Simming group: Bravo Fleet (http://www.bravofleet.com)
Primary Game Master: Fleet Admiral Mike Bremer; "BF" for short.

The good: If you say the name "Bravo Fleet" to younger and inexperienced players, they'll see a large and well organised group, with bright colors and nice banners and a friendly atmosphere. To the older and wiser players, the words "Bravo Fleet", it's a world of politics, intrigue, that they're stuck up, that the bureaucracy never works. Who's right? They all are. Bravo Fleet is all that and much more.

Bravo Fleet is a Star Trek based PBEM RPG (Play by Email Role Playing Game) which started in about 1997. When I joined in mid 1998, there were only four divisions. Task Force 38, 58 and two more, with the Pegasus (Fleet Admiral Bremer, the BF Commander in Chief's ship) as an independent. It's since grown in size to thirteen divisions, most in the post Deep Space 9/Voyager era. Some of these divisions are specialised, one is Marines, one is Black Operations and so forth. For a first, which I applaud, there is real diversity to BF. The "Expedition Fleet" is an Original Series (Kirk, Spock, McCoy etc) era Division; while the "Expedition Unit- NX Division" is set in the Enterprise (Archer, T'Pol, Tucker etc) era; and "Futility's End", which is a far distant future Division. This whole range of Divisions, set across the whole of the Star Trek spectrum allows players to find a nice niche in a sim they like.

To quote one Captain I talked to: "We have a sim for EVERYONE, whether you like science, warfare, enlisted community, pilot, or the traditional star trek experience. We have a dedicated and experienced crew who do nothing but strive to make this experience great."

The bad: Let me backtrack a bit. Despite what I said, the main BF page is festooned with moving pictures and banners. Even the annoying and dreaded popups abound. One wonders if Bremer once worked in Las Vegas, with all the flashing and advertising..... Why so much advertising? This is primarily BF's way of recruiting new players. Hoping some person will click on a banner, get mesmerised (hypnotised, maybe?), stay, click some more into the site and join.

Did I mention about the politics and intrigue? There's more petty squabbling between Bravo Fleet members than in a parliament building. I recently went into the Bravo Fleet chat (they maintained one in IRC, the Internet Relay Chat) wondering if there were any positions open. The rivalry between the two COs was like piranhas at feeding time. In reality, it's more like adults being childish. It really is. The way BF people carry on, especially the Admirals vying for power and trying to take control of BF..... They have had more "mutinies" and resignations and heated squabbles than the number of times they recounted the George W. Bush/Al Gore votes.

In spite of the massive apparent size of Bravo Fleet, most of it is skeleton. Most of the ships have a Captain and those are desperate for crews. Speaking of crews, if you're new to RPGs, be careful of BF. Their academy doesn't teach you very well. Don't get me wrong, they're good, but you're better off being mentored by someone more experience. You'll get the "training" faster and you develop a lasting friendship in the process.

The verdict: Bravo Fleet generally is good, despite all the bad. I'd suggest that before you apply, you mail the Captain of a ship saying you're interested and wait for his/her reply before applying. Why? In my experience, any Captain who has good spelling, grammar, sentence structure and just general "good" email writing skills are better at Simming. Especially as far as PBEMs are concerned. If your Captain's reply isn't good, don't count on a good RPG, politely decline and join another. Also, if you DO join BF, make ABSOLUTELY sure you don't stray beyond your own ship and crew. Talking to other BF members will cause far more hurt than good!

With a few precautions, keeping to yourself and not getting dragged into BF politics, you can have a good experience and enjoy the RPG a lot!