower if necessary (fireball again). This is just the conventional D&D party approach. Can we be more inventive?

Yes we can. Imagine if mages could communicate by telepathy, crystal ball or whatever with one another. Suddenly we have the capability to communicate with any outpost in the kingdom as long as there is a mage present. No need for long waits for reports or worrying if orders got through the horde investing the castle. The effect would be exactly like the effect of radio on the modern battlefield. Instant communication can have a profound effect upon any campaign - and also upon criminal proceedings.

That's just a start. As scholars, mages would be the ideal choice from which to form a class of engineers or sappers. Their magic would of course be a useful adjunct to their siege engineering skills, but secondary.

If we really get radical and allow mages to bear arms (perhaps slowing down magical training, but acquiring a basic familiarity with weapons), even if they cannot wear any armour and still cast spells, we acquire a new dimension to military formations. Mages will generally serve among the light troops where there is little armour worn anyway. Their slight magical talents will be useful in the sort of scouting and screening operations light troops engage in, and the benefit of having an officer with these scouts who can report to HQ instantly could be immeasurable. Perhaps we might see our humble mage then serving as an officer in the light Lancers, wearing no armour but backing up his unexceptional skill with sword and lance by his magical talents of attack and defence. Sound plausible? I'm playing that character in Barony Of The Rivers, and he's doing very well indeed ....

Having made this jump and placed magic in the front line, doing everyday things, perhaps we should consider the effect this might have upon the attitudes, superstitions and even architecture if the world.

See page 27 for magic rules

Too often, in my opinion, magic is simply bolted on to a mediaeval background and left at that. Why? Magic does most of the things that our technology today does: transport, communication, information storage (?), heavy artillery, flight, etc. Is our world simply medieval with technology bolted on? Of course not. Look what happened when gunpowder became prevalent. The old castles, once impervious, were now very vulnerable to cannon. A new kind of fortification emerged involving more digging than building. Fields of fire and counterbattery fire became more important than building a big wall. Gunpowder changed the world. Magic can blow walls down, elementals can undermine, creatures can do things that conventional castles were not intended to defend against, so why are they used, unchanged, in so many games?

Surely a lord's castle would have air defences to shoot from, high-angle ballistae, hawk wires (Tribes of Crane?), an underground section in the case of giant attack or whatever, mages among the anti-magic enchantments if he could afford them, detections, elementals bound in strategic points to attack non-authorised personnel, something really nasty in the moat. See Simon R. Green's Blue Moon Rising or Blood and Honour for really magically-weird castles).

And what would the common populace make of magic? Depends on how many mages there are around, and what sort of jobs they do. Certainly magic would be viewed by the peasantry as real and not mere superstition - in fact rumours of strange things stirring in the marsh would cause a great deal more fear among the peasantry than otherwise, because everyone knows that the rumours could be true. As most of us are peripherally aware of the threat of nuclear bombardment, AIDS or terrorism, so would the people of our world view hostile magic. Unlikely as it might be, it could happen here. People's attitudes would not be dismissive but frightened when stories of witchcraft began to circulate. Naturally our illiterate peasants would know little of magic, but there would be stories, often grossly exaggerated, based upon what someone's grandfather saw somebody do one time. A whole (and probably erroneous) conventional wisdom would exist, with peasants confidently telling passing adventurers to eat dubious plants to ward off hostile magic, explaining how werewolves can fly every second Thursday, and so on. There is no reason why the non-educated classes would know anything more than folklore about magic, any more than the average farmer knows about Particle Physics, but it is a part of their world and they will be used to living with it, even if they don't understand.

Lessons for PBM

So where does this leave us, in our PBM roleplaying games (and OTT as well, no doubt)? It means that we should avoid simply taking a known background (Medieval, Viking, or whatever) and a list of spells, and saying there's some people about who can cast these. Magic is more than that; it's part of the world, and people can get used to the most incredibly weird things after a time. After a couple of weeks in operation, the King's magic gizmo that transports hundreds of men around the kingdom instantly in true Star Trek style is going to amaze exactly nobody. They'll be used to it and they'll no even think about it. How often do you goggle in amazement at your TV set or PC? The motor car is a tremendously complex technological marvel. Do we care? No, we just drive badly. The same will go for our magical world's inhabitants. 'Oh yes, Israeli Arms make the best magic swords. The Mini-Uzi 900mm is the best sub-broadsword in the world...' Magic will as often as not be thought of as a tool, to be grabbed and used, and not as a marvel, unless it's unusual, spectacular, etc, i.e. about the same effect as the latest Ferrari; it causes a stir for a bit, then everyone just gets on with life and accepts it.

But despite the mundane nature of magic, it's there. People use it. Magic is the natural solution to anyone who has access to it, and that should be reflected in the game. As in R.E. Feist's Magician, where part of the graduation test is to open a door - use magic and you pass, use your hand and you get fried - magic will be used. Characters and players should see magic being used around them, maybe even sense it if they're that way trained.

And to play a mage? You're not some guy without a sword who knows spells, you're a Mage. You're trained, knowledgable, powerful even in some ways, perhaps a respected professional or a frightening practitioner of dark arts. You're worthy of respect, and you'll expect it. People might not be awed by what you do, but they'll have the sense to be respectful of what you might be able to do.

I once had a character disguise himself as a mage to act as a spy. He couldn't use magic, but nobody asked him to. Sentries were out looking for spies, but never looked twice at the middle-aged man with a robe and staff wandering about town singing tunelessly. Why didn't they question him? They were scared to! He might have been able to toast them from the other side of town. Mages had a reputation of being tetchy and nobody messed with him. If I'd met a real mage it'd have been different, but I didn't. I exploited the people's prejudice about that world's practitioners of magic, and it worked. I wish more games were run like that...

And lastly; as I said earlier, I'm playing a real mage in one game. A little more interesting than the common type, though...

Captain Jervonias Wolfe is the third son of a family of Freemen living in the Chisport region under Hamaran rule. His father was killed in action as a Marine in Hamaran service and his eldest brother is an officer in the Infantry.

Jervonias was sponsored to the Mages Guild as an apprentice, but found employment and research grants difficult to find upon graduation. He then attended basic officer training and graduated as Military Mage, commissioned to the Chisport Fast Reaction Force; lancers. Jervonias graduated with commendations for Equestrian and Swordsmanship, and Specialist's insignia in Military Magic and Siege Operations. His Freeman blood often attracted unwelcome attention from his peers, mainly Hamaran noblemen. As the result of a number of duels, Wolfe has spent the last three months on quarter-pay, training militia well away from his Regiment.

Jervonias Wolfe is adequate with a lance, quite good with a sabre, and has access of a number of spells of no great power. He is in the middle of a hair-raising fighting-type adventure with some militiamen and a few light horsemen, and I'm really enjoying playing my first ever mage character in 12 years of gaming.

Not your common or garden mage, but a mage nonetheless. And a lot more interesting than the D&D first level mage to which he's roughly equivalent.

To sum up: magic is part of most fantasy worlds, so it must be part of the lives of the inhabitants, not just bolted on. Have a think about what people are actually going to do with magic (other than fireball goblins), and what people think about it, and you're going a long way towards making the game world the rich place it ought to be...

Happy Adventuring!]]> MARTIN DOUGHERTY joins Flagship with his role-playing commentary in...

Campaign for Real Magic

Since the demise of PBM Scroll, I have had to keep my rantings to myself. Well, no longer! What we have here is the progeny of my old Scroll column, minus news (mostly). What I'm hoping to do is to offer some comments on the Roleplaying side of PBM, and maybe even set some people thinking. No doubt I'll offend someone along the way, but I suppose that goes with the territory. If you disagree, or have comments on what I have to say then please feel free to contradict me. This is only opinion, after all. It just happens to be my opinion.

I have played a lot of roleplaying-type games over the past decade or more, from the early hand-moderated party games, through the traditional single-character games, to the excellent Midhir, which is a roleplaying game where the characters are lords. Is that a contradiction? Well, maybe. But why not?

A common theme in many of these roleplaying games is the mixture of the mundane (which we can easily visualise) and the exotic (which makes the game experience different from the reality most of us inhabit). It is thus that we find descriptions of characters as armed and equipped as a Viking warrior, and bearing a Rune staff holding spirit-totems and a severed head, which denote his rank as a priest of Krall. From the real-history references we get a general picture that we can easily remember, upon which is hung game-world references, making the character something more than a picture from a textbook.

Intrusions of reality

This is a great idea, and one used unconsciously or consciously by many GMs and authors, mainly because it works. But does it always work? There are drawbacks, for example when Runequest players get used to thinking of Sun Dome templars as Macedonians, and then either forget about their leaders' ability to call down fire from the sun, or else start looking about for Alexander The Great and his Companion Cavalry. When this happens, the real-world connection has gone a little far, and the wonder and otherness of a fantasy world starts to be lost.

Nowhere is this more apparent than when that awful bugbear rears its head: magic, present in a hundred game worlds but a convincing, living part of amazingly few. We have worlds where men can fly -and so can a variety of other creatures - mages can hurl fireballs, become invisible, teleport, etc. Giants can smash walls with a single kick... so why do people build conventional castles? (More on this shortly.)

A shrewd GM can instantly come up with a million reasons, the best being perhaps money. A simple wall is cheap (relatively) and it'll keep out goblin hordes or whatever. Magical defences are far more expensive. Yet someone will have them, because security is worth whatever it costs.

So, let us consider simply the effect of that one factor on the structure of the game world. In our hypothetical game world there are magical creatures, mages with greater and lesser power, spirits, undead and all that kind of stuff. Now, most fantasy worlds are in conflict much of the time. It seems to be the fate of any place where there are Player-characters to be invaded, bombed, haunted and riddled with caves full of goblins (has anyone thought of just chucking the PCs out? Maybe all the other problems would go away.) This conflict is the reason for adventure much of the time, but it's also damned inconvenient for the locals.

A nation in conflict will, by definition, be in some way militarised (or it'll not be a nation for long). We thus see soldiers all over the place, armed with swords, pikes etc. Great! But what else stands between the local burgers and death by goblin horde? Not much, in many worlds. Yet there is all this magic about. Is anyone going to tell me that the only mages around are either dodgy old blokes with gout, locked up in towers dissecting bats (and making magic swords to leave lying about in dungeons), or else standing behind the ruler's throne looking shifty?

Military magic

What could the common, not very powerful, mage do in the military? Well, even assuming that said mage is of the ridiculous D&D school, and not allowed to carry a shield or a decent weapon, yet casting only one or two spells a day (just how do these guys survive past graduation?), this mage can be very useful to his master.

Imagine a battlefield where a unit of D&D style mages is fielded. Most likely they'd be totally useless; a single volley of Magic Missiles (about as good as arrows), then what? No significant combat capability; the unit gets ridden down by cavalry, shot up by archers or just stabbed to death, unable to fight with their daggers and staves. Useless? No.

Firstly, a mage is by definition a scholar. As a supporting staff officer he or she could no doubt be very useful simply as an advisor (Wraith; impervious to your weapons. Let's run like hell!), or as a backup with detection magic, or to act as some counter to magical attack, as heavy firepower if necessary (fireball again). This is just the conventional D&D party approach. Can we be more inventive?

Yes we can. Imagine if mages could communicate by telepathy, crystal ball or whatever with one another. Suddenly we have the capability to communicate with any outpost in the kingdom as long as there is a mage present. No need for long waits for reports or worrying if orders got through the horde investing the castle. The effect would be exactly like the effect of radio on the modern battlefield. Instant communication can have a profound effect upon any campaign - and also upon criminal proceedings.

That's just a start. As scholars, mages would be the ideal choice from which to form a class of engineers or sappers. Their magic would of course be a useful adjunct to their siege engineering skills, but secondary.

If we really get radical and allow mages to bear arms (perhaps slowing down magical training, but acquiring a basic familiarity with weapons), even if they cannot wear any armour and still cast spells, we acquire a new dimension to military formations. Mages will generally serve among the light troops where there is little armour worn anyway. Their slight magical talents will be useful in the sort of scouting and screening operations light troops engage in, and the benefit of having an officer with these scouts who can report to HQ instantly could be immeasurable. Perhaps we might see our humble mage then serving as an officer in the light Lancers, wearing no armour but backing up his unexceptional skill with sword and lance by his magical talents of attack and defence. Sound plausible? I'm playing that character in Barony Of The Rivers, and he's doing very well indeed ....

Having made this jump and placed magic in the front line, doing everyday things, perhaps we should consider the effect this might have upon the attitudes, superstitions and even architecture if the world.

See page 27 for magic rules

Too often, in my opinion, magic is simply bolted on to a mediaeval background and left at that. Why? Magic does most of the things that our technology today does: transport, communication, information storage (?), heavy artillery, flight, etc. Is our world simply medieval with technology bolted on? Of course not. Look what happened when gunpowder became prevalent. The old castles, once impervious, were now very vulnerable to cannon. A new kind of fortification emerged involving more digging than building. Fields of fire and counterbattery fire became more important than building a big wall. Gunpowder changed the world. Magic can blow walls down, elementals can undermine, creatures can do things that conventional castles were not intended to defend against, so why are they used, unchanged, in so many games?

Surely a lord's castle would have air defences to shoot from, high-angle ballistae, hawk wires (Tribes of Crane?), an underground section in the case of giant attack or whatever, mages among the anti-magic enchantments if he could afford them, detections, elementals bound in strategic points to attack non-authorised personnel, something really nasty in the moat. See Simon R. Green's Blue Moon Rising or Blood and Honour for really magically-weird castles).

And what would the common populace make of magic? Depends on how many mages there are around, and what sort of jobs they do. Certainly magic would be viewed by the peasantry as real and not mere superstition - in fact rumours of strange things stirring in the marsh would cause a great deal more fear among the peasantry than otherwise, because everyone knows that the rumours could be true. As most of us are peripherally aware of the threat of nuclear bombardment, AIDS or terrorism, so would the people of our world view hostile magic. Unlikely as it might be, it could happen here. People's attitudes would not be dismissive but frightened when stories of witchcraft began to circulate. Naturally our illiterate peasants would know little of magic, but there would be stories, often grossly exaggerated, based upon what someone's grandfather saw somebody do one time. A whole (and probably erroneous) conventional wisdom would exist, with peasants confidently telling passing adventurers to eat dubious plants to ward off hostile magic, explaining how werewolves can fly every second Thursday, and so on. There is no reason why the non-educated classes would know anything more than folklore about magic, any more than the average farmer knows about Particle Physics, but it is a part of their world and they will be used to living with it, even if they don't understand.

Lessons for PBM

So where does this leave us, in our PBM roleplaying games (and OTT as well, no doubt)? It means that we should avoid simply taking a known background (Medieval, Viking, or whatever) and a list of spells, and saying there's some people about who can cast these. Magic is more than that; it's part of the world, and people can get used to the most incredibly weird things after a time. After a couple of weeks in operation, the King's magic gizmo that transports hundreds of men around the kingdom instantly in true Star Trek style is going to amaze exactly nobody. They'll be used to it and they'll no even think about it. How often do you goggle in amazement at your TV set or PC? The motor car is a tremendously complex technological marvel. Do we care? No, we just drive badly. The same will go for our magical world's inhabitants. 'Oh yes, Israeli Arms make the best magic swords. The Mini-Uzi 900mm is the best sub-broadsword in the world...' Magic will as often as not be thought of as a tool, to be grabbed and used, and not as a marvel, unless it's unusual, spectacular, etc, i.e. about the same effect as the latest Ferrari; it causes a stir for a bit, then everyone just gets on with life and accepts it.

But despite the mundane nature of magic, it's there. People use it. Magic is the natural solution to anyone who has access to it, and that should be reflected in the game. As in R.E. Feist's Magician, where part of the graduation test is to open a door - use magic and you pass, use your hand and you get fried - magic will be used. Characters and players should see magic being used around them, maybe even sense it if they're that way trained.

And to play a mage? You're not some guy without a sword who knows spells, you're a Mage. You're trained, knowledgable, powerful even in some ways, perhaps a respected professional or a frightening practitioner of dark arts. You're worthy of respect, and you'll expect it. People might not be awed by what you do, but they'll have the sense to be respectful of what you might be able to do.

I once had a character disguise himself as a mage to act as a spy. He couldn't use magic, but nobody asked him to. Sentries were out looking for spies, but never looked twice at the middle-aged man with a robe and staff wandering about town singing tunelessly. Why didn't they question him? They were scared to! He might have been able to toast them from the other side of town. Mages had a reputation of being tetchy and nobody messed with him. If I'd met a real mage it'd have been different, but I didn't. I exploited the people's prejudice about that world's practitioners of magic, and it worked. I wish more games were run like that...

And lastly; as I said earlier, I'm playing a real mage in one game. A little more interesting than the common type, though...

Captain Jervonias Wolfe is the third son of a family of Freemen living in the Chisport region under Hamaran rule. His father was killed in action as a Marine in Hamaran service and his eldest brother is an officer in the Infantry.

Jervonias was sponsored to the Mages Guild as an apprentice, but found employment and research grants difficult to find upon graduation. He then attended basic officer training and graduated as Military Mage, commissioned to the Chisport Fast Reaction Force; lancers. Jervonias graduated with commendations for Equestrian and Swordsmanship, and Specialist's insignia in Military Magic and Siege Operations. His Freeman blood often attracted unwelcome attention from his peers, mainly Hamaran noblemen. As the result of a number of duels, Wolfe has spent the last three months on quarter-pay, training militia well away from his Regiment.

Jervonias Wolfe is adequate with a lance, quite good with a sabre, and has access of a number of spells of no great power. He is in the middle of a hair-raising fighting-type adventure with some militiamen and a few light horsemen, and I'm really enjoying playing my first ever mage character in 12 years of gaming.

Not your common or garden mage, but a mage nonetheless. And a lot more interesting than the D&D first level mage to which he's roughly equivalent.

To sum up: magic is part of most fantasy worlds, so it must be part of the lives of the inhabitants, not just bolted on. Have a think about what people are actually going to do with magic (other than fireball goblins), and what people think about it, and you're going a long way towards making the game world the rich place it ought to be...

Happy Adventuring!]]> http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1167 Sat, 06 Mar 2010 07:35:23 +0100 christamis http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1167
We all know that this is a down cycle for sims and we believe there is hope that in a couple of years, things will turn around and sims will be hot stuff again. Hey, I remember in 1973 when the EPA and OPEC throttled the life out of the muscle car scene. I had a 1970 Cobra Torino that had 450 hp and ran the quarter in the high 13s. In less than three years every car out of Detroit was a smog controlled, gas economizing slug. They even started making them as ugly as they were slow! It was heartbreaking.

But over time, things change. Now you can get a high performance machine that handles and has luxuries like front/rear AC. My '99 Riviera has a supercharged V-6 that would make my old Torino proud.

So, keep the faith. Things will improve, even if no one knows when. Silent Hunter II and Destroyer Command are showing signs of life. Harpoon 4 is still under development. There are stirrings from the Sonalysts camp.

When a new subsim does hit the shore, try to remember, the developers and game producers are our friends. They make the kind of games we like because they like them too. Why would they labor over armor thickness tables, ship model physics, and torpedo trajectories for a niche market? I know a few developers and they all love the genre.

Try to keep your criticism balanced. Should you blast a sim you had trouble with or didn't enjoy with all the invective and animosity you would normally reserve for someone who stole your car or used your toothbrush? I was told by one producer that high-level executives frequently ask him about hard-core negative postings on newsgroups and forums. The industry sees us as demanding, unappreciative, and impossible to satisfy. It's much easier and more lucrative to crank out Deer Hunter and Barbie games and their users rarely flame the game company to a crisp.]]>
We all know that this is a down cycle for sims and we believe there is hope that in a couple of years, things will turn around and sims will be hot stuff again. Hey, I remember in 1973 when the EPA and OPEC throttled the life out of the muscle car scene. I had a 1970 Cobra Torino that had 450 hp and ran the quarter in the high 13s. In less than three years every car out of Detroit was a smog controlled, gas economizing slug. They even started making them as ugly as they were slow! It was heartbreaking.

But over time, things change. Now you can get a high performance machine that handles and has luxuries like front/rear AC. My '99 Riviera has a supercharged V-6 that would make my old Torino proud.

So, keep the faith. Things will improve, even if no one knows when. Silent Hunter II and Destroyer Command are showing signs of life. Harpoon 4 is still under development. There are stirrings from the Sonalysts camp.

When a new subsim does hit the shore, try to remember, the developers and game producers are our friends. They make the kind of games we like because they like them too. Why would they labor over armor thickness tables, ship model physics, and torpedo trajectories for a niche market? I know a few developers and they all love the genre.

Try to keep your criticism balanced. Should you blast a sim you had trouble with or didn't enjoy with all the invective and animosity you would normally reserve for someone who stole your car or used your toothbrush? I was told by one producer that high-level executives frequently ask him about hard-core negative postings on newsgroups and forums. The industry sees us as demanding, unappreciative, and impossible to satisfy. It's much easier and more lucrative to crank out Deer Hunter and Barbie games and their users rarely flame the game company to a crisp.]]> http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1166 Sat, 06 Mar 2010 07:34:47 +0100 christamis http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1166
Without giving too much of the plot away in this Metal Gear Solid 4 review, you start the game as 'Old Snake', who is the same Solid Snake from MGS1 and 2, and have been sent to a Middle-Eastern country because you have word that your half-brother, Liquid Snake is in attendance. During the opening scenes that are set in the near future, we learn that the world has become a sequence of wars, to the point where war has become a routine. With Otacon once again at his side, Snake sets off on a new adventure, with the aid of his octo-camo, which can change to suit the landscape, chameleon style, and the Mk II robot, which can be remote controlled by Snake.

The opening level is fantastic, and you'll find yourself drawn into gunfights and helping out the local Militia against the PMC troops. Doing so will earn you their admiration, and will allow you to pass through their bases unquestioned.

A Metal Gear Solid 4 review wouldn't be complete without a look into the boss fights. Meta Gear Sold games have a long history of fantastic boss battles, and this doesn't disappoint. On each level you'll be going up against a different one of the Mantis Elite Group. One resembles and octopus, and can turn invisible, one soars like a giant eagle, and fires off rockets, another is like a giant mechanical wolf with a rail gun attached to them, and the last is similar to Psycho Mantis from the first game, in that they float around and can control people. Overall, this game scores a 9/10 for me, since I feel the latter levels don't quite live up to the promise of the first two.]]>
Without giving too much of the plot away in this Metal Gear Solid 4 review, you start the game as 'Old Snake', who is the same Solid Snake from MGS1 and 2, and have been sent to a Middle-Eastern country because you have word that your half-brother, Liquid Snake is in attendance. During the opening scenes that are set in the near future, we learn that the world has become a sequence of wars, to the point where war has become a routine. With Otacon once again at his side, Snake sets off on a new adventure, with the aid of his octo-camo, which can change to suit the landscape, chameleon style, and the Mk II robot, which can be remote controlled by Snake.

The opening level is fantastic, and you'll find yourself drawn into gunfights and helping out the local Militia against the PMC troops. Doing so will earn you their admiration, and will allow you to pass through their bases unquestioned.

A Metal Gear Solid 4 review wouldn't be complete without a look into the boss fights. Meta Gear Sold games have a long history of fantastic boss battles, and this doesn't disappoint. On each level you'll be going up against a different one of the Mantis Elite Group. One resembles and octopus, and can turn invisible, one soars like a giant eagle, and fires off rockets, another is like a giant mechanical wolf with a rail gun attached to them, and the last is similar to Psycho Mantis from the first game, in that they float around and can control people. Overall, this game scores a 9/10 for me, since I feel the latter levels don't quite live up to the promise of the first two.]]> http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1165 Sat, 06 Mar 2010 07:34:06 +0100 christamis http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1165
Color Cross is the first game release of the French casual game developer, Little Worlds Studio. As their first release, I'm actually expecting nothing extravagant like most of the games I usually review. This is because I assume production values to be not that high, and with my experience with new development studios, I notice that they focus more on the overall fun factor of the game, and without much eye candy that doesn't serve the gameplay very much.

Anyway, let's take a brief recap of Picross rules because they very much apply also for Color Cross.

The objective of the game is for you to completely color a celled board by using the number clues on its top and left sides. Top number clues indicate colored cells for each column and those numbers on the side indicate colored cells for each row. For example, if there's a number "15" on the top side, it means that there are 15 cells in a straight line on that particular column you need to shade. More numbers at the row or column indicate separate cells you need to shade, with at least a single cell in between them.

Color Cross adds a bit of twist to this simple gameplay by adding in more colors you need to use against the typical single-colored shade in Picross. There are up to 8 colors you must mix and match within a board considering the clues given to you with respect to a particular color. If you're imagining this right, this basically means that by the time you finish with a board, you'll notice a colorful pixel form of an image, which makes it a great accomplishment as you finish each stage.]]>
Color Cross is the first game release of the French casual game developer, Little Worlds Studio. As their first release, I'm actually expecting nothing extravagant like most of the games I usually review. This is because I assume production values to be not that high, and with my experience with new development studios, I notice that they focus more on the overall fun factor of the game, and without much eye candy that doesn't serve the gameplay very much.

Anyway, let's take a brief recap of Picross rules because they very much apply also for Color Cross.

The objective of the game is for you to completely color a celled board by using the number clues on its top and left sides. Top number clues indicate colored cells for each column and those numbers on the side indicate colored cells for each row. For example, if there's a number "15" on the top side, it means that there are 15 cells in a straight line on that particular column you need to shade. More numbers at the row or column indicate separate cells you need to shade, with at least a single cell in between them.

Color Cross adds a bit of twist to this simple gameplay by adding in more colors you need to use against the typical single-colored shade in Picross. There are up to 8 colors you must mix and match within a board considering the clues given to you with respect to a particular color. If you're imagining this right, this basically means that by the time you finish with a board, you'll notice a colorful pixel form of an image, which makes it a great accomplishment as you finish each stage.]]> http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1164 Sat, 06 Mar 2010 07:33:37 +0100 christamis http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1164
This game needs some time management skills as there are some 13 levels to play, each level represent a week. Each level has different goals aligned for you and you have to complete each level to unfold the next story. It feels like I am Ciao Bella herself as it is about juggling daily task in the limited 24 hours a day. Earn money by working in the family cafe and in your uncle's construction company. Working in uncle's company earns more money than the family cafe. However, work for too many hours in a stretch without resting and eating will take it's toll on health. So make sure you plan ahead and watch the clock to eat and rest when it's time to do so.

Family members need the attention too! Clean house will bring harmony to the house and family while helping to sort out family problems will get their affection too. Sister and her boyfriend is having some relationship problem and postponed her marriage. So when mother comes in to seek your help, go and talk to the boyfriend to find out the root cause to the relationship issue. You will get clues along the way.

