Behind the decade-long session of TribeNet and its play-by-email empires

Imagine the immensity of an RPG where a single campaign lasts for a staggering 10 years—perhaps even more. This was the length of one such session of TribeNet, a play-by-email (PBEM), civilization-based game characterized by its sheer magnitude and depth, and which only concluded in November last year. Players begin as leaders of a nomadic clan who advance their tribes into an empire, complete with bustling settlements and military campaigns. The conclusion of the late 2023 chapter spurred a new iteration of TribeNet soon after, while its players’ previous cities, commodities, and technologies—fictional legacies built to an almost continental scale over the years—were erased. “After 10 years and 268 turns of play, the GM (game master) of TribeNet has declared a winner and rebooted the game. We're getting ready to start over again with a reset world and new clans. He's committed to not rebooting the game for at least 10 more years,” wrote TribeNet player Raven Zachary, in a Reddit thread. 

A game of this scale may seem like a pastime for only the most obsessed of players, but consider that every turn is two weeks long, with your moves—or orders, as they are referred to in TribeNet—submitted on a spreadsheet via email. For time-strapped players who can’t devote an entire afternoon to a tabletop gaming session, this gives them the luxury to submit their orders anytime within these two weeks. This can take as little as 15 minutes for less committed players, but dedicated clan leaders can dedicate a few hours to strategizing and filling in highly detailed orders. “It varies a lot from turn to turn. If I’m really swamped in real life, I could write orders in under half an hour, but I more often take an hour one day, then another later on, then one or two more later,” says Dan, another TribeNet player. “I put in twenty hours of planning for one particularly complex turn, when I had enough time to do so, and it was very satisfying.”