| A PBeM is a
"Play By eMail" game. It combines
roleplaying with interactive writing, creating a
rich and diverse story line. Members take on the persona of a
character in the Star Trek universe. Most of the
time, these are characters they created. Using
the background of the character, they take turns
with other people writing in the game's story
line.
There are many
organizations and individual games dedicated to
Star Trek. Most of these games are
"semi-cannon." That is, they follow the
official information about the Trek universe, but
modify it slightly to create a more playable or
interesting game. Games that follow the Trek
universe to the letter are said to be
"cannon." Games that throw everything
to the wind and make up a whole new universe are
"non-cannon."
There are other kinds of
interactive story writing role play. For example,
some games can be play using chat (like AIM).
There are also IRC or MIRC games. The players in
this type of game have to meet at the same time
in cyberspace. Interaction is high, but the
writing and plots are secondary to game play.
Another way to play is by
bulletin board. PBB games are more flexible than
IRC games in that there is no designated time for
meeting. However, some believe the writing in
PBBs are not as rich as PBeM (usually hard-core
PBeM players say this.)
The newest format for
online Star Trek sim play is the use of blogs.
Blogs work great in organizing information and
creating archives. Blog sims are reletively new,
and might go by different names.
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