Also Ciao Bella's future mother in law is has demands to fulfill too. Her intention is to bring Ciao Bella and Elio together with the ultimate goal of getting them married and bear grandchildren for her. She also set up the place and venue for the two to meet up. But before going to meet Elio, Ciao Bella has to make sure that all area of her life is scoring high points and all rounded before Elio is attracted to her. Meaning that she has to be pink in health, high IQ and EQ, strong family bond, capable and earns a lot money and beautiful at the same time! If any of these quality lacks, Elio will vanish in a split second when he meets Ciao. So Ciao has to do her best to get do well in her life first before able to maintain a stable relationship with her beau. All important tasks are set as the reminders in the PDA.]]>
This game needs some time management skills as there are some 13 levels to play, each level represent a week. Each level has different goals aligned for you and you have to complete each level to unfold the next story. It feels like I am Ciao Bella herself as it is about juggling daily task in the limited 24 hours a day. Earn money by working in the family cafe and in your uncle's construction company. Working in uncle's company earns more money than the family cafe. However, work for too many hours in a stretch without resting and eating will take it's toll on health. So make sure you plan ahead and watch the clock to eat and rest when it's time to do so.

Family members need the attention too! Clean house will bring harmony to the house and family while helping to sort out family problems will get their affection too. Sister and her boyfriend is having some relationship problem and postponed her marriage. So when mother comes in to seek your help, go and talk to the boyfriend to find out the root cause to the relationship issue. You will get clues along the way.

Also Ciao Bella's future mother in law is has demands to fulfill too. Her intention is to bring Ciao Bella and Elio together with the ultimate goal of getting them married and bear grandchildren for her. She also set up the place and venue for the two to meet up. But before going to meet Elio, Ciao Bella has to make sure that all area of her life is scoring high points and all rounded before Elio is attracted to her. Meaning that she has to be pink in health, high IQ and EQ, strong family bond, capable and earns a lot money and beautiful at the same time! If any of these quality lacks, Elio will vanish in a split second when he meets Ciao. So Ciao has to do her best to get do well in her life first before able to maintain a stable relationship with her beau. All important tasks are set as the reminders in the PDA.]]> http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1163 Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:31:46 +0100 andymacgrath http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1163
With constant progress being made in flight technology, programmers are reproducing better dials as possible, and at the same time supplying you with a large array of aircraft, to test your skills with. Along with this ensuring that the gamer is getting the best quality for his money by purchasing the PC flight simulator software.

Flightprosim has got the balance just right. They have thought about the gamer and pilot alike. They have not only provided you with realistic atmosphere simulation aircraft to fly, but given you life like runways and charts. This in turn gives you an all time experience of being a pilot, while testing your skills in many wide and diverse conditions. Even the pro's who want to brush up on a few skills would be impressed by this PC flight simulator.

Microsoft has stamped their authority over the last few years, when it comes to flight simulator games. But it no way means that today it cannot be rivaled. And in my opinion is has by flightprosim, they have taken things to the next level. The software allows the user to tone things down to his requirements, and the player is given total control of all the functions required for the flight of his choice. You can pretty much customize anything you want. What a clear flight day? You got it. Fly through a lighting storm? Hey presto. You can design your planes, airports, cockpits, and even landscapes. You can make your flight experience as hard or as easy as you like. This is your experience and nobody else. So if you are serious about all this stuff, I advise you to look no further and head over to flightprosim PC flight simulator, as a matter of priority.]]>
With constant progress being made in flight technology, programmers are reproducing better dials as possible, and at the same time supplying you with a large array of aircraft, to test your skills with. Along with this ensuring that the gamer is getting the best quality for his money by purchasing the PC flight simulator software.

Flightprosim has got the balance just right. They have thought about the gamer and pilot alike. They have not only provided you with realistic atmosphere simulation aircraft to fly, but given you life like runways and charts. This in turn gives you an all time experience of being a pilot, while testing your skills in many wide and diverse conditions. Even the pro's who want to brush up on a few skills would be impressed by this PC flight simulator.

Microsoft has stamped their authority over the last few years, when it comes to flight simulator games. But it no way means that today it cannot be rivaled. And in my opinion is has by flightprosim, they have taken things to the next level. The software allows the user to tone things down to his requirements, and the player is given total control of all the functions required for the flight of his choice. You can pretty much customize anything you want. What a clear flight day? You got it. Fly through a lighting storm? Hey presto. You can design your planes, airports, cockpits, and even landscapes. You can make your flight experience as hard or as easy as you like. This is your experience and nobody else. So if you are serious about all this stuff, I advise you to look no further and head over to flightprosim PC flight simulator, as a matter of priority.]]> http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1162 Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:31:18 +0100 andymacgrath http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1162
In a bind to come up with the cash to replace the restaurant, Flo comes up with a plan to work out of a variety of highly original places to raise the funds and simultaneously hang onto her client base. Such strange spots include the wreckage of the original building, a traveling circus, a high-traffic business center, and even a college. Lovers of Diner Dash will be ecstatic to find that the iconic frenzied style they've gotten hooked on is present in Diner Dash 5, along with a few new added attractions.

While playing Diner Dash 5, you'll find it necessary as before to race all over the diner like a maniac, assisting Flo to put different groups in color-coded mode, into the best available seating arrangements. You'll also help her write down their orders then bring them to the patrons, and pick up the aftermath. There are places between levels where you get the opportunity to go shopping with your cash in order to start renovating Flo's business; this option permits you to also choose a variety of special decorations to improve the looks of the diner.]]>
In a bind to come up with the cash to replace the restaurant, Flo comes up with a plan to work out of a variety of highly original places to raise the funds and simultaneously hang onto her client base. Such strange spots include the wreckage of the original building, a traveling circus, a high-traffic business center, and even a college. Lovers of Diner Dash will be ecstatic to find that the iconic frenzied style they've gotten hooked on is present in Diner Dash 5, along with a few new added attractions.

While playing Diner Dash 5, you'll find it necessary as before to race all over the diner like a maniac, assisting Flo to put different groups in color-coded mode, into the best available seating arrangements. You'll also help her write down their orders then bring them to the patrons, and pick up the aftermath. There are places between levels where you get the opportunity to go shopping with your cash in order to start renovating Flo's business; this option permits you to also choose a variety of special decorations to improve the looks of the diner.]]> http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1161 Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:30:52 +0100 andymacgrath http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1161
A democracy game is one played with a group of friends, whom each have equal say in how the game is played. There is only one require elected position (the Designated Player) but other positions may rise, depending upon how you and your friends want to play. You could have a very orderly online democracy, with a constitution, other positions, and direct popular elections. Or you could decide who is the designated player based upon a weekly game of 'quarters'.

The game is very fun and social, and could easily be a weekly item for young people of similar interests. Maybe your 'Town Hall' meeting is scheduled before your murder mystery, or before your weekly D&D campaign. However, there is plenty more things you can do to make it interesting. I just recently started a Democracy Game using the Fall From Heaven Modpack, which transforms the whole game into a fantasy experience. Thus after voting on what race/nation we wanted to be, we chose Elves, ad now we've effectively combined our D&D and Civilization Experience!

We've become quite advanced with the concept, and now have an RP economy, a blog that serves as a newspaper, and we even sell advertising on the blog for in-game currency! Its quite vibrant! Thus you can see, the possibilities are limitless!]]>
A democracy game is one played with a group of friends, whom each have equal say in how the game is played. There is only one require elected position (the Designated Player) but other positions may rise, depending upon how you and your friends want to play. You could have a very orderly online democracy, with a constitution, other positions, and direct popular elections. Or you could decide who is the designated player based upon a weekly game of 'quarters'.

The game is very fun and social, and could easily be a weekly item for young people of similar interests. Maybe your 'Town Hall' meeting is scheduled before your murder mystery, or before your weekly D&D campaign. However, there is plenty more things you can do to make it interesting. I just recently started a Democracy Game using the Fall From Heaven Modpack, which transforms the whole game into a fantasy experience. Thus after voting on what race/nation we wanted to be, we chose Elves, ad now we've effectively combined our D&D and Civilization Experience!

We've become quite advanced with the concept, and now have an RP economy, a blog that serves as a newspaper, and we even sell advertising on the blog for in-game currency! Its quite vibrant! Thus you can see, the possibilities are limitless!]]> http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1160 Mon, 01 Mar 2010 01:54:40 +0100 carol http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1160 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/derby...538106.stm]]> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/derby...538106.stm]]> http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1159 Sun, 28 Feb 2010 03:22:56 +0100 smurphboogie http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1159
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8534659.stm]]>
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8534659.stm]]> http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1158 Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:27:14 +0100 Teresa Sanchez http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1158
How to become a good storyteller?

The art of storytelling has existed ever since humans could talk. These stories would be told over and over around campfires and passed to generations to be shared again. It wasn't until the invention of writing and the printing block did these stories spread further around the world for other cultures to enjoy. Today we enjoy the internet and have the opportunity to express our stories typing on a keyboard. Some are naturally gifted in the art of writing and others like me have to practice on a consistent bases just to have a good story. This article is created to help you create a good campaign that will satisfy the ones who will invest their time to play it. To start off I will number a set of rules for you to think about.

1. Think of a story that influenced you alot in the past. Perhaps it was a children's story your mother read or a good novel that still has you thinking today. If this doesn't work watch the news and convert it into a fantasy story! I do that sometimes with my writing. It is important that you present the story as a introductory to the players. It doesn't have to be longer then a page. What is important is that it can somehow pertain to the persons feelings or interests in a way that they can relate to it. A situation that can be related to real life situations is always a winner.

2. Creating the dialogue. This is the most time consuming part of creating a story. In every instant their are choices a person can make. Here is where you have to be flexible with the story itself, yet have challenges that will guarantee a adventure for the player to remember years later. To create a dialogue is like writing the main plot of the story. The only difference is you have to think of many possiblities in every action. For example, a group of adventurers enter a dungeon that looks to be the main room of a necromancer warlord. Upon entering there is no sign of the dreaded necromancer. Shelves, tables with potions, and stacks of books are scattered throughout the room. Now here is where you stop and see how the players react! Will one say he or she will pick will search the shelves to see what might be available? Will one look at the potions? Will another guard the entrance to make sure the group will not be surprised?

You as the storyteller have to react quickly to each situation given by a player and at the same time have a idea of what those potions or books contain, what are on the shelves, if a monster appears, or perhaps a secret door is in the room leading to the necromancer warlord's hidehout.

Spend a good one or two days organizing the plot of the story and how it will end!

The campaign doesn't have to have a single battle in it! Yes you don't have to have any monster attack in the entire campaign if you don't wish to. One can also provide riddles, locks to be opened on doors or treasures chests, romantic situations, adventure, or confusions even! Be creative and original and you go a long ways!

3. Okay now you have a viable campaign created! Congratulations! The hard part is completed! Your next important step is to advertise your game. It shouldn't be too hard now that we have a large amount of participates that joined the Morashitar site. Simply announce it in the "important announcement" thread that the next campaign is on the date you are issued to storytell. Also add the time it will be played and a small introductory of what the campaign is about. If you like you can individually email everyone to get direct replies faster!

4. Learn how the battle situation works. The gamemaster created a odd system most would say, yet he believes it is alot easier then the D&D style rules one would have to learn. The problem is it is hard to explain!

Here is a explanation example of a battle between two ninjas.

Master Davis vs Master Nanchuckato

Master Davis
Offense 12
Defense 14
Hit Points 14

versus

Master Nanchukato
Offense 14
Defense 12
Hit Points 12

Options:
Attack = adds offense points = 3 x 1d6 dice
Defense = adds defense points = 4 x 1d6 dice
Evade = adds hit points for that round only = 5 x 1d6 dice
Flee = lose 2 hit points and allows the character to flee the battle

1st round battle -
Master Davis chooses Attack and rolls 3 x 1d6 dice for a result of 10.
Master Nanchukato chooses also Attack and rolls 3 x 1d6 dice for a result of only 6!

Master Davis has 12 offense + 10 on his roll making 22 offense - 12 defense from Master Nanchukato = 10 points of damage Master Davis has done.

Master Nanchukato has 14 offense + 6 on his roll making 20 offense total - 14 defense from Master Davis = 6 points of damage Master Nanchukato has done.

Master Davis had 14 hit points - 6 damage from Master Nanchukato = 8 hit points left.

Master Nanchukato had 12 hit points - 10 damage from Master Davis = 2 hit points left.

2nd round battle -

Master Davis chooses Attack and rolls 3 x 1d6 dice for a result of 14.

Master Nanchukato chooses Evade and rolls 5 x 1d6 dice for a result of 22, which is added to his hit points for that round only. He has 2 hit points + 22 = 24 hit points for that round.

Master Davis has 12 offense + 14 on his roll making 26 offense total - 24 hit points Nanchukato has. The offensive attack overwhelmed Master Nanchukato by 2 points as 26 attack is higher then 24 hit points Nanchukato has. Therefore he dies in battle.

If he had survived the battle then his hit points go back to 2 again. It doesn't remain at 24 as indicated.

If you like contact the Gamemaster to practice more battles then don't hesitate to do so. Practice makes perfect and a smoother transition when playing a campaign.

Now you are wondering how many experience points should Master Davis get for defeating Master Nanchukato? I usually add the offense, defense, and hit points together and add 50 to it.

So Master Nanchukato has 14 offense + 12 defense + 12 hit points + 50 experience points making a total of 88 experience points added to Master Davis's experience points on the character sheet.

5. Here I will end with some valuable advice. keep the game realistic. In otherwords don't reward 20,000 gold for one campaign. This will ruin the economy for Alorath! Reward 100 gold pieces max or a few gems of value. Perhaps a magical weapon that adds 1 or 2 offense to a player, but that is it as a reward for the campaign.

Concerning experience points also be realistic. Opening a infused magical chest should only be rewarded with no more then 100 experience points. Solving a riddle 30 experience points. Surviving a blast 10 experience points and so forth. Remember to stay realistic when awarding treasure and experience points.

As you are the storyteller for the game and the gamemaster for that moment remember to have the players change their character sheet accordingly to what is rewarded. If they find a potion have it added to their character sheet or mention it. If they lost 6 hit points and they have initially 14 make sure they have it on their character sheet as such. For example it should look like this - Hit Points 6/14

If they are sick or diseased make sure it is written on their character sheet until there is a cure for it.

Stay on top of players and remind them that they too need to be responsible in keeping up with their character sheet while campaigning. There is no excuse of saying I forgot or I will do it later. That is being lazy and destroying a good atmosphere of trust and honesty.

Okay well have fun and don't hesitate to ask other players for suggestions and ideas. This game is unlimited as you are the gamemaster in the game of Morashitar!

If you would like to try storytelling one day then don't hesitate to contact me at ageoffantasys@comcast.net or go to the site http://www.morashitar.webs.com/

Everything is free and we are a warm community of beginners and veterans alike.]]>
How to become a good storyteller?

The art of storytelling has existed ever since humans could talk. These stories would be told over and over around campfires and passed to generations to be shared again. It wasn't until the invention of writing and the printing block did these stories spread further around the world for other cultures to enjoy. Today we enjoy the internet and have the opportunity to express our stories typing on a keyboard. Some are naturally gifted in the art of writing and others like me have to practice on a consistent bases just to have a good story. This article is created to help you create a good campaign that will satisfy the ones who will invest their time to play it. To start off I will number a set of rules for you to think about.

1. Think of a story that influenced you alot in the past. Perhaps it was a children's story your mother read or a good novel that still has you thinking today. If this doesn't work watch the news and convert it into a fantasy story! I do that sometimes with my writing. It is important that you present the story as a introductory to the players. It doesn't have to be longer then a page. What is important is that it can somehow pertain to the persons feelings or interests in a way that they can relate to it. A situation that can be related to real life situations is always a winner.

2. Creating the dialogue. This is the most time consuming part of creating a story. In every instant their are choices a person can make. Here is where you have to be flexible with the story itself, yet have challenges that will guarantee a adventure for the player to remember years later. To create a dialogue is like writing the main plot of the story. The only difference is you have to think of many possiblities in every action. For example, a group of adventurers enter a dungeon that looks to be the main room of a necromancer warlord. Upon entering there is no sign of the dreaded necromancer. Shelves, tables with potions, and stacks of books are scattered throughout the room. Now here is where you stop and see how the players react! Will one say he or she will pick will search the shelves to see what might be available? Will one look at the potions? Will another guard the entrance to make sure the group will not be surprised?

You as the storyteller have to react quickly to each situation given by a player and at the same time have a idea of what those potions or books contain, what are on the shelves, if a monster appears, or perhaps a secret door is in the room leading to the necromancer warlord's hidehout.

Spend a good one or two days organizing the plot of the story and how it will end!

The campaign doesn't have to have a single battle in it! Yes you don't have to have any monster attack in the entire campaign if you don't wish to. One can also provide riddles, locks to be opened on doors or treasures chests, romantic situations, adventure, or confusions even! Be creative and original and you go a long ways!

3. Okay now you have a viable campaign created! Congratulations! The hard part is completed! Your next important step is to advertise your game. It shouldn't be too hard now that we have a large amount of participates that joined the Morashitar site. Simply announce it in the "important announcement" thread that the next campaign is on the date you are issued to storytell. Also add the time it will be played and a small introductory of what the campaign is about. If you like you can individually email everyone to get direct replies faster!

4. Learn how the battle situation works. The gamemaster created a odd system most would say, yet he believes it is alot easier then the D&D style rules one would have to learn. The problem is it is hard to explain!

Here is a explanation example of a battle between two ninjas.

Master Davis vs Master Nanchuckato

Master Davis
Offense 12
Defense 14
Hit Points 14

versus

Master Nanchukato
Offense 14
Defense 12
Hit Points 12

Options:
Attack = adds offense points = 3 x 1d6 dice
Defense = adds defense points = 4 x 1d6 dice
Evade = adds hit points for that round only = 5 x 1d6 dice
Flee = lose 2 hit points and allows the character to flee the battle

1st round battle -
Master Davis chooses Attack and rolls 3 x 1d6 dice for a result of 10.
Master Nanchukato chooses also Attack and rolls 3 x 1d6 dice for a result of only 6!

Master Davis has 12 offense + 10 on his roll making 22 offense - 12 defense from Master Nanchukato = 10 points of damage Master Davis has done.

Master Nanchukato has 14 offense + 6 on his roll making 20 offense total - 14 defense from Master Davis = 6 points of damage Master Nanchukato has done.

Master Davis had 14 hit points - 6 damage from Master Nanchukato = 8 hit points left.

Master Nanchukato had 12 hit points - 10 damage from Master Davis = 2 hit points left.

2nd round battle -

Master Davis chooses Attack and rolls 3 x 1d6 dice for a result of 14.

Master Nanchukato chooses Evade and rolls 5 x 1d6 dice for a result of 22, which is added to his hit points for that round only. He has 2 hit points + 22 = 24 hit points for that round.

Master Davis has 12 offense + 14 on his roll making 26 offense total - 24 hit points Nanchukato has. The offensive attack overwhelmed Master Nanchukato by 2 points as 26 attack is higher then 24 hit points Nanchukato has. Therefore he dies in battle.

If he had survived the battle then his hit points go back to 2 again. It doesn't remain at 24 as indicated.

If you like contact the Gamemaster to practice more battles then don't hesitate to do so. Practice makes perfect and a smoother transition when playing a campaign.

Now you are wondering how many experience points should Master Davis get for defeating Master Nanchukato? I usually add the offense, defense, and hit points together and add 50 to it.

So Master Nanchukato has 14 offense + 12 defense + 12 hit points + 50 experience points making a total of 88 experience points added to Master Davis's experience points on the character sheet.

5. Here I will end with some valuable advice. keep the game realistic. In otherwords don't reward 20,000 gold for one campaign. This will ruin the economy for Alorath! Reward 100 gold pieces max or a few gems of value. Perhaps a magical weapon that adds 1 or 2 offense to a player, but that is it as a reward for the campaign.

Concerning experience points also be realistic. Opening a infused magical chest should only be rewarded with no more then 100 experience points. Solving a riddle 30 experience points. Surviving a blast 10 experience points and so forth. Remember to stay realistic when awarding treasure and experience points.

As you are the storyteller for the game and the gamemaster for that moment remember to have the players change their character sheet accordingly to what is rewarded. If they find a potion have it added to their character sheet or mention it. If they lost 6 hit points and they have initially 14 make sure they have it on their character sheet as such. For example it should look like this - Hit Points 6/14

If they are sick or diseased make sure it is written on their character sheet until there is a cure for it.

Stay on top of players and remind them that they too need to be responsible in keeping up with their character sheet while campaigning. There is no excuse of saying I forgot or I will do it later. That is being lazy and destroying a good atmosphere of trust and honesty.

Okay well have fun and don't hesitate to ask other players for suggestions and ideas. This game is unlimited as you are the gamemaster in the game of Morashitar!

If you would like to try storytelling one day then don't hesitate to contact me at ageoffantasys@comcast.net or go to the site http://www.morashitar.webs.com/

Everything is free and we are a warm community of beginners and veterans alike.]]> http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1153 Wed, 17 Feb 2010 23:59:49 +0100 smurphboogie http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1153 SIMON IVES describes the startling progress of his game character in...

A Saturnalian Diary, part 2

Wherein Forgun Flatnose pursues Priests, tackles Thieves and reaches Enlightenment

THE story so far: Simon's character, Forgun Flatnose, is a farmer's son who decides to worship Egar-Colmetch, the god of wealth, and chooses to seek his fortune by escorting the 'golden boy', young Prince Egarol, to a northern city. They are attacked by bandits...

A miraculous escape

So Forgun finds himself in the middle of nowhere, the guide off somewhere setting traps, with a dagger pressing into his throat. His priority is clear: protect the boy. If they are to be robbed, so be it. There are at least three bandits, maybe more in the surrounding undergrowth, and Forgun is no fighter. (It is clear from the rule book that characters should try and avoid combat in the early rounds of the game, certainly when outnumbered by at least three to one!)

While Forgun offers no resistance, the young Prince seems prepared to put up a struggle.

Egarol is pulled up to a sitting position but one of the bandits yelps in the meantime.

'Little bastard's got a knife or something!'

He pulls away, revealing a long slice down the palm of his hand. Blood oozes down his wrist. Egarol smiles.

It is to no avail and, despite the boy's protestations, he and Forgun are both searched and bound to a nearby tree. The robbers find no trace of a knife on the young Prince, however. They busy themselves rooting through his chests, leaving Forgun securely bound to ponder his fate. Is his adventure to be over so soon? Not if a certain precocious youngster has his way, it seems.

'Forgun, they're not being fair, are they? ... I don't like thieves. I'm off to get my stuff.'

Then the Prince walks forward, leaving tumbling, cascading loops of rope dropping to the floor, each sliced neatly through.

In an instant Egarol attacks, kicking and punching, hurling Forgun, who also now seems to be free of his bindings, one of the robber's blades. In a moment of madness the farmer from Banik launches himself into the fray, taking a nasty wound to the shoulder in the process. The fight is fast and furious, leaving two bandits dead, though Forgun has little idea of how much he contributed to the action. The third robber flees into the woods whence, some time later, Martenson the guide returns, bloodied and with a black eye. Mugged while setting traps, he says.

Despite Martenson's protestations Forgun insists on striking camp and moving on immediately. Camp is eventually made again the following morning. Martenson proves his worth as a trapper, providing game and fresh vegetables. He is also prepared to share his water, Forgun having foolishly neglected to buy any waterskins before setting out. (GM Colin never forgets...)

Eventually, and without further incident, the town of Rulfin is reached. Supplies are needed for the next leg of the journey to Jenghi.

Zoot's allure

(When entering any town Colin supplies a sketch map showing important buildings and locations, brief historical, economic and political notes and the latest edition of the town noticeboard. Forgun has little interest in this but does note the existence of a shrine to his chosen God, Egar-Colmetch.)

As he follows Martenson on the road leading to Rulfin, Forgun tries some gentle probing in order to get some answers from the reticent Prince. He enquires whether the boy had feared for his life back there in the woods.

'Killed? Me? ... Oh no, Mr Flatnose. Nobody gets to kill me!'

He brusquely brushes aside any further questions, leaving Forgun to organise accommodation at the Jenghi Arms while Martenson attends to some business of his own. Forgun decides to take the boy to visit the Egar-Colmetch shrine in the town, a very poor specimen compared to the mighty temple to the evil God Renchu. The Egar-Colmetch priest, Zoot, is introduced, a fat, jolly man in very rich-looking clothing with the weight of gold adornments that would fell the average horse. He seems very respectful of the young Prince Egarol III, dropping to his knee at one point to delicately kiss the lad's finger.

The Prince is not swayed by these signs of obsequience and soon flies into a red-faced rage, learning that a Temple to Drasci, God of Thieves, exists in this very town.

Flatnose strikes back

For once Forgun finds himself in full agreement with the lad. He joins in the berating of the hapless Zoot who can only point out the higher standing of the Thieving God in this wicked place. Forgun, however, has a plan. He suggests a visit to the Drasci temple by a travelling merchant and his son. A detailed plan of the interior could thus be obtained. Zoot, however, is more interested in discovering the identity of the new High Priest, one Sorus. He has soon equipped Forgun and his charge with suitable robes to conceal their identities and the pair are on their way to visit the Drasci Temple.

Inside you find a Temple Hall wreathed in shadow. Dark curtains drape over many walls whilst the merest modicum of light trickles down from high, dusty windows.

The pair approach the inner sanctum cautiously. Forgun has delivered his usual lecture to the boy, promoting caution and stealth. He has yet to see if this will be the one time the Prince takes heed of his advice.

At the far end of the hall a grey-robed priest with a featureless grey mask is laying a blessing on a darkly clothed, dark haired man who kneels before the altar ... the kneeling man stands up and turns. You gape in shock. Martenson!

Of frying pans and fires...

(It must tax Colin to keep coming up with these cliff-hanger endings but he manages it time and again.)

Pulling his hood down over his face, Forgun avoids the guide's eye and approaches the priest. The Prince is obviously seething, and Forgun speaks hurriedly to him, hoping to calm him. However, as he begins to go into his story about being a visiting merchant the lad interrupts. 'Drasci scum!' Not very ingratiating. 'Thieving bastards!' Nor that.

True to his nature, Forgun accepts that the ploy has failed and that retreat is the only viable option. He drags the boy out into the streets, aware that pursuit will not be long in coming. However, they reach the temporary sanctuary of the Jenghi Arms without further incident. There Martenson is met and his services dispensed with, Forgun concocting a suitable story and paying the man off. The guide is annoyed but accepts his fate and leaves.

