first class envelopes. The first play-by-mail games were probably unfinished games of Chess or Go extended by messages between
two players. Then as other strategy games came along, ones which demanded careful moves that could be easily relayed on paper, it was natural to try them by post. By the seventies, entire stores were devoted to room-size strategy board games, a few of which might be played by mail. The stores were also incubators for the peculiarly teenage phenomenon of role-playing games, like Dungeons and Dragons.
A young generation of kids obsessed with role-playing games grew up and found a place for multiplayer, multilevel games in computerland. The elaborate complexity of spells, weaponry, rules,
