Matrix Games are well suited for play by email. In fact much early work on Matrix Games was done in play by mail games. PBeM is the same, except that it is faster and does not cost as much to do. The following essay describes how to do it so that Matrix Games can proliferate across the web. Players will need to understand the rules of how to play Matrix Games so I give permission to anyone who wants to run a PBeM MG to distribute my "Basic Matrix Game rules" article to the players of their game (provided that the game is free and open to all). If players still have questions regarding how to play, referee them on to the Matrix Gamer (email me at hamster@io.com) so I can send them out additional information. THE SEQUENCE OF WHAT YOU MUST DO TO RUN A SUCCESSFUL GAME 1. Put out a call for players. 2. Provide a central location for players to come to see what the game is and what it is about. 3. Provide access to the rules of play for all who care to see them. 4. Provide prospective players with examples of how to play. 5. Have a clear scenario: which includes characters, a setting, what type of game is being played and a run down of the types of arguments needed to tell this story. 6. Have an email address that players can submit arguments to. 7. You must check your email frequently and transfer new arguments to a word processor program (that will become the turn result message you send out to the players. 8. If you get more than twenty arguments do a series of filtering dice rolls to slim down the number of arguments so that you are not overwhelmed. 9. You are the referee so you rule on the argument's strength, on inconsistencies and on which trigger conflicts. 10. As referee you roll the dice to determine which arguments happen. Mark the successful arguments as successful. 11. Email the full turn report back to the players (both successes and failures) and add the successful arguments to "The story so far" section of you central gathering point. A CALL FOR PLAYERS When you decide you want to do a game you need players. This means advertising. You can get players quickest by putting a posting on a game newsgroup. This is the best method for games that will be over and done in a week of two. If you game will last longer then you might want to put an add in the "Matrix Gamer" in a section I will have next issue where Matrix Gamers can leave notes for one another. Or you can put an add on a PBeM web page about what you're setting up. Please let me know your address if you set up a web page, I want to keep track of what is happening so I can put it in the Matrix Gamer. No mater what the method, give players an email address to contact you. When they do, send them out information at once and get the game going ASAP. If you make people wait even a week, you will lose them. CENTRAL LOCATION FOR THE GAME Games need a virtual game table to be played in. This gives people a place to go to see what the game is, how it is going and to make it easy for them to play. This can be done by an email address or a web page. EMAIL LOCATION: If an email address is your central room, players and prospective players will email the referee inquiries about what is going on. The referee then sends back a message that includes the scenario information, the story so far, a request for them to play and rules on how to play. I personally don't like this method since it puts more work on the referee since he must answer more messages. WEB PAGE LOCATION: A web page central location is a better option since it will allow players to come and look at the game at will. It also creates the possibility that surfers may drop by, be impressed and join in the game. The central location must show the players the scenario information, the story so far, an invitation to play, access to the rules so that it is easy for them to join in, and possibly a list of the other player's email addresses so that players can talk to one another and plan strategies. PROVIDE ACCESS TO THE RULES FOR ALL TO SEE I should probably field this one. I will set up a web page that is free and open to all that provides the basic rules of play. Players using an email central location can give the address for players to check. Web page central locations can include a link in the page to send people to the rules page. In this way referees will not have to reinvent the wheel before each game and players will find uniformity in play. This will help attract players to other games since if they liked one game, they will like another. PROVIDE PROSPECTIVE PLAYERS WITH AN EXAMPLE OF PLAY I can field this one as well by setting up several different web pages with examples of play of various types of Matrix Games. Each page will contain an overview of the type of game (ie a cheat sheet that tells players the kinds of arguments they will need to make) and a verbatim description of several turns of that kind of game played face to face. PROVIDE A SCENARIO The person running the game will have to come up with scenario information. This includes a breif description of each character in the game, a description of the scene the action takes place in, a description of what type of game this is (what type of story you want the players to tell), and a few starting lines to the story so far section. CHARACTERS: Stories need a list of characters like those presented at the beginnings of plays. The list includes the persons name, some basic facts about them (age, wealth, power), whither they have any special status'/reputations (like being feared, hated, loved), and a short written description of who they are. SETTING: Again as in plays, the stories need a setting. A brief