The pair cannot remain at the Inn for ever and eventually set off to see Zoot once again. Forgun takes utmost care to ensure that they are not followed. Inevitably they are, and find themselves cornered by Martenson and four cronies.

'Hand the boy over, now!'

Enough is enough

Quite frankly, Forgun is at the end of his tether. The boy is in his charge and he intends delivering him to his destination. He may be no fighter, but Forgun has surprise on his side. As well as the boy...

The would-be kidnappers fall back in disarray as Forgun leaps toward them, sword in hand.

The sword keens. It feels so good! So fluid a motion to drive a wide slash across a belly, spilling Drasciite blood. 'Run son,' you shout, turning your head for a moment.

Egarol is not there.

Martenson soon throws off his surprise and returns the attack, wounding Forgun in the shoulder with a thrown dagger and plunging a second into his calf. But Forgun is unstoppable, the golden blade piercing his erstwhile companion's heart. The remaining thugs move in for the kill but something seems to possess Forgun and, in a berserk rage, he swiftly dispatches two more. It is only after the last two have fled that it dawns on Forgun that his own sword stayed strapped in his scabbard throughout the battle. The golden sword has now disappeared.

Seemingly from nowhere, Egarol darts about looting bodies.

Now Forgun may be a farmer's son from Banik, the backside of nowhere, but even he realises that something unusual is going on. And begins to get an inkling of what it might be.

A Forgun conclusion?

Zoot helps the pair clean up and provides a wagon and supplies for the next stage of the journey. Prince Egarol remains as evasive as ever, however, leaving Forgun to his thoughts as the wagon rolls along.

Oh no, Mr Flatnose, nobody gets to kill me.' The narrow confines of that Rulfin alleyway. The feel of the sword in his hand, the same hand that had held the boy's hand just a moment before. The boy who was now nowhere to be seen. The golden sword. And the golden boy.

The conclusion Forgun is inevitably drawn to is that the boy has somehow transformed himself into a magical blade. He confronts the lad once and for all, suggesting that he and his two brothers have the ability to change themselves into magical fighting weapons. Forgun has indeed guessed a significant part of the story. But not all of it. Reluctantly the Prince reveals the truth.

I am the Sword of Egar-Colmetch.

Thus in the space of some dozen turns my simple farmhand has turned into a bandit-staying bodyguard to some kind of Godling. And, despite pleading for magical assistance from Zoot in Rulfin, Forgun has achieved this without resorting to magic spells, a vast untapped area of the game.

So how will Forgun react to the news that he is escorting a Holy Relic half-way across a continent? Can he succeed in delivering the Prince to his waiting family in Jenghi? Or will the following forces of Drasci force a final, deadly confrontation?

If you want to know, you'll have to join the game and read the rest of the tale in Colin's excellent newsletter.]]> SIMON IVES describes the startling progress of his game character in...

A Saturnalian Diary, part 2

Wherein Forgun Flatnose pursues Priests, tackles Thieves and reaches Enlightenment

THE story so far: Simon's character, Forgun Flatnose, is a farmer's son who decides to worship Egar-Colmetch, the god of wealth, and chooses to seek his fortune by escorting the 'golden boy', young Prince Egarol, to a northern city. They are attacked by bandits...

A miraculous escape

So Forgun finds himself in the middle of nowhere, the guide off somewhere setting traps, with a dagger pressing into his throat. His priority is clear: protect the boy. If they are to be robbed, so be it. There are at least three bandits, maybe more in the surrounding undergrowth, and Forgun is no fighter. (It is clear from the rule book that characters should try and avoid combat in the early rounds of the game, certainly when outnumbered by at least three to one!)

While Forgun offers no resistance, the young Prince seems prepared to put up a struggle.

Egarol is pulled up to a sitting position but one of the bandits yelps in the meantime.

'Little bastard's got a knife or something!'

He pulls away, revealing a long slice down the palm of his hand. Blood oozes down his wrist. Egarol smiles.

It is to no avail and, despite the boy's protestations, he and Forgun are both searched and bound to a nearby tree. The robbers find no trace of a knife on the young Prince, however. They busy themselves rooting through his chests, leaving Forgun securely bound to ponder his fate. Is his adventure to be over so soon? Not if a certain precocious youngster has his way, it seems.

'Forgun, they're not being fair, are they? ... I don't like thieves. I'm off to get my stuff.'

Then the Prince walks forward, leaving tumbling, cascading loops of rope dropping to the floor, each sliced neatly through.

In an instant Egarol attacks, kicking and punching, hurling Forgun, who also now seems to be free of his bindings, one of the robber's blades. In a moment of madness the farmer from Banik launches himself into the fray, taking a nasty wound to the shoulder in the process. The fight is fast and furious, leaving two bandits dead, though Forgun has little idea of how much he contributed to the action. The third robber flees into the woods whence, some time later, Martenson the guide returns, bloodied and with a black eye. Mugged while setting traps, he says.

Despite Martenson's protestations Forgun insists on striking camp and moving on immediately. Camp is eventually made again the following morning. Martenson proves his worth as a trapper, providing game and fresh vegetables. He is also prepared to share his water, Forgun having foolishly neglected to buy any waterskins before setting out. (GM Colin never forgets...)

Eventually, and without further incident, the town of Rulfin is reached. Supplies are needed for the next leg of the journey to Jenghi.

Zoot's allure

(When entering any town Colin supplies a sketch map showing important buildings and locations, brief historical, economic and political notes and the latest edition of the town noticeboard. Forgun has little interest in this but does note the existence of a shrine to his chosen God, Egar-Colmetch.)

As he follows Martenson on the road leading to Rulfin, Forgun tries some gentle probing in order to get some answers from the reticent Prince. He enquires whether the boy had feared for his life back there in the woods.

'Killed? Me? ... Oh no, Mr Flatnose. Nobody gets to kill me!'

He brusquely brushes aside any further questions, leaving Forgun to organise accommodation at the Jenghi Arms while Martenson attends to some business of his own. Forgun decides to take the boy to visit the Egar-Colmetch shrine in the town, a very poor specimen compared to the mighty temple to the evil God Renchu. The Egar-Colmetch priest, Zoot, is introduced, a fat, jolly man in very rich-looking clothing with the weight of gold adornments that would fell the average horse. He seems very respectful of the young Prince Egarol III, dropping to his knee at one point to delicately kiss the lad's finger.

The Prince is not swayed by these signs of obsequience and soon flies into a red-faced rage, learning that a Temple to Drasci, God of Thieves, exists in this very town.

Flatnose strikes back

For once Forgun finds himself in full agreement with the lad. He joins in the berating of the hapless Zoot who can only point out the higher standing of the Thieving God in this wicked place. Forgun, however, has a plan. He suggests a visit to the Drasci temple by a travelling merchant and his son. A detailed plan of the interior could thus be obtained. Zoot, however, is more interested in discovering the identity of the new High Priest, one Sorus. He has soon equipped Forgun and his charge with suitable robes to conceal their identities and the pair are on their way to visit the Drasci Temple.

Inside you find a Temple Hall wreathed in shadow. Dark curtains drape over many walls whilst the merest modicum of light trickles down from high, dusty windows.

The pair approach the inner sanctum cautiously. Forgun has delivered his usual lecture to the boy, promoting caution and stealth. He has yet to see if this will be the one time the Prince takes heed of his advice.

At the far end of the hall a grey-robed priest with a featureless grey mask is laying a blessing on a darkly clothed, dark haired man who kneels before the altar ... the kneeling man stands up and turns. You gape in shock. Martenson!

Of frying pans and fires...

(It must tax Colin to keep coming up with these cliff-hanger endings but he manages it time and again.)

Pulling his hood down over his face, Forgun avoids the guide's eye and approaches the priest. The Prince is obviously seething, and Forgun speaks hurriedly to him, hoping to calm him. However, as he begins to go into his story about being a visiting merchant the lad interrupts. 'Drasci scum!' Not very ingratiating. 'Thieving bastards!' Nor that.

True to his nature, Forgun accepts that the ploy has failed and that retreat is the only viable option. He drags the boy out into the streets, aware that pursuit will not be long in coming. However, they reach the temporary sanctuary of the Jenghi Arms without further incident. There Martenson is met and his services dispensed with, Forgun concocting a suitable story and paying the man off. The guide is annoyed but accepts his fate and leaves.

The pair cannot remain at the Inn for ever and eventually set off to see Zoot once again. Forgun takes utmost care to ensure that they are not followed. Inevitably they are, and find themselves cornered by Martenson and four cronies.

'Hand the boy over, now!'

Enough is enough

Quite frankly, Forgun is at the end of his tether. The boy is in his charge and he intends delivering him to his destination. He may be no fighter, but Forgun has surprise on his side. As well as the boy...

The would-be kidnappers fall back in disarray as Forgun leaps toward them, sword in hand.

The sword keens. It feels so good! So fluid a motion to drive a wide slash across a belly, spilling Drasciite blood. 'Run son,' you shout, turning your head for a moment.

Egarol is not there.

Martenson soon throws off his surprise and returns the attack, wounding Forgun in the shoulder with a thrown dagger and plunging a second into his calf. But Forgun is unstoppable, the golden blade piercing his erstwhile companion's heart. The remaining thugs move in for the kill but something seems to possess Forgun and, in a berserk rage, he swiftly dispatches two more. It is only after the last two have fled that it dawns on Forgun that his own sword stayed strapped in his scabbard throughout the battle. The golden sword has now disappeared.

Seemingly from nowhere, Egarol darts about looting bodies.

Now Forgun may be a farmer's son from Banik, the backside of nowhere, but even he realises that something unusual is going on. And begins to get an inkling of what it might be.

A Forgun conclusion?

Zoot helps the pair clean up and provides a wagon and supplies for the next stage of the journey. Prince Egarol remains as evasive as ever, however, leaving Forgun to his thoughts as the wagon rolls along.

Oh no, Mr Flatnose, nobody gets to kill me.' The narrow confines of that Rulfin alleyway. The feel of the sword in his hand, the same hand that had held the boy's hand just a moment before. The boy who was now nowhere to be seen. The golden sword. And the golden boy.

The conclusion Forgun is inevitably drawn to is that the boy has somehow transformed himself into a magical blade. He confronts the lad once and for all, suggesting that he and his two brothers have the ability to change themselves into magical fighting weapons. Forgun has indeed guessed a significant part of the story. But not all of it. Reluctantly the Prince reveals the truth.

I am the Sword of Egar-Colmetch.

Thus in the space of some dozen turns my simple farmhand has turned into a bandit-staying bodyguard to some kind of Godling. And, despite pleading for magical assistance from Zoot in Rulfin, Forgun has achieved this without resorting to magic spells, a vast untapped area of the game.

So how will Forgun react to the news that he is escorting a Holy Relic half-way across a continent? Can he succeed in delivering the Prince to his waiting family in Jenghi? Or will the following forces of Drasci force a final, deadly confrontation?

If you want to know, you'll have to join the game and read the rest of the tale in Colin's excellent newsletter.]]> http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1148 Tue, 16 Feb 2010 23:36:28 +0100 smurphboogie http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1148 Want to do better in your PBM games and also retain the moral high ground? If so, follow STEVE SENSIBLE's suggestion and...

Get Organised!


HI! MY name is Steve Sensible and I am Don Devious' cousin. In a recent issue of Flagship, Don lived up to his name and provided some highly devious ways of getting good results in your PBM games. However, I believe that there are other, more morally correct, ways of doing well in the games you play, most of which consist of organising yourself to the optimum extent. My hints and tips apply equally to both computer-moderated games and hand-moderated games, but discretion should be used when applying my tips to games that do not fully fit the format, like Legends or Supernova.

Like Don, I do not guarantee success, but I can confirm that your enjoyment of the games you play will increase and you will also be able to access information more quickly and efficiently. You will also find that you will have all the information to hand to make better informed and information intensive decisions.

The tools for the job

The key element in doing well in PBM is organisation. It is no good being a brilliant strategist if you can't find the latest game map. It is pointless being a real-life Napoleonic warlord if you don't know what troops you control and where they are. Rest assured - get organised and good results will follow. To get organised you need organising equipment and this is how you calculate what you need...

The first thing you need to do is count up how many PBM games you play and then create a shopping list. Yes, I said a shopping list! You will need to buy/obtain various pieces of stationery including arch lever files and boxes, reinforced pockets, plus various coloured dividers and highlighters. You will need about one arch lever file and on average about 20 reinforced pockets per game. You will also need a set of 15 different multicoloured thick highlighters and one set of dividers per game. You will also need about one arch lever box per three games you play.

These can all be found at your local Rymans without any difficulty. For the indecisive amongst you, I would suggest that you buy the following products, which are all by Niceday: Arch Lever Files (No.275984), Arch Lever Boxes (No. 170842) 100 X A4 Plastic Reinforced Pockets (No.168135), Dividers (No.169223) and 4 Chisel Tip Text Markers (No. 205623), which come in different colours in each packet.

If you are strapped for cash and can't afford to migrate all your games over to this system, or if you are simply sceptical whether this system will work, you can start off with 1 arch lever file, 20 A4 reinforced pockets, 1 pack of dividers and one pack of markers - the whole lot shouldn't cost you much more than œ5.00, a trivial investment for the increased amount of satisfaction you will get from playing your favourite PBM game.

Organise, Organise and Organise once more

Now you have the tools, you can organise your game. The first thing to do is examine your turns and break them down into the following categories: General Information, Specialised Information, Miscellaneous Information, Maps and Turns. The description for each category is as follows:

General Information: The basic information about your character or tribe: Start-up sheet, and sheets that relate to character or group changes (a change in stats, personnel, abilities). Basically, any information which shows that there has been a change - for good or bad in the abilities\stats of a individual\group.


Behind this should be listed any details of magical powers/special abilities, including breakdowns of how they are used and what they cost to use. Also any special abilities and weapons should be noted down, as well as any available kit or supplies.

Needless to say this should all be noted down in alphabetical order and laid out so that it is in an easy to read format. If you have a computer, you can use word processors and spreadsheets such as Microsoft Word or Access to create tables into which all your information can be typed.

The beauty of this approach is that you can save the tables and re-use them again and again in relation to all the games you play. It is important to note that if you have to separate information from individual turns in order to place it in different sections, you should always make a note on the sheet being moved detailing which turn it came from.

Specialised Information: This is the where the information that relates to data supplied in your turns is stored. For example, details on Cities, NPCs, Quests, Plot-lines and other important game-related material (travel routes, tokens relating to in-game discoveries i.e. animals / creatures / different NPC tribes etc.) Again, all information should be stored alphabetically and in an easy-to-read format.

Miscellaneous Information: Here is stored the names and addresses of players and their characters / groups, copies of diplomatic communications, in-game rumours and newsletter comments (maybe newsletters themselves if possible).

Maps: Here, any maps you obtain relating to the game should be filed away in alphabetical order. Needless to say, you need to separate different map types from each other, so have the world map on top, followed by sub sector maps, followed by regional maps, maps of cities, then maps of dungeons or other obscure places.

Turns: The basic turn sheet which is received is stored here. Don't be frightened of jettisoning any redundant or duplicate information - this will only take up space and waste your time, as you will search through it for information you have already read


Also, don't be frightened of separating pieces of your turn sheet from your original turn. As long as you leave a note where you have placed the detached piece of information, you should always be able to find it quickly.

Divide and conquer

The next thing to do is then to place a different coloured divider on each pile and name it relating to that pile. Then pick up each pile, say the Maps for example, and place every individual map in a plastic pocket. The more 'economical' amongst you may want to place two maps back to back in one pocket and although this has its advantages, I prefer the single item in one folder method as you can lay them out next to each other to get a better view of the 'big picture'.

Repeat this procedure for each of the sections I have mentioned and then place the piles on top of one another. Then, very carefully, one by one, place all the plastic pockets in the arch lever file - voila - there you have your basic, organised turn sheets. If you want to be a perfectionist, like me, you will print out a label on your computer and then stick it down the spine of the Arch lever file with Niceday Glue Stick (No: 196980). Finally you will cover the spine with the transparent, single sided, sticky sheets of plastic that libraries use to cover their books, which is available from any decent stationers.

Advanced organisation

OK, now you have your basic organised information, but this is not enough. To become very efficient, you will have to read through all your sections in your arch lever files - an act that can be a real eye opener, I can tell you - and then highlight with different coloured markers anything important or of interest. For example, in your turns, if you have met an NPC and have learned lots about him/her, you would mark it with red highlighter. Then you would turn to the divider for that section, write the NPC's name, highlight it in red and then next to it write a brief summary of the information: you have. You will continue noting this information down for that NPC and any other you feel important: e.g.

Zombor ( highlighted in Red) : Background info:- Turns 12, 16, 21

Allies:Turns 15, 17.
Weaknesses: Turns 22, 23, 24. Growler(highlighted in green): Background: Turns 27, 28.
lnfo: Black CrowTurns 29, 30.

lnfo: Dongo man Turns 31, 32

That way you have a quick reference system, whereby you can turn exactly to the turn you need to and then see the relevant colour section that contains the info you need.

The same can be done re maps. First highlight a couple of cities in different colours and then mark them on the divider as follows;

Bankshaft (highlighted in Blue): Coordinates: (57, 91)

Linked to: Raylor(highlight yellow),

Perdam (Highlight pink)

Imports: Coal, Fish, Gold.

Exports: Furs, Wood, Silver.

Leader: Zombor (highlighted in red) see
NPC section

This way you can build up an easy to read, easy to follow, cross-referenced filing system, which will provide you with all the necessary information in seconds. If you continue organising yourself in this way, you will see that you have a wealth of information, instantly at your fingertips.

Once you have adopted this method of organisation, your files become full fairly quickly, so the best thing to do is 'weeding'. This means picking out information from your file that is not needed on a regular basis or crucial to your campaign and putting it in storage. Needless to say, you must make a note on your divider confirming when and where you have placed your weeded information, as information can soon get lost.

Here is where the arch lever boxes come into play. In them place, in the same order as the information held in your arch lever files and with the same colour dividers, all the information that you do not frequently need. Once you have done this, store the boxes away in a cupboard, where you can get access to them when you need them. Weeding will cut down the amount of information you need to read through and will also let you have important information to hand when you need it.

Use it or lose it!

Now some of you may scoff at my organisational system, saying that it is too much work and too much effort to put into gaming. However, I would ask you to reflect upon how you are doing in the games you play - are you one of the top players, have you won a game recently, can you lay your hands on in-game information within seconds - or hours for that matter? If not you may want to give my system a try, as it will enhance your gaming.

There is also something else to bear in mind: although you are not using this system, many other players are. They can locate cities in seconds and have to hand reams of information about them - information that may not immediately spring to mind. They have a list of players and their current telephone numbers, positions, email numbers and addresses for easy access.

Furthermore, these players probably spend half the time you do filling in their turn sheets, and can make vital in-game decisions based on up-to-date information, quickly and more accurately than you. The amount of time they save allows them to get on with other important factors such as diplomacy and research. Indeed, some of them, like me, may well even spend time designing their own computerised organisation system in the form of relational databases and become super-organised - but that is a topic for another article...]]> Want to do better in your PBM games and also retain the moral high ground? If so, follow STEVE SENSIBLE's suggestion and...

Get Organised!


HI! MY name is Steve Sensible and I am Don Devious' cousin. In a recent issue of Flagship, Don lived up to his name and provided some highly devious ways of getting good results in your PBM games. However, I believe that there are other, more morally correct, ways of doing well in the games you play, most of which consist of organising yourself to the optimum extent. My hints and tips apply equally to both computer-moderated games and hand-moderated games, but discretion should be used when applying my tips to games that do not fully fit the format, like Legends or Supernova.

Like Don, I do not guarantee success, but I can confirm that your enjoyment of the games you play will increase and you will also be able to access information more quickly and efficiently. You will also find that you will have all the information to hand to make better informed and information intensive decisions.

The tools for the job

The key element in doing well in PBM is organisation. It is no good being a brilliant strategist if you can't find the latest game map. It is pointless being a real-life Napoleonic warlord if you don't know what troops you control and where they are. Rest assured - get organised and good results will follow. To get organised you need organising equipment and this is how you calculate what you need...

The first thing you need to do is count up how many PBM games you play and then create a shopping list. Yes, I said a shopping list! You will need to buy/obtain various pieces of stationery including arch lever files and boxes, reinforced pockets, plus various coloured dividers and highlighters. You will need about one arch lever file and on average about 20 reinforced pockets per game. You will also need a set of 15 different multicoloured thick highlighters and one set of dividers per game. You will also need about one arch lever box per three games you play.

These can all be found at your local Rymans without any difficulty. For the indecisive amongst you, I would suggest that you buy the following products, which are all by Niceday: Arch Lever Files (No.275984), Arch Lever Boxes (No. 170842) 100 X A4 Plastic Reinforced Pockets (No.168135), Dividers (No.169223) and 4 Chisel Tip Text Markers (No. 205623), which come in different colours in each packet.

If you are strapped for cash and can't afford to migrate all your games over to this system, or if you are simply sceptical whether this system will work, you can start off with 1 arch lever file, 20 A4 reinforced pockets, 1 pack of dividers and one pack of markers - the whole lot shouldn't cost you much more than œ5.00, a trivial investment for the increased amount of satisfaction you will get from playing your favourite PBM game.

Organise, Organise and Organise once more

Now you have the tools, you can organise your game. The first thing to do is examine your turns and break them down into the following categories: General Information, Specialised Information, Miscellaneous Information, Maps and Turns. The description for each category is as follows:

General Information: The basic information about your character or tribe: Start-up sheet, and sheets that relate to character or group changes (a change in stats, personnel, abilities). Basically, any information which shows that there has been a change - for good or bad in the abilities\stats of a individual\group.


Behind this should be listed any details of magical powers/special abilities, including breakdowns of how they are used and what they cost to use. Also any special abilities and weapons should be noted down, as well as any available kit or supplies.

Needless to say this should all be noted down in alphabetical order and laid out so that it is in an easy to read format. If you have a computer, you can use word processors and spreadsheets such as Microsoft Word or Access to create tables into which all your information can be typed.

The beauty of this approach is that you can save the tables and re-use them again and again in relation to all the games you play. It is important to note that if you have to separate information from individual turns in order to place it in different sections, you should always make a note on the sheet being moved detailing which turn it came from.

Specialised Information: This is the where the information that relates to data supplied in your turns is stored. For example, details on Cities, NPCs, Quests, Plot-lines and other important game-related material (travel routes, tokens relating to in-game discoveries i.e. animals / creatures / different NPC tribes etc.) Again, all information should be stored alphabetically and in an easy-to-read format.

Miscellaneous Information: Here is stored the names and addresses of players and their characters / groups, copies of diplomatic communications, in-game rumours and newsletter comments (maybe newsletters themselves if possible).

Maps: Here, any maps you obtain relating to the game should be filed away in alphabetical order. Needless to say, you need to separate different map types from each other, so have the world map on top, followed by sub sector maps, followed by regional maps, maps of cities, then maps of dungeons or other obscure places.

Turns: The basic turn sheet which is received is stored here. Don't be frightened of jettisoning any redundant or duplicate information - this will only take up space and waste your time, as you will search through it for information you have already read


Also, don't be frightened of separating pieces of your turn sheet from your original turn. As long as you leave a note where you have placed the detached piece of information, you should always be able to find it quickly.

Divide and conquer

The next thing to do is then to place a different coloured divider on each pile and name it relating to that pile. Then pick up each pile, say the Maps for example, and place every individual map in a plastic pocket. The more 'economical' amongst you may want to place two maps back to back in one pocket and although this has its advantages, I prefer the single item in one folder method as you can lay them out next to each other to get a better view of the 'big picture'.

Repeat this procedure for each of the sections I have mentioned and then place the piles on top of one another. Then, very carefully, one by one, place all the plastic pockets in the arch lever file - voila - there you have your basic, organised turn sheets. If you want to be a perfectionist, like me, you will print out a label on your computer and then stick it down the spine of the Arch lever file with Niceday Glue Stick (No: 196980). Finally you will cover the spine with the transparent, single sided, sticky sheets of plastic that libraries use to cover their books, which is available from any decent stationers.

Advanced organisation

OK, now you have your basic organised information, but this is not enough. To become very efficient, you will have to read through all your sections in your arch lever files - an act that can be a real eye opener, I can tell you - and then highlight with different coloured markers anything important or of interest. For example, in your turns, if you have met an NPC and have learned lots about him/her, you would mark it with red highlighter. Then you would turn to the divider for that section, write the NPC's name, highlight it in red and then next to it write a brief summary of the information: you have. You will continue noting this information down for that NPC and any other you feel important: e.g.

Zombor ( highlighted in Red) : Background info:- Turns 12, 16, 21

Allies:Turns 15, 17.
Weaknesses: Turns 22, 23, 24. Growler(highlighted in green): Background: Turns 27, 28.
lnfo: Black CrowTurns 29, 30.

lnfo: Dongo man Turns 31, 32

That way you have a quick reference system, whereby you can turn exactly to the turn you need to and then see the relevant colour section that contains the info you need.

The same can be done re maps. First highlight a couple of cities in different colours and then mark them on the divider as follows;

Bankshaft (highlighted in Blue): Coordinates: (57, 91)

Linked to: Raylor(highlight yellow),

Perdam (Highlight pink)

Imports: Coal, Fish, Gold.

Exports: Furs, Wood, Silver.

Leader: Zombor (highlighted in red) see
NPC section

This way you can build up an easy to read, easy to follow, cross-referenced filing system, which will provide you with all the necessary information in seconds. If you continue organising yourself in this way, you will see that you have a wealth of information, instantly at your fingertips.

Once you have adopted this method of organisation, your files become full fairly quickly, so the best thing to do is 'weeding'. This means picking out information from your file that is not needed on a regular basis or crucial to your campaign and putting it in storage. Needless to say, you must make a note on your divider confirming when and where you have placed your weeded information, as information can soon get lost.

Here is where the arch lever boxes come into play. In them place, in the same order as the information held in your arch lever files and with the same colour dividers, all the information that you do not frequently need. Once you have done this, store the boxes away in a cupboard, where you can get access to them when you need them. Weeding will cut down the amount of information you need to read through and will also let you have important information to hand when you need it.

Use it or lose it!

Now some of you may scoff at my organisational system, saying that it is too much work and too much effort to put into gaming. However, I would ask you to reflect upon how you are doing in the games you play - are you one of the top players, have you won a game recently, can you lay your hands on in-game information within seconds - or hours for that matter? If not you may want to give my system a try, as it will enhance your gaming.

