User:Icebreed/Player's Guide
This is an experiment to see if the rules can be better contained in a handbook-style guide, like the d20 player's handbook.
Introduction
This is AltDBZ, a Dragonball Z themed, online, roleplaying community that defies the stereotypes of Dragonball fantasy and bridges genres to bring players from nearly any calling in one place to enjoy one-another's company. Our setting has been going strong for more than 7 years now, and with your help, it only gets better.
AltDBZ, like most roleplaying games and forums, uses your imagination to conjure up a make-believe, alternate reality along with others, as you dream up a potentially godlike champion -- a character you create -- and make your own mark for the world to respect. Your character might be a martial artist so skilled as to throw deadly blasts of energy from his soul, a cunning and tactical master of magical spells that cause the very earth to shake, or a mentally gifted woman who can stop death merely by willing it away. As you and your creation meet other characters, you will cement lasting friendships, erupt vicious rivalries, combat evil in its greatest forms, and maybe even take your own venture into the dark side of your heart. We offer endless possibilities to you; you need only enter, and imagine.
About AltDBZ
AltDBZ is a roleplaying game based in an Internet chatroom, where players take turns telling parts of a story that mutually involves their characters. The setting we share is loosely based upon the anime cartoon series "Dragonball Z", where a small group of somewhat ordinary people trained in martial arts (during the previous "Dragonball" series) and eventually became so powerful as to destroy entire planets and move faster than light. While some elements of this "canon" or source material still remain with us, we have deviated very sharply from the storyline of the series. Thus, you do not need to be familiar with or even respect the cartoon show to participate in AltDBZ. In fact, most of the time, the players simply call it "Alt".
To keep everyone on an even playing field, Alt has a rather complex labyrinth of rules that moderate and regulate what characters can and cannot do (as well as a few important things about what players can and cannot do!). While a first glance at them may intimidate a beginning player, it may be of some comfort to know that, especially as you start to play in the chatroom, only a fraction of the rules will actually apply to you. Others will often be taught to you as they become necessary. We encourage you to take a leap of faith while holding our hands, and give us a try before letting the enormity of the ruleset scare you away.
Whenever you are in need of help, most players of AltDBZ are very friendly, and will be happy to help you join them. In failure of that, you can contact one of our Staff Members, who may all be reached by email.
The Chatroom
Our game and its rules were specifically designed for use in the Alternate DBZ public Internet chatroom, which resides on the Illusionary Minds Chat (IMC) website. IMC is a web-browser-based chatting service dedicated to the entertainment of role players. It hosts a wide variety of useful RPing tools, such as an automatic die roller, a character sheet generator, and a bulletin board, as well as augmenting its chat system in a way that supports role playing far better than the traditional Internet chat system. For instance, players may say (or "post") large amounts of text at once, and they can very quickly switch between sets of "tags" called "handles", that represent your characters and display every time you say something, including a picture, character statistics, and anything else you would like to show. A player account on IMC is completely free, though donations are subtly encouraged.
These rules assume that you have an activated and upstanding IMC account, and that you are at least passably familiar with the basic features of IMC's system. You should know how to login, post into chatrooms, create and edit handles, use the automated die roller and the IMC-based bulletin board, and optionally, make use of the character sheet generator. You should also be familiar with the expected mannerisms and etiquette of IMC. If you would like a crash course in the above, read this document first.
Our community currently only acknowledges public role playing in the above mentioned chatroom, and its authorized bulletin boards. Roleplay in private messages or private chatrooms may not be accepted as contributions to the community. Use of the Alternate DBZ system in other chatrooms or locations unaffiliated with our community requires explicit permission from the cohosts of the official community.
