Play by Email: does anyone do this anymore?

[rkmasex2]

Back in the day of BBS's i remember playing several wargames, strategy games, and even chess with people with PBEM.

Does anyone do this anymore?

With all the hectic pace of work, and even the new games with all the "bells and whistles", I'd like to go back to playing something that is paced, relaxing even.

Any suggestions on active sites, etc?

I've goggled, but only come up with sites that were last updated years ago.

Suggestions?

[generica]

If you're missing old BBS door games, I suggest googling "telnet BBS" - there are TONS of them out there. I played Legend of the Red Dragon on Gargoyle's Landing BBS (http://www.gargoyleslanding.com) for quite some time.

And of course there's always Roshambo Rampage (http://www.brunching.com/psr.html) .

[BoringDad]

Back in the day of BBS's i remember playing several wargames, strategy games, and even chess with people with PBEM.

Does anyone do this anymore?

Diplomacy is still widely played by e-mail. It is a strategy board game for 3 to 7 players. There was even a game started on this board recently.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=280976

A good web site is The Diplomatic Pouch.

http://www.diplom.org/

[Misnomer]

A few years ago, I spent some time playing Pente with a guy named Nathan via e-mail. I didn't know him in real life, just from some message board (I don't even remember which one anymore!). He had been playing for years and I was a newbie, so he kicked my ass every time, but it was fun . . . until he got a girlfriend and disappeared off the face of the 'net. ;) That was the first and last time I ever played a game via e-mail.

[Coil]

I play PBEM regularly.

I use a great program called Cyberboard (http://cyberboard.brainiac.com/). It is very easy to use and contains stuff like die-rollers and other things you need.

There are game boxes for lots of different games which you can find links to from the Cyberboard page or the Cyberboard Yahoo group (http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/CyberBoardML/). It is also quite easy to create your own game files if your favourite game doesn't have files already.

I play two miniature wargames called Warzone and Chronopia (very similar to Warhammer but better) with Cyberboard. Of course it is not the same thing as playing a real game with nicely painted miniatures, it is a way to play against people on the other side of the world that I probably wont get the chance to meet IRL.

[Trunk]

There are chess servers that are essentially "play by email".

You play a game of chess with someone, but your time constraints might be "1 move every 10 days" or so. Sites allow you to play with different time constraints (1 per day up to about 1 per 20 days).

www.chessworld.net is my favorite. (note the .net)

It's a few bucks per year.

[lno]

Diplomacy is a great play-by-email game, as BoringDad mentioned. This game was even played by postal mail.

Laser Squad Nemesis (http://www.lasersquadnemesis.com) is a play-by-email version of X-Com.

It's Your Turn (http://www.itsyourturn.com/t_rules_main.html) has many, many PBEM games. Take a look at that link for a list.

The largest list I know of, though, is this very thorough one (http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/pbm_list/).

[Bad News Baboon]

I will second the It's your turn site.
You can take up to 30 days per move. (you decide at the beginning how long between moves)

[Enright3]

Wow, I am old. Back when I was a kid (in the 70s) we would play chess by mail. That's right, regular old snail mail.

e3

[RTFirefly]

Wow, I am old. Back when I was a kid (in the 70s) we would play chess by mail. That's right, regular old snail mail. Been there, done that. Played in the first round of a postal tournament back in 1970.

[iampunha]

Apolyton.com has several PBEM games going for Civ3; I have no knowledge either way if there are other PBEM Sid Meier games there, but it would not surprise me.