There is also something else to bear in mind: although you are not using this system, many other players are. They can locate cities in seconds and have to hand reams of information about them - information that may not immediately spring to mind. They have a list of players and their current telephone numbers, positions, email numbers and addresses for easy access.

Furthermore, these players probably spend half the time you do filling in their turn sheets, and can make vital in-game decisions based on up-to-date information, quickly and more accurately than you. The amount of time they save allows them to get on with other important factors such as diplomacy and research. Indeed, some of them, like me, may well even spend time designing their own computerised organisation system in the form of relational databases and become super-organised - but that is a topic for another article...]]> http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1147 Mon, 15 Feb 2010 23:55:29 +0100 smurphboogie http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1147 CHRIS DICKSON...

EVER wondered what PBM was like in the old days? When you could pay for your next set of results and still have change from one-and-sixpence?
The history of PBM is an interesting subject; I would wager that the very first games would have been chess by mail and simple two-handed story telling where the participants alternately add chapters to the ongoing plot. One problem that stumped early pioneers of telephony was trying to work out a way to hold a game of poker by telephone; I wonder if they considered trying to play postally? I'd be interested to know otherwise, but it's probable that the first board game designed for more than two converted to postal play was Diplomacy.

For in 1961, a board game called Diplomacy became available to be bought in America, and, soon afterwards, around the world. Seven players take on the role of great European powers from 1900 onwards and battle for control of a majority of thirty-four specified areas in a game played on a stylised map of Europe. The rules are less complex than those of chess. Turns consist of prearranged periods where players talk among one another, making co-operative plans (which they are only weakly ethically bound not to completely break; such backstabbing is usual) for how their pieces will move in the movement phase which features all the pieces moving simultaneously. Importantly, the game features no dice or other random instruments of fortune at all. To get players together for a full game is difficult - you do really need seven people prepared to spend hours (four? eight? sixteen? This only becomes obvious through play) together just on one game.

The postal interpretation was obvious and the earliest games had started by 1963; a central GM (the first recorded one was John Boardman of New York) contacts seven players, assigns them the seven powers, gets each player's orders sent to them each turn, adjudicates the effect of all the pieces on the board moving, and sends a letter containing the current position of the game to each player after every turn. Players can be knocked out in as few as four turns, and a game will typically be declared a win for one player or a joint win for two or more survivors, according to unanimous vote by the players, in between eighteen and thirty turns, though exceptions on both sides are possible.

The reason that postal Diplomacy can be organised at little expense is that there is no more relevant information other than the position of all the thirty-four or fewer pieces on the board and details of their moves. No player can get, or would need, additional or personal information about their position. The GM will therefore produce an adjudication and then send copies of it to each of the seven players. This is less expensive in terms of time and money than having to produce something radically different for every player. Furthermore, it is assumed that all players will know the rules of Diplomacy before they sign on to play; these must either be purchased for $10 directly from Avalon Hill, or, more usually, are obtained by buying a copy of the Diplomacy board game itself. Many other board games have been adapted to postal play in a similar fashion, though it's a little harder for those with a sequential, rather than simultaneous, order of play.

While it was usual for each GM to organise no more than one game of postal Diplomacy for a while, before long the economies of scale and labour savings became evident and people would start to run several games at the same time. Hence the GM would produce a small magazine, often referred to as a fanzine, or just a zine, which would contain the results of several different games and be duplicated en masse to be sent out to all the players in all the games, often with some chat as well. This process carries on in essentially the same fashion to this day.


The zine hobby is much larger than just Diplomacy, though; all of sports PBM has it as its foundation. Another name that every knowledgeable PBM player ought to know and respect is that of Alan Parr. Alan is the man responsible for the United system for running postal football management games that has proved popular and successful for more than twenty years. On top of that, many other PBM football games still running today have their roots firmly in United and are greatly in debt to it, consciously or otherwise. While many football games have evolved separately along similar lines, a lot of them can be traced back to United. Yet football leagues with dozens of players based on rules very close to Alan's (including his own original one in "Hopscotch") run efficiently and enjoyably still today. Another person whom it would be wrong not to mention by name is David Watts, founder of Rostherne Games, inventor of Railway Rivals. Like Diplomacy this is a popular but relatively little-known board game which has proved to be particularly suitable for postal play. Many people claim it is a better game postally than face-to-face (and the German version, Dampfross, of it original face-to-face incarnation won the prestigious Spiel Des Jahres award). Players own railroad companies who build railway tracks on a map in order to connect different towns as efficiently as possible; good building is rewarded with success in the second half of the game, which consists of races of trains between towns along already-built track. Dozens of different maps are available to prolong the game's lifespan, and countless variants of play exist as well. David has invented several other games of the same high quality too, yet Railway Rivals is the most famous one having stood twenty years' test of time.

These are probably the three most popular games found in zines today, but many others are popular and successful. John Harrington developed a board game called Breaking Away specifically with a postal interpretation in mind; each of the six players maintains a team of four cyclists who take part in one race. Points are awarded to the teams whose cyclists reach certain points in the race first. The attraction of the game comes from the elegant and simple way in which it is decided how quickly cyclists may move in future turns; it is based on the slip-streaming principle; the longer the unbroken chain of cyclists you are at the back of, the faster you can go later. Of course, all six players are trying to balance getting at the back of packs and getting ahead to win the race, so you have to try and second-guess what the other players are likely to do. It's an easy game to write orders for, though the strategy is deep and difficult to master. En Garde! is a fantasy role-playing cum strategy game extremely well detailed in Malcolm Smith's article in issue 67 of Flagship, and a number of zines run their own campaigns, usually with perhaps twenty players involved in each. Every game will have its own flavour, though, and the setting is often quite different from the usual seventeenth century French one. With zines being so cheap, you can well afford to take a look at several different scenarios and styles. Again, the players interact in a common setting and the overall results of all the actions are written up as a report sent as part of a zine to all the players. The passion for bad puns is ever-present, though.

Other popular board games that have been found ideal for conversion to zine game format are Sopwith, a rough, simplistic six-player simulation of dogfighting WW2 fighter planes, Hare and Tortoise, an abstract thematic race game with almost no luck involved, and the 18xx series (1830, 1841, 1856 and so on) of games which concentrate as much on share ownership and company business dealings as they do on building track and operating a successful railroad. Many zines have several other games designed principally for postal play indigenous to that magazine; also common are "all-reader" games designed to be extremely simple to play but provide an interesting challenge when you participate against dozens of other readers of the same zine. These games are too simple to want to pay for and play separately, but when you subscribe to the zine already, make a nice little sideline.

It's impossible to generalise as to what zines today contain. There are well over a dozen zines dedicated to running Diplomacy and its variants (games with slightly different rules or slightly different maps), well over a dozen zines dedicated to running United leagues, a good few zines specialising in Railway Rivals and the like, some more specialised zines concentrate on other games, some zines concentrating on games of the editor's own creation, some zines purely for chat, discussion and articles (often about other zines!) and twenty or so other zines which try and bridge the gap between all of the above, by including a little of each. Most of them contain general interest reading material, many have letter columns too (often wildly varying in character from the high-brow, serious and academic to the smutty, anarchic and trashy).

Some zines contain smaller zines run by other people (more properly known as subzines); these are prevalent when an editor wants to feature a topic in detail but isn't an authority on it himself or herself, so takes on all the hassle and expense of coping with a few extra pages in each issue in return for a friend acting as subeditor and producing a section dedicated to the chosen topic. An example of this is when Nick Palmer produced the subzine "Battleground" for discussion and review of war games, which was featured in Richard Sharp's top-rated "Dolchstoss" in the mid-1980s.

Most games in zines are designed so that an identical set of results is sent to every player, and this set of results contains details of everything that has happened in that game. This key feature (every player gets the same report) is probably the most accurate distinction between the zine postal games hobby and "the rest", which is often referred to as pro PBM. The term "amateur PBM" is often used to refer to the zine hobby, which is confusing, as there are plenty of non-profit, run-as-a-hobby games where each player gets their own individualised results.

Zines are, as a rule, produced mainly as a hobby, by the editor as a service to players, to promote postal play of games of the editor's choice, but also for the thrill, ego-boost and self-indulgence of being able to produce whatever they want and capture the interest of the zine's readers. You often really do get an insight into an editor's personality by reading their zine. With the whole community ethos of the hobby, it is traditional and accepted that the editors bear the short end of the stick when it comes to paying for their time and trouble. When you subscribe to a zine, you usually make a one-off payment per issue to participate in it, regardless of whether you take part as an interested spectator or if you play a dozen different games and monopolise the discussion in the letter column. Most zines are extremely cheap; the low end of the market is 50p an issue, the top end might be around œ1 plus postage. This often fails to cover costs even before editors consider trying to make a profit to recompense for their labours.

And there's the rub. The editor stands to make very little from running a zine other than the admiration and respect of his peers. Sometimes, this isn't enough. Reliability is extremely variable within the amateur postal gaming hobby, but that's not to say that some editors don't keep up an extremely demanding routine of printing a vast, well-run and entertaining routine time after time for many years. It's just that people respect the fact that editors have social lives outside gaming. Zines vary in frequency according to how much they contain and how dedicated the editor is; it's common to try and get issues out monthly and settle for perhaps eight to ten in a year, though there are exceptions on both sides. The variety of zines available means that you can choose one to suit your preferences neatly.

A good zine is a labour of love for an editor. It's something they take pride in, something they want to impress other people with, some way of expressing whatever emotions they feel like. Consequently, zine editors often write about lots of things with little or no connection to games. (Nick Palmer's "Diverging" column is a fine example of the sort of thing.) Once you've been subscribing to a good zine for six or twelve months, you may feel that you know the editor like a close friend; some editors are much more chatty than others, but often you get exposed to tiny details about the editor's life. Many editors are superb writers. When a superb writer speaks in great detail about their life, it's hard not to become their friend.

On top of that, particularly in the Diplomacy side of the hobby, there exist conventions every month or two where people get together en masse for the purpose of not only gaming but gossip and socialising; Diplomacy is a game that really needs players to get away from real life for extended periods of time to be played properly face-to-face, and this suits conventions well. The zine hobby is a good way of acting as a contact network to promote gatherings to play board games in good company; it's more fun to play games against people who you know than against people you don't know - but perhaps best of all to play against people who you half-know.

I'll move towards summing up now. If you play Diplomacy, the board game, then you're missing a lot if you don't play it postally. If you're keen on board war games with an emphasis not so much on tactical subtleties as on managing your relationships with other people, you may enjoy Diplomacy. If you want to feel you've tried a little of everything in PBM, you can't claim to be an expert until you know how zine games feel. If you enjoy football management games, the ones in zines might be a slight retrograde step, but are worth considering. Most other sports are likely to be covered even when there isn't a market for a big-scale high budget professional PBM game.

Generalising from Diplomacy, if you like strategic or abstract board games, someone may be playing one of your favourites somewhere in a zine; if not, you're likely to have a set of willing opponents. Role-players are perhaps slightly less well catered for, but the En Garde! games are directly relevant here and there may be one whose flavour is especially to your own taste. If you like short, ingenious games, look no further. If you've got a simple game that you'd like to run, but you don't want to attract many players or go to great deals of hassle and expense in organisation, then perhaps you might want to run your game in a zine somewhere; perhaps you'll want to start your own zine just for it, perhaps you'll be able to run it as part of someone else's zine. That's a completely different matter, and one on which I'm less able to advise you. That's a lot of "if"s there, but that's because there are so many facets to just this small part of PBM. Zines come with double recommendation if you do enjoy discussing wider issues surrounding games and gamers' lives; those who enjoy reading well-written material in the Diverging style have a lot to choose from. I think I've cast the net far enough that there won't be many people who don't fall into some category or other; zines have their drawbacks and aren't the best form of PBM for everyone, but I hope I've convinced a lot of people that somewhere out there is a zine containing things they'd like to read, games they'd like to play in against opponents who they may not yet know they'd like to know.

Chris, this sounds great! How do I join a zine?

Write to the editor. It's usual for zine editors to send sample copies of their zines for free apart from the cost of a suitably sized SAE.

So how do I find out what zines there are, and which one is right for me?

There's a special zine called Mission From God which contains a list of all UK zines (and some non-UK ones) known to the editor, with lists of what games are running in them, what games there are vacancies in, and reviews of each zine written by readers. These are helpful in creating a shortlist of which zines look interesting; after that, send for samples and try a few out. The man with the plan is John Harrington; send £1 to him and he will send you a copy. 30 Poynter Road, Bush Hill Park, Enfield, Middlesex EN1 1DL Is there somewhere else I could get a different perspective to yours from? Why, yes! Before you send off to that John for Mission From God, send £1 to another John, John Dodds, at 55 Leigham Vale, Streatham, London SW16 2JQ and ask him for a copy of The Novice Package. This will explain the postal zine hobby far more clearly than I ever could - oh, and it's even got a copy of Mission From God with it too!

Any more information specifically about postal Diplomacy? The man to write to there is Stephen Agar, 79 Florence Road, BRIGHTON, BN1 6DL, who writes "The Tangled Web We Weave", the premier Diplomacy discussion zine of the moment. If mind-numbing statistics are what you are after, Richard Sharp, Norton House, Whielden St, Amersham HP7 0HU also writes "The Numbers Game", which maintains details of who has done what to whom in digital form. Lastly "Springboard" is a zine designed principally for the player who has yet to start his first postal Diplomacy game; get in touch with Danny and Kath Collman, 14 Westover Road, BIRMINGHAM B20 1JG.]]> CHRIS DICKSON...

EVER wondered what PBM was like in the old days? When you could pay for your next set of results and still have change from one-and-sixpence?
The history of PBM is an interesting subject; I would wager that the very first games would have been chess by mail and simple two-handed story telling where the participants alternately add chapters to the ongoing plot. One problem that stumped early pioneers of telephony was trying to work out a way to hold a game of poker by telephone; I wonder if they considered trying to play postally? I'd be interested to know otherwise, but it's probable that the first board game designed for more than two converted to postal play was Diplomacy.

For in 1961, a board game called Diplomacy became available to be bought in America, and, soon afterwards, around the world. Seven players take on the role of great European powers from 1900 onwards and battle for control of a majority of thirty-four specified areas in a game played on a stylised map of Europe. The rules are less complex than those of chess. Turns consist of prearranged periods where players talk among one another, making co-operative plans (which they are only weakly ethically bound not to completely break; such backstabbing is usual) for how their pieces will move in the movement phase which features all the pieces moving simultaneously. Importantly, the game features no dice or other random instruments of fortune at all. To get players together for a full game is difficult - you do really need seven people prepared to spend hours (four? eight? sixteen? This only becomes obvious through play) together just on one game.

The postal interpretation was obvious and the earliest games had started by 1963; a central GM (the first recorded one was John Boardman of New York) contacts seven players, assigns them the seven powers, gets each player's orders sent to them each turn, adjudicates the effect of all the pieces on the board moving, and sends a letter containing the current position of the game to each player after every turn. Players can be knocked out in as few as four turns, and a game will typically be declared a win for one player or a joint win for two or more survivors, according to unanimous vote by the players, in between eighteen and thirty turns, though exceptions on both sides are possible.

The reason that postal Diplomacy can be organised at little expense is that there is no more relevant information other than the position of all the thirty-four or fewer pieces on the board and details of their moves. No player can get, or would need, additional or personal information about their position. The GM will therefore produce an adjudication and then send copies of it to each of the seven players. This is less expensive in terms of time and money than having to produce something radically different for every player. Furthermore, it is assumed that all players will know the rules of Diplomacy before they sign on to play; these must either be purchased for $10 directly from Avalon Hill, or, more usually, are obtained by buying a copy of the Diplomacy board game itself. Many other board games have been adapted to postal play in a similar fashion, though it's a little harder for those with a sequential, rather than simultaneous, order of play.

While it was usual for each GM to organise no more than one game of postal Diplomacy for a while, before long the economies of scale and labour savings became evident and people would start to run several games at the same time. Hence the GM would produce a small magazine, often referred to as a fanzine, or just a zine, which would contain the results of several different games and be duplicated en masse to be sent out to all the players in all the games, often with some chat as well. This process carries on in essentially the same fashion to this day.


The zine hobby is much larger than just Diplomacy, though; all of sports PBM has it as its foundation. Another name that every knowledgeable PBM player ought to know and respect is that of Alan Parr. Alan is the man responsible for the United system for running postal football management games that has proved popular and successful for more than twenty years. On top of that, many other PBM football games still running today have their roots firmly in United and are greatly in debt to it, consciously or otherwise. While many football games have evolved separately along similar lines, a lot of them can be traced back to United. Yet football leagues with dozens of players based on rules very close to Alan's (including his own original one in "Hopscotch") run efficiently and enjoyably still today. Another person whom it would be wrong not to mention by name is David Watts, founder of Rostherne Games, inventor of Railway Rivals. Like Diplomacy this is a popular but relatively little-known board game which has proved to be particularly suitable for postal play. Many people claim it is a better game postally than face-to-face (and the German version, Dampfross, of it original face-to-face incarnation won the prestigious Spiel Des Jahres award). Players own railroad companies who build railway tracks on a map in order to connect different towns as efficiently as possible; good building is rewarded with success in the second half of the game, which consists of races of trains between towns along already-built track. Dozens of different maps are available to prolong the game's lifespan, and countless variants of play exist as well. David has invented several other games of the same high quality too, yet Railway Rivals is the most famous one having stood twenty years' test of time.

These are probably the three most popular games found in zines today, but many others are popular and successful. John Harrington developed a board game called Breaking Away specifically with a postal interpretation in mind; each of the six players maintains a team of four cyclists who take part in one race. Points are awarded to the teams whose cyclists reach certain points in the race first. The attraction of the game comes from the elegant and simple way in which it is decided how quickly cyclists may move in future turns; it is based on the slip-streaming principle; the longer the unbroken chain of cyclists you are at the back of, the faster you can go later. Of course, all six players are trying to balance getting at the back of packs and getting ahead to win the race, so you have to try and second-guess what the other players are likely to do. It's an easy game to write orders for, though the strategy is deep and difficult to master. En Garde! is a fantasy role-playing cum strategy game extremely well detailed in Malcolm Smith's article in issue 67 of Flagship, and a number of zines run their own campaigns, usually with perhaps twenty players involved in each. Every game will have its own flavour, though, and the setting is often quite different from the usual seventeenth century French one. With zines being so cheap, you can well afford to take a look at several different scenarios and styles. Again, the players interact in a common setting and the overall results of all the actions are written up as a report sent as part of a zine to all the players. The passion for bad puns is ever-present, though.

Other popular board games that have been found ideal for conversion to zine game format are Sopwith, a rough, simplistic six-player simulation of dogfighting WW2 fighter planes, Hare and Tortoise, an abstract thematic race game with almost no luck involved, and the 18xx series (1830, 1841, 1856 and so on) of games which concentrate as much on share ownership and company business dealings as they do on building track and operating a successful railroad. Many zines have several other games designed principally for postal play indigenous to that magazine; also common are "all-reader" games designed to be extremely simple to play but provide an interesting challenge when you participate against dozens of other readers of the same zine. These games are too simple to want to pay for and play separately, but when you subscribe to the zine already, make a nice little sideline.

It's impossible to generalise as to what zines today contain. There are well over a dozen zines dedicated to running Diplomacy and its variants (games with slightly different rules or slightly different maps), well over a dozen zines dedicated to running United leagues, a good few zines specialising in Railway Rivals and the like, some more specialised zines concentrate on other games, some zines concentrating on games of the editor's own creation, some zines purely for chat, discussion and articles (often about other zines!) and twenty or so other zines which try and bridge the gap between all of the above, by including a little of each. Most of them contain general interest reading material, many have letter columns too (often wildly varying in character from the high-brow, serious and academic to the smutty, anarchic and trashy).

Some zines contain smaller zines run by other people (more properly known as subzines); these are prevalent when an editor wants to feature a topic in detail but isn't an authority on it himself or herself, so takes on all the hassle and expense of coping with a few extra pages in each issue in return for a friend acting as subeditor and producing a section dedicated to the chosen topic. An example of this is when Nick Palmer produced the subzine "Battleground" for discussion and review of war games, which was featured in Richard Sharp's top-rated "Dolchstoss" in the mid-1980s.

Most games in zines are designed so that an identical set of results is sent to every player, and this set of results contains details of everything that has happened in that game. This key feature (every player gets the same report) is probably the most accurate distinction between the zine postal games hobby and "the rest", which is often referred to as pro PBM. The term "amateur PBM" is often used to refer to the zine hobby, which is confusing, as there are plenty of non-profit, run-as-a-hobby games where each player gets their own individualised results.

Zines are, as a rule, produced mainly as a hobby, by the editor as a service to players, to promote postal play of games of the editor's choice, but also for the thrill, ego-boost and self-indulgence of being able to produce whatever they want and capture the interest of the zine's readers. You often really do get an insight into an editor's personality by reading their zine. With the whole community ethos of the hobby, it is traditional and accepted that the editors bear the short end of the stick when it comes to paying for their time and trouble. When you subscribe to a zine, you usually make a one-off payment per issue to participate in it, regardless of whether you take part as an interested spectator or if you play a dozen different games and monopolise the discussion in the letter column. Most zines are extremely cheap; the low end of the market is 50p an issue, the top end might be around œ1 plus postage. This often fails to cover costs even before editors consider trying to make a profit to recompense for their labours.

And there's the rub. The editor stands to make very little from running a zine other than the admiration and respect of his peers. Sometimes, this isn't enough. Reliability is extremely variable within the amateur postal gaming hobby, but that's not to say that some editors don't keep up an extremely demanding routine of printing a vast, well-run and entertaining routine time after time for many years. It's just that people respect the fact that editors have social lives outside gaming. Zines vary in frequency according to how much they contain and how dedicated the editor is; it's common to try and get issues out monthly and settle for perhaps eight to ten in a year, though there are exceptions on both sides. The variety of zines available means that you can choose one to suit your preferences neatly.

A good zine is a labour of love for an editor. It's something they take pride in, something they want to impress other people with, some way of expressing whatever emotions they feel like. Consequently, zine editors often write about lots of things with little or no connection to games. (Nick Palmer's "Diverging" column is a fine example of the sort of thing.) Once you've been subscribing to a good zine for six or twelve months, you may feel that you know the editor like a close friend; some editors are much more chatty than others, but often you get exposed to tiny details about the editor's life. Many editors are superb writers. When a superb writer speaks in great detail about their life, it's hard not to become their friend.

On top of that, particularly in the Diplomacy side of the hobby, there exist conventions every month or two where people get together en masse for the purpose of not only gaming but gossip and socialising; Diplomacy is a game that really needs players to get away from real life for extended periods of time to be played properly face-to-face, and this suits conventions well. The zine hobby is a good way of acting as a contact network to promote gatherings to play board games in good company; it's more fun to play games against people who you know than against people you don't know - but perhaps best of all to play against people who you half-know.

I'll move towards summing up now. If you play Diplomacy, the board game, then you're missing a lot if you don't play it postally. If you're keen on board war games with an emphasis not so much on tactical subtleties as on managing your relationships with other people, you may enjoy Diplomacy. If you want to feel you've tried a little of everything in PBM, you can't claim to be an expert until you know how zine games feel. If you enjoy football management games, the ones in zines might be a slight retrograde step, but are worth considering. Most other sports are likely to be covered even when there isn't a market for a big-scale high budget professional PBM game.

Generalising from Diplomacy, if you like strategic or abstract board games, someone may be playing one of your favourites somewhere in a zine; if not, you're likely to have a set of willing opponents. Role-players are perhaps slightly less well catered for, but the En Garde! games are directly relevant here and there may be one whose flavour is especially to your own taste. If you like short, ingenious games, look no further. If you've got a simple game that you'd like to run, but you don't want to attract many players or go to great deals of hassle and expense in organisation, then perhaps you might want to run your game in a zine somewhere; perhaps you'll want to start your own zine just for it, perhaps you'll be able to run it as part of someone else's zine. That's a completely different matter, and one on which I'm less able to advise you. That's a lot of "if"s there, but that's because there are so many facets to just this small part of PBM. Zines come with double recommendation if you do enjoy discussing wider issues surrounding games and gamers' lives; those who enjoy reading well-written material in the Diverging style have a lot to choose from. I think I've cast the net far enough that there won't be many people who don't fall into some category or other; zines have their drawbacks and aren't the best form of PBM for everyone, but I hope I've convinced a lot of people that somewhere out there is a zine containing things they'd like to read, games they'd like to play in against opponents who they may not yet know they'd like to know.

Chris, this sounds great! How do I join a zine?

Write to the editor. It's usual for zine editors to send sample copies of their zines for free apart from the cost of a suitably sized SAE.

So how do I find out what zines there are, and which one is right for me?

There's a special zine called Mission From God which contains a list of all UK zines (and some non-UK ones) known to the editor, with lists of what games are running in them, what games there are vacancies in, and reviews of each zine written by readers. These are helpful in creating a shortlist of which zines look interesting; after that, send for samples and try a few out. The man with the plan is John Harrington; send £1 to him and he will send you a copy. 30 Poynter Road, Bush Hill Park, Enfield, Middlesex EN1 1DL Is there somewhere else I could get a different perspective to yours from? Why, yes! Before you send off to that John for Mission From God, send £1 to another John, John Dodds, at 55 Leigham Vale, Streatham, London SW16 2JQ and ask him for a copy of The Novice Package. This will explain the postal zine hobby far more clearly than I ever could - oh, and it's even got a copy of Mission From God with it too!

Any more information specifically about postal Diplomacy? The man to write to there is Stephen Agar, 79 Florence Road, BRIGHTON, BN1 6DL, who writes "The Tangled Web We Weave", the premier Diplomacy discussion zine of the moment. If mind-numbing statistics are what you are after, Richard Sharp, Norton House, Whielden St, Amersham HP7 0HU also writes "The Numbers Game", which maintains details of who has done what to whom in digital form. Lastly "Springboard" is a zine designed principally for the player who has yet to start his first postal Diplomacy game; get in touch with Danny and Kath Collman, 14 Westover Road, BIRMINGHAM B20 1JG.]]> http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1146 Sun, 14 Feb 2010 22:25:04 +0100 smurphboogie http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1146 ANDREW BARTON joins battle with monsters and spells in...

It's a Kind of Magic, part 2

It's a Kind of Magic at a glance

Eight Magicians duel by summoning creatures and casting spells. Resembles the card game Magic the Gathering ™, but with original features, and it's not necessary to know the card game to be able to play. Startup & first 5 turns £3.75

MY EARLIER article gave some first impressions of It's a Kind of Magic based on just the first few turns. Now the game is in its later stages, I can give a more complete account of what it's like. I'll describe my game as I played it, and then draw some conclusions.

