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A forum game is a text-based multiplayer game played on an Internet forum. Simple examples include word association, hangman, "what are you listening to?", "which do you prefer?", and variations of Photoshop tennis.
Many games take advantage of the linear nature of certain forums. One example is "Person Above You", in which users write about the user that posted before them. A variant is "Person Below You", in which users write about the next poster, who replies with "true" or "false". On the other hand, multiple instances of some games, such as word association, can run concurrently on threaded forum systems.
Complex forum games can span entire forums. Some boards have features of role-playing games, where posting gives users additional experience. More conventional board games like Risk and Diplomacy and variations of play-by-mail games can also be played on some forums.
In many cases, each game is given a separate forum or subforum, and within each forum the players interact with each other given the rules and themes of each game. Such interaction can range from basic "trade agreements" to newspaper-like news stories and in-character negotiations. A moderator usually presides over the game, sometimes dictating events within the game (each usually having a negative effect on a single nation, though an occasional few may be positive or affect multiple nations).
Common forum games
Other meanings
Games, especially gladiatorial contests, were once held in the forum of early Rome, before permanent ampitheatres such as the Colosseum were built. "Forum games" may refer to these.
See also
"Forum game"