Running your own PBEM game

By David "Onion" Ball

Are rules for a game good or bad? Does it maintain order or just limit people's creativity? Whether your game is a PbeM or forum-based or IRC you need rules, but it can be extremely limiting on what a member can or can not make their character do.

By Ginger Stampley

Journal games tend to involve one journal per character and one or more communities where play is conducted, plus an out-of-character community where players can communicate, plot, and post absence notices.

One of the many pitfalls with running a PBEM game is to make sure the story keeps going forward and evolve. For this to happen, the players need to be kept entertained by the story.You would not keep watching a TV series if it was not good enough to keep your interest up, would you? The sme thing goes for a PBEM game. if you do not manage to keep the players' interests up, they will stop posting or even leave the game. It is not an easy task, mind you. Remember there are very few TV series that keep going for several years, just as there are few games that manage to keep going for that long.

For those looking for a PBEM game, it is probably no surprise that the term PBEM is used by many different types of games. Going back to the very basics of PBEM games, we take a look at the different types of games that all fall under the category PBEM.

There are basically two types of games that both deserve to be called play by email games. The first type of games is such games as war games, strategy games and board games. The other type commonly referred to as Play by Email games are role-playing games played via email.

By Cixtian S. Trybe
It is important, in the whole scheme of things, to set up a game properly –before- play begins, so that success (A long enjoyable game life) is possible, and players understand what is to come and what is expected of them during play.

The first thing I advise all Game Masters to do is develop a set of house rules. These are rules of play that the Players should read, and agree upon before the game ever begins. This keeps everyone on the same page, as far as how and when the game is run, as well as what is expected, and what is appropriate for your game.