Path: relief.cts.com!newshub.cts.com!usc!newshub.csu.net!www.nntp.primenet.com!globalcenter1!news.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!news-out.internetmci.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!206.229.87.25!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-peer-east.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!uunet!in5.uu.net!news.anet-chi.com!usenet From: [a--r--y] at [anet-chi.NOJUNK.com] (Aardy R. DeVarque) Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.dnd Subject: FAQ: RGFD 2/9 -- Netiquette Date: Sun, 02 Nov 1997 00:59:47 GMT Organization: Aardy's Aardvark Emporium Lines: 679 Message-ID: <[3465 d 026 383109791] at [news.anet-chi.com]> Reply-To: [a--r--y] at [anet-chi.com] NNTP-Posting-Host: chi-pru.max1-96.anet-chi.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.451 Xref: relief.cts.com rec.games.frp.dnd:243584 X-Cache: nntpcache 1.0.6.5 (see ftp://suburbia.net/pub/nntpcache) REC.GAMES.FRP.DND FAQ Part 2 Netiquette =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= * designates topics which have been updated. + designated topics which have been added. B1: What is this "netiquette" thing anyway? B2: So, what's the deal with this board? B3: Are there any gaming groups in my area? B4: What codes can I use for Distribution? B5: "...Me, too!" B6: Why should I play *D&D instead of Rolemaster, Torg, or some other RPG? B7: "D&D IS EVIL & SH*T, DON'T PLAY IT." What do I do when this gets posted? B8: Do those "MAKE MONEY FAST" ideas really work? B9: If X fought Y, who would win? B10: Where can I buy/sell old books, modules, & other stuff? * B11: How do I get past a certain point in this AD&D computer game? B12: Some people's posts go off the right edge of the screen; is my newsreader broken or something? * B13: How creative should I get with my .signature file? B14: Do I have to be an elementalist mage to post a "flame" or start a "flamewar"? B15: Where can I post this? B16: Why hasn't anyone responded to my posts? B17: Why isn't anyone talking about Al-Qadim? B18: Would anyone like to start a campaign here on the newsgroup? B19: I missed a message; could someone please repost it? =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= B1: What is this "netiquette" thing anyway? B1: What is this "netiquette" thing anyway? A: Netiquette is shorthand for "net etiquette". Usenet is a cooperative community that only works for as long as people are cooperating. Thus, over the years each newsgroup and Usenet as a whole have created sets of rules and customs, essentially deciding what will and will not generally be tolerated by other posters--what constitutes good "net manners", if you will--in order for the maximum amount of readers to get the maximum enjoyment from each group. Examples of netiquette issues include what the proper newsgroups for certain topics are, and what constitutes a good general posting style. Usenet is all about communication. It is divided into separate hierarchies and newsgroups so that it is easier to find the topic you wish to discuss. Netiquette is about effective communication. If your posts are polite and easy to read, it is much more likely that people will want to communicate with you. If your posts make you look arrogant, or merely careless, clueless, or sloppy, few people will want to take the time to muddle through what you have to say to find the kernels of your posts. And those that do will not be very inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt. Many types of behavior which are acceptable elsewhere are not acceptable on Usenet; you can easily discover these potential pitfalls by reading through the files listed in the Note to New Users at the beginning of this FAQ. There are also many behaviors which may be acceptable on other newsgroups which are not acceptable here, and some things that are done here that may or may not be acceptable in any other groups on Usenet. Many of these are described in this section of the FAQ. The best way to understand what is and is not acceptable is to read through the entire FAQ and read every message in the group for at least two weeks before making your first post. As a poster to this group, it is your responsibility to learn the customs of Usenet and this group, hopefully before you write that first post. The individual "rules" of netiquette exist for various reasons, which include: To avoid looking like a clueless wonder or a total jerk, and thus avoid being treated as such by the rest of the readers of the group; To help make everyone's posts clear, legible, and able to be read and understood by the greatest number of people with the least amount of effort by all concerned; and To prevent a discussion group from becoming a clearing-house, where anything can be discussed, thus making it extremely difficult to find posts that actually deal with the name of the group Netiquette does not actually prevent anyone from posting whatever they darn well please; nothing and no one can do that, short of forging cancels. However, it is a good idea to follow netiquette, or at the very least take the time to learn why a given rule exists before challenging it. Breaking the customs (whether on purpose or on