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Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: Bryan Prince <WALAB@******.HH.VANDERBILT.EDU>
Subject: GM'ing by email
Date: Sat, 21 May 1994 11:29:31 -0600
Shadowrunners and GM's, I need your help. I would like to know how to run
a SR game by email, but can't seem to find any information on how to do
it. Is there a particular set of rules in a file somewhere, or can one
of you impart some of your special wisdom on the matter? I guess my major
difficulty is in situations needing a dice roll to resolve. Do you have
the players submit a list of skill rolls and call for Karma rolls as
necessary, or do you just trust the players to be straight with you, or
is there another method? Do you leave dice out altogether, and just
use interactive roleplaying (if so, how do you resolve combat?) What kind
of Character sheet should be submitted: Just a background and sketch, or
a regular sheet with all the skills, cyber/magic, gear,ect?
I am not subscribed to SHADOWTK or PLOT-D, so I do not know if they cover
this sort of thing. Please help. Any ideas, rules or suggestions would be
appreciated.
Thanks in advance....
Bryan Prince
Message no. 2
From: Ivy Ryan <ivyryan@***.ORG>
Subject: Re: GM'ing by email
Date: Sat, 21 May 1994 23:47:04 -0700
On Sat, 21 May 1994, Bryan Prince wrote:

> Shadowrunners and GM's, I need your help. I would like to know how to run
> a SR game by email, but can't seem to find any information on how to do
> it. Is there a particular set of rules in a file somewhere, or can one
> of you impart some of your special wisdom on the matter? I guess my major
> difficulty is in situations needing a dice roll to resolve. Do you have
> the players submit a list of skill rolls and call for Karma rolls as
> necessary, or do you just trust the players to be straight with you, or
> is there another method? Do you leave dice out altogether, and just
> use interactive roleplaying (if so, how do you resolve combat?) What kind
> of Character sheet should be submitted: Just a background and sketch, or
> a regular sheet with all the skills, cyber/magic, gear,ect?
> I am not subscribed to SHADOWTK or PLOT-D, so I do not know if they cover
> this sort of thing. Please help. Any ideas, rules or suggestions would be
> appreciated.
> Thanks in advance....
> Bryan Prince
>
Well, Bryan,
I've never tried it, so I can't help a lot. But I would suggest
that you subscribe to both Shadowtalk and Plot-D.
Ivy K
Message no. 3
From: Gian-Paolo Musumeci <musumeci@***.LIS.UIUC.EDU>
Subject: Re: GM'ing by email
Date: Sun, 22 May 1994 10:32:12 -0500
I would just fake it all and rely on your dramatic sense. ;-)
Message no. 4
From: "S.K. Khoo" <S.K.Khoo@*********.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: GM'ing by email
Date: Mon, 23 May 1994 10:12:16 +0100
GMing by e-mail is basically what the Shadowtalk list is all about,
albeit with no hard and fast rules like you would have in a game -
everyone just trusts each other to remain within the bounds of normal
rules as to what their characters can and cannot do. Try subbing; I think
you might enjoy it, or at least gain more insight into how a game might
be run over e-mail.

If you're looking to run a game on e-mail and you want to include
roll-playing as well, then I suggest you make all the rolls. It's like
pbm ( play-by-mail - ie. snail mail ) wargames; the GM makes all the rolls
to avoid any possibility of cheating, and then posts the results.

However, this would only work if all the players involved were on
line at the same time so no "intenational" participants unless they're
prepared to stay up half the night. If your players can't be on the net
at the same time when you play, you might as well forget about using dice
and stick to something like the Shadowtalk format.

Well, hopes this helps. :)
Message no. 5
From: Gurth <jweste%smtp@******.HZEELAND.NL>
Subject: Re: GM'ing by email
Date: Mon, 23 May 1994 14:23:13 +0200
>I would just fake it all and rely on your dramatic sense. ;-)

Very good advice. I run an e-mail SR-game with a couple of people at the
school network, and I don't bother with die rolls and stuff. Say to
yourself: "He wants to do (name something)? Hmm. What skill would he use?
And what's the skill's rating? Yeah, it would probably work." Then just
type something up, mess the attempt up occassionally (especially if the
character has a low skill rating).
Give each player the norma game info about his character, doesn't matter
if he doesn't understand it all (my e-mail players had never played SR
before they started this), just tell him to ask you about anything he
doesn't understand.
Keep the game going, though you can't obviously go as fast as in live
gaming sessions. Take at least a month for a short adventure, a couple of
months for longer ones, and ask your players to send in their moves at
least once a week, preferably more. And, if you feel someone isn't paying
attention (i.e. doesn't tell you what he does), put him on auto-pilot:
treat him as an NPC. If he doesn't like what happened to his character,
tough, but _he_ should have told _you_ what he wanted to do _beforehand_.

Further Reading

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Disclaimer

These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.

Thwap!