[DL] About PBEM Deadlands--a bit long

["Douglas W. Moore" <dwm@a-net.email.ne.jp>]

I've been running a Deadlands PBEm for about 4 months now using
six-gun@onelist.com and just started another game at long-arm@egroups.com.
Both games are going great and if you go to www.egroups.com you can see the
public archives.

Deadlands is a great game for PBEMs because suspense is really easy to build
in a mailing list game. You stop the action at the right spot and the
characters get real nervous. There is also the added suspense of time before
the next post to think about what is happening and to worry about it.

Deadlands is particurally good because of the action card draws. For a PBEM
I write up all the actions drawn(both party and baddies) and send them out
in one list. Then, after the party discusses strategy and tels me what to do
I let fly. Usually it takes 2-4 posts to get through each round of combat
but it can go faster if you(the marshal) have a good idea of what
chips/actions the players want to spend to get out of damage. Also, make
sure that the characters can change fate before the results of the round are
final. that is mostly why I break up the combat. After a couple of
characters are hit, I stop to see if they want to spend chips to negate
damage or try to dodge. Overall the combat should be run more transparantly
than the rulebook says. A couple of points about this.

1. Tell the players what roll you made to hit them. It will help them decide
how to get
    out of trouble.

2.  Don't let the  characters target opponents based on how many cards they
drew.         For example if the party wants to shoot "Wolf A" because it
got 5 actions tell them     they cannot tell them apart.(leastwise until it
jumps on someone's head.)

3. If two characters want to do the same thing at the same time use quickess
for         physical actions and smarts for mental ones to decide who goes
first.

4. Be sure to remind the players of thier chip totals before and after every
fight.

5. The marshal should do all rolls. It saves tons of time. There are dice
servers out         there, but I don't recommend them.(though I might for a
harrowed player's dominion     rolls or some such)

I don't want to take up too much bandwith about this in case most of you are
not interested. Please contact me privately at dwm@a-net.email.ne.jp for
anything else.

DWM