accident) may not seem like much to you in many cases, but it will usually cost you in terms of credibility and, to some extent, popularity. You appear as if you didn't bother to take the time or effort to find out about those things that this group considers important, behavior-wise. This turns most posters off--you'll already have one strike against you, making it that much more likely that you'll annoy or even anger the other posters, so they won't be in the mood to read what you're trying to say. Besides, if you can't be bothered to listen to the group, why should the group take the time to listen to you? Occasional mistakes or lapses of reason happen to everyone, and most people know to take this into account when considering a response to a post. If a poster consciously decides to use bad netiquette, though, especially after the error of his ways has been explained to him, that poster should be prepared to take flak for his decision, and be neither surprised nor indignant when the rest of the readers of the newsgroup bring societal pressures to bear on the "rogue" element to help him become a productive member of the microcommunity that is the newsgroup. If the decision to breach netiquette is due to an informed disagreement over what "proper" netiquette should be, arrived at after carefully reading of the existing documents and pondering the possible reasons behind the current rule and ramifications of changing that rule, that is one thing. Pure orneriness and/or total cluelessness is another matter altogether, and will usually prompt rebukes from other members of the group. This does not give everyone license to flame away whenever they see a breach of netiquette; that in itself is bad netiquette--a gentle reminder and suggestion of how to improve matters is usually a lot more productive than an outright flame. B2: So, what's the deal with this board? A: Once and for all, this is not AOL, nor Compuserve, nor Prodigy, nor Delphi, nor GEnie, nor Fidonet, nor a BBS. It is Usenet, one of the networks which is joined to the Internet. Specifically, this is one newsgroup from among the 12,000+ total newsgroups which make up Usenet. It is not a listserv (although there is an AD&D listserv, and some other groups are Usenet gateways for listservs), bboard, board, list, SIG, or base; several of those terms may technically describe Usenet, but they are no more "correct" than referring to the right side of a ship as anything other than starboard. This is a "newsgroup"--"group" for short--which is part of the Big 8, rec.*, rec.games.*, and rec.games.frp.* hierarchies of newsgroups. B3: Are there any gaming groups in my area? A: Usenet is read by people around the world, from New Zealand to Norway. If you're looking for players in Galveston, Texas, it is pointless to ask people in Germany to come over and play. Doing so only wastes bandwidth, time, and money for everyone outside of your neighborhood who reads your request, and tends to really annoy people. There are several methods you can use to get your request out to the people who are most likely to be interested in your request for games or gamers, while reducing to almost nil the amount of potential aggravation for the majority of the people reading this group. Please use one of these courses of action. The main method is to post the request on the newsgroup rec.games. frp.announce. Anyone looking for a group, or any groups looking for players may read that group for announcements of this nature, thus leaving more space on this group for discussions pertaining to the game itself--as well as making the announcements easier to find, by fact of only having to page through a couple of dozen posts per week to find a particular one rather than the couple of hundred posts per day of rec.games.frp.dnd. In this, the set-up is similar to rec.games.frp.marketplace, and people who know how the hierarchy is arranged know to watch that group for such announcements. If your newserver does not get rec.games.frp.announce, try writing your newsadmin and requesting that it be added to your site's feed. Another good method is to use one of the web pages set up for finding gamers in your area. One such is the "Internet RolePlayer Registry" section of the WebRPG page, located at , and another is at and is run by Etrigan. Either look into the existing requests to see if there are already people in your area looking for games or gamers, or input a request of your own and wait for any results. (If you are using Lynx or Mosaic, you may wish to try Etrigan's alternate page, at .) If neither these methods seem very palatable to you, then I suggest you find a local-area-only newsgroup (such as a university-, city-, or country-specific one; an example would be something along the lines of chi.wanted for a Chicago-specific group), or inquire if there is a message board in your local gaming shop and post a note there. These two actions are guaranteed to go only to the people most likely to respond to your requests. However, if you have your heart set on posting your request to rec.games.frp.dnd, then there is an additional course of action open to you, if your news reader has the capability. This is to limit the