What a fantastic discussion! First, this rings a lot of bells from Peterson's terrific history: "Playing at the World"; the cradle of gaming in the 1960s and its several disparate strands, so clearly including PBM AH games, and Diplomacy groups. encouraging to see it meticulously archived. On a more personal note, we found ourselves in possession of a copies of "Africa Corps", and "Blitzkrieg", maybe around 1979 (someone's uncle's?). There's were a BEAR to learn as 12-13 year olds. But by the time the 1980s rolled around, we were ready for "Panzer Leader" and "Squad Leader" (although perhaps never advancing past the second scenario - fighting around the tractor works of Stalingrad). This was a hobby with SO MUCH mystery, at least for those of us outside of its adult, core membership. Initiation was slow and haphazard. I still belong to a PBM game of "En Garde!", so it never quite left my system. Many thanks to you all.
@@BeyondSolitaire To be fair, The "En Garde" game ran as PBM from when I joined in the early 1990s (I loved receiving the packages with a UK postmark!) and has since shifted to PBEM. It is still a correspondence game, where moves are submitted by email message and the massive player count (50+) outcomes are tabulated by the game master; very much still a PBM model.
What a fantastic discussion! First, this rings a lot of bells from Peterson's terrific history: "Playing at the World"; the cradle of gaming in the 1960s and its several disparate strands, so clearly including PBM AH games, and Diplomacy groups. encouraging to see it meticulously archived. On a more personal note, we found ourselves in possession of a copies of "Africa Corps", and "Blitzkrieg", maybe around 1979 (someone's uncle's?). There's were a BEAR to learn as 12-13 year olds. But by the time the 1980s rolled around, we were ready for "Panzer Leader" and "Squad Leader" (although perhaps never advancing past the second scenario - fighting around the tractor works of Stalingrad). This was a hobby with SO MUCH mystery, at least for those of us outside of its adult, core membership. Initiation was slow and haphazard. I still belong to a PBM game of "En Garde!", so it never quite left my system. Many thanks to you all.
I love that PBM still lives! Also, what a cool "initiation" in hindsight.
@@BeyondSolitaire To be fair, The "En Garde" game ran as PBM from when I joined in the early 1990s (I loved receiving the packages with a UK postmark!) and has since shifted to PBEM. It is still a correspondence game, where moves are submitted by email message and the massive player count (50+) outcomes are tabulated by the game master; very much still a PBM model.