Starting up - decisions, decisions

At setup, all I had was the list of monsters to choose from in the rulebook. There's a bonus for having a large number of monsters from the same elemental house, so I decide to pick several small Air monsters - Air because that's the house that gives defence bonuses and I want my weenies to survive a while. To start with I ignore the houses that give bonuses in life or gold - no use in having a creature that gives you gold every turn if it only lasts one turn, I reason.

Then, I notice that Air monsters are vulnerable to attacks from Earth, so I pick a few Fire monsters which will be strong against Earth to cover their backs.

Lastly, I pick three of the cheapest monsters going. Every turn, you have to pass three cards to the left, so I pick three I'll be happiest to see go. As the game goes on it seems that everyone else has done likewise, so the same old rubbish mostly just circulates round and round. This feature doesn't really seem to add much to the game.

Opening moves - friends, foes and surprises

Soon, I get the start-up sheet for the game. There are eight players, and there's no restriction on who can attack who, so diplomacy could be important here. Looking at the contact list, two players have only given addresses, one only a phone number, one an email address, and three nothing but their first names! Right, I think, these guys are setting themselves up as targets.

Shortly afterwards I get a note from the other player who gave an email address offering advice and co-operation. Email contact is always useful in the opening stages of a game so I agree to his suggestion to gang up on player 1 (Paul), one of the anonymous types. I also make a deliberate decision to keep a low profile with the other players so as not to put the idea of co-operation into their heads - this works well for some time but may be coming back to haunt me in the endgame, as I'll tell later. My new ally rejoices in the game-name of Gitt. He's played before, and tips me off to expect a spell to appear in the early stages that lets you 'tax' the gold of other players, so I start saving up for it.

When the turn 1 results come back, all seems well. I got lucky in that Gitt's attack went in first, so by the time I attack Paul some of his monsters have already bitten the dust. Gitt only does 5 damage, but I do 15, useful because each point of damage done lets you loot 1 gold from the opponent's Treasury. Also, I tried a trick in the auction of bidding just 1 gold each for three of the ten monsters available - and get one of them because no-one else bids on it at all. The other players are making bids of anything from 5 to 39 gold so a lot of money is being wasted - suits me!
As Gitt predicted a new spell is available: Spell 5: Irritating Tax, Targets: Everyone, Cost: 25 gold: Each turn one gold is taken from everyone and given to caster. Lasts until broken. And, there's no way to break it yet. Sounds nice, I'll have three!

Turn 2 continues in the same vein, but has a sting in the tail. A spell appears called Mini Cataclysm which destroys all level 1 monsters. All but two of my monsters are level 1 - oops!

Turn 3 shows the first sign of co-operation among my opponents. Players 3 and 4 have evidently decided that I'm their best target. One of them casts that nasty new Cataclysm spell, and the other throws Death Bolt spells at my two level 2 monsters, fortunately only killing one of them. Then both steam in against me. When the smoke clears, I have no monsters left on the table and have lost 11 life.

There's one saving grace in the turn results. Each turn, I get three random cards as 'Gifts from the Gods' added to my hand. This turn, one of these is a 'Birdman Healer', which is of my favourite Air house with a defence of 9 and a life income of 4. I lay down the healer and several other Air monsters, and the turn 4 combats have the rather less dramatic outcome of:

Damage inflicted: 0

Damage received: 0

Missed turns and fresh planning

Over the next couple of turns I had some email problems and Gitt finished off our original target while I was missing turns. Time for a new plan ... Player 6 (game name Brew-Know) has been relying on a table line-up of three strong defenders, all air creatures called Grace with a high defence for this stage of the game of 6. I save up, and on turn 7 I cast three Steal - just enough!

Next turn, I try the same trick - this time one Death Bolt is enough to send Brew-Know's life negative. This time he throws more defensive spells and ends up on 1 life.

Turn 10, he tries a new defensive wrinkle. He had two monsters left after turn 9, and gambles that my Death Bolt would be cast on number 1. He casts four different Warding spells on monster number 2, protecting it against attack by monsters of Earth, Air, Fire and Water. That means that a lowly Earth Worm is invulnerable to Gitt's attack of 25 creatures led by two mighty Sun Titans (attack 15, defence 10)! Now he's up to a whole 8 lives.

Meanwhile, my successive attacks on Shocker have reduced him to 2 lives, and player 2 (Darque) is down to 10. The next turn, Gitt attacks Darque, I finish off Shocker, and nobody keeps up the pressure on Brew-Know - he recovers to 26 lives and over the next few turns recovers to comparable strength to the other four remaining players.

Aftermath - more power, more danger

At this point there's a flurry of diplomatic notes. While all this has been going on, Gitt has been casting more and more spells which give him gold income and take it away from the rest of us (at one point he has three Irritating Tax, two Annoying Tax and two Crippling Tax spells - as well as three Blood Drains which merely take away life. Sitco is sending us all messages saying that Gitt must be stopped before he runs away with the game. I don't reply to his first note which is one of those emails that is ALL IN CAPITALS - the email equivalent of spidery letters in green ink -and anyway Gitt has been friendly to me since turn 1. Soon, it appears that I've been bracketed with Gitt and the game settles down roughly into player 4 against me, and the other two against Gitt.

Turn by turn, more powerful spells have been appearing and stronger monsters have become available at auction - Gnome Potentates, Treasure Islands, Juggernauts and finally (I hope!) the Master of the Universe which belongs to all four elemental houses and has stats of 25-25-30-30 ... despite the ever stronger effects these make possible the game seems to have settled down to a fairly stable state with each of the five remaining players having over 100 life and healthy amounts of gold. Gitt's higher income (even though his rivals have found a way of getting rid of some of those Crippling Tax spells) enables him to hold out against two opponents.
A really cunning plan is going to be needed to break the deadlock. I have some ideas, but if my opponents are reading this and expecting me to give away my intentions, they're going to be disappointed!

And finally...

In my first review, I credited It's a Kind of Magic with achieving the difficult combination of short and simple orders and complex strategy, but thought that experienced players might have an excessive advantage from having seen what kinds of spells came up in earlier games. That now seems less of a problem - after all, I've held my own as a novice against veterans. Mark Williams (the designer) aims to provide a continuous supply of new spells in successive games, adjusting balance by setting the gold cost fairly high at first and reducing it in subsequent games for spells that aren't getting chosen much. What I'd hope to see are more spells whose appearance makes players have to reconsider their whole strategy, and re-assess the value of the earlier spells.

There is a significant chance element in the game, some of which isn't apparent on a reading of the rules. Spells go off in a random order and their effects can vary widely accordingly, and the order in which players attack can make the difference between life and death - perhaps there should be a system of bidding gold for the right to choose whether to go first or last?

I've been having a running argument with Mark as to whether the rulebook should spell out the processing order: do spells go off before or after monsters are laid down? - can a player's life go negative during the turn, but be restored to positive later in time for him to survive? I like these points to be spelled out for me but I know that some other players feel differently.

Bottom line: this game has genuine play value, rewards forward planning and allows for a fair amount of twisted cunning. Well worth a look.]]> ANDREW BARTON joins battle with monsters and spells in...

It's a Kind of Magic, part 2

It's a Kind of Magic at a glance

Eight Magicians duel by summoning creatures and casting spells. Resembles the card game Magic the Gathering ™, but with original features, and it's not necessary to know the card game to be able to play. Startup & first 5 turns £3.75

MY EARLIER article gave some first impressions of It's a Kind of Magic based on just the first few turns. Now the game is in its later stages, I can give a more complete account of what it's like. I'll describe my game as I played it, and then draw some conclusions.

Starting up - decisions, decisions

At setup, all I had was the list of monsters to choose from in the rulebook. There's a bonus for having a large number of monsters from the same elemental house, so I decide to pick several small Air monsters - Air because that's the house that gives defence bonuses and I want my weenies to survive a while. To start with I ignore the houses that give bonuses in life or gold - no use in having a creature that gives you gold every turn if it only lasts one turn, I reason.

Then, I notice that Air monsters are vulnerable to attacks from Earth, so I pick a few Fire monsters which will be strong against Earth to cover their backs.

Lastly, I pick three of the cheapest monsters going. Every turn, you have to pass three cards to the left, so I pick three I'll be happiest to see go. As the game goes on it seems that everyone else has done likewise, so the same old rubbish mostly just circulates round and round. This feature doesn't really seem to add much to the game.

Opening moves - friends, foes and surprises

Soon, I get the start-up sheet for the game. There are eight players, and there's no restriction on who can attack who, so diplomacy could be important here. Looking at the contact list, two players have only given addresses, one only a phone number, one an email address, and three nothing but their first names! Right, I think, these guys are setting themselves up as targets.

Shortly afterwards I get a note from the other player who gave an email address offering advice and co-operation. Email contact is always useful in the opening stages of a game so I agree to his suggestion to gang up on player 1 (Paul), one of the anonymous types. I also make a deliberate decision to keep a low profile with the other players so as not to put the idea of co-operation into their heads - this works well for some time but may be coming back to haunt me in the endgame, as I'll tell later. My new ally rejoices in the game-name of Gitt. He's played before, and tips me off to expect a spell to appear in the early stages that lets you 'tax' the gold of other players, so I start saving up for it.

When the turn 1 results come back, all seems well. I got lucky in that Gitt's attack went in first, so by the time I attack Paul some of his monsters have already bitten the dust. Gitt only does 5 damage, but I do 15, useful because each point of damage done lets you loot 1 gold from the opponent's Treasury. Also, I tried a trick in the auction of bidding just 1 gold each for three of the ten monsters available - and get one of them because no-one else bids on it at all. The other players are making bids of anything from 5 to 39 gold so a lot of money is being wasted - suits me!
As Gitt predicted a new spell is available: Spell 5: Irritating Tax, Targets: Everyone, Cost: 25 gold: Each turn one gold is taken from everyone and given to caster. Lasts until broken. And, there's no way to break it yet. Sounds nice, I'll have three!

Turn 2 continues in the same vein, but has a sting in the tail. A spell appears called Mini Cataclysm which destroys all level 1 monsters. All but two of my monsters are level 1 - oops!

Turn 3 shows the first sign of co-operation among my opponents. Players 3 and 4 have evidently decided that I'm their best target. One of them casts that nasty new Cataclysm spell, and the other throws Death Bolt spells at my two level 2 monsters, fortunately only killing one of them. Then both steam in against me. When the smoke clears, I have no monsters left on the table and have lost 11 life.

There's one saving grace in the turn results. Each turn, I get three random cards as 'Gifts from the Gods' added to my hand. This turn, one of these is a 'Birdman Healer', which is of my favourite Air house with a defence of 9 and a life income of 4. I lay down the healer and several other Air monsters, and the turn 4 combats have the rather less dramatic outcome of:

Damage inflicted: 0

Damage received: 0

Missed turns and fresh planning

Over the next couple of turns I had some email problems and Gitt finished off our original target while I was missing turns. Time for a new plan ... Player 6 (game name Brew-Know) has been relying on a table line-up of three strong defenders, all air creatures called Grace with a high defence for this stage of the game of 6. I save up, and on turn 7 I cast three Steal - just enough!

Next turn, I try the same trick - this time one Death Bolt is enough to send Brew-Know's life negative. This time he throws more defensive spells and ends up on 1 life.

Turn 10, he tries a new defensive wrinkle. He had two monsters left after turn 9, and gambles that my Death Bolt would be cast on number 1. He casts four different Warding spells on monster number 2, protecting it against attack by monsters of Earth, Air, Fire and Water. That means that a lowly Earth Worm is invulnerable to Gitt's attack of 25 creatures led by two mighty Sun Titans (attack 15, defence 10)! Now he's up to a whole 8 lives.

Meanwhile, my successive attacks on Shocker have reduced him to 2 lives, and player 2 (Darque) is down to 10. The next turn, Gitt attacks Darque, I finish off Shocker, and nobody keeps up the pressure on Brew-Know - he recovers to 26 lives and over the next few turns recovers to comparable strength to the other four remaining players.

Aftermath - more power, more danger

At this point there's a flurry of diplomatic notes. While all this has been going on, Gitt has been casting more and more spells which give him gold income and take it away from the rest of us (at one point he has three Irritating Tax, two Annoying Tax and two Crippling Tax spells - as well as three Blood Drains which merely take away life. Sitco is sending us all messages saying that Gitt must be stopped before he runs away with the game. I don't reply to his first note which is one of those emails that is ALL IN CAPITALS - the email equivalent of spidery letters in green ink -and anyway Gitt has been friendly to me since turn 1. Soon, it appears that I've been bracketed with Gitt and the game settles down roughly into player 4 against me, and the other two against Gitt.

Turn by turn, more powerful spells have been appearing and stronger monsters have become available at auction - Gnome Potentates, Treasure Islands, Juggernauts and finally (I hope!) the Master of the Universe which belongs to all four elemental houses and has stats of 25-25-30-30 ... despite the ever stronger effects these make possible the game seems to have settled down to a fairly stable state with each of the five remaining players having over 100 life and healthy amounts of gold. Gitt's higher income (even though his rivals have found a way of getting rid of some of those Crippling Tax spells) enables him to hold out against two opponents.
A really cunning plan is going to be needed to break the deadlock. I have some ideas, but if my opponents are reading this and expecting me to give away my intentions, they're going to be disappointed!

And finally...

In my first review, I credited It's a Kind of Magic with achieving the difficult combination of short and simple orders and complex strategy, but thought that experienced players might have an excessive advantage from having seen what kinds of spells came up in earlier games. That now seems less of a problem - after all, I've held my own as a novice against veterans. Mark Williams (the designer) aims to provide a continuous supply of new spells in successive games, adjusting balance by setting the gold cost fairly high at first and reducing it in subsequent games for spells that aren't getting chosen much. What I'd hope to see are more spells whose appearance makes players have to reconsider their whole strategy, and re-assess the value of the earlier spells.

There is a significant chance element in the game, some of which isn't apparent on a reading of the rules. Spells go off in a random order and their effects can vary widely accordingly, and the order in which players attack can make the difference between life and death - perhaps there should be a system of bidding gold for the right to choose whether to go first or last?

I've been having a running argument with Mark as to whether the rulebook should spell out the processing order: do spells go off before or after monsters are laid down? - can a player's life go negative during the turn, but be restored to positive later in time for him to survive? I like these points to be spelled out for me but I know that some other players feel differently.

Bottom line: this game has genuine play value, rewards forward planning and allows for a fair amount of twisted cunning. Well worth a look.]]> http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1145 Sat, 13 Feb 2010 22:22:30 +0100 smurphboogie http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1145 MARTIN LEWIS finds bloodthirsty future in...

No Holds Barred

No Holds Barred at a glance

A computer-moderated sports game run by Laughing Dog. Free startup + 2 turns; subsequent turns £2 per game week or £12 for the whole season.

IT IS the future. People are bored with traditional sports - too bland, not enough blood, poor entertainment value. So a new game is born. The opening scene set by GM Sam Bennett in the rulebook suggested I was about to play postal Rollerball. The game they come up with is a mixture of American Football, all-in wrestling and robot wars. You are the Manager of a team competing in this new sport, and the teams consists of an offence and a defence. They play on a 100-yard long pitch with the aim for the offence of getting the ball into the endzone by running and passing to score points, and for the defence of preventing your opponents doing it.

Hang on readers - don't be put off by the references to AmFoot: this game may use words like 'Run' and 'Pass', but I promise you there isn't a Quarterback, or an End Around in sight here - you do not need to know anything about the Nickel Defense to play this. I know it already sounds like this is a kind of future style AmFoot, but the new sport has some unique twists to it. For a start, you don't just have one opponent per match, you have three. Over the four quarters of play, you play one quarter on offence, three on defence. And there are other ways of scoring points other than by touchdowns - you can 'spike' (shooting the ball at a defender: if you hit, you not only score a point, but you can injure the defender), or you can 'shoot' (shooting the ball at a target in the endzone scores four points). Defensive players score a point for an interception - 6 points if it's returned for a touchdown - and four points for a 'safety' (tackling the offensive player in his own endzone). Note no kicking - not of the ball anyway. For the league points, winning gets you 6, second gets 3, third gets 1, and you get nothing for finishing last.

No, not AmFoot!

The current league is split into 3 divisions, with 20 teams in each, and naturally enough, you play opponents in the same division through the season: the top three go up, the bottom three go down. There's also a cup competition where your opponents will be randomly selected from any division - you too can be a giantkiller. The fixtures are organised so that three weeks out of four, you play the teams next to you in your division - i.e. the top four teams will play each other, then next four in a second fixture and so on. The fourth week is random, but it means you could play the same team week after week. This is actually very useful: you can get to know the opposition and can measure your performances better against them.

Your job as manager isn't just about playing each game. You are responsible for hiring and firing of players and coaches. You organise the players' training and equipment. You negotiate with sponsors, scout opponents, build up your ground, deal with the supporters club, set ticket and merchandise prices, and leap tall buildings in a single bound. However, if you don't win your games, you won't have the money or credibility to do these additional tasks properly, so first, let's concentrate on the players you have to work with, and what you set up in your gameplan.

You don't need AmFoot style numbers of players in your squad: in each game, you only have six players on offence and three on defence, so your squad is far more manageable. The standard squad is twelve, but trading, drafting and injuries will affect this week by week. Your players have contracts and must be paid a fair day's wage for a fair day's maiming. In what I believe to be the only irritating aspect of this game, the players' names seem generated by computer and though most are pronounceable, it's difficult to identify with a player who's name consists solely of the higher-scoring Scrabble letters with one vowel. I also feel some sympathy for the team who has a guy named 'Feepimp' on their books. Each player has basic ability ratings for passing, running, catching, shooting, blocking and tackling, and they're all numbers instead of descriptive, so you can see who's better than who. It's a violent sport, so you also have ratings for form/injury, and for armour (protection) and cybernetics (to aid recovery from injury). Players have popularity ratings with the fans -nobody wants to watch unexciting players. A sinister addition is a rating for mutation - want a new skin that's as tough as steel? Sam warns managers that 'mutations can be very dodgy': which presumably means that instead of a body like the Terminator, you could end up with a body like Davros.

What to do, what to do...

Moving on to the gameplan, it's a fairly simple page to fill out. For offence, you need to identify six players, and specify how much possession they'll get, what percentage of that possession is an attempted pass, run or spike/shoot, and what distance they'll pass or spike/shoot for. The defence needs three different players, and all they need to be told is who to key on for each of the other teams, how hard they'll hit, and how much of their time they'll be going for the man instead of the ball! In a recently added feature to the game, you can now specify what your first five offensive plays will be, including who gets the ball. Finally, if you're playing at home, you can also control gravity! Playing a team who pass everything? Set a high gravity level and they'll go nowhere!

That's the game taken care of, now for all those extra duties, like the prices you'll charge in the club shop for the latest away strip. Each player can be trained in one area, and equipped with more armour, cybernetics or mutations. You get slots to bid for players on the transfer lists, as well as being able to put your own players on them. You also get one opportunity per turn to improve your ground - there are a host of options to choose from, ranging from building executive boxes for the fans, to building anti-crowd trouble devices. You have two scouts who can do a team each - probably best to look at the teams you're likely to be playing next.

And what's happened

The results you get back in a week or two are very detailed and clearly formatted - and were made even more so in the recent upgrade to the game. As you might expect, there's a full play by play (with commentator's verdict) and statistics report, and your two scouting reports. It is the extra duties though which give this game that distinctive dimension: you have a report from your supporters' club spokesman, and a full rundown of your players' training, fitness, and extra-curricular activities. One of my players obviously has the right idea and visits sick children in hospital, but another is a regular guest on a new TV quiz show 'What's My Kink?'. Training is variable: some players improve, some don't, and each improvement adds a point here and there. The financial statement shows how your weekly transactions affect the bank balance, and your sponsor adds his contribution. A separate A5 booklet gives a run down on the results across all divisions, and the format here is to give a detailed report from one of the five games in each division, and a summary of the other four - so you do get to hear about the players making the news. This is topped off with full seasonal statistics and team ratings in offence and defence.

Getting the tactics right is the usual sort of see-if-this-works style at first. You haven't many options to play around with and with frequent injuries, you'll have to adjust your team weekly to take into account the players available and their skills. Defensively, keying opposition players is a must, and while initially you may not know their names, you can key by number instead and take pot luck. Obviously you're dealing with random numbers here, and in the course of your 50 (on average) offensive plays, that means a player with the specification of 50% possession will be involved in 25 of them - with that level of involvement, he will get hit and he will be injured! So you can't rely on one superstar, you have to spread the ball around. To illustrate the injury potential, in my last match, out of fifteen players in his team, one of my opponents has twelve of them carrying injuries.

At the end of the 25-week season, there's promotion, relegation, aging, contract renewal, and the draft. This is an odd affair. Your team is a particular nationality, and Sam warns (mildly) that your fans wont tolerate any foreign rubbish in the team, so you're restricted - generally - to players with the same nationality. The draft does contain a wild variety of abilities, and unlike some games, rookies can be stars from the start, though you only get to pick two players from it. My feeling was that it takes a little experience of the game to get the salary structure right, so new managers coming in at the draft might get financially stretched at first. With the new season, you get to choose one of a list of sponsors, each of whom offers something to the club - straight cash, new stadium, top-quality coaches or a win bonus for example. You hire new coaching staff - higher wages, better coaches. The effects of aging appeared very minor on my team despite a wide variety of ages in the squad, and I was lucky not to have to negotiate new contracts - basically you make a derisory offer, the player rejects it, you make a reasonable offer and all's well.

The ref

Laughing Dog is run by Sam Bennett, a 10-year veteran of designing and running PBM games. The company was expanded by the addition of two more specialists last year, and they already have a couple more games in the pipeline as well as plans to expand into Internet gaming. From my experiences, Sam is very helpful and willing both to listen to, and to implement, new ideas that his players raise. Already since I've been playing it, he's introduced more extras, to - as he puts it - remove the emphasis on statistics and make the game a little more human. All of these have improved the game and made the results more interesting to read. About half of the sixty teams in the three divisions are computer-controlled, and I can't tell which teams are run by human and which by computer: this means dropouts (of which there has only ever been one) have very little effect, and teams without managers don't suffer any penalty in terms of performance and position - they can be taken over any time in a very satisfactory state, as I did myself). You don't have to talk to other managers at all - and not once has even the name of another manager been revealed: there's nothing odd about this, all trading is done through the transfer lists, and with only two draft picks, there's no real scope for trading these. That's No Holds Barred - and the cost for all this is a very reasonable œ2 per game week, and you don't have to commit to the full season in advance.

The verdict

So what's the verdict? Well, I'm still playing in it even after the reviewer's credit was used up. There aren't many down-sides to this game: the unrealistic players' names, and the fact that the deadline date is not very prominent on the results are minor ones. Like any statistics-rich sports game, you could spend hours poring over them looking for that edge, but you don't have to here to get reasonable results - though to be honest, the real stats freaks will probably find No Holds Barred to be too much on the simple side to enjoy it.

There's a variety of features to deal with aside from the game result anyway and if you don't play any sports games at all - being put off by the thought of wading through mountains of stats - give this one a look as a painless and light-hearted way into the genre. Sam is looking for new managers to fill up the computer-run teams, and by the time you read this, the season will be about a third of the way through, so I reckon joining now would be ideal to give you experience of the game and how it all works for you before you get to the end of season decisions.]]> MARTIN LEWIS finds bloodthirsty future in...

No Holds Barred

No Holds Barred at a glance

A computer-moderated sports game run by Laughing Dog. Free startup + 2 turns; subsequent turns £2 per game week or £12 for the whole season.

IT IS the future. People are bored with traditional sports - too bland, not enough blood, poor entertainment value. So a new game is born. The opening scene set by GM Sam Bennett in the rulebook suggested I was about to play postal Rollerball. The game they come up with is a mixture of American Football, all-in wrestling and robot wars. You are the Manager of a team competing in this new sport, and the teams consists of an offence and a defence. They play on a 100-yard long pitch with the aim for the offence of getting the ball into the endzone by running and passing to score points, and for the defence of preventing your opponents doing it.

Hang on readers - don't be put off by the references to AmFoot: this game may use words like 'Run' and 'Pass', but I promise you there isn't a Quarterback, or an End Around in sight here - you do not need to know anything about the Nickel Defense to play this. I know it already sounds like this is a kind of future style AmFoot, but the new sport has some unique twists to it. For a start, you don't just have one opponent per match, you have three. Over the four quarters of play, you play one quarter on offence, three on defence. And there are other ways of scoring points other than by touchdowns - you can 'spike' (shooting the ball at a defender: if you hit, you not only score a point, but you can injure the defender), or you can 'shoot' (shooting the ball at a target in the endzone scores four points). Defensive players score a point for an interception - 6 points if it's returned for a touchdown - and four points for a 'safety' (tackling the offensive player in his own endzone). Note no kicking - not of the ball anyway. For the league points, winning gets you 6, second gets 3, third gets 1, and you get nothing for finishing last.

No, not AmFoot!

The current league is split into 3 divisions, with 20 teams in each, and naturally enough, you play opponents in the same division through the season: the top three go up, the bottom three go down. There's also a cup competition where your opponents will be randomly selected from any division - you too can be a giantkiller. The fixtures are organised so that three weeks out of four, you play the teams next to you in your division - i.e. the top four teams will play each other, then next four in a second fixture and so on. The fourth week is random, but it means you could play the same team week after week. This is actually very useful: you can get to know the opposition and can measure your performances better against them.

Your job as manager isn't just about playing each game. You are responsible for hiring and firing of players and coaches. You organise the players' training and equipment. You negotiate with sponsors, scout opponents, build up your ground, deal with the supporters club, set ticket and merchandise prices, and leap tall buildings in a single bound. However, if you don't win your games, you won't have the money or credibility to do these additional tasks properly, so first, let's concentrate on the players you have to work with, and what you set up in your gameplan.

You don't need AmFoot style numbers of players in your squad: in each game, you only have six players on offence and three on defence, so your squad is far more manageable. The standard squad is twelve, but trading, drafting and injuries will affect this week by week. Your players have contracts and must be paid a fair day's wage for a fair day's maiming. In what I believe to be the only irritating aspect of this game, the players' names seem generated by computer and though most are pronounceable, it's difficult to identify with a player who's name consists solely of the higher-scoring Scrabble letters with one vowel. I also feel some sympathy for the team who has a guy named 'Feepimp' on their books. Each player has basic ability ratings for passing, running, catching, shooting, blocking and tackling, and they're all numbers instead of descriptive, so you can see who's better than who. It's a violent sport, so you also have ratings for form/injury, and for armour (protection) and cybernetics (to aid recovery from injury). Players have popularity ratings with the fans -nobody wants to watch unexciting players. A sinister addition is a rating for mutation - want a new skin that's as tough as steel? Sam warns managers that 'mutations can be very dodgy': which presumably means that instead of a body like the Terminator, you could end up with a body like Davros.