distribution of your message. Simply set the "Distribution:" line in the header of your message so that the message is only seen by a certain geographic area, for example, only North America (na), the United States (usa), Texas (tx), or Dallas-Ft. Worth (dfw). If you are unsure how to set the distribution on your newsreader, or cannot figure out the most applicable code to use, ask the sysop for your Usenet server. They're paid to tell you how to do such things. I am not. If you do take this route, it might be advisable to include a brief comment in the first line of your post that you are attempting to limit Distribution in this way, as that line of the headers is not always readily visible on most newsreaders; that way, if the post somehow makes it out of your area, people will know that you made the attempt and will hopefully go easy on you. Some things to remember when considering whether or not to use the Distribution feature: 1) Distributions don't work 100% of the time (in other words, they still might end up all over the world); using one of the other above methods, such as posting to a local hierarchy newsgroup, if available, is much more reliable. However, this is not an excuse for ignoring distributions when posting to a world-wide newsgroup! 2) You may only use a distribution if you are posting from within that distribution's area. IOW, Texans cannot limit articles just to a distribution of Illinois news servers. The way around this is for you to find someone inside the target distribution area who is willing to post the note for you and send that person your article through e-mail. 3) Try to use the most appropriate distribution for what you are trying to do. If you are looking for a local game, use your city, county, or state codes. If you are looking for people who are currently at a university but will be in your area for the summer, perhaps usa (or whatever country you are in) would be most appropriate. B4: Now that I've figured out how to use Distribution, what codes can I use? A: As stated above, there is a code for every inhabited continent, and most countries, as well as many, many move local codes, down to the city level. The most commonly-used geographic distributions: world *everywhere* [default] midlands Midlands, UK aa Ann Arbor, MI milw Milwaukee, WI ab Alberta, Canada mn Minnesota akron Akron, OH mo Missouri atl Atlanta, GA mtl Montreal, Quebec, Canada atl Atlantic Prov's (NB, PEI, Newf.) na North America (Mex, Can, USA) aus Australia ne New Engl. (CT, MA, ME, NH, RI, VT) austin Austin, TX neworleans New Orleans, LA az Arizona nj New Jersey ba San Francisco Bay area, CA no Norway bc British Columbia ns Nova Scotia belwue Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany ny New York bergen Bergen County, NJ nyc New York City, NY ca California nz New Zealand can Canada oau Orlando, FL ch Switzerland oc Orange County, FL chi Chicago, IL oh Ohio chico Chico, CA ok Oklahoma cle Cleveland, OH ont Ontario, Canada cmh Columbus, OH or Oregon co Colorado ott Ottawa, Canada dc Washington, DC pa Pennsylvania det Detroit, MI pdx Portland, OR dfw Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX pgh Pittsburgh, PA dsm Des Moines, IA phl Philadelphia, PA ed Edinborough, Scotland, UK pnw Pacific Northwest (ID, OR,WA) edm Edmonton, UK qc Quebec, Canada es Spain rg Rio Grande Valley, NM fj Japan ru Russia fl Florida sac Sacramento, CA ga Georgia sba Santa Barbara, CA hfx Halifax, NS, Canada scot Scotland, UK hk Hong Kong sea Seattle, WA houston Houston, TX stgt Stuttgart, B-W, Germany hsv Huntsville, Alabama stl St. Louis, MO ia Iowa su Soviet Union ie Ireland tba Tampa Bay Area, FL il Illinois tn Tennessee il Israel tor Toronto, CA in Indiana tx Texas ka Karlsruhe, Germany ua Ukraine kc Kansas City metro area uk United Kingdom ks Kansas usa United States of America kw Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont., Canada utah Utah ky Kentucky va Virginia la Los Angeles County, CA vic Victoria, BC, Canada lon London area, UK wa Washington lou Louisiana wgtn Wellington, New Zealand md Maryland wi Wisconsin mi Michigan wny West NY (Rochester, Buffalo) miami Miami, FL za South Africa And there are also usually company, university, etc. codes, as well. 1) The distributions are cumulative, so someone in Dallas, TX will see all posts with a distribution of dfw, tx, usa, na, or world, but not (for example) ba, no, can, and so on. However, a post can only have one distribution area set, so if you want something read by Dallas and Houston, it would be prudent to set the distribution to tx. 2) Although many correspond to domain names, usenet hierarchies, and/or postal abbreviations, not all do; it's not particularly safe to assume in this case. If you're not sure, look it up above or ask a sysop! B5: "...Me, too!" A: This is a pet peeve of mine. A post that does nothing but quote back the previous post in its entirety and adds "Me too" on the bottom wastes my time, and the time of everyone else who reads it. If you translate the wasted time into man-hours, you get a heck of a lot of wasted time. When you figure into the equation all of the people who pay by the message for Usenet access, it translates into a lot of lost money as well. If you see something you agree with, send the poster e-mail. If you want a copy of something, send the owner of whatever it is an e-mail message. Don't post it. This is simply good netiquette. I would ask that all new readers please peruse "Ask Emily Postnews," regularly posted to the newsgroup news.announce.newusers. 