From: [rg frp announce] at [magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu] Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.announce,news.answers,rec.answers Subject: [rec.games.frp.*] Welcome to the roleplaying discussion groups! Date: 4 Jun 1994 18:26:14 GMT Archive-name: games/roleplay/part1 Last-modified: 6/1/1994 Many FAQs, including this one, are available on the archive site rtfm.mit.edu in the directory pub/usenet/news.answers. The name under which a FAQ is archived appears in the Archive-name line at the top of the article. Welcome to the rec.games.frp newsgroups Please send suggested corrections and additions to the following address: [C--TT--S] at [magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu] * Asterisks are used to indicate new/updated information. This is the first of a set of semi-monthly posts, all of which are posted to rec.games.frp.announce: 1 Welcome to the rec.games.frp newsgroups! 2 Frequently asked questions, part 1 2a Frequently asked questions, part 2 2b Stackpole's Defense of Gaming 3 Archive sites with Roleplaying material 4 Roleplaying Mailing Lists and Digests part 1/2 5 Roleplaying Mailing Lists and Digests part 2/2 5a Mailing Lists and Digests 6 BBS's of interest to Roleplaying gamers 7 Roleplaying Net.*.books, Gaming FAQ Keepers WELCOME TO THE REC.GAMES.FRP NEWSGROUPS! The Charter for this newsgroup is in the following article, with the answers to frequently asked questions. This article collects important information which will help you use this newsgroup. If you're new to the rec.games.frp newsgroups, please take a few minutes to read the rest of this posting and the associated administrivia postings. If you are also new to netnews, please read through the net etiquette postings in news.announce.newusers, including "Introduction to news.announce," "What is Usenet?", "Rules for posting to Usenet", "A Primer on How to Work With the Usenet Community", "Hints on writing style for Usenet", "Answers to Frequently Asked Questions", and "Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette". Some of these postings may be found most easily in news.answers,rec.answers. Other postings that you should be familiar with, though you don't have to read them all the way through at first, include: "How to Get Information about Networks"; "List of Active Newsgroups"; "Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Parts I, II, & III"; "List of Periodic Informational Postings"; "Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies, Parts I & II"; and "A Guide to Social Newsgroups and Mailing Lists". Finally, here are some regular postings that new users probably don't need to read unless they want to build newsreading software, create a newsgroup, or get more involved with the network than most users seem to: "USENET Software: History and Sources"; "How to Create a New Newsgroup"; "Regional Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part I,II,III"; "List of Moderators"; "How to Create a New Trial Newsgroup"; "Checkgroups message (with INET groups)"; and "How to Construct the Mailpaths File". WHAT DOESN'T BELONG IN REC.GAMES.FRP.*? These groups are *not* intended for the discussion of wargames and other board games, except as directly related to role-playing games; try rec.games.board or rec.games.miniatures instead. Nor is this the proper group for discussing computer games. Computer game discussions and spoiler requests for Adventure-type games (such as Zork and Ultima) belong in rec.games.video, rec.games.misc, rec.games.int-fiction, rec.games.mud, rec.games.moria, or the relevant computer-related newsgroup (e.g., comp.sys.mac.games). * The general consensus is that the ROLEPLAYING aspects of games which are primarily tabletop or board games, i.e. BattleTech and WarHammer 40k, are welcome here, postings of a tactical or "wargaming" nature should be posted to rec.games.board* OR rec.games.miniatures. MUDs, MOOS, MUSHes, etc. These online gaming systems have their own hierarchy, rec.games.mud.*. Discussion of these games, other than in the roleplaying sense, are inappropriate for rec.games.frp.*. SUGGESTIONS FOR POSTING The following suggestions are intended to SUPPLEMENT the general guidelines for posting to the net. You should already be familiar with the guidelines contained in "Rules for posting to Usenet", "A Primer on How to Work With the Usenet Community", and "Hints on writing style for Usenet", which can be found in the newsgroup news.announce.newusers. The most relevant parts of these postings, or rather the parts of these postings most often ignored on these newsgroups, are: 1) Don't post anything that is intended for only one other person, send flames and arguments through E-mail; 2) Read threads through to the end before adding to them, often other people make your point first (M or m is a very useful keystroke in rn) 3) Don't post "yeah, me too" articles 4) Don't quote excessively, especially don't quote the entirety of another person's posting and then add two lines at the bottom, if someone wants to read the entire first posting they can go back and read it for themselves. When posting messages to a large newsgroup there are several things you can do to help readers cope with the volume. First and foremost is to use the right newsgroup, and avoid cross-posting. If your posting is an original piece of work which can stand on its own without comments by other people, such as a story or poem based on a roleplaying game, a scenario, campaign background, or the like, then post it to rec.games.frp.archives, the newsgroup for "keepers." If your posting is an announcement about a new roleplaying product, a roleplaying convention, a pbem, and so on, post it to rec.games.frp.announce. If your posting concerns official rules or official game backgrounds for D&D, AD&D1, AD&D2, or BD&D, then post it to rec.games.frp.dnd. If you are posting to buy or sell roleplaying materials, post to rec.games.frp.marketplace. If your posting is intended to convince people that one roleplaying game is better than some or all other roleplaying games, or other inflammatory opinions, then post it to rec.games.frp.advocacy. Finally, if your post doesn't fit into any of the above niches, as is the case with a large plurality of postings, then send it to rec.games.frp.misc. Rec.games.frp is a defunct newsgroup, please post new threads on other newsgroups instead. Second, no matter what newsgroup you post to, please use descriptive titles. Whenever you post an article which is specific to a particular game system, please include the name of the system in the Subject of your post. Subjects like: "Combat initiative in AD&D" or "Champions Character: Nightstorm" are much more informative than "Combat" or "Character: Nightstorm". If you're posting a story, you are urged to include the word STORY in the subject, and to use a consistent title for your work. If you post an article related to Tabolport Net City project, please include the word TABOLPORT in the subject so that the appropriate persons will see it. Here is a short list of keywords which you may want to include in the subject lines of your postings to rec.games.frp.