Suspense & Decision

[Kalrex]

I like this magazine. Fun reading.

-Note: I didn't find his assessment as dire as UncleMike. I think more or less the readership/activity levels are an unknown quantity is what he concluded.

Back in the last decade I was picking up original art from TSR products (Dungeons and Dragons). It's because of TSR I'm here btw.
Anyhow, I looked up Brom and Tom Baxa and I bought up tons of original pieces from Dark Sun and I corresponded with Clyde Caldwell and got some big boxes full of art from him... I did a road trip and met up with Fred Fields and got several of his cover oil paintings for maybe $500 per on average.
There was very low activity to say the least...
Not the case now. A bunch of guys hitting their 40's looking for 80's nostalgia and the art went up and up and now I can get 20K+ per on something I paid 500 bucks for. All the old books like Temple of Elemental Evil and the like in collectible shape gets $$. I'd imagine it's the same across the board with Avalon Hill and whatnot.
I don't think there's a mass of kids today who will contemplate PBM games but I do think a lot of guys who played when they were kids will at least be looking for some nostalgia trip.
I think for every one of us here there are probably a few people who would be here if they only knew this still existed. I don't think there's a hoard or anything "out there" but I think there's probably enough. My 02c.

[The Usurper]

I'll be writing up an article for submission. This is a great game, and more people need to try it

[Kalrex]

I liked the Hyborian War articles to be honest. I never actually played the game but it was fun to read. I used to read the General bitd and most of those AH games I did not play but a good strategy article is fun for me to read regardless for some odd reason.

The house mag Pegasus used to do for this game was great reading as well.

[admin]

And Newspapers are doing such a fine job of impressing people, which helps to explain why many of them are dying out. If I get any articles submitted by English professors, though, I'll be certain to include them.

The articles about successes and failures, to date, can be considered out of context, or in context. The purpose of those articles is basically to share insight on how I weigh such things, as they are factors in what will ultimately be my decision to continue publishing the magazine or to cease publication.

For some, such articles will likely be of no interest. There are articles that Rick McDowell doesn't read, because of lack of interest. That's probably the case with many of our readers.

All things considered, my experience to date has been that some people like the magazine, while others apparently don't - although, in fairness, they tend to dislike certain articles, rather than the magazine as a whole.

Numerous articles have been mentioned by various individuals that they then never actually send in. Those are hard to build a magazine around. The same holds true for interview questions that go unresponded to.

When I look through old issues of Paper Mayhem and Flagship magazine, I tend to gravitate toward the editorials, more so than the articles. I typically find myself wishing that the editors of those publications had written more.

Alamaze has numerous players. Very few have taken the initiative and made the effort to write and submit articles. That holds true for the players of numerous different games.

I can appreciate the fact that some may find articles that I author to be depressing. I simply try to be objective in analyzing successes and failures of the magazine. I am not so naive as to believe that the magazine has enjoyed only successes, thus far. So, common sense dictates that we have failed, in some ways, also.

More depressing to me is the fact that readers seemingly pay little heed to what others than myself have to say on a given subject. Take Rick McDowell's comment in his article that appeared in Issue # 4 of Suspense & Decision, wherein he said, "Paul and I had dinner and drinks, later, with Michael Gray, the designer of the famous award winning board game, Shogun (see above). Michael had sought me out, as he was the author of the article in Dragon Magazine that was so favorable, and I think likely responsible for Alamaze winning Game of the Year from out of nowhere in the gaming community, not to mention adding 500 Alamaze players after the Dragon review came out, and had not previously met."

Imagine that - a single article resulting in 500 new players to a game.

Are failures ever depressing? Sure, they are. They certainly can be. However, allowing the magazine's shortcomings and failures, to date, to depress me will solve just, exactly nothing. I have little enough spare time, as it is, to get the magazine published with any degree of regularity.

The failures, such as they have proven to be, thus far, simply don't rise to the level of being depressing to me. Depression is a luxury that I can ill afford. I try to keep things slogging forward.

Furthermore, I remain ever cognizant of a comment that Rick McDowell, himself, made in an e-mail to me from April 5th of this year, wherein he said, amongst other things, "I’d also like to see you strike a happier chord with PBEM in general to pump up your readers. Maybe just tell why you are putting your energy into the magazine, because you like A through G about PBEM games that you don’t get in other game types."

I tend to be neither pessimist nor optimist, though. Rather, I tend to be more of a realist. Where our magazine's successes and failures, to date, are concerned, I tend to take somewhat of a realist approach to such things. Some may find that approach to yield depressing material, at times. That's a risk that goes with that sort of approach, in my considered opinion, though.

I've considered publishing an issue or three with no articles written by me. Surely, some would find that to be preferable to the status quo. But, would I? Probably not.

It may simply be that I don't have the knack for writing upbeat articles. If that's the case, then the magazine will be dependent upon the articles authored by others to make it less depressing, I suppose.

All the more reason, then, for others to begin crafting some new articles for future issues, don't you think?

[Ry Vor]

First, gentle Alamaze players, Maximus Dominus, AKA Grimfinger, AKA Charles, is mainly trying to drum up submissions for Suspense & Decision. Which, by the way, is a heroic undertaking and worthy of your support and literary supplication.

His main point is: if the players and companies that love the hobby don't support it, including providing tasty stuff to the only current PBEM supporting mag (S&D), who will? He wants to put out a lengthy magazine every month, but needs material. He will publish most everything (except apparently Alamaze News which seems to miss every month).

The thing he reacted about in my comment or two to him, was yes, in 1987, an article in Dragon Magazine moved Alamaze from fringe and unknown, to what I think few would dispute is the best PBEM ever.