What to do, what to do...

Moving on to the gameplan, it's a fairly simple page to fill out. For offence, you need to identify six players, and specify how much possession they'll get, what percentage of that possession is an attempted pass, run or spike/shoot, and what distance they'll pass or spike/shoot for. The defence needs three different players, and all they need to be told is who to key on for each of the other teams, how hard they'll hit, and how much of their time they'll be going for the man instead of the ball! In a recently added feature to the game, you can now specify what your first five offensive plays will be, including who gets the ball. Finally, if you're playing at home, you can also control gravity! Playing a team who pass everything? Set a high gravity level and they'll go nowhere!

That's the game taken care of, now for all those extra duties, like the prices you'll charge in the club shop for the latest away strip. Each player can be trained in one area, and equipped with more armour, cybernetics or mutations. You get slots to bid for players on the transfer lists, as well as being able to put your own players on them. You also get one opportunity per turn to improve your ground - there are a host of options to choose from, ranging from building executive boxes for the fans, to building anti-crowd trouble devices. You have two scouts who can do a team each - probably best to look at the teams you're likely to be playing next.

And what's happened

The results you get back in a week or two are very detailed and clearly formatted - and were made even more so in the recent upgrade to the game. As you might expect, there's a full play by play (with commentator's verdict) and statistics report, and your two scouting reports. It is the extra duties though which give this game that distinctive dimension: you have a report from your supporters' club spokesman, and a full rundown of your players' training, fitness, and extra-curricular activities. One of my players obviously has the right idea and visits sick children in hospital, but another is a regular guest on a new TV quiz show 'What's My Kink?'. Training is variable: some players improve, some don't, and each improvement adds a point here and there. The financial statement shows how your weekly transactions affect the bank balance, and your sponsor adds his contribution. A separate A5 booklet gives a run down on the results across all divisions, and the format here is to give a detailed report from one of the five games in each division, and a summary of the other four - so you do get to hear about the players making the news. This is topped off with full seasonal statistics and team ratings in offence and defence.

Getting the tactics right is the usual sort of see-if-this-works style at first. You haven't many options to play around with and with frequent injuries, you'll have to adjust your team weekly to take into account the players available and their skills. Defensively, keying opposition players is a must, and while initially you may not know their names, you can key by number instead and take pot luck. Obviously you're dealing with random numbers here, and in the course of your 50 (on average) offensive plays, that means a player with the specification of 50% possession will be involved in 25 of them - with that level of involvement, he will get hit and he will be injured! So you can't rely on one superstar, you have to spread the ball around. To illustrate the injury potential, in my last match, out of fifteen players in his team, one of my opponents has twelve of them carrying injuries.

At the end of the 25-week season, there's promotion, relegation, aging, contract renewal, and the draft. This is an odd affair. Your team is a particular nationality, and Sam warns (mildly) that your fans wont tolerate any foreign rubbish in the team, so you're restricted - generally - to players with the same nationality. The draft does contain a wild variety of abilities, and unlike some games, rookies can be stars from the start, though you only get to pick two players from it. My feeling was that it takes a little experience of the game to get the salary structure right, so new managers coming in at the draft might get financially stretched at first. With the new season, you get to choose one of a list of sponsors, each of whom offers something to the club - straight cash, new stadium, top-quality coaches or a win bonus for example. You hire new coaching staff - higher wages, better coaches. The effects of aging appeared very minor on my team despite a wide variety of ages in the squad, and I was lucky not to have to negotiate new contracts - basically you make a derisory offer, the player rejects it, you make a reasonable offer and all's well.

The ref

Laughing Dog is run by Sam Bennett, a 10-year veteran of designing and running PBM games. The company was expanded by the addition of two more specialists last year, and they already have a couple more games in the pipeline as well as plans to expand into Internet gaming. From my experiences, Sam is very helpful and willing both to listen to, and to implement, new ideas that his players raise. Already since I've been playing it, he's introduced more extras, to - as he puts it - remove the emphasis on statistics and make the game a little more human. All of these have improved the game and made the results more interesting to read. About half of the sixty teams in the three divisions are computer-controlled, and I can't tell which teams are run by human and which by computer: this means dropouts (of which there has only ever been one) have very little effect, and teams without managers don't suffer any penalty in terms of performance and position - they can be taken over any time in a very satisfactory state, as I did myself). You don't have to talk to other managers at all - and not once has even the name of another manager been revealed: there's nothing odd about this, all trading is done through the transfer lists, and with only two draft picks, there's no real scope for trading these. That's No Holds Barred - and the cost for all this is a very reasonable œ2 per game week, and you don't have to commit to the full season in advance.

The verdict

So what's the verdict? Well, I'm still playing in it even after the reviewer's credit was used up. There aren't many down-sides to this game: the unrealistic players' names, and the fact that the deadline date is not very prominent on the results are minor ones. Like any statistics-rich sports game, you could spend hours poring over them looking for that edge, but you don't have to here to get reasonable results - though to be honest, the real stats freaks will probably find No Holds Barred to be too much on the simple side to enjoy it.

There's a variety of features to deal with aside from the game result anyway and if you don't play any sports games at all - being put off by the thought of wading through mountains of stats - give this one a look as a painless and light-hearted way into the genre. Sam is looking for new managers to fill up the computer-run teams, and by the time you read this, the season will be about a third of the way through, so I reckon joining now would be ideal to give you experience of the game and how it all works for you before you get to the end of season decisions.]]> http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1144 Thu, 11 Feb 2010 23:16:45 +0100 smurphboogie http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1144 ALAN JEFFREYS gasps at the detail in...

Scoreline Soccer

PBM GAMERS can sometimes come up against a game that forces them to change the way they usually play. A game that invokes a change so pronounced that they'll think their life is complete!

Scoreline Soccer is the most recent game that I've tried. Although it's new to me, the game has been around for quite some time. It's a football simulation ratings game and the most prominent fact about it is that the simulation label holds true, that is to say that the game is frighteningly realistic and not for the faint-hearted. Players are rated (out of 1000) according to their abilities and skill level in real life. Therefore, with a little wheeling and dealing it is entirely possible for you to create the England/Scotland squad or any other squad, assuming you can acquire and afford the players you desire.

Getting going

I was rather impressed by the Scoreline start-up pack. The rulebook is functional, uncluttered and easy to understand. A managerial contract also comes as part of the start-up and was an unusual surprise, but a nice touch nevertheless. Other start-up material included club records and history sheets, squad listings (most important), reserve squad listings, a season schedule (don't miss those deadlines), a fixture list (lambs to the slaughter), costs list (boo, hiss) and a sample turn. Also included are Internal contact slips for use in the internal mailing system; I'd recommend photocopying this sheet as a replacement costs 20p.

Scoreline is a very easy game to pick up, once you've waded through the immaculately laser-printed start-up material. The game could easily be slotted into the medium complexity bracket of the sporting category with the usual familiar features: league matches, players (obviously), transfer values, transfer lists, Man of the Match awards, top scorers, league tables (another obvious one), cup competitions, attendances as well as other features that are not included in run-of-the-mill games like TV coverage (live), TV Highlights, Anglo-Italian and Anglo-American cup competitions, transfer confirmations, block scouting reports and management status reports.

The last two of these are optional extras.

Multi-Scout and management status

A block scouting report, or Multi-Scout, is a monster of a report and can be obtained for any team in the game. It gives a complete run-down of all first-team players in the squad selected, codes for which are included as part of the start-up pack, detailing just about everything you could think to include about the player: position, age , rating, date of birth, overall rating, fitness, aggression, mental status (meaning focus, not schizophrenia), natural abilities, potential and percentages on abilities like passing, shooting, marking, composure - the list goes on. It also details current required wages and valuation (vital for successful transfers). This big report costs a staggering œ3.50 but is great value for what you get back as well as giving some important insights into your or an opponent's squad.

Management status reports are a lot smaller and are also a lot cheaper. They can also be obtained for any team, by using the appropriate team code, and show how a team manager's performances to date are viewed by the supporters, club directors and given a job security rating (ooeerr!!). Other info on this little extra, costing just 25p each time, highlights club progress, in the transfer market-media and finances, and team progress, performance on the pitch - team blend and team morale. Although this extra may not seem as important as a Multi-Scout report, it is important to monitor now and again, if for no better reason than your own peace of mind.

It's possible to get away with choosing most of the important extras only every three or four turns.

Decisions, decisions

The turn report itself is one that most footie players/fans would expect. A results sheet that gives all of those all-important fixtures, highlighting who played who, who scored and when, if there were any bookings, who the man of the match was etc. Also included is a sheet showing the league table, allowing managers to see how their bad/good results have affected league position. Am I the only one who always seems to be in a relegation battle in every game I play?, answers on a postcard to... The best bit is the double-sided A4 newszine that comes each turn. This little goldmine of information allows the astute manager to watch for any major transfer activity and plan accordingly. The newszine also gives a brief description of who starred in the most exciting of the leagues games that turn; it's no wonder then that my team didn't get a mention.

As mentioned before, Scoreline is easy to pick up, and consequently easy to play. All you need to do is pick your best team and post it back. Mastering this gem of a football sim is like trying to light a camp-fire in a force 10 gale, it can be done theoretically but it ain't gonna be easy, pardner (brief lapse as John Wayne comes onto telly). Poring over player and squad scouting and fitness reports are the norm for any diligent footie fanatic. But, the wealth of information on hand to the willing manager is awesome and only the staunchest or most foolhardy would try to work through it all in one sitting. A couple of hours a night to get that elusive working, who's kidding who, team blend and the team is picked. I grudgingly fill out the team sheet and mark the players' position on the lovely little footie pitch graphic on the turn-sheet; I feel like Alan Hansen already; is that a good thing? The final act is to take that long walk to the post box, gradually getting that feeling managers all over the whole world get, that everything is almost certainly going to go horribly wrong.

Extras

Extras abound in this game. There are loads of them, ranging from a squad-update to foreign player listings. Some of these are essential, in my opinion, to achieve that frequently stated team-blend that will lead to domestic success and then the world (maniacal laughter). I'd recommend ordering a squad form sheet, showing who is and who isn't in form, and an opponent summary sheet, showing who the danger men in that particular team, every turn. The most important extras are the two Special Tasks Hints & Tips sheets; obtaining these at the start should be a main priority as they contain some useful tactical ploys.

Other extras vary in their importance and usefulness. It is up to the players to decide which are relevant to their style of play and which are not. The In-depth match report is just what its title suggests. It shows the score and scorers (as in the league results sheet) but also gives a breakdown of chances and balance of play, showing no. of corners, freekicks, chances on and off-target etc. This sheet also highlights team effectiveness in attack, midfield and defence. Lastly a brief summary of the match is given, highlighting moments of excitement as well as showing the game's entertainment rating, another unusual touch whose purpose still baffles me. Alternatively a cut-down version of this sheet is available, The Match Analysis Sheet, and can be obtained at 25p instead of 40p giving the same information but excluding the summary and break-down of chances. As mentioned before it's up to you which, if either, you'd prefer.

The real world

Scoreline oozes professionalism. The look and feel of the game is enough to make any lover of the beautiful game gibber and drool whilst repeating famous sayings like 'It's a funny old game' and my personal favourite, 'It's a game of two halves'.

There are drawbacks, however, and one of these, in my opinion, is the inability for the manager to initiate a coaching system to train individual players and possibly turn that up-and-coming youngster into a superstar of tomorrow. To improve a player's rating in Scoreline he has to improve in real life and then the diligent manger should submit a Re-Rate extras sheet. The Scoreline league will then make a ruling and change the player's rating, assuming you've thrown them a bung or two. This makes the game closer to real life than many games that I personally have seen. The efforts of the Scoreline staff should be applauded as this feat in itself is awesome. The players in the game are therefore a true reflection of the guys we like to watch on the TV and thus achieving a true balance between players and tactics, as in real football management, should be the main aim of the manager who wants to be successful.

What really makes the game is the wealth of obvious, diverse and plain nasty tactics available to the team manager. The turn-sheet also has space for more experienced, affluent managers to direct team tactics/motivation at differing intervals during the game. This allows managers to berate their teams on a lack-lustre performance or to ensure that they do not become complacent. One thing that I have noticed that is missing is that a Jack Charlton-like sideline protest is not possible; what a shame!

Goalscoring

So what's the game really like to play? Well, it's a football game: waiting for your results is exciting enough, until you open the envelope... It's not easy to take disappointments in your stride but for some strange reason we all seem to come back for more, sometimes in our thousands, reminding me of lemmings, well just a bit. Football is one of those institutions and Scoreline is destined to become one itself. The amount of data that the company have pumped into their game is staggering and helps in no small measure to add to the almost palpable realism. It would be very hard to find a larger, better, smoother-run game in PBM. I'm sure that someone in the future will try but they'll find that they are facing a task of monumental proportions.

Scoreline Soccer offers everything other footie ratings games do and then throws in those little extras that make you go, oohhh!! Bearing this in mind it is very easy to become dispirited as your lightning tactics and blinding strategies are dashed upon the rocks of failure, annoying the fans, the directors as well as affecting players' form/morale. It is not impossible, therefore, that mangers may be given the sack, not something that'd make me very happy to say the least, but is, nonetheless frighteningly very realistic. My only gripe are the costs of the extras as these can rapidly mount up and could bring the cost of a turn up to around £4.00. You can get by without the extras, but unless you're a football guru, like Stato, and know who can play where, what way and how fit they are, then you're gonna need 'em, pardner! (John's back on the telly). All in all if you're either a footie fan or statistics are your thing then this great looking game is one that could be for you and may hold your long-term interest, well worth looking into, you may be surprised by what you find: I was.

Scoreline Soccer at a glance

Start-up costs £5.00 and includes two turns. Further turns cost £2.75. Turnaround is about every 14-17 days which is a perfect duration for planning and transfer dealing. Additional extras are individually priced and range from 20p up to a staggering £3.50 for the team-scouting option.]]> ALAN JEFFREYS gasps at the detail in...

Scoreline Soccer

PBM GAMERS can sometimes come up against a game that forces them to change the way they usually play. A game that invokes a change so pronounced that they'll think their life is complete!

Scoreline Soccer is the most recent game that I've tried. Although it's new to me, the game has been around for quite some time. It's a football simulation ratings game and the most prominent fact about it is that the simulation label holds true, that is to say that the game is frighteningly realistic and not for the faint-hearted. Players are rated (out of 1000) according to their abilities and skill level in real life. Therefore, with a little wheeling and dealing it is entirely possible for you to create the England/Scotland squad or any other squad, assuming you can acquire and afford the players you desire.

Getting going

I was rather impressed by the Scoreline start-up pack. The rulebook is functional, uncluttered and easy to understand. A managerial contract also comes as part of the start-up and was an unusual surprise, but a nice touch nevertheless. Other start-up material included club records and history sheets, squad listings (most important), reserve squad listings, a season schedule (don't miss those deadlines), a fixture list (lambs to the slaughter), costs list (boo, hiss) and a sample turn. Also included are Internal contact slips for use in the internal mailing system; I'd recommend photocopying this sheet as a replacement costs 20p.

Scoreline is a very easy game to pick up, once you've waded through the immaculately laser-printed start-up material. The game could easily be slotted into the medium complexity bracket of the sporting category with the usual familiar features: league matches, players (obviously), transfer values, transfer lists, Man of the Match awards, top scorers, league tables (another obvious one), cup competitions, attendances as well as other features that are not included in run-of-the-mill games like TV coverage (live), TV Highlights, Anglo-Italian and Anglo-American cup competitions, transfer confirmations, block scouting reports and management status reports.

The last two of these are optional extras.

Multi-Scout and management status

A block scouting report, or Multi-Scout, is a monster of a report and can be obtained for any team in the game. It gives a complete run-down of all first-team players in the squad selected, codes for which are included as part of the start-up pack, detailing just about everything you could think to include about the player: position, age , rating, date of birth, overall rating, fitness, aggression, mental status (meaning focus, not schizophrenia), natural abilities, potential and percentages on abilities like passing, shooting, marking, composure - the list goes on. It also details current required wages and valuation (vital for successful transfers). This big report costs a staggering œ3.50 but is great value for what you get back as well as giving some important insights into your or an opponent's squad.

Management status reports are a lot smaller and are also a lot cheaper. They can also be obtained for any team, by using the appropriate team code, and show how a team manager's performances to date are viewed by the supporters, club directors and given a job security rating (ooeerr!!). Other info on this little extra, costing just 25p each time, highlights club progress, in the transfer market-media and finances, and team progress, performance on the pitch - team blend and team morale. Although this extra may not seem as important as a Multi-Scout report, it is important to monitor now and again, if for no better reason than your own peace of mind.

It's possible to get away with choosing most of the important extras only every three or four turns.

Decisions, decisions

The turn report itself is one that most footie players/fans would expect. A results sheet that gives all of those all-important fixtures, highlighting who played who, who scored and when, if there were any bookings, who the man of the match was etc. Also included is a sheet showing the league table, allowing managers to see how their bad/good results have affected league position. Am I the only one who always seems to be in a relegation battle in every game I play?, answers on a postcard to... The best bit is the double-sided A4 newszine that comes each turn. This little goldmine of information allows the astute manager to watch for any major transfer activity and plan accordingly. The newszine also gives a brief description of who starred in the most exciting of the leagues games that turn; it's no wonder then that my team didn't get a mention.

As mentioned before, Scoreline is easy to pick up, and consequently easy to play. All you need to do is pick your best team and post it back. Mastering this gem of a football sim is like trying to light a camp-fire in a force 10 gale, it can be done theoretically but it ain't gonna be easy, pardner (brief lapse as John Wayne comes onto telly). Poring over player and squad scouting and fitness reports are the norm for any diligent footie fanatic. But, the wealth of information on hand to the willing manager is awesome and only the staunchest or most foolhardy would try to work through it all in one sitting. A couple of hours a night to get that elusive working, who's kidding who, team blend and the team is picked. I grudgingly fill out the team sheet and mark the players' position on the lovely little footie pitch graphic on the turn-sheet; I feel like Alan Hansen already; is that a good thing? The final act is to take that long walk to the post box, gradually getting that feeling managers all over the whole world get, that everything is almost certainly going to go horribly wrong.

Extras

Extras abound in this game. There are loads of them, ranging from a squad-update to foreign player listings. Some of these are essential, in my opinion, to achieve that frequently stated team-blend that will lead to domestic success and then the world (maniacal laughter). I'd recommend ordering a squad form sheet, showing who is and who isn't in form, and an opponent summary sheet, showing who the danger men in that particular team, every turn. The most important extras are the two Special Tasks Hints & Tips sheets; obtaining these at the start should be a main priority as they contain some useful tactical ploys.

Other extras vary in their importance and usefulness. It is up to the players to decide which are relevant to their style of play and which are not. The In-depth match report is just what its title suggests. It shows the score and scorers (as in the league results sheet) but also gives a breakdown of chances and balance of play, showing no. of corners, freekicks, chances on and off-target etc. This sheet also highlights team effectiveness in attack, midfield and defence. Lastly a brief summary of the match is given, highlighting moments of excitement as well as showing the game's entertainment rating, another unusual touch whose purpose still baffles me. Alternatively a cut-down version of this sheet is available, The Match Analysis Sheet, and can be obtained at 25p instead of 40p giving the same information but excluding the summary and break-down of chances. As mentioned before it's up to you which, if either, you'd prefer.

The real world

Scoreline oozes professionalism. The look and feel of the game is enough to make any lover of the beautiful game gibber and drool whilst repeating famous sayings like 'It's a funny old game' and my personal favourite, 'It's a game of two halves'.

There are drawbacks, however, and one of these, in my opinion, is the inability for the manager to initiate a coaching system to train individual players and possibly turn that up-and-coming youngster into a superstar of tomorrow. To improve a player's rating in Scoreline he has to improve in real life and then the diligent manger should submit a Re-Rate extras sheet. The Scoreline league will then make a ruling and change the player's rating, assuming you've thrown them a bung or two. This makes the game closer to real life than many games that I personally have seen. The efforts of the Scoreline staff should be applauded as this feat in itself is awesome. The players in the game are therefore a true reflection of the guys we like to watch on the TV and thus achieving a true balance between players and tactics, as in real football management, should be the main aim of the manager who wants to be successful.

What really makes the game is the wealth of obvious, diverse and plain nasty tactics available to the team manager. The turn-sheet also has space for more experienced, affluent managers to direct team tactics/motivation at differing intervals during the game. This allows managers to berate their teams on a lack-lustre performance or to ensure that they do not become complacent. One thing that I have noticed that is missing is that a Jack Charlton-like sideline protest is not possible; what a shame!

Goalscoring

So what's the game really like to play? Well, it's a football game: waiting for your results is exciting enough, until you open the envelope... It's not easy to take disappointments in your stride but for some strange reason we all seem to come back for more, sometimes in our thousands, reminding me of lemmings, well just a bit. Football is one of those institutions and Scoreline is destined to become one itself. The amount of data that the company have pumped into their game is staggering and helps in no small measure to add to the almost palpable realism. It would be very hard to find a larger, better, smoother-run game in PBM. I'm sure that someone in the future will try but they'll find that they are facing a task of monumental proportions.

Scoreline Soccer offers everything other footie ratings games do and then throws in those little extras that make you go, oohhh!! Bearing this in mind it is very easy to become dispirited as your lightning tactics and blinding strategies are dashed upon the rocks of failure, annoying the fans, the directors as well as affecting players' form/morale. It is not impossible, therefore, that mangers may be given the sack, not something that'd make me very happy to say the least, but is, nonetheless frighteningly very realistic. My only gripe are the costs of the extras as these can rapidly mount up and could bring the cost of a turn up to around £4.00. You can get by without the extras, but unless you're a football guru, like Stato, and know who can play where, what way and how fit they are, then you're gonna need 'em, pardner! (John's back on the telly). All in all if you're either a footie fan or statistics are your thing then this great looking game is one that could be for you and may hold your long-term interest, well worth looking into, you may be surprised by what you find: I was.

Scoreline Soccer at a glance

Start-up costs £5.00 and includes two turns. Further turns cost £2.75. Turnaround is about every 14-17 days which is a perfect duration for planning and transfer dealing. Additional extras are individually priced and range from 20p up to a staggering £3.50 for the team-scouting option.]]> http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1139 Wed, 10 Feb 2010 00:24:26 +0100 smurphboogie http://www.flagshipmagazine.com/showthread.php?tid=1139 A double feature! ALAN HUYTON and STUART LORIMER ponder what's explicable about...

UNEXPLAINED

UNEXPLAINED at a glance

A hand-moderated team game from Undying King, where player characters investigate mysteries. £10 for startup and 3 turns; further turns £3 each.

Turnaround is normally two weeks; slower games (four-week turnaround) are available, although this may mean a longer wait to start. Available on the Supercoupon.

Your reviewer at a glance

Alan Huyton, 39, living near Brussels since 1990 when he went to work for the European Commission. Has been playing games since childhood and hasn't stopped yet. Not a bad Chess player (especially with the Sicilian Dragon), but lacks practice. Current favourites are the boardgames Airlines and Railway Rivals. A bit of a hiatus in PBM outside of United and Railway Rival zines but waiting for a goodie to come along. Apart from work and gaming, studying for an MA in History with the Open University and has three children. Email address is 100424.650@compuserve.com and you're welcome to write.

ALAN HUYTON's UNEXPLAINED file starts here...

A look at the evidence

UNEXPLAINED is a roleplaying game where each of a group of six players represents an investigator from the shadowy Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained (SITU). Each game is a mystery which takes place over 12 turns, but which forms part of a longer-term campaign in which your character can advance, if he or she survives. Don't expect much explanation from the rulebook; you receive a rather thin booklet with a couple of pages of vague background, a page or two on character creation, a brief description on how to play the game and some sample characters. It's not a lot but you don't really need any more. This is basically an attempt at a freeform roleplay game by mail. But does it work?

Roleplaying by mail

Roleplaying started back in the '70s with the classic Dungeons and Dragons. I remember the excited reviews in the old Games and Puzzles magazine and the seductive boxes promising wonderful imaginative adventures. At first, roleplaying games, RPGs for short, consisted of a party of characters who, armed to the teeth with exotic weapons and spells, would venture (they always venture, never go) down into dungeons in search of treasure, guarded by denizens and wandering monsters. Success meant experience points and that meant higher level characters, better weapons, more potent spells and a chance to explore even tougher dungeons. Later generations of RPG catered for a wider view of the world, the fact that even fantasy lands aren't unaccountably riddled with deep dungeons full of orcs and kobolds. Runequest and the Lovecraftian Call of Cthulhu were my favourites of this more credible genre of game. Yog-Sothoth, credible? Oh dear, but I think you know what I mean.

Roleplaying for me was about interaction between players and with the GM, with an emphasis on playing a character according to its perceived personality and not too much concern about the advancement of levels or acquisition of power or money. This, I thought, would be difficult to translate into a play-by-mail format and so it has proved, in general.

The single character RPGs by mail are a game in their own right, in my opinion. But I wouldn't put them in the same category as the face-to-face games or the newer free-form roleplay games, often played in fancy dress over a weekend with dozens of characters acting out their alter egos. Why not? The play-by-mail games are an exercise in interactive story-telling between two people, with a structure based around source material and a character profile or statistics. As a player, you have to 'roleplay' your character, but there's not much contact with other players nor the opportunity.

From what I've heard, Madhouse's Night of the Things was closer to face-to-face roleplaying, with a party of characters working together, or at least interacting. Undying King's UNEXPLAINED develops this idea further and goes some way to achieving a roleplay atmosphere, and funnily enough an atmosphere reminiscent of Call of Cthulhu (remember I mentioned it above as one of my favourite games?), with a group of six characters who gradually discover that their sane everyday world is under threat from incomprehensible and horrible forces; they must work as a group to investigate the funny goings-on and explain the inexplicable.

How does the game work?

Rather well, as it happens. As I wrote before, the six characters have been sent as a team to investigate some unearthly phenomenon. Each turn, once a fortnight in general, each player must explain the actions and potential reactions of his character to the preceding events and possible developments. The turn, including the introductory turn 0, usually ends, soap-opera fashion, with a cliff hanger or difficult moment for the characters. So far, I haven't had any long-lost brothers or blind Venetian doctors turn up on my character's doorstep, but we, my character and I, have had visits from the police, been locked-up, kidnapped and generally being mucked about and accosted by the forces of darkness. More about that later though. In the turn, you should describe the character's immediate reaction to the cliff-hanger, e.g. 'my character shoots him with a silver bullet through his heart.' Then you must describe your contribution to the group activity, 'my character suggests that we go to the library and search the private collection for a copy of the forbidden Necronomicon', wrong game I know, but that sort of thing. Then you should describe your character's individual actions, 'keep a telescope trained on Mars for any sign of unusual activity, go with Grace (another character) to the farm to examine the three-headed chickens etc etc' Finally, there is provision for secret actions which you want to keep hidden from the other players. This part of the game, I have my doubts about, but again, explanations later on.

