The Forum

Dear PTGPTB
Hello. My name is Andrew and live in Melbourne. I was wondering if you know of any Rolemaster groups i can join.???
Andrew

Sorry, we all live in Brisbane (and London), so we can't help you personally. Maybe one of our readers can though. Anyone in Melbourne got a contact for Andrew? If so, drop him a line

Dear PTGPTB
Hello. I am writing a research paper for a college English class on the history and merits of role-playing. I plan on citing extensively the History of Role-playing article in Issues 1 through 5 of your magazine. I found your magazine through my research and you now will have a devoted reader. I was wondering, parts 1-4 are listed as being wrote by Astinus (cool handle, BTW...), and the fifth by Steven Darlington. Are these two the same person? Just checking, I have to be accurate for my references cited. Also, anything you could send me on this topic would be appreciated, or if you could point me in the right direction.

Thank you for your time...
Methos

Yes, Astinus was an alias for Steven Darlington - he wrote the entire history. For those who don't know, Astinus is an historian in the Dragonlance books. For an alternative and more detailed look at the early years, we suggest Victor Raymond's excellent piece.

Dear PTGPTB,
I was hoping that you'd keep PtGPtB as a meta-gaming type 'zine, so I was a bit disappointed with the inclusion of an adventure idea. There's plenty of places out on the net which have adventures, ranging from the good to the downright dreadful (with weighting towards the latter part of the scale from what I've seen). If people want adventures I think that there's plenty of places to go to find them.

Then again, I suppose coming up with adventure ideas has never been my problem (finding time to play them is), so they probably don't appeal to me as much as to others. When it comes down to it though, you're decision needs to be based on what people ask for, so I'm just putting in my vote against adventures. If the majority come down on the other side of the argument, it still won't stop me reading the rest of your stuff though.

Of course, I've noticed that one of your perennial problems seems to be getting submissions, and it's always possible that this was part of your reason. If this is the case, then I guess I should be doing my part, and submit something.

Anyway, keep up the good work.
Paul Eccleston

Thanks for the feedback on this, Paul. Obviously, getting submissions are difficult, but we still feel that Darren's work was a most suitable addition to our zine. It was generic, appealing to all gamers, and was of a high quality.

You say that there are many sites out there that provide adventures, and this is true. However, from our experience, these tend to be AD&D orientated, stat-heavy and usually of a poor quality. Those that are not tend to be adventure hooks only, such as the Tales of Terror for Call of Cthulhu. It has been indicated on various net forums and from the survey we ran last year that a collection of quality, universal adventure ideas would be a useful resource for gamers, and does not exist as far as anyone seems to know. We think going some way to providing this is thus a good idea.

However, we value everyone's opinion on this issue. If you want to see more or less of Darren, let us know!

Dear PTGPTB,
Once again, another fantastic issue. Well worth the wait - although, I'd rather not wait sometimes.

Steve Darlington once again captures the essence of what I rant and puts his own special touch on it that makes it so wonderful. Not to say that he steals what I write, only that we come to the same conclusions around the same time and because of that EVERYBODY should be able to "get it". Yay! "Defining Our Terms" was an utterly inspiring article that makes me want to go out and game some more!

And an article from Dr. Rotwang? How lucky can a reader get. I can only hope to see more. More, I say! More! ...and of course, I liked all the other articles, too! But how much can one person write before he gets coffee?

Well, I do have one more thing to say. Artwork would be nice, and if people are willing to submit, I say do it.
Erich S. Arendall, "Shadow Sprite"

Thanks, Erich. We're very pleased you were so inspired by that piece. It seems people are generally in favour of including artwork, so we'll look into that soon. And we'd rather not wait between issues either - but we do need to have a life some of the time!

Dear PTGPTB,
Quite simply, very cool. I'm a *coughs* hopeful GM, and some of the stuff I've been reading is very helpful in the way of steering me in what I hope will be the right track. I haven't tried GMing in three years (since three years ago, I was horrid at it) and now I'm hoping to get my group to allow me to take the screen and bring them into a whole new gaming system (trying to go from AD&D to Heavy Gear...*L* Any tips there?). Well, anyway, keep up the cool stuff...I hope to be seeing some in my inbox soon.
Cameron Johnson

Glad we could help. Good luck with Heavy Gear! As for tips, always remember that it's your game and you can play it how you like. And GMs are allowed to make mistakes.

Dear PTGPTB,
I found the PTGPTB site today, linking in from the PVP online comic strip. I thought it was rather interesting that you came up with that name on your own, because it's been one of my favorite puns for years. I got it from a Mercedes Lackey novel, "Silver Gryphon", where it is used by one of the main characters, a gryphon named Skandranon, to describe his life as a war hero and unwilling leader of the city. If I recall rightly, the book came out in 1996. :)
Dawson

What can we say? This must be just another case of great minds thinking alike. By the way, everyone should read PVP - it rocks.

Dear PTGPTB,
I love your magazine! The articles I have read so far, are informative, rich, and entertaining. Maybe you could consider making an e-mail version of your mag, where people can subscribe, and the mag is mass mailed to all your subscribers. Just a thought! Keep up the superb work!

Sincerely,
Josh

Sorry Josh, but we just don't have the resources at this stage to produce an email version as well as the HTML one. Subscribers are emailed the minute the new issue is posted, however, so it's not hard to keep track of us.

The Forum is your page; it is entirely up to you what you fill it with, or even if you fill it at all. So get on your soapbox and send your spiel to editors@ptgptb.org.