* META: for meta-discussion about the newsgroup, like this thread LARP: Discussion of "Live Action Role Playing" PBEM: announcement concerning a play by e-mail roleplaying campaign FORSALE: games for sale announcements WANTED: games wanted announcements CON: convention announcements and discussion STORY: stories FLUFF: non-story, non-game, anecdotes, like the bard songs, silly knight names, and other basically humorous offerings. When offering character classes, skill lists, magic spells, monsters, character sheets, and the like, the name of the game system (or its abbreviation) is appropriate for the subject line. I (early in my Net.career) solicited the net for suggestions, yielding an extremely comprehensive list of games and likely abbreviations for them, of which I have extracted the following. If you must abbreviate the name of the game, try to choose an abbreviation from this list. Abbreviation System Name AD&D Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, either edition AD&D1 Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, First Edition AD&D2 Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, Second Edition Ars Ars Magica Btech,btek Battletech C&S Chivalry and Sorcery CHAMPS Champions CoC Call of Cthulu CP2020 Cyberpunk or Cyberpunk 2020 D&D Dungeons and Dragons Dream Dream Park ED,edawn EarthDawn FH Fantasy Hero GBI Ghostbusters International HERO The Hero System (Champions, Fantasy Hero, Star Hero, etc) MAGE WWG's Mage: The Ascension MEK2 Mekton 2 MERP Middle Earth Role Playing MSH Marvel Super Heroes Mtrav MegaTraveller PAL Palladium RM Rolemaster RQ RuneQuest SFB Star Fleet Battles SRUN,SR,SR2 Shadowrun STNF Stalking the Night Fanatasic SZ ShatterZone TFOS Teenagers from Outer Space TMNT Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and other Strangeness TRAV Traveller TREK Star Trek, the Role Playing Game T2000 Twilight 2000 TTNE Traveller: The New Era VAMP WWG's Vampire: the Masquerade V&V Villains and Vigilantes WFRP WarHammer Fantasy Role Playing WOLF,were WWG's Werewolf DISTRIBUTION As always, be sure to choose the proper distribution for your articles. Most discussion deserves "world" distribution, but posters of convention announcements might want to consider regional or even local distribution. Posters seeking gaming groups to join should limit the distribution to the area they're willing to travel. This is accomplished on most newsposting software by adding a distribution line to your article's headers, ask your friendly sysadmin for more information. FLAMES Some topics have a way of turning into enormous arguments which feed on themselves and take over the newsgroup for long periods of time. Probably the most frequent arguments come from comparison and criticism of different game systems. That's why they have their own newsgroup, rec.games.frp.advocacy. While discussion along these lines can be productive, flames and put-downs are not. Try to remember that people who play a particular system probably like that system; if a friendly recommendation won't get them to switch to something different, personal attacks and insults certainly won't work. At the same time, people should remember that criticism of their favorite game doesn't constitute an attack on themselves. Several truisms invariably come up during arguments about game systems: 1. "The game system doesn't matter as long as you've got a good GM." 2. "Preference of one system over another is largely a matter of taste." 3. "The reason for playing these games is to have *fun*, and whatever game you enjoy is the one that's right for you." Few would disagree with the above statements--but if you post, don't just repeat the obvious. Granted that you like one game better than another, try to explain *why*. Other people may not agree with your preference, but at least they'll be able to learn something about the games you're discussing. A second occasional point of dispute concerns whether Society for Creative Anachronism dueling provides valid data for the purpose of reality- checking combat systems. The prospect of a bunch of people who play games with pencil and paper arguing over the realism of SCA tourneys is ironic, to say the least. All that can be hoped for is that participants in any such discussion will follow the rules of courtesy established by the Society. (In-depth discussion of SCA-related issues should be directed to rec.org.sca.) OBVIOUS FLAMEBAIT Occasionally, a single line posting with a line like: "DND SuCKs PoND ScUm - GeT A LiFe You LUseers" "You will all burn in hell for all eternity unless you repent" "Final Green Card Lottery - phone (xxx) yyy-zzzz for details" Will appear. This is usually caused by a couple of factors, the most common being that someone left a terminal logged on and unattended, some joker uses this terminal to post the idiot messages across as many news- groups as they can. Another is someone who is about to lose net.access, and just wants to eat up bandwidth they'll never see. These happenings often occur near the beginning and ends of terms at the universities. The final, and most disturbing, is the massive crossposting which is used by some unscrupulous agency to further their own ends. Public flaming is pointless in these cases, because the poster almost NEVER reads the group(s) to which they post. Private email to the postmaster of the site involved sometimes gets results. =============================================================================== The rec.games.frp general FAQ is maintained by Coyt D. Watters [c--tt--s] at [magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu] Free or at cost distribution rights granted in all instances, for profit or cost+ distribution rights require a signed release.