I am constantly torn. To be pulled, eternally (well, at least as eternally as any mortal can be), in opposite directions, simultaneously and without end. Lesser men might refer to such a fate as destiny. And were it not that I subject myself to such quite willingly, I might be inclined to agree.
There is an old saying that goes something like this. Shit or get off the pot. Think about that for a second. It is an admonishment to make your mind up. Simultaneously, it is an encouragement to be decisive. Yet, taken literally, I would ask you how many different times in life do you shit, then get off the pot (commode, chamber pot, toilet, hole in the ground, etc.)? And so this very same phrase also manifests itself as a cycle that we are doomed to repeat - until, at least, we depart this world of life in physical form for whatever ultimately lies beyond.
But what does any of this have to do with PBM, you might ask?
Everything. It has everything to do with play by mail gaming, as well as everything to do with everything that relates to trying to provide some degree of coverage or discussion of PBM. It simply does.
To hell with this! I'm done with this. Oh, look! Is that the Mad Scientist of PBM come 'round, again? It's a vicious cycle, though the names and the faces and the games and the places do change a bit, from time to time. Yet, where do my loyalties ultimately lie?
Well, the same as with many of you out there forcing yourself to read this tripe - they lie many places, and for a great many different reasons. Simultaneously? Yes, simultaneously. For life - and PBM - are rather complex, and the complexity of both continuously put the squeeze on our inherent desire for simplicity.
I might be a PBM scoundrel of the very worst sort, but let it not be said that I missed the return of the Mad Scientist of PBM to PBM gaming. Whether he stays or whether he later chooses to flee, anew, is truly neither here nor there for me. His timing is immaculate, wouldn't you say?
Some forum posts. A flurry of e-mails exchanged. Even an appeal for help with a problem that is smaller than a speck. It doesn't really take a lot to rouse me from my self-imposed states of slumber, whether they be of recent vintage or ancient in origin.
The Great Battle of Good and Evil, which in play by mail gaming takes the non-stop form of continue pushing forward or risk getting swallowed up by the passage of time, cares not for our excuses. It simply is, and we are all but mere pawns in the grand scheme of things.
Tell me this, 'O wizened One. How many ordinary and uninspired PBM men is one mad scientist worth? To me, that particular one is worth more than you can probably imagine.
But on to other things, for in the Realm of PBM, there are always an infinite number of things that warrant attending to.
From time to time, people want to know what's wrong with PBM. What's the matter with it? What's its problem? Why can't PBM gaming simply get its shit together? Does nobody care? Does no one even give a fuck?
You tell me.
You tell me, and then we'll both know. This morning, as darkness flirted with a new day, I found myself visiting - and browsing - a couple of different websites in particular. They are the blog called The World of Xoth and another blog called Age of Dusk. Neither are perfect, but both are good. Damned good! Better than anything that I've ever done.
And by that, I mean that they are both very good at what they do, at what they purport to do, at what they seek to do, at what they strive to do. And on this particular morning of May 1st, 2024, they both remind me of just how disorganized that the play by mail gaming scene really and truly is.
For these are masters of their craft. Individually and collectively, they ring the great bell in my head, sounding the knell that makes me think, that makes me ponder, that stirs some beast that lives deep within me. Why can't PBM be as organized? Why can't it conduct itself with such precision? Why hasn't PBM learned, yet, what both of these proprietors learned long ago, what they both just seem to instinctively realize?
PBM gaming is awash, awash I say, with information. Even after all of these years of me tinkering at the edges of it all, it remains as bad and as utterly disorganized as it's always been. Make no mistake, my PBM friends and enemies, chaos is, indeed, the true natural state of play by mail gaming. It likely always has been. It likely always will be.
And along with all of that disorganization and lack of attention to detail, PBM is all the poorer for it, today. People don't understand it. They fail to grasp it. Their appreciation, as a whole, for PBM gaming's nuance and depth and variety remains lacking. Decades after its origin, the vast bulk of the gaming public at large still remains utterly oblivious to PBM. Utterly, I say!
I'm sure that many people out there scattered across the Great Realm of PBM don't like my approach to things. My chosen approach, I suspect, rubs them the wrong way. They're certain that there's much better ways of doing things. Then do them! Get off your asses, both individually and collectively, and do them. Do things as they should be done. Do things as they need to be done. What are you, after all? A bunch of old PBM hens? Tell me, 'O clucking Ones - what have you done lately that raises PBM like a beacon of gaming light to all men (and women, and children, and cats)? Well, maybe not cats.
To hell with all of it! To hell with it, I say! For this is the rock upon which I bash my ever-lovin'-PBM-head. You don't have to like it. You certainly don't have to understand it. That's not the PBM cross that is yours to bear.
Promoting PBM gaming is a god-awful, thankless task. It will wear a man down. It will grind his bones to dust. Advertising PBM games is only marginally better. In neither of these fields of endeavor do I possess any expertise, inherent or acquired. I try, I fail. I try, again, and again, I fail. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
Ad infinitum, I should have added.
In fact, writing about play by mail gaming is the only thing, arguably, that I'm any good, at all, at - and even that is highly debatable. But it is something that I love, something that I love to do, something that I have some modicum of passion for. What about you? What do you have a passion for?
Maybe your PBM passion lies in playing PBM games. Perhaps your passion, your true PBM passion, is to be a PBM GM. Or could it be that your sole, remaining passion that is PBM-related is that you're simply nostalgic for PBM gaming of yesteryear? Maybe time has passed you by, and what PBM is, now, what PBM has evolved (or regressed) to become simply doesn't capture or eye nor call to your heart, like PBM in ye days of olde used to. Perhaps, through no real fault of your own, you can no longer hear PBM's siren call.
