I just got back from Nashcon and am looking forward to see how the present PBEMs are doing. Now there are at least three PBEMs going. Vietnam 1946, Blake 7, and a 19th Century fantasy about Babages analytical engine. All interesting, all worthy of being played. I ran a game of "A Confederate Spy In Washington" at the con and found it worked as well as these PBEMs. All in all Matrix Gaming is spreading. This issue focuses on how MGs can be used in role play games. These are a lot of ideas about this. I am looking forward to hearing your feedback on what you read. I think MGs have an important role to play in future RPGs that is separate from their existence as an independent game approach. What I am now calling the "Classical Matrix Game" like Dar as Salaam, Confederate Spy, and other games that use my basic rules can do games that RPGs now do, but in a different way. I hope that the rest of you will be able to see these differences in the future. The trouble with making up you own system is that ideas that seem old to you (keeping in mind that MG ideas are between two and twelve years old for me) ie "Classical" are not at all classical for anyone else! That will only change when more of you know these basic ideas and begin diverging from them. This is a good thing. But I hope that we always remember the core and why it is the way it is. Back to Table of Contents -- Matrix Gamer #14 To Matrix Gamer List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2000 by Chris Engle. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com