description of the location will do but a map of the sight is better. WHAT TYPE OF STORY IS THIS? The referee needs to clearly say what type of story is being run. It helps to include a brief write up of what types of actions need to happen to tell this story – so that players will know what type of arguments to make. Of course, players are free to ignore this advice and tell what ever story they want to but this at least gives them a starting point. BEGINNING FACTS: It helps to tell players what has happened immediately before the beginning of the story. This opens the stage for the first act of the play. PROVIDE AN EMAIL ADDRESS FOR PLAYERS TO SEND ORDERS TO AND CHECK IT OFTEN! Logically to run a PBeM the referee and players must all have email. Players send their arguments to the referee, who processes them daily or weekly to create a return email to the players. The results of the turn can then be posted on a web page for other people to see – and potentially get interested enough to join the game. ARGUMENT LENGTH: I do not appreciate arguments that are longer than three sentences. Paragraphs, short stories and novels are too long to be arguments – they are manifestos! I plan to automatically kick back arguments that are books because they make me (the referee) work to hard! Good arguments don't need to be long. PROCESSING TURNS Players send arguments to the referee. The referee must check the email regularly and process turns everyday or once a week (decide how often at the start of the game). A game with daily turn around will last only a week or two. Weekly processing will yield a game lasting two or three months. The referee processes turns by first copying the arguments to a separate word processor file. I'm using MS publisher but word or some other program will do just as well. Once all the arguments are transferred, the referee goes down the list and rules on the argument's strength, which ones are inconsistent with one another and which will trigger conflicts. It helps to type in code letters to tell this information (so VS, S, A, W, VW, St for strengths, to * or # arguments that are inconsistent with one another, and C for arguments triggering conflicts). The referee then rolls the dice to see which arguments happen and which fail. If a conflict argument succeeds then the referee will need to decide which characters are involved in the fight and how strong they are relative to one another. The referee then emails all of these players to get them to make an argument for the outcome of this fight. Players can specify which character/characters they are "playing" which will help the referee pick who argues. This must be a day turn around time argument (conflicts are like that, quick). The referee rules on the strength of all the arguments but only rolls for the one from the player in the strongest position. If that fails he rolls the second strongest and so forth till one succeeds. If they all fail then return to the strongest and start the process anew. Conflicts must have outcomes and this is a quick a certain way to ensure that they do. The outcome of the conflict is cut and pasted onto the back of the argument that triggered it. The referee then divides the arguments into two groups. The first, marked "Successful" goes on top, and includes all the arguments that happened. The second, marked "Unsuccessful" or "Losers!" or some other insult, go on the bottom. The document can then be copied to an email message and be sent out to the players. The successful section can be added to a web page containing the on going results of the game. WHAT IF I GET A HUNDRED ARGUMENTS? Clearly no referee can roll dice for a hundred arguments. I would say that twenty arguments is the outside max a referee can effectively process in a turn. But that does not mean games must be restricted to only twenty players. As many people as want to play can by using a series of filtering steps to cut down the number of arguments. The human brain does this. Our senses feed in far more information than the brain can process. So while some neurons feed in information (excitation) about ten times that number work to slow down or even stop information from coming in (inhibition). Filtering steps in PBeM MGs do the same thing. Filtering is done by doing an across the board roll on all incoming arguments at one set strength that kicks out a certain percentage of messages. If all arguments make get an average roll (4,5,6) then roughly half of them will be screened out , while very weak (6) will screen out 5/6ths of all incoming messages. Obviously the more arguments sent in, the tougher the filtering roll. Arguments that fail the filter roll are deleted immediately. The referee only processes the number of arguments he feels comfortable with. So the referee does not get over worked. ESTABLISHING A WEB PAGE FOR YOUR GAME At this time geocities and some other internet providers allow anyone to set up free web pages. I am certain that they are positioning themselves for the future – but for the present this make it possible for us to play our games via the internet very easily. So I strongly recommend that you accompany your email game with a web page. In the long run this will help not just your game but also the whole hobby of Matrix Gaming. Because a larger presence means greater public awareness, which means more people which means more players and more Matrix Game development. GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR GAME! Back to Table of Contents -- Matrix Gamer #2 To Matrix Gamer List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 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