These orders are free-form. If you're creative, you can write descriptively and invent phrases and speeches for your character. The GM uses them rather well and builds them into the turn reports. If you've had a tough day or prefer to think in bullet points, then no problem. The GM offers no preference, praise or punishment for the format of your turn, provided you cover the four points I have described.

In return, you get a long turn report. Pages and pages, in fact. Remarkable. The GM basically puts together the six sets of orders and turns this into a narrative describing a series of events. As far as I can tell, the time period for a turn is rather arbitrary, but tends to cover a half-day or day of game time. This narrative is usually well written and atmospheric, though sometimes the sheer length of it all means that you get a bit submerged in detail. Of course, you get material in the narrative that your character wouldn't know anything about, for instance if your party of characters had split up and done different things. Here you, and the GM, have to be careful. Either there needs to be an agreement that all characters would have pooled their information or players have to roleplay by submitting orders for their characters on the basis of facts that their character would have known. I always felt that for my particular game at least, this aspect was never satisfactorily agreed on and it basically relies on the roleplaying honesty of each player.

You would be well advised to re-read your previous turns before submitting orders, as the plots are very complex and multi-layered. Unless you do this, you may miss important clues and story-links.

The characters

Character creation, in my view, is always the best bit of any RPG. I love to see the development of a character and decide on the background, the skills, foibles and weaknesses. In UNEXPLAINED, there is no die-rolling or points allocation to attributes or arcane abilities. Simply, your character has seven characteristics: Strength, Dexterity, Presence, Fortitude, Perception, Will and Luck. All you have to do is rank these in order of significance. You must then describe the motivations behind your character, her or his occupation, age and nationality. You can write some details about the character's background, circumstances and how your creation is perceived by others.

Let me indulge myself a bit now and take my own character as an example.

Miss Prism, an Agony Aunt, British (some Congolese strains though), Age 72, but still active if slightly rheumatic in the knees. A steely gaze. Sports some smart but ageing tweed suits. Feathered hat. Rides a snazzy bike, bought in 1958 and still going strong. Sweet tempered but can get quietly riled.

Determined. Polite. Some rather old fashioned views despite her interest in SITU. Others see her as a 'Nice old dear, but eccentric.'

Characteristics (7 most important, 1 least significant)

Perception - 7: Will - 6: Luck - 5: Presence - 4: Fortitude - 3: Dexterity - 2: Strength - 1

Motivation (same scale as characteristics)

Truth seeker - 7: Personal - 3: Professional - 2

Circumstances

Miss Prism (first name rumoured to be Hilda) writes an agony aunt column for the Daily Mail. Has recently attracted a spate of Strange but True type letters which has become a bit of a talking point amongst colleagues. She has built up a collection of Alien Sightings stories, most of which are untrue for sure ('abductions are only for the Americans...') but when her spinster sister Agatha claimed to have lost a flock of sheep to a visiting spacehip (sic) some five years ago, she decided to be more open and look into these stories. Some genealogy reveals that an ancestor was burnt as a witch in the 16th Century. A recent letter from a SITU member introduced her to the organisation and she's interested to know more.

Miss Prism in action

Let's have a look at my game to see how it worked and how the GM coped with the characters and the players. The game was organised by Mo Holkar, but turns were capably written by the admirable Wendy Anne Prosser.

Turn 0

Six characters are in a little boat skippered by Murdo Muir, en route for the remote Scottish island of Clachantyre. SITU has briefed the characters that the island's Reverend had been found killed, rather gruesomely, near a Iron Age Dolmen on the island. This followed the theft of an Iron Age artefact, The Old Man's Fingers, five stone rods bound together. The island had quite a history of witchcraft and strange events. The locals are not known for their hospitality, and the rude behaviour of young Tom Doonie on the arrival of the boat at the port confirms this.

Turn 1

11 pages comprise this turn, so I can't even begin to summarise. Suffice to say that our party of six includes an aggressive American called Vul, possibly short for Vulgar thinks Miss Prism. The team are in the guise of a film crew making a documentary and turn one is spent scouting around a bit and meeting the locals. It transpires that the young rough, Tom Doonie, is not a bad sort but comes from a family with a history of troubles, 'But there's no badness in him - his words are those of his great grandmother, old Florence Doonie, and not his own, of that I'm sure. I don't wish to speak ill of the afflicted, but that old woman has caused a peck of trouble, with her ranting and railings against oil-men and the like...' explains the old sea-dog Murdo. And talking of oil men, just as the party are exploring the Dolmen on the hillside, a helicopter and divers are spotted on the beach below.

All the players have email and there is much frantic correspondence and discussion of options, including some nice in-character exchanges. For some reason, a couple of the players start discussing the possibilities of killing other characters and there is a complaint that the GM has ruled this out as an option. Watch this space.

Turn 2

It turns out that the helicopter belongs to the Highlands and Islands Development Agency and they are looking for oil. Miss Prism is fascinated by the Dolmen, 'With a sudden impulse, she reaches out to touch the cold stone - and has an abrupt and disturbing experience. The rock is screaming - or so it seems. Somewhere in her head, almost beyond the limits of her consciousness, she can hear someone...something crying out intelligibly - no pattern to it, no rise or fall, just a miasma of inexpressive anguish that goes on and on and on...' Other players continue to check out the island and, in particular the notorious Doonie family. My orders for this turn, and turn one, cover several days of game time and irritatingly they are not covered in the report.

The GM tells us all that there were 'lots and lots' of secret actions this turn and reminds everyone that 'secret actions should only be used for things you definitely don't want any of the other players to know about.' Discussion on the email centres on why some players were being so secretive and why two of the players are taking a rather aggressive line towards other characters. Unfortunately, as is often the case with email discussions, things get a bit heated.

Turn 3

I missed sending my orders this time, and annoyingly some of the longer term actions which I had included for earlier turns which would have been appropriate this time were not used. I point this out to Mo Holkar and he responds positively that, in future the GM will refer back to previous orders if this happens.

Meanwhile, it seems that the locals believe the Reverend was murdered and that the evil Doonies were behind it all. Tom Doonie, however, turns out to be an eco-activist campaigning against the Highlands and Islands Development Agency. The turn ends with the discovery on Sunday morning that the local church has been ransacked and the message LEAVE scrawled for Miss Prism and her team.

Turn 4

Vul and his friend and fellow character, Brian, decide to get heavy with the Doonies and after pulling a gun on young Tom and beating him up, Vul marches into their house in best Chicago hood style demanding some answers. Unfortunately, his gun has little effect on Old Ma Doonie, a wizened old hag, who, even though threatened with death by Vul doesn't move, but she keeps on speaking, 'It is not death ye bring, but fulfilment of our destiny,' she hisses.

'I shall make an offering of ye and the Sea People shell be glad.' Suffice to say that Vul is helpless in her presence though he learns that the old woman has great hopes for her grandchild, young Hamish, son of Mary, who possesses some secret but traditional family power.

The GM is praised, back on the Internet, for her handling of the turn which contained some good descriptive writing.

Before the next turn comes along, we all get a letter from the GM. The arguments between the players on email have come to a head and it seems that there is a group who prefers a competitive approach and will not cooperate with other players. So much so that three players have colluded and put in orders to try and kill one of the other characters. Quite rightly, Mo decides that this is untenable and that a solution needs to be found. He suggests that

a) everyone starts to cooperate and be nice with one another.

b) that the game split into two parallel games, with the three roleplayers in one game (I include myself there) and the three competitors in another game.

c) that individuals drop out...

In the end, Mo's diplomacy wins the day and we agree to split into two groups. The boys who want to kill each other go off and play by themselves and, by the way, sell off, (or do I mean kill off?) American Flagship to each other. We three get on with the investigation.

I must add that this situation had not occurred in any other of Mo's games and probably was just an unfortunate chance. In any case, it was well handled by the GM and an elegant solution was found without any drop-outs, though I understand one of the bad boys has since gone AWOL, but for other reasons...

Turns 5-8

The investigation continues. The Highlands and Islands Development Agency is a shady group and there are stories of illegal waste dumps at sea. Miss Prism suspects that this, whilst being serious, is a bit of a distraction and is not really linked to the supernatural events they are investigating. It becomes very clear that Old Ma Doonie is the source of evil on the Island and that her young baby, Hamish, is her hope for the future continuation of this power.

Miss Prism does all she can to rescue the unfortunate Mary Doonie, mother of the precocious sorcerer Hamish, and even gets her sister Agatha to arrange safe accommodation in the South of England. At one stage, Mary reveals that her mother, Old Ma Doonie 'made us spend our wedding night on the cliff beside the Old Man [the Dolmen, remember?] She said it was romantic, me and Hamish [senior] together with the sound of the sea and the starlight above...But that was when the evil spirits began to grow inside me...'. Urgh.

Turn 9

Miss Prism is determined to rescue young Mary and, at the same time, resolves to send Old Ma Doonie to the hell where she belongs. Armed with a box of matches and a bottle of petrol, she boldly walks off to the Doonie household. Like Vul, however, Miss P is no match for the old witch and finds herself unconscious, knocked on the back of the head and later wakes up in a dark cell. Somewhere.

A bit of a predicament for my orders, and all I can think of is to try to be resolute if questioned and to look around for a way to commit suicide should things get nasty. Gulp.

Turn 10

In the event, suicide is neither possible nor necessary. Old Ma Doonie decides it would be fun to explain to the old busybody what is really going on. She uses some sort of mystical power and Miss Prism, like it or not, finds herself forced to accompany her to the Dolmen. This, explains Old Ma, is the source of the power of the Sea People and Miss Prism is the offering needed to release them again. Miss P finds herself taking an axe ready to use it on herself but, at the last moment (phew) Old Ma collapses screaming that they've gone. Her power over Miss P is also gone and surprisingly, two men from the Highlands and Islands Development Agency are on the scene.

It seems that the Agency are looking for the saboteurs who destroyed their equipment and they decide to have Miss Prism taken off to the police house for questioning. They don't really suspect her, but having had some icy exchanges with Miss Prism on earlier turns they decide that revenge would be sweet. In the local police cell, Miss Prism finds herself locked up. Again.

Turn 11

Happily Miss Prism is soon out of jail, but she decides that she'd better be off to finish what she started. She marches off to the Doonie house, determined to burn it down, to cleanse it of evil. The House crackles into flames. Miss Prism can hear a baby cry and a sound of distant laughter... Then a scream. She turns to see Mary Doonie running down the track towards her, eyes rolling and face white. 'What are you doing?' Mary shrieks. 'I am saving us all' Miss Prism bellows in reply. 'These cleansing flames will wipe the evil from the face of the Earth.' She has to raise her voice to be heard above the gathering roar of the fire. 'God's chosen must unite against the Antichrist. Come with me, Mary and we will make our escape.' ...'No' says Mary, 'I won't leave my baby.' And with that she staggers into the burning house. And down the hill, the pub where Miss Prism and the other investigators are staying is also on fire, and a murderous looking crowd are gathered outside...

Turn 12 - the denouement

It transpires that all the information Miss Prism picked up in earlier turns about the dolmen and the island are linked to a long-term presence of aliens in an underwater cave. So that was the source of the Doonies' powers and the 86-year cycle of violence... It's all so obvious now, in hindsight. But our poor group of investigators has hardly come through the experience unscathed and I fear poor old Miss Prism might have to retire if she wants to recover.

Hmm, perhaps her sister Agatha can take her place? After the game each player receives a letter from SITU and the chance to advance in the ranks of the Organisation and it's off to the next episode in the campaign.

Conclusions

The quality of the writing is high and the GM understood my character very well, I thought. At one stage when I got a bit confused by the plot I submitted an order that my character would gather everyone for a cup of tea and summarise the state of the investigation. The GM duly obliged and this made things a lot easier. Of course I have only covered the brief outline of the plot here, which is not intended to be a game diary. There were plenty of other sub-plots and character development, conversations and events. I think the game works well at a double level, the self-contained 12-turn adventure which is itself part of some grander plot that your character will gradually get to know about.

Influences

The game certainly is reminiscent of the X-files theme but it also reminds me of the MR James/HP Lovecraft schools of horror story writing. Slow build-up and ghastly realisation of the truth, with a bit of spurious arcane knowledge on the way. Mo tells me that the novels of Robert Anton Wilson, for instance the Illuminati Series, is perhaps the most important inspiration for the game. I haven't read them myself, but might give them a go sometime.

Incidentally, if anyone else designs a game which owes something to an American TV show, then how about choosing Hill Street Blues or NYPD? That I'd really enjoy. Mo, are you listening?

An assessment

I highly recommend UNEXPLAINED for roleplayers or anyone who fancies trying co-operative play based around investigation and combating unknown forces.

There are areas in which the game can be improved, the introductory material and sourcebook (ie there is nothing of substance) and some aspects of game play, such as secret actions and how to handle the generic turn reports. The game will work very effectively, though not exclusively, with a group of decent roleplayers who can communicate easily and quickly with each other by email. This will reinforce the feeling of roleplay. But there is also potential for a long-term campaign with characters developing a career in SITU. I hope that this can develop, as it will be a strong feature of the game.

Undying Kings has made provision for the testosterone set and initiated a new 'competitive' game format whereby players who wish to kill each other off can also play. This was an admirably pragmatic response to the antics in my game, but for me it is anathema to roleplaying and should be avoided.

Overall, a fine game.

STUART LORIMER's file starts with the message, Don't Ask, Don't Tell...

+ Ever had the feeling that there is more to life than most people suspect?

+ Ever wondered what 'they' are trying to keep from you?

+ Ever felt the real answers aren't to be found in books?

+ Ever wanted to do something about it?

Why not join SITU and add your help to the hundreds of men and women all over the world who devote themselves to pushing back the boundaries of the

UNEXPLAINED?

So reads the advertisement which originally drew you to join SITU, the Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained, a shadowy organisation based in the mysterious (and possibly spurious) Republic of Nauru. Who are SITU? Modern-day Illuminati? An offshoot of some Government agency? Aliens? Terrorists?

Harmless pre-Millennial crackpots?

Read on - the truth is in here. Just remember, this review will auto-destruct in twelve turns ...

It's my party...

UNEXPLAINED follows the relatively recent tradition popularised by Madhouse's innovative Night of the Things, in that it is a hand-moderated party game.

This is nothing to do with Musical Bumps, jelly and ice-cream, however; in UNEXPLAINED, you roleplay a single character who joins a larger group in order to investigate the World of the Strange. Party games, in themselves, are hardly new to PBM, but Undying King has developed the concept a little further in UNEXPLAINED, both in terms of game structure and content. Like NotT, UNEXPLAINED runs separate games with around six players apiece, fixed (fortnightly) deadlines and a definite end-point after a dozen or so turns. NotT was appealing, throwaway B-movie schlock-horror (and I mean that as a compliment!) with a devastating mortality rate; UNEXPLAINED is darker, more complex, with an ongoing campaign background which evolves along with your character. Assuming your character survives his initial adventure (hah!), he slowly rises within the ranks of SITU, and hopefully gains more knowledge of The Big Picture, the globe-spanning Conspiracy which we all know is going on, right under our noses...

In SITU

So, what do you get for your tenner? Well, the rulebook arrives neatly-bound in a smart black (naturally) ring-folder, twenty-odd A4 sheets, complete with my favourite touch - a SITU membership badge! Besides the usual brief introduction for those new to PBM, the rulebook is written in pseudo-realistic dossier, style which blurs the line dividing 'in' and out-of-character, and leads you nicely into character generation.

There is the usual range of physical and mental attributes which must be ranked in order of personal significance to your character, to give a rough picture of individual strengths and weaknesses. In addition, you are invited to consider a range of seven motivational categories ranging from Unstable (Code: Violet) to Unmotivated (Code: Red). It is explained that, while many operatives will fit into more than one of these groupings, generally one will be of prime importance.

The final attribute is Illumination, the extent to which your character has become acquainted with the true mysteries of existence. Mundane folk, we are told, have an Illumination of zero, while player characters begin with Illumination 1. This score rises with each mystery successfully completed, as characters become privy to both the Secrets of the Strange and SITU's inner workings. They also add to the sense of continuity between adventures.

Having chosen the order of attributes and motivations for your character, all that remains is the fleshing out process - name, age, sex, occupation and all the rest. Rather helpfully, the start-up materials include no fewer than six sample SITU operatives (files presumably swiped from the Personnel Department) to get you into the swing of things. These range from a twenty-one-year-old Goth-girl to a sixty-two year old Kenyan reader in Anthropology, and give some idea of the host of possibilities.

Believe the lie

So what did I go for? Well, being a big fan of Millennium and Silence of the Lambs, as well as a serious X-Files addict, I came up with Dr Matthew Culver, a medically-trained (if rather unorthodox) Forensic Psychiatrist with background and experience in the psychological profiling of serial murderers (cheery stuff). He joined SITU for primarily Personal (Code: Indigo) reasons, but also combines aspects of the Truth-seeker (Code: Green) and Academic (Code: Yellow) motivations. He scored highly in Presence and Perception - essential qualities for a psychiatrist - and had a fairly crappy Strength and Fortitude.

Now, I'm no great fan of statistics in RPGs but I have to concede that UNEXPLAINED's elegantly simple system of attributes and motivations actually stimulated my creative juices - in fact, my only problem was the dilemma of choosing just the one character! As my particular game progressed, I decided to start an additional, parallel character - but more of this later.

The proof of the pudding

My game took only a week or two to fill up, before I received an introductory turn, map, list of player addresses and the official SITU briefing for our mission: The Bamworth Legacy, set in a tiny Oxfordshire village. Dr Culver and five other agents were to pose as antique dealers in order to attend an auction of occult literature collected by the late Sir Harvey Bamworth, a noted folklorist and eccentric. Even at this stage, however, the initial brief hinted at more sinister goings-on, emphasising a history of witchcraft dating back to the fifteenth century...

The 'prelude' turn began, rather unglamorously, on the elderly Oxford-Broughton Poggs bus and introduced the other characters, a varied bunch (including one Benedict Riggs, who wouldn't have looked out of place in one of Culver's secure wards'!) Our group was just settling in at their guest house, when the local bobby dropped by:

Towards the end of dessert, a portly man in the uniform of a police constable can be seen entering the guest house. Karen Norse gives him a questioning look as he drops heavily into the armchair nearest the radiator.

"Any news of Tracey Hammond, Constable Brice?" He shakes his head slowly.

"They've started calling in men from the stations in Ducklington and Black Bourton to look for her. Well, it's been twenty-four hours now. But it doesn't look good. They've started to find the girl's clothes, scattered over the fields..."

The turn ended with a deadline, giving us ten days to communicate amongst ourselves before submitting our individual reactions. Would we stick to our designated mission, or be drawn into the hunt for the missing girl?

Now, this particular game has already been described in Other PBM Publications, so I won't go into too much detail here. The atmosphere was sort-of Miss Marple meets Call of Cthulhu, with a bit of The Wicker Man thrown in for good measure - an uneasy sense of dark, gruesome things going on behind every closed door and ever-twitching net curtain. Frances' writing was beautifully evocative, her lightness of touch offsetting an almost poetic eye for detail which effectively transformed the everyday into the genuinely creepy:

Meanwhile, Culver, Riggs and Henry make their way across the field. The wind is warm and intermittent, like the careful breaths of a stalking beast. The glare of the sun is oppressive, and the leaves gleam like knives.

In one place, the ripped and ravaged body of a badger splays across the path, its tiny teeth visible in an eternal snarl. Over its body the flies fizz and scramble, a fury of emerald beads.

Pausing upon the path, Riggs looks in vain for the clearing where he had seen the tree from his dream. As his eye scans for the break in the hedge, he suppresses a queasy sense that even the ambient birdsong is subtly discordant.

The first few turns were largely concerned with information-gathering, as our group gradually built up a picture of what was going on. Despite rather erratic communication between the various players, our group worked well together, and we started to feel we were close to discovering The Truth. Someone else obviously thought the same, as we fell prey to nocturnal terrors:

All share the dream.

A lace of clouds glides before the moon, casting a fabulous and intricate web of shadows upon the silver fields, a web that oozes and alters form in every instant, cheating the eye. Sometimes the patterns of shadow seem to chequer the fields like a chessboard, or like the floor of the hall in the Bamworth Estate. Sometimes they resemble a mass of mad, black letters.

The women stand hither and thither amid the corn, stiff as playing pieces. In the dim light, their faces are ash-white ovals, their eye-cavities traces of shadow. Mouthlessly they scream out malignancy, resentment, grief, pain, appeal. Limblessly, they glide through the silver flames that part before them.

Avril Bamworth ghosts across the field with a silken hiss of skirts, her white ruff stiff as a lizard-frill As she nears, her lips part, but her speech is drowned by the flapping of her wind-filled mantle.

As one, the group awake. Lying in the dark, the images of the dream still hanging in the dark before them, each man becomes aware that he can hear beyond the window a sound not unlike that produced by the flapping of a cloak, or by the beating of wings...

I was impressed at how UNEXPLAINED avoided many of the pitfalls of party games: Frances managed to combine a series of disparate player actions into a seamlessly flowing narrative, while giving each of as an equal share of the limelight. One thing I didn't fully realise until the game's conclusion was its elaborate structure, the way clues were given out little by little, set-pieces subtly orchestrated and suspense cranked up slowly. As the turns progressed, I found myself breathlessly anticipating each plot development, reading and rereading the story so far, formulating new theories on What Was Really Going On. When the climax came, it was all the more dramatic for the tight pacing and careful build-up. The tension was punctuated by the occasional SITUation Report, the excellent in-game newsletter.

Send in the clown - the Flying Squad

One of the features which distinguishes UNEXPLAINED is its capacity to evolve to cope with various weird and wonderful situations thrown up by its players. One example is the way in which Alan Huyton's game was handled. Another is the Flying Squad, a team of standby investigators who might be sent out while a game is actually in progress, to replace SITU agents who have been lost, either through player dropout or by some more sinister mischance.

Players selecting this option play the game's remaining turns at a reduced rate.

At the time of writing, my second character, Madeleine Hook, has been flown to Mexico, to help find a team member who has been mysteriously kidnapped:

Maddy smiles again at the air hostess.

"Yes, yes," she says, missing the irony of the asked, 'Would you like any more peanuts?'

She takes the extra four bags and stuffs them in her pocket with the others. "This is a major attack of The Munchies," she thinks, and giggles at the air hostess again. She takes another swig of the tequila and walks out into the warm air of the airport.

She looks very distinctive and attracts several glances as she waits at the carousel for her army surplus rucksack. Her vivid dyed red hair falls over a pale, freckled face which has been smeared with stripes of dayglo orange sunblock. Her bright yellow-green tie-dye skirt clashes with her green DMs, and the fluorescent alien head on her black T-shirt just looks weird.

Outside she whistles loudly and shouts, "Taxi!!!"

I know that Standby positions are used successfully in many mixed or computer-moderated games, but I was surprised the concept translated so well to a 'pure' RPG. For those who don't mind missing out on the initial stages, the Flying Squad is a great way to make an entrance (prima donna that I am!), and dive straight into the action.

How Was It For You?

To a dyed-in-the-wool single-character RPGer like myself, party games differ in one important way: the GM has to process six sets of actions instead of one so, inevitably, a small amount of personal freedom must be sacrificed for the success of the group as a whole. Given these restrictions, UNEXPLAINED was far, far, better than I ever expected; it is not only the best game of its type but, I believe, the best a party game can be. I was quite unprepared for the quality and depth of the game: under the sensitive hand of the various GMs, the group turn takes on an appeal all of its own, the sheer value for money (an average five to six sides of close-typed script) amply compensating for any slight loss of roleplaying scope. Also, the partially-plotted story arc format lends itself to increasingly absorbing turns as things gather speed, particularly in the latter half of the game. The final debriefing rounds things off nicely, making you want to bring your freshly-Illuminated operative on to subsequent scenarios, like a favourite tabletop character.

I really can't find fault with any aspect of UNEXPLAINED. It's good value, well-written, reliable and great fun - in fact, it's the next evolutionary step for the group PBM! Our Next Best Hope!

Go on, sign up for SITU today - and hey! let's be careful out there...]]> A double feature! ALAN HUYTON and STUART LORIMER ponder what's explicable about...

UNEXPLAINED

UNEXPLAINED at a glance

A hand-moderated team game from Undying King, where player characters investigate mysteries. £10 for startup and 3 turns; further turns £3 each.

Turnaround is normally two weeks; slower games (four-week turnaround) are available, although this may mean a longer wait to start. Available on the Supercoupon.

Your reviewer at a glance

Alan Huyton, 39, living near Brussels since 1990 when he went to work for the European Commission. Has been playing games since childhood and hasn't stopped yet. Not a bad Chess player (especially with the Sicilian Dragon), but lacks practice. Current favourites are the boardgames Airlines and Railway Rivals. A bit of a hiatus in PBM outside of United and Railway Rival zines but waiting for a goodie to come along. Apart from work and gaming, studying for an MA in History with the Open University and has three children. Email address is 100424.650@compuserve.com and you're welcome to write.

ALAN HUYTON's UNEXPLAINED file starts here...

A look at the evidence

UNEXPLAINED is a roleplaying game where each of a group of six players represents an investigator from the shadowy Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained (SITU). Each game is a mystery which takes place over 12 turns, but which forms part of a longer-term campaign in which your character can advance, if he or she survives. Don't expect much explanation from the rulebook; you receive a rather thin booklet with a couple of pages of vague background, a page or two on character creation, a brief description on how to play the game and some sample characters. It's not a lot but you don't really need any more. This is basically an attempt at a freeform roleplay game by mail. But does it work?

Roleplaying by mail

Roleplaying started back in the '70s with the classic Dungeons and Dragons. I remember the excited reviews in the old Games and Puzzles magazine and the seductive boxes promising wonderful imaginative adventures. At first, roleplaying games, RPGs for short, consisted of a party of characters who, armed to the teeth with exotic weapons and spells, would venture (they always venture, never go) down into dungeons in search of treasure, guarded by denizens and wandering monsters. Success meant experience points and that meant higher level characters, better weapons, more potent spells and a chance to explore even tougher dungeons. Later generations of RPG catered for a wider view of the world, the fact that even fantasy lands aren't unaccountably riddled with deep dungeons full of orcs and kobolds. Runequest and the Lovecraftian Call of Cthulhu were my favourites of this more credible genre of game. Yog-Sothoth, credible? Oh dear, but I think you know what I mean.

