Editing Play-by-mail game (section)

===Closed versus open ended===
According to John Kevin Loth III, open-ended games do not end and there is no final objective or way to win the game.<ref name=Loth42/> Jim Townsend adds that, "players come and go, powers grow and diminish, alliances form and dissolve and so forth".<ref name=Townsend91h/> Since surviving, rather than winning, is primary, this type of game tends to attract players more interested in role-playing,<ref>[[#Cro85|Croft 1985]]. p. 42.</ref> and Townsend echoes that open-ended games are similar to long-term RPG campaigns.<ref name=Townsend91h/> A drawback of this type is that mature games have powerful groups that can pose an unmanageable problem for the beginner{{snd}}although some may see this situation as a challenge of sorts.<ref name=Loth42/>  Examples of open ended games are ''Heroic Fantasy'',<ref>[[#Tow87a|Townsend 1987]]. p. 24.</ref> ''Monster Island'',<ref>[[#DuB97|DuBois 1997]]. p. 4.</ref> and ''SuperNova: Rise of the Empire''.<ref>[[#Sus19|Suspense & Decision 2019]]. pp. 35–40.</ref> Townsend noted in 1990 that some open-ended games had been in play for up to a decade.<ref name=Townsend91h/>

Townsend states that "closed-ended games are like [[Risk (game)|Risk]] or [[Monopoly (game)|Monopoly]]{{snd}}once they're over, they're over".<ref name=Townsend91h/> Loth notes that most players in closed end games start equally and the games are "faster paced, usually more intense... presenting frequent player confrontation; [and] the game terminates when a player or alliance of players has achieved specific conditions or eliminated all opposition".<ref name=Loth42/> Townsend stated in 1990 that closed-end games can have as few as ten and as many as eighty turns.<ref name=Townsend91h/> Examples of closed-end games are ''Hyborian War'', ''[[It's a Crime (play-by-mail game)|It's a Crime]]'', and ''Starweb''.<ref>[[#Lin20|Lindahl 2020]]</ref>

Companies in the early 1990s also offered games with both open- and closed-ended versions.<ref>[[#Pap93f|Paper Mayhem 1993]]. p. 5.</ref> Additionally, games could have elements of both versions; for example, in ''Kingdom'', an open-ended PBM game published by Graaf Simulations, a player could win by accumulating 50,000 points.<ref>[[#Pap93g|Paper Mayhem 1993]]. p. 21.</ref>