Welcome (and Guide to Roleplaying on This Forum)

[Aidan]

Welcome to the roleplaying forum. Here is where GMs and players alike can make and participate in campaigns on the forum. This Tack will also serve as a guide to making and playing with your character here on the forums.

1. Generating your Character Sheet
This part is simple. Go to your Profile (link at the top of the page between Messages and Usergroups) and at the bottom, click the button near the bottom to generate a sheet.

2. Filling in your sheet
Less simple. Once you have decided to join a roleplay here, check the setting, and start to create a character accordingly, by clicking the Modify button in your profile. The rules for character creation are found in the Downloads section as a PDF file. Use the latest version (0.5.5 as of 14th April 08 ) and create your character at level 1. If the GM of the game you are joining decides that you will all start the campaign at a higher level, then use the Levelling Up section of the book to bring your character up to scratch.

PROTIPS: Do not make the character all in one sitting, or the forum will time out, and the sheet will not save when you click Save. Finish it in sections (Ability scores, then HUD stats, Skills etc) and save when you finish each section to prevent a timeout. Always ask your campaign's GM to check your sheet to see it is suitable.

3. Playing the game
I recognize that many people have different styles of written roleplay. For example, I prefer to write like a story in 'second person' present tense when running a game online. And as GM, I prefer to screen rolls from the players, so that should things go in a horribly detrimental way (unjust accidental killing of a character who is important to the plot, for example) I can be liberal with what I ACTUALLY rolled:

The Frost Gigas slumbers peacefully, but he is not the only creature guarding the gate into this particular tower. As you approach, hoping for an easy in, a small, greenish figure emerges from the guardhouse behind the Gigas. He looks around to see if anyone is about. He spots you all approaching, and starts screaming at the Gigas.
"Travellers approach!"

By the time you get there, the Gigas is awake and alert, and the Goblin stands trying to look important and official.
"Your business at Sickle Spire?" He asks you as a group, waiting for whoever would answer him.

As I said, I understand that not everyone will write in this style, but whatever you do, keep your Speech and Actions very much separate. For example, some might prefer to speak in open text, and enclose actions in asterisks *Aidan gives everyone an example*.

Unless your action could have multiple outcomes, you need not roll dice. Some people want to roll dice all the time, I've noticed. But if you're using a simple action that can't rightly fail unless you are VERY stupid or unlucky, don't roll.

Examples:

Needs a roll - *Jakhya aims a strike with his spiked gauntlet at the torso of the Blackwing Sprite*

Doesn't need a roll - *Jakhya runs out of the tavern to the source of the noise*

Finally, out of character speech should be separated in some way. My standard is ((double parenthesis)), but others can be [[Double Border]] or OOC: Markers. If you are asking a GM a question, it is out of character, if you are rofl-ing at the sarcastic humour of the drunken NPC, it is out of character.

4. Rolling Dice
The Dice system on the forums is sketchy at best. So below are protips on using the system.

NEW SYSTEM FOR DICE
PHPbb in their infinite wisdom have changed the dicerolling system. Now, to roll dice, one uses the drop down box BENEATH the message box, select D6, and change the number in the numerical box to the number of D6 to roll.

If there are multiple things to roll for on your post, list the order in which they are to be rolled in ((OOC brackets)) beneath the actual roleplaying post.




That is all for now.

[XionAstra]

NUMBER OF DICE
The system here on the forums uses tags. When you have the tags on the screen, remember to type the number of dice you are rolling between the tags:

Code:

[roll="D6]2[/roll]

The above example will roll two dice, which is the standard for almost eveything except damage in 11 Paths.

CLICK, DON'T TYPE
Unfortunately, due to the tags containing invisible characters, you cannot simply type [roll="D6"]2[/roll], instead, you must click on the small D6 symbol between the Others and Blue Exclamation just above the text box. Then click on D6 from the drop down menu. This button does not appear when a) creating a new topic or b) editing an old post.

Actually I've found you can do with the code (I may have just been lucky) by adding a extra speach mark after D6.
The code should look like this (minus the spaces): [roll= "D6"] Number of D6 to roll [ /roll]
The following example has been done using this method: [roll="D6"]2[/roll]

[Aidan]

Oh, my speech mark key was sticky in the above text. But previously, even with the speech marks, it hasn't worked for me. Maybe it's just that the forum hates me, but meh. I still recommend clicking, since when I previewed it, some garbled characters appeared after the "D6" and before the ], so I assume invisible characters are to blame.

My forums hate me.

On a more positive note, I'm up to version 0.9.1 of the Core book. I was considering removing the Distract skill, but Distract covers intimidation, and can be used to help youself loose attention while trying to stealth.

[Aidan]

for computer use [roll="D6"]2[/roll]
Testing typed roll...

[Ben]

Yeah aidan... been readin through the guide... but as far as the character sheet bit on forum goes... i'm lost xD can ya take it into more depth for me, as i see everybody else has there character sheet set up.

[Sponsored content]