Roleplaying for me was about interaction between players and with the GM, with an emphasis on playing a character according to its perceived personality and not too much concern about the advancement of levels or acquisition of power or money. This, I thought, would be difficult to translate into a play-by-mail format and so it has proved, in general.

The single character RPGs by mail are a game in their own right, in my opinion. But I wouldn't put them in the same category as the face-to-face games or the newer free-form roleplay games, often played in fancy dress over a weekend with dozens of characters acting out their alter egos. Why not? The play-by-mail games are an exercise in interactive story-telling between two people, with a structure based around source material and a character profile or statistics. As a player, you have to 'roleplay' your character, but there's not much contact with other players nor the opportunity.

From what I've heard, Madhouse's Night of the Things was closer to face-to-face roleplaying, with a party of characters working together, or at least interacting. Undying King's UNEXPLAINED develops this idea further and goes some way to achieving a roleplay atmosphere, and funnily enough an atmosphere reminiscent of Call of Cthulhu (remember I mentioned it above as one of my favourite games?), with a group of six characters who gradually discover that their sane everyday world is under threat from incomprehensible and horrible forces; they must work as a group to investigate the funny goings-on and explain the inexplicable.

How does the game work?

Rather well, as it happens. As I wrote before, the six characters have been sent as a team to investigate some unearthly phenomenon. Each turn, once a fortnight in general, each player must explain the actions and potential reactions of his character to the preceding events and possible developments. The turn, including the introductory turn 0, usually ends, soap-opera fashion, with a cliff hanger or difficult moment for the characters. So far, I haven't had any long-lost brothers or blind Venetian doctors turn up on my character's doorstep, but we, my character and I, have had visits from the police, been locked-up, kidnapped and generally being mucked about and accosted by the forces of darkness. More about that later though. In the turn, you should describe the character's immediate reaction to the cliff-hanger, e.g. 'my character shoots him with a silver bullet through his heart.' Then you must describe your contribution to the group activity, 'my character suggests that we go to the library and search the private collection for a copy of the forbidden Necronomicon', wrong game I know, but that sort of thing. Then you should describe your character's individual actions, 'keep a telescope trained on Mars for any sign of unusual activity, go with Grace (another character) to the farm to examine the three-headed chickens etc etc' Finally, there is provision for secret actions which you want to keep hidden from the other players. This part of the game, I have my doubts about, but again, explanations later on.

These orders are free-form. If you're creative, you can write descriptively and invent phrases and speeches for your character. The GM uses them rather well and builds them into the turn reports. If you've had a tough day or prefer to think in bullet points, then no problem. The GM offers no preference, praise or punishment for the format of your turn, provided you cover the four points I have described.

In return, you get a long turn report. Pages and pages, in fact. Remarkable. The GM basically puts together the six sets of orders and turns this into a narrative describing a series of events. As far as I can tell, the time period for a turn is rather arbitrary, but tends to cover a half-day or day of game time. This narrative is usually well written and atmospheric, though sometimes the sheer length of it all means that you get a bit submerged in detail. Of course, you get material in the narrative that your character wouldn't know anything about, for instance if your party of characters had split up and done different things. Here you, and the GM, have to be careful. Either there needs to be an agreement that all characters would have pooled their information or players have to roleplay by submitting orders for their characters on the basis of facts that their character would have known. I always felt that for my particular game at least, this aspect was never satisfactorily agreed on and it basically relies on the roleplaying honesty of each player.

You would be well advised to re-read your previous turns before submitting orders, as the plots are very complex and multi-layered. Unless you do this, you may miss important clues and story-links.

The characters

Character creation, in my view, is always the best bit of any RPG. I love to see the development of a character and decide on the background, the skills, foibles and weaknesses. In UNEXPLAINED, there is no die-rolling or points allocation to attributes or arcane abilities. Simply, your character has seven characteristics: Strength, Dexterity, Presence, Fortitude, Perception, Will and Luck. All you have to do is rank these in order of significance. You must then describe the motivations behind your character, her or his occupation, age and nationality. You can write some details about the character's background, circumstances and how your creation is perceived by others.

Let me indulge myself a bit now and take my own character as an example.

Miss Prism, an Agony Aunt, British (some Congolese strains though), Age 72, but still active if slightly rheumatic in the knees. A steely gaze. Sports some smart but ageing tweed suits. Feathered hat. Rides a snazzy bike, bought in 1958 and still going strong. Sweet tempered but can get quietly riled.

Determined. Polite. Some rather old fashioned views despite her interest in SITU. Others see her as a 'Nice old dear, but eccentric.'

Characteristics (7 most important, 1 least significant)

Perception - 7: Will - 6: Luck - 5: Presence - 4: Fortitude - 3: Dexterity - 2: Strength - 1

Motivation (same scale as characteristics)

Truth seeker - 7: Personal - 3: Professional - 2

Circumstances

Miss Prism (first name rumoured to be Hilda) writes an agony aunt column for the Daily Mail. Has recently attracted a spate of Strange but True type letters which has become a bit of a talking point amongst colleagues. She has built up a collection of Alien Sightings stories, most of which are untrue for sure ('abductions are only for the Americans...') but when her spinster sister Agatha claimed to have lost a flock of sheep to a visiting spacehip (sic) some five years ago, she decided to be more open and look into these stories. Some genealogy reveals that an ancestor was burnt as a witch in the 16th Century. A recent letter from a SITU member introduced her to the organisation and she's interested to know more.

Miss Prism in action

Let's have a look at my game to see how it worked and how the GM coped with the characters and the players. The game was organised by Mo Holkar, but turns were capably written by the admirable Wendy Anne Prosser.

Turn 0

Six characters are in a little boat skippered by Murdo Muir, en route for the remote Scottish island of Clachantyre. SITU has briefed the characters that the island's Reverend had been found killed, rather gruesomely, near a Iron Age Dolmen on the island. This followed the theft of an Iron Age artefact, The Old Man's Fingers, five stone rods bound together. The island had quite a history of witchcraft and strange events. The locals are not known for their hospitality, and the rude behaviour of young Tom Doonie on the arrival of the boat at the port confirms this.

Turn 1

11 pages comprise this turn, so I can't even begin to summarise. Suffice to say that our party of six includes an aggressive American called Vul, possibly short for Vulgar thinks Miss Prism. The team are in the guise of a film crew making a documentary and turn one is spent scouting around a bit and meeting the locals. It transpires that the young rough, Tom Doonie, is not a bad sort but comes from a family with a history of troubles, 'But there's no badness in him - his words are those of his great grandmother, old Florence Doonie, and not his own, of that I'm sure. I don't wish to speak ill of the afflicted, but that old woman has caused a peck of trouble, with her ranting and railings against oil-men and the like...' explains the old sea-dog Murdo. And talking of oil men, just as the party are exploring the Dolmen on the hillside, a helicopter and divers are spotted on the beach below.

All the players have email and there is much frantic correspondence and discussion of options, including some nice in-character exchanges. For some reason, a couple of the players start discussing the possibilities of killing other characters and there is a complaint that the GM has ruled this out as an option. Watch this space.

Turn 2

It turns out that the helicopter belongs to the Highlands and Islands Development Agency and they are looking for oil. Miss Prism is fascinated by the Dolmen, 'With a sudden impulse, she reaches out to touch the cold stone - and has an abrupt and disturbing experience. The rock is screaming - or so it seems. Somewhere in her head, almost beyond the limits of her consciousness, she can hear someone...something crying out intelligibly - no pattern to it, no rise or fall, just a miasma of inexpressive anguish that goes on and on and on...' Other players continue to check out the island and, in particular the notorious Doonie family. My orders for this turn, and turn one, cover several days of game time and irritatingly they are not covered in the report.

The GM tells us all that there were 'lots and lots' of secret actions this turn and reminds everyone that 'secret actions should only be used for things you definitely don't want any of the other players to know about.' Discussion on the email centres on why some players were being so secretive and why two of the players are taking a rather aggressive line towards other characters. Unfortunately, as is often the case with email discussions, things get a bit heated.

Turn 3

I missed sending my orders this time, and annoyingly some of the longer term actions which I had included for earlier turns which would have been appropriate this time were not used. I point this out to Mo Holkar and he responds positively that, in future the GM will refer back to previous orders if this happens.

Meanwhile, it seems that the locals believe the Reverend was murdered and that the evil Doonies were behind it all. Tom Doonie, however, turns out to be an eco-activist campaigning against the Highlands and Islands Development Agency. The turn ends with the discovery on Sunday morning that the local church has been ransacked and the message LEAVE scrawled for Miss Prism and her team.

Turn 4

Vul and his friend and fellow character, Brian, decide to get heavy with the Doonies and after pulling a gun on young Tom and beating him up, Vul marches into their house in best Chicago hood style demanding some answers. Unfortunately, his gun has little effect on Old Ma Doonie, a wizened old hag, who, even though threatened with death by Vul doesn't move, but she keeps on speaking, 'It is not death ye bring, but fulfilment of our destiny,' she hisses.

'I shall make an offering of ye and the Sea People shell be glad.' Suffice to say that Vul is helpless in her presence though he learns that the old woman has great hopes for her grandchild, young Hamish, son of Mary, who possesses some secret but traditional family power.

The GM is praised, back on the Internet, for her handling of the turn which contained some good descriptive writing.

Before the next turn comes along, we all get a letter from the GM. The arguments between the players on email have come to a head and it seems that there is a group who prefers a competitive approach and will not cooperate with other players. So much so that three players have colluded and put in orders to try and kill one of the other characters. Quite rightly, Mo decides that this is untenable and that a solution needs to be found. He suggests that

a) everyone starts to cooperate and be nice with one another.

b) that the game split into two parallel games, with the three roleplayers in one game (I include myself there) and the three competitors in another game.

c) that individuals drop out...

In the end, Mo's diplomacy wins the day and we agree to split into two groups. The boys who want to kill each other go off and play by themselves and, by the way, sell off, (or do I mean kill off?) American Flagship to each other. We three get on with the investigation.

I must add that this situation had not occurred in any other of Mo's games and probably was just an unfortunate chance. In any case, it was well handled by the GM and an elegant solution was found without any drop-outs, though I understand one of the bad boys has since gone AWOL, but for other reasons...

Turns 5-8

The investigation continues. The Highlands and Islands Development Agency is a shady group and there are stories of illegal waste dumps at sea. Miss Prism suspects that this, whilst being serious, is a bit of a distraction and is not really linked to the supernatural events they are investigating. It becomes very clear that Old Ma Doonie is the source of evil on the Island and that her young baby, Hamish, is her hope for the future continuation of this power.

Miss Prism does all she can to rescue the unfortunate Mary Doonie, mother of the precocious sorcerer Hamish, and even gets her sister Agatha to arrange safe accommodation in the South of England. At one stage, Mary reveals that her mother, Old Ma Doonie 'made us spend our wedding night on the cliff beside the Old Man [the Dolmen, remember?] She said it was romantic, me and Hamish [senior] together with the sound of the sea and the starlight above...But that was when the evil spirits began to grow inside me...'. Urgh.

Turn 9

Miss Prism is determined to rescue young Mary and, at the same time, resolves to send Old Ma Doonie to the hell where she belongs. Armed with a box of matches and a bottle of petrol, she boldly walks off to the Doonie household. Like Vul, however, Miss P is no match for the old witch and finds herself unconscious, knocked on the back of the head and later wakes up in a dark cell. Somewhere.

A bit of a predicament for my orders, and all I can think of is to try to be resolute if questioned and to look around for a way to commit suicide should things get nasty. Gulp.

Turn 10

In the event, suicide is neither possible nor necessary. Old Ma Doonie decides it would be fun to explain to the old busybody what is really going on. She uses some sort of mystical power and Miss Prism, like it or not, finds herself forced to accompany her to the Dolmen. This, explains Old Ma, is the source of the power of the Sea People and Miss Prism is the offering needed to release them again. Miss P finds herself taking an axe ready to use it on herself but, at the last moment (phew) Old Ma collapses screaming that they've gone. Her power over Miss P is also gone and surprisingly, two men from the Highlands and Islands Development Agency are on the scene.

It seems that the Agency are looking for the saboteurs who destroyed their equipment and they decide to have Miss Prism taken off to the police house for questioning. They don't really suspect her, but having had some icy exchanges with Miss Prism on earlier turns they decide that revenge would be sweet. In the local police cell, Miss Prism finds herself locked up. Again.

Turn 11

Happily Miss Prism is soon out of jail, but she decides that she'd better be off to finish what she started. She marches off to the Doonie house, determined to burn it down, to cleanse it of evil. The House crackles into flames. Miss Prism can hear a baby cry and a sound of distant laughter... Then a scream. She turns to see Mary Doonie running down the track towards her, eyes rolling and face white. 'What are you doing?' Mary shrieks. 'I am saving us all' Miss Prism bellows in reply. 'These cleansing flames will wipe the evil from the face of the Earth.' She has to raise her voice to be heard above the gathering roar of the fire. 'God's chosen must unite against the Antichrist. Come with me, Mary and we will make our escape.' ...'No' says Mary, 'I won't leave my baby.' And with that she staggers into the burning house. And down the hill, the pub where Miss Prism and the other investigators are staying is also on fire, and a murderous looking crowd are gathered outside...

Turn 12 - the denouement

It transpires that all the information Miss Prism picked up in earlier turns about the dolmen and the island are linked to a long-term presence of aliens in an underwater cave. So that was the source of the Doonies' powers and the 86-year cycle of violence... It's all so obvious now, in hindsight. But our poor group of investigators has hardly come through the experience unscathed and I fear poor old Miss Prism might have to retire if she wants to recover.

Hmm, perhaps her sister Agatha can take her place? After the game each player receives a letter from SITU and the chance to advance in the ranks of the Organisation and it's off to the next episode in the campaign.

Conclusions

The quality of the writing is high and the GM understood my character very well, I thought. At one stage when I got a bit confused by the plot I submitted an order that my character would gather everyone for a cup of tea and summarise the state of the investigation. The GM duly obliged and this made things a lot easier. Of course I have only covered the brief outline of the plot here, which is not intended to be a game diary. There were plenty of other sub-plots and character development, conversations and events. I think the game works well at a double level, the self-contained 12-turn adventure which is itself part of some grander plot that your character will gradually get to know about.

Influences

The game certainly is reminiscent of the X-files theme but it also reminds me of the MR James/HP Lovecraft schools of horror story writing. Slow build-up and ghastly realisation of the truth, with a bit of spurious arcane knowledge on the way. Mo tells me that the novels of Robert Anton Wilson, for instance the Illuminati Series, is perhaps the most important inspiration for the game. I haven't read them myself, but might give them a go sometime.

Incidentally, if anyone else designs a game which owes something to an American TV show, then how about choosing Hill Street Blues or NYPD? That I'd really enjoy. Mo, are you listening?

An assessment

I highly recommend UNEXPLAINED for roleplayers or anyone who fancies trying co-operative play based around investigation and combating unknown forces.

There are areas in which the game can be improved, the introductory material and sourcebook (ie there is nothing of substance) and some aspects of game play, such as secret actions and how to handle the generic turn reports. The game will work very effectively, though not exclusively, with a group of decent roleplayers who can communicate easily and quickly with each other by email. This will reinforce the feeling of roleplay. But there is also potential for a long-term campaign with characters developing a career in SITU. I hope that this can develop, as it will be a strong feature of the game.

Undying Kings has made provision for the testosterone set and initiated a new 'competitive' game format whereby players who wish to kill each other off can also play. This was an admirably pragmatic response to the antics in my game, but for me it is anathema to roleplaying and should be avoided.

Overall, a fine game.

STUART LORIMER's file starts with the message, Don't Ask, Don't Tell...

+ Ever had the feeling that there is more to life than most people suspect?

+ Ever wondered what 'they' are trying to keep from you?

+ Ever felt the real answers aren't to be found in books?

+ Ever wanted to do something about it?

Why not join SITU and add your help to the hundreds of men and women all over the world who devote themselves to pushing back the boundaries of the

UNEXPLAINED?

So reads the advertisement which originally drew you to join SITU, the Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained, a shadowy organisation based in the mysterious (and possibly spurious) Republic of Nauru. Who are SITU? Modern-day Illuminati? An offshoot of some Government agency? Aliens? Terrorists?

Harmless pre-Millennial crackpots?

Read on - the truth is in here. Just remember, this review will auto-destruct in twelve turns ...

It's my party...

UNEXPLAINED follows the relatively recent tradition popularised by Madhouse's innovative Night of the Things, in that it is a hand-moderated party game.

This is nothing to do with Musical Bumps, jelly and ice-cream, however; in UNEXPLAINED, you roleplay a single character who joins a larger group in order to investigate the World of the Strange. Party games, in themselves, are hardly new to PBM, but Undying King has developed the concept a little further in UNEXPLAINED, both in terms of game structure and content. Like NotT, UNEXPLAINED runs separate games with around six players apiece, fixed (fortnightly) deadlines and a definite end-point after a dozen or so turns. NotT was appealing, throwaway B-movie schlock-horror (and I mean that as a compliment!) with a devastating mortality rate; UNEXPLAINED is darker, more complex, with an ongoing campaign background which evolves along with your character. Assuming your character survives his initial adventure (hah!), he slowly rises within the ranks of SITU, and hopefully gains more knowledge of The Big Picture, the globe-spanning Conspiracy which we all know is going on, right under our noses...

In SITU

So, what do you get for your tenner? Well, the rulebook arrives neatly-bound in a smart black (naturally) ring-folder, twenty-odd A4 sheets, complete with my favourite touch - a SITU membership badge! Besides the usual brief introduction for those new to PBM, the rulebook is written in pseudo-realistic dossier, style which blurs the line dividing 'in' and out-of-character, and leads you nicely into character generation.

There is the usual range of physical and mental attributes which must be ranked in order of personal significance to your character, to give a rough picture of individual strengths and weaknesses. In addition, you are invited to consider a range of seven motivational categories ranging from Unstable (Code: Violet) to Unmotivated (Code: Red). It is explained that, while many operatives will fit into more than one of these groupings, generally one will be of prime importance.

The final attribute is Illumination, the extent to which your character has become acquainted with the true mysteries of existence. Mundane folk, we are told, have an Illumination of zero, while player characters begin with Illumination 1. This score rises with each mystery successfully completed, as characters become privy to both the Secrets of the Strange and SITU's inner workings. They also add to the sense of continuity between adventures.

Having chosen the order of attributes and motivations for your character, all that remains is the fleshing out process - name, age, sex, occupation and all the rest. Rather helpfully, the start-up materials include no fewer than six sample SITU operatives (files presumably swiped from the Personnel Department) to get you into the swing of things. These range from a twenty-one-year-old Goth-girl to a sixty-two year old Kenyan reader in Anthropology, and give some idea of the host of possibilities.

Believe the lie

So what did I go for? Well, being a big fan of Millennium and Silence of the Lambs, as well as a serious X-Files addict, I came up with Dr Matthew Culver, a medically-trained (if rather unorthodox) Forensic Psychiatrist with background and experience in the psychological profiling of serial murderers (cheery stuff). He joined SITU for primarily Personal (Code: Indigo) reasons, but also combines aspects of the Truth-seeker (Code: Green) and Academic (Code: Yellow) motivations. He scored highly in Presence and Perception - essential qualities for a psychiatrist - and had a fairly crappy Strength and Fortitude.

Now, I'm no great fan of statistics in RPGs but I have to concede that UNEXPLAINED's elegantly simple system of attributes and motivations actually stimulated my creative juices - in fact, my only problem was the dilemma of choosing just the one character! As my particular game progressed, I decided to start an additional, parallel character - but more of this later.

The proof of the pudding

My game took only a week or two to fill up, before I received an introductory turn, map, list of player addresses and the official SITU briefing for our mission: The Bamworth Legacy, set in a tiny Oxfordshire village. Dr Culver and five other agents were to pose as antique dealers in order to attend an auction of occult literature collected by the late Sir Harvey Bamworth, a noted folklorist and eccentric. Even at this stage, however, the initial brief hinted at more sinister goings-on, emphasising a history of witchcraft dating back to the fifteenth century...

The 'prelude' turn began, rather unglamorously, on the elderly Oxford-Broughton Poggs bus and introduced the other characters, a varied bunch (including one Benedict Riggs, who wouldn't have looked out of place in one of Culver's secure wards'!) Our group was just settling in at their guest house, when the local bobby dropped by:

Towards the end of dessert, a portly man in the uniform of a police constable can be seen entering the guest house. Karen Norse gives him a questioning look as he drops heavily into the armchair nearest the radiator.

"Any news of Tracey Hammond, Constable Brice?" He shakes his head slowly.

"They've started calling in men from the stations in Ducklington and Black Bourton to look for her. Well, it's been twenty-four hours now. But it doesn't look good. They've started to find the girl's clothes, scattered over the fields..."

The turn ended with a deadline, giving us ten days to communicate amongst ourselves before submitting our individual reactions. Would we stick to our designated mission, or be drawn into the hunt for the missing girl?

Now, this particular game has already been described in Other PBM Publications, so I won't go into too much detail here. The atmosphere was sort-of Miss Marple meets Call of Cthulhu, with a bit of The Wicker Man thrown in for good measure - an uneasy sense of dark, gruesome things going on behind every closed door and ever-twitching net curtain. Frances' writing was beautifully evocative, her lightness of touch offsetting an almost poetic eye for detail which effectively transformed the everyday into the genuinely creepy:

Meanwhile, Culver, Riggs and Henry make their way across the field. The wind is warm and intermittent, like the careful breaths of a stalking beast. The glare of the sun is oppressive, and the leaves gleam like knives.

In one place, the ripped and ravaged body of a badger splays across the path, its tiny teeth visible in an eternal snarl. Over its body the flies fizz and scramble, a fury of emerald beads.

Pausing upon the path, Riggs looks in vain for the clearing where he had seen the tree from his dream. As his eye scans for the break in the hedge, he suppresses a queasy sense that even the ambient birdsong is subtly discordant.

The first few turns were largely concerned with information-gathering, as our group gradually built up a picture of what was going on. Despite rather erratic communication between the various players, our group worked well together, and we started to feel we were close to discovering The Truth. Someone else obviously thought the same, as we fell prey to nocturnal terrors:

All share the dream.

A lace of clouds glides before the moon, casting a fabulous and intricate web of shadows upon the silver fields, a web that oozes and alters form in every instant, cheating the eye. Sometimes the patterns of shadow seem to chequer the fields like a chessboard, or like the floor of the hall in the Bamworth Estate. Sometimes they resemble a mass of mad, black letters.

The women stand hither and thither amid the corn, stiff as playing pieces. In the dim light, their faces are ash-white ovals, their eye-cavities traces of shadow. Mouthlessly they scream out malignancy, resentment, grief, pain, appeal. Limblessly, they glide through the silver flames that part before them.

Avril Bamworth ghosts across the field with a silken hiss of skirts, her white ruff stiff as a lizard-frill As she nears, her lips part, but her speech is drowned by the flapping of her wind-filled mantle.

As one, the group awake. Lying in the dark, the images of the dream still hanging in the dark before them, each man becomes aware that he can hear beyond the window a sound not unlike that produced by the flapping of a cloak, or by the beating of wings...

I was impressed at how UNEXPLAINED avoided many of the pitfalls of party games: Frances managed to combine a series of disparate player actions into a seamlessly flowing narrative, while giving each of as an equal share of the limelight. One thing I didn't fully realise until the game's conclusion was its elaborate structure, the way clues were given out little by little, set-pieces subtly orchestrated and suspense cranked up slowly. As the turns progressed, I found myself breathlessly anticipating each plot development, reading and rereading the story so far, formulating new theories on What Was Really Going On. When the climax came, it was all the more dramatic for the tight pacing and careful build-up. The tension was punctuated by the occasional SITUation Report, the excellent in-game newsletter.

Send in the clown - the Flying Squad

One of the features which distinguishes UNEXPLAINED is its capacity to evolve to cope with various weird and wonderful situations thrown up by its players. One example is the way in which Alan Huyton's game was handled. Another is the Flying Squad, a team of standby investigators who might be sent out while a game is actually in progress, to replace SITU agents who have been lost, either through player dropout or by some more sinister mischance.

Players selecting this option play the game's remaining turns at a reduced rate.

At the time of writing, my second character, Madeleine Hook, has been flown to Mexico, to help find a team member who has been mysteriously kidnapped:

Maddy smiles again at the air hostess.

"Yes, yes," she says, missing the irony of the asked, 'Would you like any more peanuts?'

She takes the extra four bags and stuffs them in her pocket with the others. "This is a major attack of The Munchies," she thinks, and giggles at the air hostess again. She takes another swig of the tequila and walks out into the warm air of the airport.

She looks very distinctive and attracts several glances as she waits at the carousel for her army surplus rucksack. Her vivid dyed red hair falls over a pale, freckled face which has been smeared with stripes of dayglo orange sunblock. Her bright yellow-green tie-dye skirt clashes with her green DMs, and the fluorescent alien head on her black T-shirt just looks weird.

Outside she whistles loudly and shouts, "Taxi!!!"

I know that Standby positions are used successfully in many mixed or computer-moderated games, but I was surprised the concept translated so well to a 'pure' RPG. For those who don't mind missing out on the initial stages, the Flying Squad is a great way to make an entrance (prima donna that I am!), and dive straight into the action.

How Was It For You?

To a dyed-in-the-wool single-character RPGer like myself, party games differ in one important way: the GM has to process six sets of actions instead of one so, inevitably, a small amount of personal freedom must be sacrificed for the success of the group as a whole. Given these restrictions, UNEXPLAINED was far, far, better than I ever expected; it is not only the best game of its type but, I believe, the best a party game can be. I was quite unprepared for the quality and depth of the game: under the sensitive hand of the various GMs, the group turn takes on an appeal all of its own, the sheer value for money (an average five to six sides of close-typed script) amply compensating for any slight loss of roleplaying scope. Also, the partially-plotted story arc format lends itself to increasingly absorbing turns as things gather speed, particularly in the latter half of the game. The final debriefing rounds things off nicely, making you want to bring your freshly-Illuminated operative on to subsequent scenarios, like a favourite tabletop character.

I really can't find fault with any aspect of UNEXPLAINED. It's good value, well-written, reliable and great fun - in fact, it's the next evolutionary step for the group PBM! Our Next Best Hope!

Go on, sign up for SITU today - and hey! let's be careful out there...]]>