Beneath the Golden Moon

How the game works

Everything in this game is handled by email being sent to and from me, jamie@kauri.vuw.ac.nz. That is, each player only interacts directly with me, and only indirectly with the other players.

I envisage that there will be three types of message:

All of these messages are sent to me, and me alone. I adjudicate actions, inform those involved of their results, and I also answer world queries. In the case of Speech messages, I will most often simply forward these on the appropriate person. However, by having them pass through me, it allows for neat tricks like talking to someone who is shapeshifted to look like someone else. It also means that no player need ever know which characters are PCs and which are NPCs.

While I would prefer for world queries to be sent in separate messages, it is sometimes appropriate for a single message to combine both speech and significant action. Here is discussion of how speech messages work.

Adjudicating Actions

Beneath the Golden Moon does not use any rules system, published or unpublished. Instead, I adjudicate everything as I see fit, based on what information I have about the situation and the people involved. This might be compared to the Amber DRPG system, though without its attributes. When performing an action, description is all important - provide me with details to work with, and the resolution will be both easier and more satisfying.

Time

Beneath the Golden Moon does not use turns in the conventional PBeM sense. Rather, each game day is broken down into the following three periods:

Each of these segments is alloted a certain amount of real time to play through, before the game proceeds to the next period. The amount of time is flexible, but will probably be around a couple of weeks, more if needed. During each period, any amount of mail may be sent to me, of the various sorts, provided they deal only with the current period of time. For more on how this operates, see the document on interaction.

Meals

Meals are one of the few times during the day when a large number of characters group together in a relatively informal situation. Each period of the day begins with a meal, and they are handled in the following way. I will send out a message to all the characters in each meal group describing the meal, in particular who is there. Then the characters involved send me mail telling me what they are doing - generally this will be who they are talking to (even if it is only "chatting"). I will then (probably after two or three days) send out another message to the whole group, describing what is going on. From this point the game continues normally.

jamie@kauri.vuw.ac.nz