1. The Basics
• Role Playing Games
• The dice
2. AOL Role Playing
• The art of AOL RPing
• Forums, Guilds, and the like
1. Forums
2. Guilds
3. Hierarchy
• Free Form Role Playing
• Other types of Role Playing
• Dice Commands
3. Anarchy & Chaos

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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The Basics

  The Basics of Role playing. (I chose role instead of roll because it is more like acting then just rolling dice)

  Role playing is about the same thing as acting. Only you are the writer, the director, the actor, and the editor. I know you are saying right now: "Geez.. why in the world would I want to do all that for?" . My answer would be : "Because there is nothing else like it in the entire world.". Where else can you be a dragon that SAVES the princess or the good guy that turns bad and kidnaps the princess and holds her for ransom, without feeling like a loony? I say nowhere else. So away from the propaganda for a couple of minutes and toward getting you learned in the ways of role playing.

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  There has been many of game to come along to satisfy the needs of the average Joe wanting to role play. The most notable being, Dungeons & Dragons, which, I know... I know, gets allot of shall we say "attention" from Christians. All that aside though, D&D is a classic, and one of my personal favorites, but there are others out there. White Wolf comes to mind first... then a whole host of others. Dungeons & Dragons,  White Wolf, and the many others are known to Role Players as Bookworms (this is not really a RPing term but one I made myself).

  Bookworms need real life players being in a real life setting, i.e.. a group of buddies at one of their houses. I have seen D&D played before on-line but it always turned out to a free-for-all and the person in charge just gave up. I have heard however, that there have been numerous successful sessions on-line. However, I have yet to see one.

  Now there is another big trend going on, live role playing. This scares me, it not only hurts role playing's name but it also scares your parents. Think about it; You come home one night dressed up as a vampire, teeth and all, when you are normally a Tommy Hilfiger type person. What would you think. At any rate, I have heard horror stories about when two RPers, battling in real life, using real swords and knifes.... well you get the picture.

The last and best, in my book anyway, role playing game is role playing on-line. Either on AOL or any other type of computer media. It gives you total anonymity and you are not bound by what race (or species) you are. It also gives you vast room to play a character that you like, not one that was rolled that way.

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  Now comes the dice. Dice are a vital part of RPing. Dice represent the random quality of life... it gives  the underdog a chance of winning the big game, it gives people dying from cancer that extra boost that they need to kick the cancers butt, but it also is the driving force to the chance happening of a drunk's car slamming into your car.

  You probably heard of the six sided dice before. It is used in such games as Monopoly, Sorry, Life, and Risk. (Just to name the classics.) But in role playing there are certain risks a character can make, swinging a sword at an opponate, jumping across a chasm, or just learning a new language. Because there is different probabilities for each item the needs to be different dice for each. So if you HAD to make a decision between facing a great dragon or jumping a  great chasm, which would you chose? If you try and face the dragon then you start the battle rules. If you decide to jump then you need to see if you made it or not, you can't just say you've made it, you need to roll a die or some dice, as the case maybe.

  The normal set of dice  for a Bookworm consists of a 1d4, a 1d6, a 1d10, a 1d12, a 1d20, and a percentile die 1d100 (you could also use 2d10... using two colors of dice, one color is designated as the multiplier... an example: You roll two ten sided dice a red one and a yellow, the red is designated as the multiplier.. you roll a 5 and a 4 so you have 54%... it's that simple). The first # is how many to roll, the second # is the number of sides each dice has, and the "d" stands for dice(/die)...... so at 4d12 you either roll 4, 12 sided dice or you roll 1, 12 sided dice 4 times.

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  If any of this is confusing, as it's bound to be, either consult the Glossary or contact me at: [email protected]

  To me AOL is a big monster, a clumsy oaf, but if you get in it's way your toast. That said, I love Role Playing on AOL. They give you so many tools to use it's almost like they designed it for Role Playing use exclusively. If there are any people out there not on AOL reading this here's a short list of the role playing features AOL gives it's members that can be used for RPing:

1. The roll dice command. The command that lets you roll dice totally clean... no cheating the AOL software sends a random set of #'s to the chat text..(For people that RP on AOL but don't know the command go to the section on AOL dice commands.)

 
2. Profiles. Profiles are a small plain text document that YOU write and the whole of AOL can see, if they know your screen name. (People on AOL click on My AOL then on My Profile... the rest is self-explanatory.)

 
3. Create you own chat room, Member or Private. This is an invaluable way to recruit for your guild, plain ol' Role Play, or just talk in private. (There are usually a lot of rooms with Rhydin in the name in Arts and Entertainment/Member Created rooms... so try there if you are a beginning RPer on AOL)

 
4. The add-ons. There are add-ons to AOL out there. Some are good, some are great, and some just stink. I personally use Power Tools by BPS Software.

 
5. And just some other stuff, for me there's too many to list.

 

 

  There is a certain art to RPing on or off AOL. Like I said earlier, RPing is like acting in a movie. There is a certain flair that you need to have (or assume) to even think about RPing, let alone do it. RPing is one of those things that can't be explained, it just needs to be tried in order to appreciate it (or dislike it as the case maybe). So get out there and try it, and ask questions (but please do it discreetly,   i.e... in an Instant Message, nothing hurts a Role Play worse then a newbie coming in just asking questions. Thank you for your cooperation in this part.). Most RPers are people too and they started somewhere and sometime, and many of them had the exact same questions that you do. As the saying goes, "There is no stupid questions".

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  I would like to explain the hierarchy in Rhydin (AOL). There are many different kinds of groups that form from just the human need to be led.

  First off, there are forums. Forums are a governing body, usually with 4 or more members that act as  the council, the elders, or whatever they deem themselves. They make the rules and they enforce the rules. These people try to be fair (hopefully anyway) about their own rules. Governing a forum is a big job, I have heard that it takes up most of your time on and off-line, espsically if the forum has many guilds in it.

  That brings us to guilds. Guilds are a smaller version of a forum, they don't have to govern guilds, but they govern the actual people. Guilds are like family, well most of them are, and like anything the longer that you are in one (a guild) the closer and the higher up you get in the Chain of Command. Most leaders are called GC, which stands for Grand Commander. Then there are his(/her) underlings, they are named various things but are known to the masses as SiC and TiC (Second and Third in Command). They are basically the people that keep the guild together. If the GC is doing all the work then there's something wrong. If a GC can give a person the position, the person can at least do the work required of them, even if it means giving a little of themselves.

  Guilds useully have initials that they go by, the guild that I am a GC for is SKoRR,
here's the link the site.

Here's an example of a Rhydin hierarchy (these are all ficitious names) I am only chooseing one guild to give an example of the chain of command:

  There might be a little diffrence in the guild's Chain of command SKoRR's is set up like this:

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