Dykal N00bguide
I know what you’re thinking: “N00bguide? I ain’t no stinkin’ Newbie, so I don’t need no stinkin’ N00bGuide.” Alas, you’re wrong. I would be wrong to think the same. Freeform Role-playing is an art form, and, like every art form, the endless possibilities it offers ensures that we will all remain n00bs from today till dust. Shakespeare was a newbie. Dostoyevsky was a newbie. Tolkien was fresher than a 2005 nickel. With that in mind, we’ve created our N00bguide to be a resource for all freeform role-players, rather than a simple explanation of the basics for first-timers. Below you’ll find an ever-growing archive of articles on freeform by Dykal members, as well as links to off-site guides that we feel offer valuable advice.
If you wish to submit an article of your own or to recommend a link, please send the article or link to nugan@dykal.net, and we will post it up ASAP (and give you credit if its an article that you penned personally).
On-Site Articles:
How Not to Be a Power-Gamer by Nugan
The Popsicle Stick U.S.S. Constitution by Nugan
(This isn’t really strictly about freeform role-playing, but its discussion of fantasy literature can be extended to fantasy freeform.)
Off-site Articles:
Everthing2’s Freeform Role-Playing Guide http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1503917
A discussion of the basics of Freeform Role-Playing. Most useful to newer players.
Role-Playing Games: Theory and Practice http://members.ozemail.com.au/~tarim/rpg/rpgpage.htm
A collection of articles and seminar transcripts on role-playing as an art form.
Anthology: The Guide to Systemless RPG http://membres.lycos.fr/sansregle
A site that discusses systemless (freeform) RPGs in general, both online and offline.
The Handbook to Roleplaying http://www.angelfire.com/tx/afira/[/link
An intensive site about role-playing in general with lots of different resources.
This article was originally written as a message board topic for a freeform site that I used to visit. It has been edited slightly from the original.
Power Gamer, Snert, Twink; whatever you call them, they're the topic of endless complaints on role-playing boards and one of the top pet peeves of many freeform role-players. I wonder though, if they are so unanimously hated: Why do they still seem to be such an epidemic? (Or so I've gathered from the many complaints I've seen or heard recently)
My guess: They don't know who they are or they don't know any other way to play. I mean, let's face it, the vast majority of us have been in their shoes at one point in time, and many of us even slip into "power-gamey" behavior now and then. It seems kind of cruel to keep attacking these people in PMs and on the boards when they may not even know what their doing wrong or how to change.
That brings me to the body of this article: I'm going to try to give tips to help these players realize what they can do to help themselves. This article will be divided into two sections: Non-Combat Role-Playing and Combat Role Playing.
Non-Combat Role Playing
This section is going to cover tips and common mistakes for situations not relating to battles.
An Embarrassed Character is not the Same Thing as an Embarrassed Player:
If you only feel like reading one of my points, and I can understand that, this is the one I would recommend reading. Too often it seems players are afraid to allow their characters to fail, or to act stupid, or to loose face in any way simply because they are afraid of "making fools of themselves". This is not the case at all; it will not hurt your reputation in the least if your character is proven fallible. In fact, it would probably make you look better in the eyes of other players. This is a role-playing, so one of the focuses is to make a believable, interesting character. Well, an infallible being certainly isn't believable and, if you think about it, such a being wouldn't be all that interesting either.
Flaws Make a Character: Continuing from my last point: What do you think makes a character interesting? Funny? Entertaining? Even Likable? Imperfections. That's right, it’s what's "wrong" with your character that make them, well, a character. Think back to your favorite character from a movie, book, or whatever. What made that character so impressive in your mind? Chances are that it wasn't because s/he could cast meteor swarm at will or summon all of nature's powers to his/her whim. No, chances are that it was some cool quirk that made the character. That's right, a quirk, or in other words: A flaw. A neurotic little habit, or a grammatical quirk in their speech (Think Yoda would have been so cool if his was just a wise little man?), or some other deviation from normal behavior that would very likely be regarded negatively in a real social situation.
Keep Your Abilities True to Your Character: A wizard that has a ring that gives him Meteor Swarm at will looks like a power gamer, but a fighter (or rogue or barbarian or whatever) with the same ring only looks ridiculous. Having abilities that deviate too much from your character concept (class for those of you who like to think in terms of DnD) is a bad idea. You may see it as adding interesting variety to your character's image, but in fact it only turns on that big flashing "Twink" light in most people's minds. If you want to add an interesting twist to your character that goes against concept, look at my last point.
Massive Displays of Power, They aren't Cool (Or: Why Jerry Bruckhiemer Would Fail at Freeform): We've all seen those amazing scenes in the big summer blockbuster movie of the year where the hero or villain does something big and flashy that blows the entire audience away. I'm sure many of us have thought: "Wouldn't it be cool if I could do that?" Well, not if you do it in freeform rooms. Such displays just do not work for two reasons: 1) There's no million-dollar 21st century special effects in Dykal [Hell, we run the whole site on less than $300 a year] and 2) Anyone can do it. You see, such displays of power just don't look that cool in text form. What's more, they're distracting to other players and make you look "power-gamey". So the next time you want to bring down the moon with seismic waves emanating from your feet and give it away as a gift: don't, even if you are in love.
Character Level is not the Same Thing as Character Power: There seems to be some confusion, particularly among those of us who play DnD, about a character's level being a good indicator of whether or not the player is a "power gamer". That doesn't seem to be the case. There are plenty of completely reasonable role-players with epic level characters, and there are plenty of 18th, 15th, or even 10th level characters with outrageous abilities. There's nothing wrong with playing a high level character, so long as you don't do it in a flashy, intimidating way.
