CE: Guide

Choose Your Own Adventure Taken To a Whole New Level

Remember the RPGs of old, dusting off the tabletop, rolling the dice, …wracking your brain over which of the skills listed would be most useful for what you had in mind and realizing, alas, what you had in mind simply wasn’t there to choose from?

Okay, End Flashback. Don’t get me wrong, we love old school rp as much as anyone. But with the new school comes new rules, and that is what you will find with the Chronicles of Edarin.

Long gone are the dungeon masters, the dice rollers, the dusty table-top and the funny voices…though, in the privacy of your own home make as many funny voices as you like! What Edarin supplies is a world where you make your role-playing fantasies a reality. We’ve long since buried our boards in the basement, sequestered our player manuals on the farthest corner of over-stuffed bookshelves. Now there’s a new forum to act out our crazy little imaginings—it’s called the internet—and a new kind of choose your own adventure story.

Now, don’t think this is written permission to go all helter-skelter on your take-over-the-world schemes. We, the administrators, will provide you with a basic skeleton. You’ll have supplied to you the world in which to work, the government and it’s officials to be used as non-player characters to suit your whims, the races, the job classes, the bestiary…and even a stock quest or two for those of you running on empty. But everything else is vastly in your own hands. You are the player, you are the moderator, you recruit fellow players to join in your adventures or join the adventures of another player. With only a few general guidelines and regulations to keep everything in a nice state of orderly chaos, the world is yours for the taking!

Interested? Below you will find our Guide, which ranges from Character Creation up through your first posts in our Forums.

I. Creating a Character
II. Starting Equipment
III. The Forums
IV. Roleplayer's Glossary
V.Rules of the Game

I. Creating a Character

Think of your favorite characters from books, movies, comics. What makes them great? A unique personality, human weaknesses and strengths, a well-developed back story. These are the same things necessary in creating a character for a fantasy RPG. That, and a few other minor details. You will need to create a character profile. The checklist below will help you in that process.

1. Name-every character needs one, and it needs to be memorable. It also needs to be unique as it will be your registered name at the forums.

2. Age-while your character will age over time, this will also be edited over time in your profile, but at the beginning of your play with us at Edarin, how old is your character?

3. Race-Edarin has plenty of races to choose from in addition to a handful of sub-races. Humans, centaurs, dwarves, fey, three kinds of elf, and more… browse the Races page to see which suits your fancy.

4. Class-Your Job Class is the key to getting anywhere in Edarin. Your class determines what type of skills you will learn and your use of those skills determines how well and quickly you can level up. Pick a class that is symbiotic to your chosen race. For example, you probably won't find a Centaur Pirate-centaurs can't swim. Of course, if you can give us a good excuse for it, it may get approved anyway. Be creative!

5. Personality/History- People are shaped at least in part by where they come from, how they were raised. Use this section to tell us your character's history, his/her likes and dislikes, pet peeves, etc. Does your characters have any siblings? Parents, still living? Deceased?-if so, what happened? This section should be a healthy two paragraphs at least as you're covering a lot of ground here.

6. Additional Information- anything else you feel you want us to know that hasn't been covered elsewhere. Also, certain races and subraces will require additional information that the other sections haven't covered. These things can be noted in this section if other instructions have not been given.

II. Starting Equipment

As of registration at Edarin's Forums, each player already has in their possession the following:

1. 1 horse OR pet of equivalent/lesser value. If you're not sure if your pet is acceptable, ask a member of the game staff. Please note that a Zhoan elf may ONLY have an Apertaine Horse(see Bestiary for description).

2. 1 standard dagger

3. 1 basic long sword, long bow, or the trade in fee of such being 35 ka.

4. 1 two bedroom house or equivalent dwelling in the city of your choice.

5. Basic leather armor OR additional starting equipment adding up to the value of such, being 80 ka.

6. Pocket money being 800 ka.

III. The Forums

Okay, so you've decided on your character, you understand the monetary system and what you're starting with. You've picked the city you'd like to live in. Now what?

1. Go to the forums and register, for one, if you haven't already done so, silly. Register with your character's name, not your personal name. Please avoid numbers in usernames. Your username and your character name should be the same.

2. Okay, ready to make your first post? Go to the Character Profiles section of the forums and start a new thread posting your profile in the format noted in the sticky thread at the top of the page. As time progresses you will add additional information, such as your approved skills and the level of your character to your profile, but for starters just filling in all the areas requested will suffice. Be as detailed as you'd like. The more you write the better. You will want to link to this thread in your signature (in fact, it's required that you do so). To do this find the link at the top of the page that says 'profile' then click 'modify profile' scroll down to signature and add the link. Anything additional you'd like to add is your own choice, but a link to your profile must be in your signature.

3. Next you'll want to go to the requests and approvals forum to request your level one skills as described in Lv.1 section of your chosen job class. You'll have to wait for approval before using your skills, but as soon as you've posted the request you may start playing as your character. Find a thread you like and request to join, or start a recruitment thread for your own adventure, whatever suits your fancy. Have fun! And make sure to check back to your thread in the requests and approvals forum for the approval of your skills.

Please Note: If you are still feeling lost regarding how to get started as a player in the Chronicles of Edarin, a detailed tutorial has been prepared and can be located here.

IV. Roleplayer's Glossary

This section of the guide will supply you with some basic terms of usage that new rpers may be unfamiliar with and a few others that are unique to The Chronicles of Edarin.

Admin: an administrator, the real world gods of Edarin. We're sweet and loveable, really, but try not to piss us off, kay?

