from the foreword:
Bamf was originally created to provide a way for the role-player to play him or herself in a fantasy or science fiction adventure. Since that time, the rules have been modified to allow the player to play not only him or herself, but to create a character and play that character much like many of the other role playing games available on the market. One of the reasons was that the novelty of playing yourself in a role playing game might wear off after a few games. Another reason was to give the Game Master (GM) a game mechanic by which he could create non-player characters for the players to interact with.
User summary:
This game was originally designed for use with play-by-email (PbEM) games. An brief appendix at the back of the book offers suggestions and methods for running this type of game.