Welcome to Darktime. Darktime is an RPG. An RPG is a game in which a referee (the gamemaster (GM)) guides several players through an "adventure" in which they play the parts of fictional characters.
Like any hobby, gaming has its own unique language. To help you understand the concepts and terms used in this game and other RPGS we'll start with a few definitions.
Roleplaying game (RPG):A game in which the players take on the personalities of imaginary individuals, or characters, in a fictional or historical game world, and try to act as those characters would.
Game Master(GM):The referee who choses the adventure, talks the players through it, and judges the results.
Character:Any being (person, animal, whatever) played by the GM or a player in an RPG.
Non-Player Character(NPC):Any character played by the GM. The GM may control many characters, major and minor.
Player Character(PC):Any character played by one of the players. Typically, each player controls a single character.
Stats or Statistics: Numbers rating a characters abilities, used to determine what each one can and cannot do.
Party: A group of PC's taking part in the adventure.
Game World: A backround for play; the setting for an adventure. The GM's own fantasy creation or a published setting created specifically for gaming are both examples.
Adventure:The basic "unit" of play in an RPG, sometimes called a "scenario" An RPG is never over till the players want to end it, but a single adventure will have a beginning and an end. It may last through several sessions of play, or be done in a single evening.
Encounter:One scene of an adventure. A meeting between the player characters and one or more NPC's.
Campaign:A continuing series of adventures. A campaign will usually have a continuing cast of player characters, and the same GM. A campaign may move from one game world to another, with a logical reason.
Race: The species to which you belong. Nonhuman characters (elves, dwarves etc) are common on RPG's
To play Darktime, you will need a few pencils and pens, some paper, character sheets (supplied with Darktime) and dice. You will need different types of dice for this and any RPG. Always have at least two 6 sided dice. You should also have 10,12,4,6 and 20 sided dice. These can be bought, but they are easily made out of card or stiff paper. That is what I did. If you are really stuck, you could cut out pieces of paper and put numbers on them, and draw numbers from a box. Dice are written as D6, D4,D10,D20 etc. If you need a number out of 100 get two D10 (10 sided dice) of different colours. Make one colour the 10's dice and the other the 1's dice.The numbers on a D10 range from 0-9 (0 being 10) When you roll the dice, multiply the 10's dice by 10 and add the result from the 1's dice, to get the percentage roll. A roll of 0-1 (tens,ones) is 1 and a roll of 0-0 is 100.
Sometimes, multiple dice must be rolled. The number before the D tells you how many dice to roll. For example, 2D10 means to roll 2 10 sided dice and then add the results together. A roll of 1D10 + 10 means to roll a D10 and add 10 to the result.
When you read FUDGE, you will find out more.