Combat Role Playing
I'm going to start this section by saying that I'm not exactly a Freeform combat expert. I tend to avoid combat whenever a storyline doesn’t make it a necessity, but I'm going to share what little I have learned about it now.
Take Damage: This seems like a given, but its probably the biggest complaint I've heard concerning "power gaming". If you're in combat with someone, get hit ever now and then. I'm not talking about letting your opponent decapitate you. I'm talking about taking a cut in the shoulder occasionally. Not only is refusing to take hits a huge annoyance to your opponent, but it also makes the fight terribly dull for spectators. Think about how fun it would be to watch a movie where the hero isn't even touched during a battle sequence.
Don't Expect to Kill Your Opponent: This topic is sort of the inverse of the one above. People are attached to their characters, so don't expect to be able to kill them in an unplanned fight. Expect them to take hits, maybe even lose (see next topic), but don't expect them to die. Also, even if your opponent does end up deceased at the conclusion of a battle, don't expect them to stay that way. There are clerics/healers all over the place, so resurrection is perfectly reasonable.
Forget the Rules, Use Logic: That's right, forget that your a 75th level High Dragon Overlord and your opponent's a 1st level Commoner with Leprosy. It doesn't matter, this is freeform. May the best wo/man win. This mean that if your opponent comes up with a clever way to defeat you, s/he should win. I'm not talking about the unleashing of the breath attack of awesome disintegration, I'm talking about finding a weakness in your style and exploiting it. You know, the way people win in real combat. If this bothers you, or if your character has no weaknesses to exploit, then you need to go back and read my first (and most important) point.
Don't Be Afraid to Run: This last one's something of a homage to Nugan the character. If you find yourself in a situation where you'd have to fight a battle that you really don't want to, whether it’s because your opponent's a power gamer or you simply don't want to, run away. Despite what your opponent might tell you, you're never a "snert" or "power gamer" or whatever for finding a way to escape from a bad battle. Its better to just get away than to be forced to fight in an unfair way just to have any hope of survival.
Well, that's it. Thanks for taking the time to read what is probably another of my long, wordy, useless articles. At least I bothered to run it through spell check this time...
The Popsicle Stick U.S.S. Constitution (Or: Fantasy Literature and Social Relevance)
Here’s a little essay/rant I composed. Please don’t take this as an attack on anyone’s personal tastes, and feel free to send me your disagreements.
The Popsicle Stick U.S.S. Constitution: Failures of Modern Fantasy Literature
During my childhood I read a great deal of fantasy literature, and, although I haven’t picked up a fantasy book in several years, as an active role-player I still often find myself in contact with the fantasy genre. Through these experiences I’ve developed several complaints about the state of modern fantasy literature, which I plan to outline below. However, before I mention them, I want to start with an illustration.
A proficient model maker wishes to build a model of the U.S.S. Constitution, so he travels to Boston Harbor, repeated observes and studies the battleship, makes sketches, and finds a book outlining the ship’s construction in the library. Using these materials and information, he constructs a beautiful model of the ship, showing off all of its best details, and sets it on his mantel. Soon afterward his five year old son sees the ship, and, taken with it, asks his father for glue and a box of discarded popsicle sticks, which he uses to construct a model, as best he can, of his father’s model. He then takes his Popsicle Stick U.S.S. Constitution to the bathtub, fills the tub, and sets the ship inside. The ship, of course, sinks.
My argument is that modern Fantasy Literature is much like the Popsicle Stick U.S.S. Constitution. The original U.S.S. Constitution in my example symbolizes the mythology of the ancient Greeks, Normans, Romans, and others. Like the original battleship, these myths did more than simply look pretty. They served a real functional purpose in ancient societies. The Odyssey, for example, says more about the conditions of Ancient Greece than most textbooks. They were used to instruct children, and adults, and often even to criticize what their creators saw as flaws in current social conditions. To use Homer’s Odyssey as an example again, it served to present a case against the run-away pride which categorized Greek society. In short, the original myths were trying to say something. The model maker in my illustration is, of course, J.R.R. Tolkien, author of Lord of the Rings. When creating his famous trilogy, the works that created the modern fantasy genre, he spent a great deal of time studying ancient mythology, and used this knowledge to create what some could argue was a flawless model of these myths. This trilogy did not attempt to make any social statements, but it certainly was pleasant to experience, in the same way as the work of a great model maker can communicate much of the beauty of an original in his models.
The model maker’s son in my story stands for current fantasy writers. In the same way as the child attempted to mimic his father’s work without ever viewing the original, these writers too often turn to Tolkien for source material, as if the genre had actually originated with him. To them, the model is the ship, and they rush off to copy it, perhaps with their own twist, without a thought otherwise. This results in a level of inbreeding within the genre that stifles possibilities and results in inferior works, but that’s not my real concern. What truly bothers me about modern fantasy is its failure to attempt to make any social statements. The genre has become so detached from its true ancestors that it has forgotten their true intentions: to communicate some statement about the society in which their creator exists. They become nothing more than hollow escapism. Now, I have nothing I against escapism. I don’t cancel plans on Tuesday nights to watch each episode of 24 in hopes of learning something about the inner-working of the CIA or presidential politics. However, I feel that, by making every work of fantasy literature nothing more than escapism, a valuable resource is being ignored. The metaphor and symbolism have always been essential parts of literature. Fantasy, in its original ancient form, served as one massive source metaphor and symbolism. Couldn’t it serve the same function today? Wouldn’t it be interesting to read a fantasy novel that doubled as, say, a criticism of America’s one-sided policy in the Israel/Palestine conflict? Or maybe to address a nemesis the genre already has: religious fundamentalists? I know either of those novels, if well written, would be enough to turn me back into an avid fantasy reader. Who knows, when we set them in the bathtub of everyday experience maybe they’ll even float.