Battlestar Galactica Play-by-Forum

Ken, here's a format that some guys used to PBEM BSG, it made for some pretty exciting reading.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3029198

Michael Barnes wrote:

the spreadsheet looks to eliminate the need for a board and figures.

See, if this were a Eurogame the spreadsheet would eliminate the need for human players.

Is there like an ACTS module or something for the cards?

I don't know...that's going to be the only tricky part is the card juggling. If anyone's aware of a module that takes care of that, I'm all ears.

I am NOT a Cylon!

Looking forward to this! Board position seems of little concern except knowing where the outside Galactica stuff is (viper spaces, basestars etc)...I am also wondering about the time it will take to accumulate the card checks...but I am patient, and keen. 2 excellent attributes for a HUMAN to have.

Ken B. wrote:

Michael Barnes wrote:

the spreadsheet looks to eliminate the need for a board and figures.

See, if this were a Eurogame the spreadsheet would eliminate the need for human players.

Is there like an ACTS module or something for the cards?

I don't know...that's going to be the only tricky part is the card juggling. If anyone's aware of a module that takes care of that, I'm all ears.

TOS is down but I'll find out tomorrow from the guy who posted the above sessions what was used for card tracking.

Playing BSG this way works great, you just have to be aware of the little differences. Humans have some advantages such as having a record of what was played and when. Cylons have advantages - lying gets a whole lot easier for instance.

Excellent, Ken. Now I can get my BSG fix everyday. If this works out and if I can figure out the computer crap, I'll run the next game and hook you up so you can play.

Yeah right, get the whole thing running in US time, exclude people from overseas. I get the picture. I'll get my coat.

Bastards.

Ah nuts, I always miss out on these things... Can someone put me down for the next one?

I've never played by email/forum before, but I'd be interested if y'all did another BSG game!

The posts from the adbots at Something Awful contribute an amusing interruption to the game.

This was an exchange I had with the fellow who ran the forum BSG game on Jan 06th,

drmabuse00 wrote:
Hey St0rmD,

Love the session report! I'm wondering how one would go about running BSG online? There may be some interest on a site a frequent called fortressat dot com. Any tips would be great.

Cheers,

Anthony

It's best if one person is a referee/gamemaster and doesn't play. That person is responsible for (privately) distributing cards to players, as appropriate, by private message or email, as well as handling all dice rolls and arbitrating all decisions. Every player is responsible for knowing what cards are in their hand, but the GM has a master list as well to keep everyone honest.

For our game, we used a simple text list of all the locations on the game board, and for the space combat areas, the GM drew up a simple representation of the board after the fashion of a 2-D DRADIS display using photoshop, and then added/moved various ships around on it as necessary using layers. Every turn he saved a copy of that file as a regular web-image and posted it on the forum, along with the list of text locations. Feel free to copy the format from our session if you'd like to use it.

Other than that, the best tip I can give is to liberally raid the internet for stock images to use in spicing things up ( en.battlestarwiki.org is a good source), watch the series and immerse yourself in the lingo for roleplaying purposes and producing flavor text, and really get into it!

If you have any specific questions, ask.

I have NOT forgotten this, everyone. I've been sent a couple of ways to run this and I'm going over them. One of them I am having to upgrade my version of Office to be able to read.

Doesn't appear to be a way around the card situation, so I will be managing the cards myself. Shouldn't be too bad, just have to find a way to do logistically set it up in my office.


Stay tuned. This is still "on" but likely won't get rolling until next week.

Do you think having a Vassal version would make it easier to play BSG together online? I was considering putting one together to test a solo variant with, but I'd need permission from FFG to make it public. If someone wants to contact them to ask about a Vassal module, I'd appreciate that... I know some of y'all know some people there, so you might have better luck than I would. I could also use help with scanning all of the cards... so if someone wants a BSG module (whether permission is granted or not), that would be one way I could share it, if you help to create it... for personal use only, of course, if permission to make it public isn't granted. (I have strong doubts about permission being granted.)

Ken B. wrote:

Stay tuned. This is still "on" but likely won't get rolling until next week.

No worries. I had only downloaded the rules yesterday and am still absorbing them.

[Famous Last Words] It all seems pretty intuitive thus far. [/Famous Last Words]

ugh...the site I was running mine on has officially crashed, 4 days now...