"Hi, I'm Commander Troy McClure, you might remember me from other academy training holo-simulations as, Abandon Ship, the quickest way out, and I sense danger, 101 things you dont need a Betazoid to know..."
I used to play on FidoNet, where several games were run in the same message board. So a game would indicate their messages by the subject thread. The USS Remica would have subjects like "REM| An Engineer's Plight" and the like.
These days it's easy to get a hold of an account at Yahoo or Network54 to manage your own games with no need for that.
When I ran an email game I still used some sort of subject identifier so my email manager could sort it neatly into its own folder.
As far as gameplay, the GM would set the tone, show the scenes, usually the first scene would jump the characters into the middle of it by having some intense suspense to deal with. One character I played was started out just having killed a lowly deviant for the Great Link secretly and was about to be walked in on before he could hide the body.
Whether I started a character or picked one up in progress, there was always the hook to grab the players interest as they got their first move.
None of the games I've played involved any simulation to it. I usually lose interest when I have to write for others a la the major Sim Fleets. Now a game which allows some level of control for person A to write down person B's response if it's obvious what they will say, that can't be too bad, but I find the best atmosphere is usually set when I play only myself. It gives that interaction feel to it more than a "group novel" feel.
And as most of my games did, every week you'd receive a message with a subject similar to: "REM} Weekly Update [04/25/99]" wherein it would start off with a few similar elements.
Title, Ship Class, Ship's Quote
Crew Roster, Characters and Player Status
Brief person-by-person list of current actions
A section for GM Notes, including request for response, warning about inactivity before you get dinked, any notices of vacation times, what the players should keep in mind about what's coming, etc.
One of the best parts of FIDONet's pbem's was even if you weren't playing that game, you could keep up with the "episodes" as they progressed. That's probably what I liked most about that format anyway.
I run the game as an ICON game, but to make things fair I roll ALL the the dice. All the player needs to be aware of is to quote Sta and skill levels to ensurte I roll 6the right amount of dice.
I might start a new scene and situation, but as far as I am concerned 6the players have an equal, if not greater, right to lead the plot. If a player wishes to write a change of scene then as long as the transition between scenes is covered I run the game where it is, NOT where I scripted it, and NPC's will react accordingly, If I didn't take something into account, then neither did they...
As for writing for others... I fell afoul of that in sims in the past and have a deep loathing for the style. I dont want to go into it here...
All players write for themselves, and NPC's are available (except the captain) for players to use and write for, only requiring my participation in life-changing and life or death situations...
These may make the game slower, the Venture first plot has run for just over 6 months (real time) for a couple of days game time, but I feel the results are worth it, but do require a good memoryu for detail...
I hope that covers your queries, please let me know if you have others or are interested...
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DanG.
"Hi, I'm Commander Troy McClure, you might remember me from other academy training holo-simulations as, Abandon Ship, the quickest way out, and I sense danger, 101 things you dont need a Betazoid to know..."
The USS Venture is looking for new crew
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