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Archive-name: games/roleplay/part1
Last-modified: 11/20/92

                Welcome to the rec.games.frp newsgroups

Please send suggested corrections and additions to the following
address:
                  [e-mail]

*  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
3        Archive sites with Roleplaying material
4        Roleplaying Mailing Lists and Digests part 1/2
5        Roleplaying Mailing Lists and Digests part 2/2
6        BBS's of interest to Roleplaying gamers
7        Roleplaying Net.*.books, Gaming FAQ Keepers
8***     Armor, armament, and bows in Medieval Times

***  - any day now!

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.

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 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.arts.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*

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: Don't post anything
that is intended for only one other person, send flames and arguments
through E-mail; 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); Don't post "yeah, me too" articles; 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

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
FH              Fantasy Hero
GBI             Ghostbusters International
HERO            The Hero System (Champions, Fantasy Hero, Star Hero, etc)
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         Shadowrun
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
V&V             Villains and Vigilantes
WFRP            WarHammer Fantasy Role Playing

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.  Postings of
the latter two are urged to utilize rec.games.frp.announce, geographic
distribution is limited by that groups Moderator.

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.)