PLAY-BY-EMAIL GAMES
Play-by-email gaming has its roots, of course, in the very old (and to me always inscrutable) practice once indulged in by chess fanatics of sending the moves for chess matches through the conventional mail system. In the 1980s some companies (e.g. the weirdly named 'Flying Buffalo Inc.) cleverly made use of this sort of model to run computer-moderated dungeon crawls, wargames and other such diversions, by requiring players to send in their turns on a regular basis written on punch cards for a frankly monumental processing fee. Much of what passes for PBEM gaming follows this model fairly closely - fun stuff, to be sure, but not exactly the Conventional Literary Person's usual cup of gravy. There are also some PBEM games out there, however, that are run in a way that bears a much closer relation to traditional roleplaying games, minus the grim dice-rolling exercises and the endless procedures of "leveling up" that tend to get in the way of good storytelling in traditional RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons, Planescape and the many variations of GURPS.
One sub-genre of PBEM games in particular - the sort that enthusiasts usually refer to as "Sims" seem to me to come pretty close to delivering the same sort of frisson that one finds in a well-told tale of IF. Good "Sims" are rare, since they require a moderator who's willing to make an enormous commitment of time and energy to playing all the NPCs, and keeping the players in tune with the environment that characters are meant to belong to. Such games also pretty much have to be restricted by an auditioning process - one stinky writer or one outright weirdo in the mix can really foul up an otherwise well-maintained group story. I tried out a couple of these things over the past few months and quickly became convinced that the task of running one was well-night impossible, but then was swiftly converted in the opposite direction by a truly brilliant Sim that's been taking up great dollops of my free time over the past month or so. It's called "The Keepers" and it's a magnificent melange of elements from George Orwell, William Golding, and that freaky old 1970s TV show, The Prisoner. Auditions are closed for the moment, sadly, but they may open up again at any time, so I've included a link to the game's homepage for your perusal. I'll add links to other such games if I find 'em; also, check out Suite101's brand new (and excellent) "Play By Email Gaming" topic site, managed by Walt O'Hara, and accessible through the search engine located right on this page.