Trying to persuade, trying to motivate, trying to get through to others, that's always rough (though, sometimes, rewarding) terrain to navigate. When I first encountered mention of play by mail gaming, all that it took was but a single black and white print advertisement.
Over and over and over, again.
Month after month after month, I would see that ad. It would catch my eye. I would read. How many times did I read that same damned ad, over and over and over, again, before I ever took the bait? How many times did that one PBM ad tease my eyes? How many times did it tempt me? How many times did it have to work it's magic, before I yielded my natural resistance and crossed the Rubicon from the Realm of the Ordinary to the Realm of Play By Mail?
That one ad just kept on hammering away at my eyeballs. It was unrelenting, showing up like clockwork on magazine shelves in stores all around the local area. How much better off I might have been, had I simply not allowed the temptation of giving play by mail gaming a try. But in inestimable ways, say what you may, PBM gaming has enriched my life. Not financially, but internally. Within me, it lit a flame - a flame that has been burning ever since!
And so I write. The writing part came much, much later, though. Which is why you won't find any articles authored by me gracing the pages of Paper Mayhem, Flagship, The Nuts & Bolts Of Gaming, American Gamer, Gaming Universal, nor any other PBM magazine of record from back in the day.
Wayne "Smitty" Smith, my dear and old-as-dirt PBM friend, that man is a true, blue PBM patriot. He plays PBM games (certain PBM games, anyway) like there's no tomorrow. Where playing PBM games is concerned, Wayne Smith is truly a giant among men, a veritable titan that strides over the play by mail battlefields where he plies his PBM warmongering skills, par excellence. Wayne Smith, you see, is old school. He's always been old (obviously), but he's still old school, where PBM gaming is concerned.
All of that PBM gaming that he does, it helps keep him out of his wife's hair. While he's filling out turn orders and reading turn results, he's not getting on his wife's nerves, even if he gets on mine. Duel2 and Hyborian War - Wayne Smith is one of RSI's PBM sugar daddies. Here, take my money!
I like giving Wayne a hard time, and not just because he deserves a hard time. And not just because he craves a hard time. But rather, because old Smitty is a man whom I greatly admire, even if his letter-writing skills have grown rusty and have never been anything to brag about. Right, Wayne?
He commands my respect, both on a personal level, and on the level of being a genuine PBM gamer of the first magnitude. He's of a caliber, as a play by mail gamer, that most of us can never even imagine, much less aspire to the level that he has long been accustomed to. If only his golf skills were on par with his PBM skills. Alas, 'twas never meant to be!
Hither came the Mad Scientist of PBM. Hither came Mark Wardell. The hour of his return to PBM was unexpected. Like a thief in the night, the Mad Scientist of PBM came. But will he last?
That is but one of countless unknowns that populate the PBM gaming scene. My hope is that he will last, that he will cement his presence amongst the PBM population, once more, and that he will give voice to the PBM beast that dwells within him (which is an entirely different PBM beast than the one that lives within me).
Once upon many decades ago, PBM gaming's ranks surged with champions of every sort - champions of the cause! They lived, breathed, and slept PBM. What great sin did we commit, as an enclave of PBM gamers, to see our ranks thinned to become a pale imitation of their former greatness?
PBM magazines of old were PBM's horn-bearers. They blared long and loud. But while the noise that those old PBM magazines made wasn't music, when I read and browse them, now, all these many years and decades after the fact, the noise that they made is as music to my PBM-loving ears of today.
Only recently did I depart the PBM battlefield, anew, and it wasn't the first time that I have departed. Be that as it may, the Horn of Helm Hammerhand shall sound in the Deep, one last time!
For the Horn of PBM, there is never a last time!
Which factors heavily into my own grappling with the PBM bear. It just plain tires you out. Then, too, when I factor in all of the various flavors of complacency apples that others routinely toss into the basket, as well as the lackluster effort with which they toss said fruit, my appetite hungers for something far more substantial.
The good LORD willing, I am hopeful that I will craft and put into motion an actual old-fashioned PBM game of a fairly small scale between now and the coming months that remain un-burned through for the PBM year 2024. What I'm gonna aim for is a little PBM treat for some hand-selected inmates. It won't be a business undertaking, but a hobby venture. Hopefully, a little something for them to look forward to, and something definitely manageable on my end. Computer moderation! I don't exactly see computer moderation churning out new PBM games, you know. So, I will go the hand moderation route, and deliberately so.
Free for the inmates, but they'll have to foot the cost of a postage stamp to send their turn orders in to me. Inmates tend to perennially low on funds (ain't we all?), so one primary aim is for it to be as inexpensive as possible (not all inmates have access to e-mail, you know - or did you?). In prison, 'tis hope that is often the commodity that is in the shortest supply.
For turn results, I am aiming for no more than three to four sheets of paper, to help ensure that outgoing postage costs are minimized. Yeah, I'm not getting one of those postal scales, though that might actually lower the postage price a tad further for outgoing turn results. Overseas changes the postage costs dramatically, so this will be a purely American PBM affair. For even PBM gaming is subject to limitations imposed by reality in this physical dimension.
It's just something that I want to do. Call me an anachronism and be done with it, already, why don't ya? At worst, it fails. So, what else is new in PBM?
