Moving to an Open List

Posted by Ginger Stampley on March 16, 2005 at 11:33 AM

I do a lot of play-by-email gaming, mostly set in the Amber universe, which is well-adapted to large-scale, rules-light gaming. One of the many choices that a GM makes when setting up a PBeM is whether to play by private mail, where each player only receives a copy of her own turns, or whether to play on an open list, where all the players can read all the turns. Recently, two games I play in have switched from private mail to open lists: one last December, when it rebooted after a hiatus, and one a few weeks ago, after more than eight years as a private mail game.

In the seven or eight years I've been playing email games, I've developed a strong preference for open-list games. To me, they feel more like face-to-face games, where all the players see most of what happens. There's also activity: with one GM and lots of players, if there's not a firm schedule, it sometimes seems like nothing is going on. If there's a list, at least you can see the other players posting, and you have an idea of when the GM posts. I also like the community feel of a list: people chatter and get to know each other, which is nice come convention season or when ten of your closest gamer buddies decide to go camping. And it's both faster and easier on the GM when the players arrange for their PCs to get together rather than having to filter everything through one person.

But there are some people who don't care for the open-list format in both games, and have been passively (or not so passively) resisting it. I've been trying to figure out why.

One obvious answer is the nature of the Amber DRPG. As a system, it's designed to support player-vs.-player conflict (which is a major reason I use Everway as the ruleset for my own Amber game, but that's another post). Character design, the auction, PC ranking, and the player section of the book suggest keeping secrets is crucial to character success. One of the unhappy players has complained that other players will be able to "cheat" by using out-of-character knowledge without repercussion.

I'm not convinced. Neither game has much player vs. player action as far as I know. And all characters are not created equal. One campaign is effectively freeform: I have yet to write a formal character sheet. It also has Corwin as a PC alongside teenage youngers, so power differentials are inherent in the campaign structure. The other campaign has been going on for nine years and features both original and late-joining players. The difference in campaign knowledge alone creates a difference in effectiveness between older characters and newer ones.

The only other argument I've heard is technological ("I can't cope with the mail") and I'm so unsympathetic to it that I can't discuss it meaningfully. I think it's a dodge.

What, then, do I think is going on? Several possibilities come to mind.

First, I suspect that players are being asked to move to a stance or style that they're not familiar with or don't like. Knowing what other characters are up to removes players from the comfort of immersion, in which the GM filters everything directly for them. Now they're being asked to differentiate between their character's knowledge and their knowledge as a player. The GMs are also implicitly asking players to step up and arrange their own threads, which is more work.

Second, I suspect that some players have performance anxiety. A number of people in my greater gaming circle are wannabe fiction writers and that may intimidate certain players. Others may be nervous about what their friends will think about their play style. Still others may wonder whether the group will think their characters "deserve" whatever power and status they've been given by the GMs: impostor syndrome on the one hand or concerns about overly harsh judgement on the other.

Third, this is clearly a move to develop more community among the players by the GMs. Community is a problem when you don't like the other players. When the game consists of email exchanges between you and the GM, you can pretend that the other players don't exist and ignore the ones you don't like. Putting everybody on a list forces everybody to deal with everybody else, even if they don't get along. My poor GM friends are in the process of finding out that all their friends aren't friends with each other.

I'm convinced the resistance to moving to an open list is about the social contract, not about problems internal to the game rules or campaign worlds. I wish my GMs good luck in handling the resistance, too, because even with my help and the help of most of the other players, I'm not convinced that the problems and dysfunctions that all this is causing and/or bringing to light will be solved easily.

(Note: other participants in one or both of these games may see it differently. My $0.02, YMMV, etc.)