FFW by mail was a blast. A friend of mine was reffing, and another friend
and I sent him fleet movements, combat orders, etc., which he would then
resolve and send back to us. The fog of war element added a great deal
to the game, and adding this to the game system which already involves
a great deal of fog by requiring players to plot several turns in advance,
made this real interesting. Add to this the fact that the ref threw in
a few outright lies to simulate glitches in inel gathering and you had a
real mess much like trying to plan and run a real war. PBM also has the
advantage that your opponent is not sitting at the other end of the table
waiting for you to make your move. If your schedule is as hectic as mine,
its handy to take a half hour or so when you have it and study the map.
The only real problem with the game is play balance (read: it's impossible
for the Imperium to win) due to the game being rushed through production,
but this can easily be fixed by altering the victory conditions and/or
increasing the Imperial reinforcement arrival speed. If anyone wants to
get a game going, I'll be happy to dust off my copy along with the PBM
modifications which we made up. Because of the amount of traffic (there's
a helluva lot of paperwork involved) I'd suggest using U.S. mail
for this.
I was disappointed when GDW did almost nothing with the war in terms
of adventuring. There was quite a build up for the war (as licensees
we got to hear the story ahead of time, which was great fun) but them
they didn't do much with it. The same seems to be true for the Shatered
Imperium-- the few adventures which have been done only barely touch
on the subject.
Jim Cunningham
Traveller Relic
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