Bliss Stage Play by E-mail

[Dryraisin]

     I just got my copy of Bliss stage and after reading through it I really can't wait to try it out with my friends. Problem is we really can't meet face to face regularly so I suggested that we play the game by e-mail. But I'm not really sure how to go about it though so if someone can post any suggestions that may be helpful in playing the game through e-mail it would be greatly appreciated. This is all our first time to play by e-mail and also our first time to try out the game.

[Ben Lehman]

You're on your own! I can give advice for face-to-face play but e-mail is new to me.

Maybe have several scenes running at once?

yrs--
--Ben

[JC]

is it a problem of place, or a problem of time?

if it's a problem of place, you might want to consider Skype or IRC

I may be pointing out the obvious here, but you never know

[Garvey]

I've been planning on playing Bliss Stage by Play-By-Post, and done some thinking on it.  If you can play your game via Skype or IRC, you might find better results, but I'll address your original question.

The major difficulty in play-by-post and play-by-email are two-fold in my mind.  One is the social component.  Its a very different medium from speech, and the ability to convey feelings and intentions can be difficult and noisy.  Easy for people to get offended or to have bad expectations.  Since you all know each in RL this shouldn't be a problem.

The main problem is speed.  Play-by-email and Play-by-post is very slow.  You need to do everything possible to frame scenes aggressively.  Something should always be happening in a scene.  Dull boring stuff is easy to get through in face to face play, but it can kill a game if you get stuck in a text medium where that might take weeks to get through.  You should also probably try to have multiple scenes at once.  You should aim that every player is always actively involved in a scene.  Sitting on the sidelines in a PBEM game means that you don't do anything but listen for weeks at a time (or more depending on posting rate).  You should probably conclude all interlude scenes before doing any missions scenes.  Run the pilots for missions simultaneously.  Run interludes in parallel as well, as much as you can.  I'd avoid having two parallel interludes running with the same character in both, at least until you get a better feel for the game in that medium.

Setting a minimum posting rate might also be useful.

[Ben Lehman]

You could actually take advantage of the medium of you had some sort of forum or journal software as opposed to e-mail. For instance, run simultaneous missions which influence each other. If one pilot falls down on the job (doesn't post fast enough) the other pilot might have to cover for him, or the mission just might fail. You can have interludes going on during the missions, too, which is pretty awesome.

You could have small groups of players (2-3) play out interludes via chat, then e-mail the transcripts a judge.

Just some random thoughts.

yrs--
--Ben