From: "Gregory Littmann" To: "GURPSNET-L" Subject: Experimental Horror / Wizardly PBEM Date: Friday, February 15, 2002 5:09 PM If there is enough interest, Im going to run a PBEM. The characters will be investigators into the supernatural. Your character begins without any magical power, and without ever having encountered the supernatural. However, as the game goes on, opportunities will arise to gain access to magic. Hint: being well- educated is going to help. There will be a strong horror element. That doesn't mean that I am going to wantonly victimize the PCs. It does mean that I reserve the right to be gruesome in general. Your interest in roleplaying should be significantly greater than your interest in powergameing, or you won't have a good time. We will use a bastardized version of GURPS. You dont have to know the GURPS system or have GURPS books to play. If you can describe your character, I can write it up in bastardized GURPS form. The game-rules by which magic operates will never be revealed to the players. Im going to be flexible about starting time and place. The game will take place on Earth, but might be set anywhere and anywhen that literacy exists, from Mesopotamia in the 4th millennium BC to cyberpunk America. Player interests and input will determine my decision. I will expect players to play characters who are appropriate for the time and place. Here comes the experimental part. In order to keep the game flowing, I will allow scenes taking place at different times to be gamed simultaneously. For instance, we might be discussing within a single email both the conversation your character has on January 1st, and the conversation your character has on January 2nd. This means that sometimes contradictions will arise. When they do, the G.M. will ruthlessly rewrite history to bring things back on track. Sometimes you are going to hate that - you will make a friend on the 2nd only for me to suddenly announce that a P.C. has already killed that individual on the 1st, so you never met after all. If you can't cope with that, then this game isn't for you. You will often disagree with the calls I make to get rid of contradiction. If you can't accept the G.M.s dumb-ass calls on these matters, this isn't the game for you. I will not allow information gained at one time to be used at an earlier time. If you cant handle my calls on that, then this isnt the game for you. I may even find that I have to forbid an action at an earlier time purely because so much has happened at a later time that I am not willing to throw it all away. Again, you are sometimes going to hate my calls on this. Again, if you can't accept my dumb-ass calls graciously, this isn't a game for you. Such daisynchronic gaming is a brave new experiment. I dont promise that it will work. Anyone who has played in one of my PBEMs before will notice that my descriptions are going to be a lot briefer in this game. I love descriptive prose, but it takes too much time. I will be more inclined to be descriptive in a post that goes to a group of players, as opposed to a post that goes to just one. By all means, players should feel free to be as descriptive as they like. The PCs will somehow be part of the same group, in a manner to be determined. Im delighted for PCs to have private projects, but I'm not running a separate game for each P.C.. Please sent private posts about the game to me at Greg1066@hotmail.com. General questions about the game can be posted to this thread. Greg