'Nuff said. B6: Why should I play *D&D instead of Rolemaster, Torg, or some other RPG? A: This is a group for discussing *D&D, in all the forms it has taken over the years. It is not a place to discuss the relative merits of those games when compared to non-TSR games. This includes discussion about why people should stop playing *D&D and switch to some other game. It just so happens, however, that there is a newsgroup which is dedicated solely to discussions of which game systems are the best and/or worst to play. It's just a few steps north of here, and is called rec.games.frp.advocacy. Try it, you might like it. The discussion there mainly centers around meta-game issues--i.e. what the best game mechanic for a given action is--rather than invective-filled flame-fests, so consider yourself warned. For other notes on where to post certain topics, see the question below and the newsgroups listing and descriptions in Part 6 of this FAQ. B7: "D&D IS EVIL & SH*T, DON'T PLAY IT." What do I do when this gets posted? A: Most likely, some poor schmuck walked away from his computer and a friend decided to play a practical joke. The best thing to do in such cases is to ignore it. That's right, don't even bother commenting on how much flamebait the unlucky poster is. Doing so just diverts time and energy away from discussion of our favorite game, and makes serious postings that much harder to find. For a hyperbolic, tongue-in-cheek take on this issue (regardless of what the page may claim to the contrary), read Niilo Paasivirta's Game of Satan essay at http://www.jyu.fi/~np/rpg/DnD/satangame.html. B8: Do those "MAKE MONEY FAST" ideas really work? A: No. Nyet. Absolutely not. Negatory on that, good buddy. The "Make Money Fast" schemes you usually see posted are almost always "Ponzi schemes," a.k.a. "pyramid schemes." The person who starts the pyramid of names may make the money he describes, but the poor schmucks at the bottom tend to actually lose money. Since the offer promises returns, and most people who reply don't see a red cent, the U.S. government considers such schemes to be fraud. Currently, if you send such a letter out via snailmail, you can be arrested for using the U.S. Mail for fraudulent purposes and end up doing jail time; the FCC is working on getting the sending of such messages over the Internet to be wire fraud, due to the fact that the Internet uses telephone lines for propagation. Currently, the U.S. federal laws on fraud & wire fraud do not take the Internet into account, but several state laws do. So spreading such schemes over the Internet is not technically illegal everywhere in the U.S. ... yet. And if your state is one that frowns on such things, you'd best watch your step. The easiest thing for everybody is to simply ignore the message. Since they are typically simultaneously posted to hundreds or thousands of newsgroups, the original poster will probably not see your witty discussion. Sending a private e-mail to the postmaster at the poster's site may be a good idea, but posting replies, even wildly humorous ones, just takes up bandwidth with useless topics. Just say "No" to "Make Money Fast" schemes. B9: If X fought Y, who would win? A: This type of question is most often found in the form "Enterprise vs. Death Star," or, more appropriately, "10th level fighter vs. 10th level mage," "Raistlin vs. Elminster," or "Driz'zt vs. Da Bears." (For the record, even with a mini-Ditka, Da Bears take it, 42-3; Da Bears let da elf have a last-second field goal so he don't feel so bad. Pass da brats, will ya?) Asking this type of question is also a sure-fire way to not make any friends among the long-time posters. The one true answer is...whomever the writer/poster wants to win, wins. Alternatively, in novels which feature one of TSR's big hitters, a la Driz'zt or Raistlin, all cross-world dueling is frowned upon; if it actually happens, it should end in a draw so that no group of fans feels that their hero got shafted. It may seem fun to speculate, but there is no sure way of determining a winner; and picking one just gets the fans of the character you picked to lose mad (and usually flaming) at you. In any case, almost every combination of X vs. Y has already been done to death on the group. It is not in the group's best interest to discuss such things further. In the case of one class archetype vs. another, the argument can go on and on ad nauseam, as everyone can come up with some reason for each one to win over all the others. What it usually comes down to, since the main four classes are pretty much balanced, is whichever character wins the initiative, gets luckier with the dice, or has more time to prepare, wins the battle. End of argument. B10: Where can I buy/sell old books, modules, & other stuff? A: Rec.games.frp.marketplace is dedicated to the buying and selling of gaming supplies of