[x]Blackmoor Vituperative

Wednesday, 2008-12-10

R.I.P. PBEM RPGs

Filed under: Gaming — bblackmoor @ 19:31

R.I.P.I posted a blog a week or so ago, bemoaning the scarcity of PBEM role-playing games. Well, I have looked high and low, and I am ready to call it: play-by-email roleplaying games are dead.

They have largely been replaced by multiplayer computer games like City of Heroes and World of Warcraft. These are not role-playing games, but apparently they are an adequate replacement for most people.

What few pitiful role-playing games are left aren’t played by email. They are played on forums and web sites. Some of these forums are reasonably well put together, like RolePlay OnLine. Some are nightmarish monstrosities that make even the simplest task all but impossible, like Lost Coast Gaming, which is damned near unusable. Why do people prefer these sites to something like YahooGroups, which offers more functionality and is much easier to use? I am mystified.

But it is what it is.

Goodbye, PBEM roleplaying. You will be missed.