KJC Play by Mail Games

[Ghastly McNasty]

About 20 years ago I had a brief obsession with Play-by-Mail games. Particularly It's a Crime and Troll's Bottom by a company called KJC.

It's a Crime revolved around building a little criminal empire, hiring thugs and causing trouble, where the Troll based adventure had you digging tunnels and mixing potions.

The format involved posting your moves to the game moderators (KJC) and they'd send you back a little printed document saying what had happened based on your actions. In Troll's Bottom you'd choose what type of troll you wanted to be and mooch around the titular island, looking for roots and shit, occasionally bumping in to other players and fighting in order to be top troll.

It was a really cool and clever format back in the day. I'd forgotten about these until last night when a fevered dream must have sparked a distant memory of my youth.

Anyone else remember?

[chris_askham]

I played Troll's Bottom, although I didn't last very long. In fact, I think I even named my troll Dredd.

[Ghastly McNasty]

Yay, Chris. It wasn't all in my head.

I did a bit more research and found a few nutters still going at it via play-by-email instead.

Reminds me a bit of a version of XCOM that popped up a few years ago where you'd play a turn and submit it to a server somewhere, then wait for the other player to make their moves and submit. That was pretty cool too.

[Richmond Clements]

Used to see them advertised in the back of White Dwarf back in the day. Always wondered what playing one was like.

[Colin YNWA]

Oh my giddy Aunt I remember 'It's a crime'. I started playing that, but have to be honest I was a bit rubbish and didn't last too long before giving up. It had the potential to be great fun my rubbishness aside.

That led me to eventually play this postal superhero role playing game that was really good fun. Might actually have been a wee while after 'It's a crime' as I remember the picture of my first character in that game was based on the picture of Red Razor from the cover of Megazine 1.08 (or 8 as it was then!) so that'd be early 90s then.

[ThryllSeekyr]

Used to see them advertised in the back of White Dwarf back in the day. Always wondered what playing one was like.

I think there was [/b] Warhammer-Fantasy[/b] one called Chain-Mail

[locustsofdeath!]

Ever since seeing the advertisments in the back of Savage Sword of Conan magazines, I've always wanted to play Hyborian War.

It's still around (http://www.reality.com/hwprul1.htm) but I haven't been able to get anyone to sign up and give it a go with me.