I'd like to invite everyone here to join Flock Games and become a player in a new, yet-to-be-created play-by-email game that is collaboratively designed by the players.

Flock Games hosts collaboratively-created, free, play-by-email games where the rules are defined by the players. Each turn, players are allowed to submit new or revised game rules for inclusion into the rulebook. All proposed changes to the game are reviewed and voted on by the players and may or not be approved for inclusion.

A Flock Game begins with a basic set of concepts and rules around a theme. Each turn, players submit new and revised rules and the games evolve every turn, hopefully into an immersive experience that is fun to play. All Flock Games include an evolving ruleset. Each game is a journey.

The plan is to launch a series of game concepts under the Flock Games name over the course of the coming years. We host one game at a time.

How it works:

1) The players collaboratively pick a theme for the new game. All players at the start of a new game submit one noun (any noun: a person, place, or thing, this can any proper noun or common noun) via email to the gamemaster for voting. All nouns are posted in the voting channel on the Flock Games Discord. Players vote on these nouns. Any noun that has a majority of votes based on the current player count is included into the game concept.

2) The gamemaster then creates a basic outline of the game using the approved nouns and posts the initial rulebook with a single order command - the ability to name something in the game (this could be characters, units, items, whatever the game is focused on). Once posted, a majority of players need to approve the rulebook or the game won’t start until it has been revised to the majority approval of the players.

3) The gamemaster sends out the first turn results to players. This is the setup turn. At this point, all players can do is name things in the game.

4) Each turn, players submit orders via email to the gamemaster. With these orders, each player is allowed to submit one new rule or revised rule for voting with their orders. This could be a new order type, a change to an existing rule, or some other aspect of the game that they believe will improve the experience in some way. Anything goes. Players can even propose a meta-rule such as the turnaround time, game deadlines, the format of how orders are submitted, or even who is the gamemaster of the current game!

5) The gamemaster will post all revised rule changes to the Flock Games Discord for voting. By the end of voting, any rules with a majority of votes will be included into the new rulebook for use on the following turn.

6) Turns continue until a majority of players vote to end the game and start a new one. Any player is allowed to propose a vote to end the game, but the vote requires majority approval of the motion before the actual vote to end the game is approved.

Interested? Join us on our Discord server:

https://discord.gg/QWE9t42XbE

Players can still participate without Discord (email playflockgames@gmail.com), but they won't be allowed to vote on new or revised rules without the use of Discord.

Since I get a few questions about the design, I thought I would share several of the components -

Core - This is a group of C# programs using Entity Framework and connecting to a SQL Server database.  Core does the setup work for the turns, cycle processing, validation, processing, senior turns, market updates, combat and the emailing of completed turns. 

Maps - This uses an off the shelf free editor - Tiled (https://www.mapeditor.org/). To make this work with our system, we built a C# Windows application (MapSync) that uses the output file from Tiled (in JSON format) and displays it.  You can then save the map into our SQL database.  MapSync allows us to pull the map back from the database, and display it.  You can also change the map Icon set.  We also integrated the map logic into the Core to allow construction projects to update the map in the database as players complete projects.  Next step is to generate the map automatically and update the stored version.

Data Entry - We currently have two methods:
1.  Through the Web site.  We use a WordPress site with a purchased set of tools to allow a fill in the blank form for players to input their turns.  
2.  Through an Excel spreadsheet.  We provide a template you can download from the Web or Discord server.  You create your actions, type them into the Excel spreadsheet (which error checks them) and then you upload the Excel file using the web site.

Reports - are generated through SSRS (a sub-system of SQL Server Database).  I created another C# program that generates the PDF file containing the turn and emails it to the player's email on file through an SMTP service.

Money - is collected through the web site through a PayPal application; but we are looking at other options, such as Stripe.

