Take II

You gotta know when to fold 'em.

Photo by Sander Sammy on Unsplash

Ok. I warned you this might go terribly wrong. I’m abandoning the Otherkind experiment. While working through the next few turns of it, I realized it would ultimately be a Choose Your Own Adventure with dice experience. It’s an easy fit for the newsletter/email medium, but that’s not what I’m after here.

I see the rise of solo RPGs and playing solo advice as a solution to our hard-to-synch schedules; I like to propose asynchronous play as another solution. Where folks can play and interact as time allows. Engarde! is a great model of this play. However, it has -ism warts in its setting. The game works, though it has dated mechanics. I’ve played and run short sessions of it. My interest now is seeing it run on a larger scale in this digital medium and examining the game flow. I want to “reboot” it with more modern mechanics and setting - French playboys aren’t my strong suit. I am thinking around a Reality TV-style Car Wars premise where drivers chase fame, sponsors, and race!

I’ll run Engarde! for interested folks. I will start with six turns/months of in-game time and review. Rules as written. I’m more interested in how the game plays out over “updating” rules; however, we can change the language and setting parts as needed.

These are some useful links:

• Engarde! Lots of useful support on the main site.

• A nice overview and background of the game

I’ll also post some pregens and support to make jumping in easier.

In Other PBP Arenas

I’ve been going through the list of PBM/PBP/PBEM - lots of dead links. I was happy to discover some of the automated games have gotten their code bases into an open-source state. I immediately looked up Atlantis and Olympia. Not only are those codebases available, but folks have also been making variants. I’ll start at the most runnable source closest to the original and share my thoughts here. I’m intrigued by what I’ll find, and my joy knows no bounds that much of this code is in the C language!!

I don’t know what I’ll do with this treasure trove yet, but it is good to know it exists. I’ll keep you updated.