any nature. If there is a book you've always been looking for, or if you want to sell off some of your books, please post in rgfm. Such posts do not belong on rgfd, and only serve to make the natives restless and the poster the recipient of numerous flames. If you are thinking of checking out rec.games.frp.marketplace in hopes of finding those items you've always been looking for, a place to look first is ; it has a list of almost every D&D/AD&D item which has come up on the block, with the average prices for each, compiled from up to three years of data. For other notes on where to post certain topics, see the list below and the newsgroups listing and descriptions in Section 6 of this FAQ. B11: How do I get past a certain point in this AD&D computer game? A: As the old BASIC games used to go, "Thank you for playing... hope you had fun!" Sorry, but such questions really can't be answered here, as this group is for the discussion of role-playing games, not computer games. Try comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg, comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.adventure, (or comp.sys.mac.games.adventure, for MacUsers), rec.games.video.sega, rec.games.video.nintendo, or rec.games.3do. Walkthroughs of many of the SSI games, including Eye of the Beholder II, III, and Dark Queen of Krynn are available through the Web at ; many other computer games, including the Bard's Tale series, are also represented there. Further information on the SSI games can be found at and . B12: Some people's posts go off the right edge of the screen; is my newsreader broken or something? A: Please, please, PLEASE remember to hit return every 75 characters or so. Many machines either allow lines longer than 80 spaces or do not wrap lines correctly. A 75 space line allows for easy reading (as many newsreaders will just ignore all characters in a line after character 80, and followup markers then won't cause lines to run over 80 char's as quickly. B13: How creative should I get with my .signature file? A: A signature file, or, for the UNIX-inclined, .signature (.sig for short), is a file that your newsreader can automatically attach onto the end of every Usenet post you make. It is intended to contain such information as your name, Internet address(es), other contact methods, and do forth, that you would otherwise have to manually type in each time you want to post. Many people also include witty quotes or comments, ASCII pictures, and other such fun bits. However, once you see the same .sig twenty times in one day (or one week, month, etc.), it can get quite tiresome. This is especially true for large sigs, and/or ASCII art. In the interest of preserving everyone's sanity, Usenet as a whole has unofficially adopted the standard of a four-line by 80 column .sig (otherwise known as the McQuary limit, named for George McQuary, one of the regulars over in alt.fan.warlord). That is, if you can't fit it into four lines of text or less, each of which is 80 characters long or less, it probably isn't worth saying. This standard is flexible somewhat, as tasteful .sigs of five or six lines are usually tolerated. Anything longer than that wastes bandwidth and quickly becomes a target for flames. Anything longer than 80 characters will usually get mangled by newsreaders and end up almost completely incomprehensible--see the previous question for more information. For some reason which I just cannot fathom, people on this group seem to have a propensity towards the use of ASCII representations of dragons, castles, swords, and other such fantasy elements in their .sigs. This sort of thing is cute once, but quickly begins to grate on one's nerves, especially those people who end up having to pay to see a screen of nothing but someone else's .sig. Besides, if you've seen one sword .sig, you've seen them all. If you feel the creative urge, stop over in alt.fan.ascii-art in order to relieve it; don't do it here, as it takes up bandwidth better spent discussing *D&D. If you insist on keeping a gigantic .sig, with several comments and quotes, a multi-screen ASCII picture, all 15 ways to reach you from various points on the Internet, your snail-mail address, and your work and home phone numbers, then rgfd is not really the place for you. If this fits you to a 'T', then you need to hie yourself over to alt.fan.warlord, the Home of the Big .Sig. While on the subject of .signature files, please remember to delete the signature files from posts you respond to. You are the one writing the message so your signature is the only important one; no one needs to see or get confused by multiple different .sigs. If readers want to know who wrote any text you are quoting from the previous message, they have to look no further than the very first line of the post, where "Someone ([s--e--e] at [foo.bar.com]) wrote:" is added by almost every newsreader in existence. B14: Do I have to be an elementalist mage to post a "flame" or start a "flamewar"? A: No you don't, and trust me, you don't want to try. Nor do you want to be on the receiving end of one. A flame is a nasty, inflammatory message. It does very little except repeatedly insult another poster, or the recipient, if