Alternate Time: Unique to Edarin, alternate time allows you to use an 'alternate' of your character. Say, for example, your character is in an adventure, but you see another adventure you really want to be a part of that happens in the same time frame, or that you want to play in but don't want the events to effect your character on a personal level. Well, you reach into the parallel universe that is alternate time and pull out your character's alternate, or clone. This allows you to play in an adventure with a character while having none of the events of the adventure effect your character. (like say, the death of an alternate does not mean the death of your main character). Your alternate will play at whatever level your main character is at the start of the adventure. However, you must state in your FIRST POST that you will be playing as an alternate. You can't decide to later when things aren't going well. Also, any experience your alternate receives is NOT transferred to your main character. Using alternate time is a double-edged sword, but it is there for you to use if you so choose.

CDA: Creative Design Assistant. One step below the admin's, a CDA is the equivalent of a Global Moderator at other games. The CDA has the right to approve or deny requests for levels just as an administrator, and in player relations can be seen as equivalent to an admin for all your needs. While they may need to ask an admin about some unusual requests, for the most part the CDA will be able to help you as much as the Admins can.

DM/GM: Dungeon Master/Game Master. This is a throw back to the old days of D&D, another name for a moderator. While Edarin has no moderators as such, it DOES have players running adventures. The player running the adventure is to be considered the GM/DM or that adventure.

Fluid Time: Fluid time is a convenient little trick that allows us to play adventures taking place in multiple parts of our characters lives at the same time. This means we can be in more than one adventure at a time, saying that adventure B takes place two years after adventure A, for example. This way you can participate in as many adventures as you like…as long as you can keep track of which ones happened first and which ones happened last.

God-modding: A serious rp no-no, god-modding is taking control of another person's character without previous consent. While Edarin is essentially a freeform rpg where players can create npcs, run adventures, control the weather, and what not of their given adventure, they can NOT control the actions or inactions of other pc's without the consent of the player that character belongs to.

IC: In Character. These are your posts as your character. IC involves any actual roleplaying.

LOA: Leave of Absence. Not actually a roleplaying term, but still convenient. While it's not always possible, if you're going to be gone for an extended period of time, we would appreciate being informed of such as a courtesy to your fellow players.

NPC: Non-Player Character. Any character in existence created by the adventure's GM in order to progress plot, but for whom no actual gain is possible. A character who does not exist in the game world outside of the particular adventure/location. Another common example is shop owners.

OOC: Out of Character. Any commentary that is made as yourself, not your character, is OOC. The forums have a handful of OOC boards, and any ooc comments occurring on the rp boards should be noted as either ooc: followed by an ic: at the beginning of character dialogue, or separated by brackets or parentheses, ie: [blah blah] or (blah blah). OOC commentary should be clearly delineated from comments made in character.

PC: Player Character. Your character. You, as you exist within the game world. You may have as many pc's as you like, but each PC must have its own, separate account.

PM: Most commonly known as a Private Message (ProBoards likes to call them "Personal Messages"). The forums allow you to message other users privately without the entire population of the board seeing said messages. What you do with the private message system is your own affair, but please remember that spam and chain mail are strictly prohibited. Report users violating this rule to an administrator.

V. Rules of the Game

Yes, all games have them and Edarin is no different. The rules are there to make playing an experience that everyone can enjoy.

1. Edarin is a creative venture. Love to write. Dare to imagine. And most importantly, don’t control other people's characters. Nobody likes a power-player.

2. As Edarin is player-moderated, DMs are all powerful for the thread, not their playable characters (this does not necessarily apply to NPCs). If Alchemist Bob or Cleric Chris doesn’t do a good job of convincing the other players in the thread that a spell/action can and should work, those players have the right to vote and veto the action as a failed attempt. This is just a safeguard to keep you on your toes guys. We don’t want you to abuse it, but we think that if you’re going to cast a spell then cast it, and there are a whole bunch of better ways to use a sword than ‘swings at opponent and hopes to hit something’.

3. Respect your fellow players. Everyone is entitled to their own views and they might not always be the same as yours. If you want to debate, go for it, but keep things civilized. (obviously this refers primarily to out of character discussion).

4. We DO use a leveling system here, though it is not what you’re used to. Levels may be requested after a certain amount of time AND number of posts. Both prerequisites must be met. See the Job Class sections for further details. You will not have to go through tedious training threads. Edarin’s main limitation is the bounds of your own imagination, but we’re not about to let people run completely amok either.

5. All use of deities and ‘Save/Conquer the world’ plot lines must be approved by an administrator.

6. This is not a rule so much as a warning. The administrative staff's job is not only to create a fun and interesting world for you to play in, but to read through adventures to make sure everyone is playing nice. While in most cases bad behavior will get you a warning before deletion, we DO reserve the right to delete players without warning. This will not be done without just cause, but as they say, one bad egg spoils the bunch. Most cases of misbehavior will first result in a warning and deletion only if said abuse continues, but we reserve the right to delete bad seeds and, of course, occasionally smote with the righteous hand of Fenris just because we do so enjoy smiting trouble-makers.

7. Admittedly, this rule is vastly the result of one of my own (Arcady’s) pet peeves. No one-liners. I detest them. While I understand that sometimes you’re just not inspired, ritual use of one or two sentence posts is also cause for deletion. It’s bad role-playing and just gets on my nerves.

8. And finally, I would like to state for the record that Edarin is a pg-13 game. All graphic content you wish to rp (if any) must be kept to the private messaging (PM) system and out of the main forums.

A New Journey is About to Begin...

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