Silverdawn

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Silverdawn is a fantasy play-by-mail game for one player at a time. It was designed by Jim Dutton and published by Entertainment Concepts, Inc. (ECI) in 1981. The game is human-moderated and open-ended, set in the world of Nyarna. Players create a single character (male or female) from four classes—cleric, fighter, ranger, and thief—with different races (including Haffers, a human/halfling blend) and a choice of spells and weapons.

Although the game invites heroic action, the order sheet is flexible, so players can choose to pursue good or evil. There is no interaction with other players; the game is fully solo.

Turn play works like this: you write up to three pages of narrative describing your character’s actions and send them to the Gamemaster. You receive 1–3 pages of narrative results, plus Gamemaster Notes explaining attribute changes and other communications. The story begins in Valapar, the capital of the Golden Empire, but the world is open for your adventures.

Costs (as of 1985) were about $5 to set up a single character and $3 per turn.

ECI advertised Silverdawn in 1981, with gameplay starting a few months later. It was the company’s first game, followed by Star Trek: The Correspondence Adventure. In 1983, ECI released Peddler’s Ferry, a tabletop adventure usable with Silverdawn or D&D.

Reviews were generally positive. Some criticisms noted the time and expense of turns and occasional pacing issues as the company grew, but many praised the game’s depth, flexibility, and reliable game mastering. W.G. Armintrout called it the best commercial PBM RPG he knew, and John W. Kelley Jr. praised its breadth and realism while noting some drawbacks.