it is sent via e-mail. A flamewar is a flame in response to a flame in response to a flame, and so on, ad nauseum. Neither flaming, nor getting involved in flamewars are conducive to a long net.life or a good net.reputation. Some topics are "hot buttons", which can do very little but devolve into flamewars. Many have very little to do with *D&D except tangentially. Some examples are homosexuality, the place of women in society, religion, rape, and ethics & what constitutes "good" or "evil". In general, if one of these topics comes up, don't bother posting! Each of these has been discussed to death in the past, whether or not you were here to see it. Very few posters here want to see more flamewars start, especially on these topics, so staying as far as possible from them is a good idea. There are also some rgfd-specific touchy subjects which, in general, are best to simply stay as far away from as possible. Some examples of these are the whole copyright issue, combat realism, which version of *D&D is the best/worst, and just about any other topic discussed either in this section or in later sections of the FAQ. There are several methods you can use to avoid flaming someone. First and foremost, do not post while you are angry. If a post incenses you so much that you are moved to flame the living daylights out of the poster (or if you notice that you are so angry you can't type straight), then stop. Don't post. Count to ten. Save the message for later reading and go on to the next message, or take a break from Usenet altogether. Then, when you've had a chance to calm down, read the post again and decide if it really deserves a reply, or if everyone is better off if you just ignore it altogether. If you notice that one person's posts consistently get under your skin, or if one topic really gets you hot under the collar (or for that matter, is just something in which you have zero interest), you should seriously consider using a killfile. That way, you would not see any posts by that poster, or with that topic at all, and would therefore have little temptation to burst into a flame. If you are unsure how to use a killfile with your newsreader, consult the help manual, or ask your friendly local sysop, as it changes too much from newsreader to newsreader to list all the possibilities here. B15: Where can I post this? A: There are several types of posts which are technically about *D&D, but do not belong on rec.games.frp.dnd. Some of them are dealt with in more detail above and in other sections of the FAQ, but here is a thumbnail guide to posting *D&D-related material. Please observe these guidelines, as it will make everybody happier in the long run. *D&D-related programs/binaries: alt.games.frp.dnd-utils, or rec.games.frp.archives Discussion of computer programs: alt.games.frp.dnd-utils TSR--They Suck, Really: alt.flame.tsr SSI/TSR computer games: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg "Test--Please ignore": misc.test Which RPG is the best: rec.games.frp.advocacy Which RPG is the worst: rec.games.frp.advocacy Which game company is best/worst: rec.games.frp.advocacy Convention announcements: rec.games.frp.announce Announcement of PBEM openings: rec.games.frp.announce Gamers wanted in Area "X": rec.games.frp.announce Fiction: rec.games.frp.archives Resources for *D&D (net.books): rec.games.frp.archives New rules for combat,init, psi: rec.games.frp.archives Multiple spells, monsters, NPCs: rec.games.frp.archives Unfinished resources for *D&D: rec.games.frp.archives, or r.g.f.dnd Very short resources for *D&D: rec.games.frp.archives, or r.g.f.dnd Discussion of *D&D resources: rec.games.frp.dnd Discussion of *D&D, etc.: rec.games.frp.dnd Buyout of TSR proposed by WotC: rec.games.frp.industry How to get an RPG published: rec.games.frp.industry Copyright and RPGs: rec.games.frp.industry For sale: rec.games.frp.marketplace Wanted to buy: rec.games.frp.marketplace Dragon Dice: rec.games.trading-cards.* or alt.games.dice When you post items in rec.games.frp.archives or if you post a program/binary in alt.games.frp.dnd-utils, it is suggested that you post a short note in rgfd pointing out where to go to find your post. However, this sort of short advertisement is discouraged (but permitted) when you post a sale in rec.games.frp.marketplace, and is strongly discouraged when you post items in r.g.f.announce. There isn't any need to post ads for sales on r.g.f.marketplace or for announcements on r.g.f.announce, because people who want sales or announcements should already know to monitor those groups. The basic type of material on r.g.f.archives or a.g.f.d-u changes from week to week, so that the contents of the groups aren't as predictable as "sales are on r.g.f.marketplace" or "con/game announcements are on r.g.f.advocacy." B16: Why hasn't anyone responded to my posts? A: Because Usenet is an asynchronous medium. In other words, when you send out a post, it spreads throughout the net, taking various routes to get to all of the many newservers in the world. And sometimes technical problems at one site can delay the routing of messages. It can arrive on some sites within minutes, or take days to get to those same sites. In any case, the