But Maximus, you have to know, that was the day before the internet, and options were few, and the Dragon was a huge magazine then. I lucked out. But the point remains, there are 1000's if not millions of players who are likely sick of instant gratification games and would love the intellectual complexity and, in our way, human contact in the format we have now in PBEM. I believe this forum, with 12,000 posts in a year and a few months, is testimony to that. And our Alamaze players know we will not be sitting around doing nothing.

We, as in our hobby which I would call Episodic Strategy Gaming, certainly not Play By Mail, have to do something proactively to spread the word. Suspense & Decision is the press of our day. So if you would, send an article in: your experience in a game as a particular kingdom, your advise as a particular kingdom, your experience with the company and community. Why you love Episodic Strategy Gaming, or if you must, PBEM.

[admin]

I'm pretty such that I recall that Dragon magazine was around, before the Internet. I am aware that it was a "huge" magazine, very influential in its field. It didn't get there by having no articles, though.

I do try to drum up article submissions for Suspense & Decision magazine. There's no great mystery to the fact that gamers prefer to game, than to write about gaming. Heck, I do, too, for that matter, as far as that goes.

Alamaze is as good of an example, as any. If the most die-hard Alamaze players don't write articles about the game, whether for Suspense & Decision or for any other magazine (or website), then much of the cutting edge passion for the game remains bottled up, much as a genie in a bottle. In pursuit of a higher quality magazine, articles written with passion for the subject being discussed are highly coveted. Passion can be a very persuasive thing. It is the equivalent of dynamite to a game.

The length of the magazine, I am flexible on. As the one compiling and publishing it, I have to be. Circumstances dictate such, in fact.

There are, of course, other magazines out there, including gaming magazines, that would reach a much broader readership. Absent articles for the game, ads could be taken out in them. Some magazines have pretty steep advertising rates, though. But, it might be worth it to advertise in some of them.

As far as publishing most everything except Alamaze news, page # 68 of Issue # 6 is at odds with that assertion. That said, at times, things happen, and some things arrive too late, mislabeled, or we just plain overlook them in the push to try and get each issue published on time. If you set the Alamaze news aside, no one else sent in PBM Activity Corner News for Issue # 8. But, I didn't send out last minute reminders for it this issue, either. That was probably not a good decision, on my part, but it is one of the ways that we learn. That section seemed to be picking up, and then it plummeted to nothing. Personally, I thought that it was one of the magazine's better sections. Maybe it will be, again, some issue in the future.

With regard to calling our hobby Episodic Strategy Gaming, use the search feature, above, to search for the word "episodic." You'll quickly learn how infrequently that that particular term has been used here in the Alamaze forum for describing either the game of Alamaze or the hobby. It's a pretty big hill that you're trying to climb, using that as the term of choice for describing the hobby.

[Ry Vor]

Just teasing a bit on how Alamaze News seems to keep missing publication for one reason or another each episode. I know there are legitimate reasons.

I really just think we may be at loggerheads with the insistence or nostalgia for "PBM" as in Play by Mail. Hello? So the argument turns to, is "Episodic" too fancy a word? I could care less. When Alamaze started using "Enamor" and "Denigrate" and several other terms in 1987, no one was using them then either. No one was saying many words in 1987 that are in current vernacular.

Language evolves, and so must "PBM" which is dead and buried. The lazy ass thing of keeping a common, dated, inappropriate term like that is really killing us, not helping in the slightest. Go RSI - keep doing your snail mail turns. That is not going to generate creativity or energy or passion or results.

I really don't think Episodic Strategy Gaming is a term beyond our target audience's comprehension. At least, not for my target audience.

We likely have 10's of thousands of players who would love Alamaze and other games if they only knew how to find us. Calling the hobby "PBM" is like calling it Stone Age Gaming.

[Kalrex]

Dragon Magazine, by the time Alamaze happened, was TSR's house organ. Originally this wasn't so but over time...

Dragon existed to support TSR products and it was indeed a massive publication and very profitable, more-so than many of the games. Article submissions were by and large from in house persons (or people wanting to work for TSR such as Ed Greenwood at one point) so Dragon was more or less rejecting a lot of content as opposed to being starved for it. On the flip side of having "content" you also had tons of ads to flip though and a lot of fluff/puff pieces that existed to drive TSR sales.
It wasn't all good reading.

Rick caught lightning in a bottle and was fortunate Alamaze basically lined up with D&D and is a great game and they gave him that article which gave him good business.

Magic the Gathering is also aligned with D&D and my guess is cause like a ton of other games WOTC wanted to ride TSR's coattails and make some $$ little did they know they had an amazing game on their hands that would supplant D&D.

In the late 80's TSR may as well have been Blizzard and WOTC combined. There was not another genre game company anywhere near as big with the intellectual property.

[Ry Vor]

Ooh - business stuff!

OK. So Wizards of the Coast (WOTC) who had a gusher with Magic the Gathering, acquired Avalon Hill, the producer of all those cardboard unit board games that many of us grew up on. Starting with Tactics II, Gettysburg, then Bismarck, culminating with Panzerblitz and Squad Leader (if memory serves).

Then Hasbro acquires everybody! WOTC, Parker Brothers, and Milton Bradley.

Thing is, after that, I am not sure much creativity has come out of Hasbro. They can still sell Monopoly and Risk and Axis & Allies, but the new and good board games are coming from smaller shops that promote their designers.

I wrote an article for Suspense & Decision on "The Top Five Game Designers of our Generation". I forget which issue that was in. Anyway, Alamaze players should at least peruse all S&D issues. And those noble hearts out there should write about Alamaze for the mag!

[The Usurper]

I was one of those 500 from that Dragon article at the time.