KnightGuild now has its own forum here:

https://playbymail.net/mybb/forumdisplay.php?fid=48

Welcome to the KnightGuild forum.  KnightGuild is a variant of Midgard run on the KnightGuild platform and includes most of the things from the original game - when Delta ran it, with a number of changes.  Questions can be directed to support@knightguild.com.  The Web site - www.knightguild.com.  We also have a Discord Server - KnightGuild at  https://discord.gg/WH9wsy6mKH

We are currently in beta and running turns.  This game has been rewritten from scratch using C#, SQL 2019, and Access 2016.

Galac-Tac galaxy #113 is a standard-sized galaxy with a two-week turnaround and is still looking for more players. But galaxy #129 has been recently opened as well, and it is set up for a smaller number of players running on a three-week turn schedule. We have players in both games anxious to get started, so sign up to play as soon as you can. (Galaxy #129 will hopefully be able to begin first.)

Breaking news for those interested in or playing Galac-Tac! There are a few game improvements coming up which will be implemented in all future galaxies of Galac-Tac. (Existing galaxies in play will NOT change their current rules!) These changes are solely in the area of resolving ship-to-ship combat and are being applied in order to make the Drone and T-Type weapon systems more valuable, which should enhance overall game balance. Full details are available on-line in the Galac-Tac Rulebook (pp14-15,22-24), but to summarize these changes here...

T-Type Missiles (beyond Tech Level 1) and Drones will now do more damage than before and will hit their targets a little more often. However, the most useful change for these weapon systems is that they will no longer choose their targets based on the same criteria as ship-based P-Type weapons, which prefer to fire at ships of about their own size. Instead, T-Types will target the largest (and presumably slowest) enemy ships first, regardless of the size of the ship launching them, using their greater power and speed to inflict as much damage as possible for their expense. In addition, because T-Types consume costly expendable ammunition, they will now not fire at all on small, fast, hard-to-hit targets (such as fighters) to save on unnecessary construction and resupply needs.  Drones will target the smallest (and presumably fastest) ships (and other in-flight weaponry) first, using their extreme speed to its best advantage to damage otherwise difficult-to-hit targets. This makes better combat use of both specialty weapon types, so they can be more productively included in ship designs. Mixing weapon types in a large warfleet will result in even better combat advantages than before.

These changes should allow more effective fleets to be assembled for specific combat situations, and thus make combats more successful by intelligently opposing strengths and vulnerabilities. Solo (practice) games, as always, may be used at your leisure to try out new ship and fleet design strategies to see which works out best for you with the new combat updates and to plan your new military strategies.

New galaxies are already filling, awaiting the specified minimum number of players to start. Galaxy #113 is a standard-sized Galac-Tac galaxy on a two-week turn schedule. Galaxy #129 has been recently opened and is expected to be a smaller-than-usual galaxy running on a slower, three-week turn schedule. Please feel free to sign up for either (or both) of these galaxies so we can get them started soon.

Sign up at www.talisman-games.com today to take advantage of the enhanced weaponry!

Hello all, I saw a blurb about Midgard on Wikipedia "did you know?" section of all places, which led me down a rabbit hole ultimately to this forum!

I've never played a play by mail game, other than some advanced squad leader thru vassal. My background is in tabletop rpgs and wargaming. I'm looking for some place to get started! I've been to tribenet's website, I'm waiting to hear back from them after sending them an email. On Midgard website I made an account but I'm not sure where to go from there. I'm also interested in other games that are out there as well.

Just wanted to stop by say hello and hopefully get some advice how I can quickly get into some games and get started playing!

See below attachment - This is the first page of our latest game Newsletter for The Isles

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Why is the forum asking me to login from scratch (even though I tell it to remember me) every time I come here? Is it just me or does it happen to everyone?

Also, I've been getting the message "Authorization code mismatch. Are you accessing this function correctly? Please go back and try again." when I log in, even though it successfully leaves me logged in. I'm not quite sure what to make of that.

I bought an Empyrean Challenge rulebook from Noble Knight games a while back. It included errata, a couple of newsletters, and sample orders/turn results.

I'm looking for additional docs on it. Examples of initial setups, orders, and the turn logs would be great. Anyone have these and would be willing to upload scans to a Google docs drive?

Thanks,
Mike