vast majority of people reading Usenet are not constantly on-line and reading. It could be some time before people read a given message, even if it has already been sitting on their site for a while. So don't expect immediate responses. This is not a chat area, where people can quickly respond to anything that is said. In addition, it is possible that no one found anything they wanted to respond to. One of the largest causes of this are unqualified endorsements, e.g. a post whose entire message is "I think Planescape is cool. Does anybody else?". There isn't any substance to such a post, thus there isn't much to respond to, except to say, "Yes", and most people won't bother posting such trivial answers when there are tougher questions to answer, such as "Why can't mages wear armor?" Also, many people do not take the time to answer every post. Thus, it is very possible for the entire group to skim over a given post, assume that someone else will respond, and go on, leaving no responses to an otherwise good post. It happens to everybody on the group at one time or another. Just wait for a week or so, then try something else. There is also a possibility that your posting program has a glitch, and your messages are not getting out. If you suspect this is the case, do not post "test" messages to rgfd. Test messages should be posted in misc.test, or any of the other *.test groups. An autoresponder will tell you if the world saw your *.test post, whereas you'd have to guess if the world saw your test post in rgfd. Remember, however, that many newsreaders will not allow you to see your own messages, so it will seem as if they are not getting out when indeed, they are. If you suspect any of the above has happened, the best thing to do is wait a few days. If no one has responded after a week, do not repost the same message! Try writing on another topic, or following up to someone else's message and adding something to the conversation rather than adding an "I agree" and nothing else. If you suspect your posting mechanism is broken, check with a local sysadmin and/or try posting to misc.test. Multiple postings of the same post, "I agree" messages, and "Test--do not followup" messages do nothing but clutter the group. For everyone's sake, don't bother. B17: Why isn't anyone talking about Al-Qadim? A: It is difficult for any group to discuss every conceivable topic all the time. There are many topics which have come and gone, and, while they may be of interest to people, simply aren't being discussed at this point. This isn't a snub on those topics, but rather a rest from them. If there is a topic you feel isn't discussed enough, try bringing it up, but not in the form of the wording of this question. You might be surprised at the number of responses you get. B18: Would anyone like to start a campaign here on the newsgroup? A: No. This newsgroup is intended solely for discussion of the *D&D games, not actually playing them. Besides, there is already more than enough traffic as it is, without having an entire live, ongoing campaign added into the mix. In any case, the charter for this group precludes doing this, and the vast majority of readers are perfectly happy with this situation. If you are interested in roleplaying through Usenet, be sure to look into alt.dragons-inn, where that sort of thing is the entire purpose of the newsgroup. If you are simply looking for an on-line game, there are several possibilities to check out, including PBEMs, MUDs, and IRC. See the Resources section of this FAQ, as well as several questions elsewhere in the FAQ for more information on roleplaying via the net. B19: I missed a message; could someone please repost it? A: Probably, but it's easier on most other people--who'd rather see something new than a repost of the same-old same-old--if you can search the Usenet archives before requesting (or making) a repost. DejaNews () has all posts to rec.games.frp.dnd (and almost every other group in their newsfeed) archived for over two years so far, and is growing steadily. When searching for a recent post to rgfd, you will want to "Create a Filter", filling in rec.games.frp.dnd in the Newsgroup box, as well as any other pieces of information you can use in order to narrow down the records searched and make it more likely that you will find the post you're looking for. Most World Wide Web search utilities (such as Alta Vista, at ) will do searches of Usenet as well; so as long as you have any web access at all, you don't need to ask for someone to repost anything--the information is there for the finding. A final note: Every posted version of this FAQ since its first posting in April, 1995 is available on DejaNews; so if you miss a section, or are viewing the Web version and can't wait for the next update to that version, the newest version is still available to you. However, be forewarned that it often takes them a few days to load larger messages, so you may have to wait that long after it is posted to be able to retrieve the most recent version. ***End Part 2*** Aardy R. DeVarque Feudalism: Serf & Turf rgfd FAQ: http://sac.uky.edu/~mlmorr0/faq/rgfdfaq.html Judges Guild Ratings: http://www.anet-chi.com/~aardy/rpg/