I've been running an RPG by email (actually by Discord, but same difference), similar to the PBEM board games I've run in the past. It will be a slower pace than a regular in-person gaming session, obviously. The rules set I'm using is partially homebrewed, to hopefully fit the format better. There will probably need to be tweaks as we go along, but hopefully not much.
I'm hoping to gain some more experience at GMing a game through this, and hopefully everyone will enjoy themselves. And I'll be honest, it may fizzle. This is an experiment, and we'll see how it works out.
The system is tilted more toward roleplay and less towards die rolling and min-maxing. Part of my job will be to handle all the dice anyways though. And like in my board games, I'll narrate the results.
If you know of someone who might be interested, please feel free to send this invite to them as well. I don't have to know the person already. I only sent this first email to a small list of folks, mostly in different social circles, so that it might reach people I wouldn't be able to.
I'm not trying to pressure anyone into playing. It won't hurt my feelings if you say 'No thanks.' ;)
My first invite garnered 10 willing victims, but many fizzled for different reasons (no time, format didn't fit their play style, or they just stopped responding somewhere in the process). There's not really any upper limit, but I'm not expecting to have a lot of players. Right now I have 3-4 active players, and I think I can handle a few more.
The game world is fairly vague, and the players can help fill it in for extra xp once it gets going. The concept is what I came up with in answer to the question, "What change to our history might justify a world where singular Heroes and Villains can be more important and have more impact than whole armies?" The answer I came up with was that if Mass Production never happened, and all technology had to be custom-built. The technological know-how is still there, but there's no assembly lines churning out guns, computers, cars or the like. Yes, those things can still be built, but they're custom built by craftsmen, and may look or behave in wildly unique ways. Old time Pulp Adventures often had this style. Johnny Quest might be an example, or Gru from Despicable Me might also be a modern version. All of their gear was special built by them or their allies.
Your character can be practically anything you want. You don't need to be constrained to just a Science Hero. You can design a Samson-type who prefers to tackle trouble with your fists. Or a western gunman. Or most anything else. I'm deliberately trying to not put any restrictions on the characters. The only one I can think of offhand is the world is still human-only. This isn't a D&D fantasy world, it's supposed to be mostly Earth with one major change to its history.
After PCs are created, each player will then work with me to design a villain. In a world as wide-open as this one, why not use the player's creativity to enhance it further? Odds are against a player having to go against their own villain. I'd use it against a different player, of course.
Being PBEM, there's no particular need for the players to stick together. They can team up or separate as the storyline requires, and no one will be sitting idle.
Also as PBEM, the pace will not be lightning fast. Events will happen over days, not minutes. I doubt playing will take up more than a few minutes of your time on any one day. It will take up a bit more of my time, but even that probably will be surprisingly light.
If you think you might be interested, you can contact me at my gmail address of master.tmo@_____.com. You're more than welcome to decide it's not your cup of tea at any time, with no hard feelings.
