(IC) Wooden Ships & Iron Men
way back in the early 80's Avalon Hil had a issue of the General, for Play-by-Mail for RW. They had a list of people (small) who wanted to try in. It took 2 months of letters back and forth you would have to match the hexes up.. make use you listed the details ...step by step..of your aircraft's movements, since many of them have differant turn schedules..
needless to say, the PBM didn't last 2 full turns. I never got an answer back for by second turn!( 3 months from start).
anyway? For in here. I have a makeshift chart, i used RW to give me a frame work , the put the numbers down as i thought they would be. adding in Critical hits and such.
I do 90% of the dice rolls, off board to try to keep the game like a book or movie, but now and then i have them roll when my roll for them was really bad, or its a 'big moment'. They all know, their roll stands no matter what..it keeps them guessing, and no one, not even I know who could die.
anyway... for the WS&IM.., the intricate moves of the ship... what can of shot you loaded, Boarding action and that can be handled by making it a bit more simple. Reading Books Like 'Hornblowwer". Alexander Kent, and a off beat, 'down and dirty' hero 'Fox'. you get some kind of feel for the thoughts , and effects on the ships that 'backing Sails" and turning into the wind, and even 'stealing the wind" from your enemy.
anyway, the important thig to remember is, Table top is great, because everyone is there.... to play any game, in PBP, you have to tweak it to make it player and GM friendly, which may mean 'dummy down' some aspects, an creating your own augmentation. In the end, the most important, is when you adapt a game like this, You make it your own, and let the players come in.
a Sidebar, My brother and I played these games like crazy until we stepped into Fantasy. I even Liked AH's Starship Troopers. we had to tweak that abit to make it more playable..we turned RW into a RPG ( we didn't know what an RPG was, it was just aan offshot of what we did with army guys when we were a lot younger)... we had Pilots Names, they all had characteristics... from the reams of books i read, there were VERY few pilots who used parachutes.. we used those to keep PCs alive ..BUT..there was a forced Landing rule on the charts. if you died trying to force land..you were dead.
It would be easy enough, to have a Ship ( like my space game) where the characters are all on board, it would have to be a frigate, or a ship of the Line. You would have to have some change that excepted women in all ranks . and they could RP between missions, sailign and shore leave.
ok! I'll stop now!