Playing In Game

Subdual damage, basic communication, Character vs Character – you need go no further than this chapter!

Communication

Shouting is reserved for DM use and has been turned off on most ALFA servers. If loud conversation is called for in character, please use the talk option. Most chat should be in talk mode. Party is fine if a PC goes past an area transition where party members would still be able to see the PC in real life or if requested in a DM session. If others are around, please be courteous and switch to talk mode.

Character Names

Player Character names should fit within a fantasy environment without breaking the suspension of disbelief with modern puns, l33tspeak or vulgarity.

Running

Do not run unless it is In-Character to do so. Running (when not being chased) disturbs the immersion of other players and makes it hard for DMs to interact with you. Do not create PCs designed to be always running. Keyboard commands may be remapped here: options/controls/change key settings. Change drive mode forward to ‘W’ and another key to Run. To walk using a mouse, hold down shift and click.

Character vs Character

CvC is allowed in ALFA. However, it should be noted that there are many nonlethal ways to be at odds with another PC, and killing ought to be the last resort. Where CvC is unavoidable, the attacking player should make every attempt to arrange for a DM to be present.

In premeditated CvC, the player intending CvC should notify at least the HDM of the likely site of the CvC as soon as the IC decision is made to CvC. If the HDM is known to be away, the notification should go to any server DM. The reason behind the CvC must be outlined in that notification of CvC. 

To sum up:

1. If it is Premeditated CvC – Get a DM
2. If it is not Premeditated CvC – Get a DM
3. If a DM isn’t present, wait they will reset the board. 

Subdual Damage

Subdual deaths should not occur. If a death occurs while under the effect of subdual mode take screenshots and contact a DM this would be a tech death. If subdual is activated from the emote menu no player deaths should occur.

In Character/Out of Character

All players are expected to remain in character and not to disturb others’ RP with out of character chatter or metagaming comments. If OOC commentary is warranted, hold it in tell or DM channels, depending on who needs to be involved. The talk channel can be used but bracket all of the out of character chat with double parenthesis or preface them as out of character.

Do let your environment—time, weather, landscape—influence your RP. Do speak to NPCs as you would PCs. Do look upon all items and placeables as RP props and at monsters as targets for persuasion, intimidation or interaction with more than just your weapons. Do fill in your deity field and behave as a follower of that deity, or write in ‘faithless’ so the DM knows you didn’t forget. Do write a description—NOT a biography—in the PC creation screen. Do describe your PC, or at the very least, empty the default text. Try to cover brief real world absences with IC explanations. Do show expressions and actions, but not what you may be thinking in emotes, ie *smiles as she pulls a coin from her bag*. Do roleplay to reflect your low charisma and high wisdom. If your PC has low charisma (9 and below) please try to note how that low charisma manifests physically, emotionally, or otherwise. Good roleplay may result in experience points from DMs while poor may result in loss of experience.

Playing Your Gods

See also: Deities, Cleric, Druid

Faerun – a land where the gods live. Deities walk amongst their flock; Clerics control powerful magics at the will of their masters; Warriors wage wars across the lands in the name of the gods; Evil creeps throughout Faerun in service to dark lords. It is not easy to avoid the machinations of the deities and their followers when you walk the surface of Faerun, let alone when you have departed. No matter who you are, what walk of life you are from, or what your beliefs are, the gods will affect your adventures in some way.

The deities of Toril take an active interest in their world, channeling power through their clerics, druids, rangers, paladins and other worshipers, and sometimes intervening directly in the affairs of mortals. At the same time they plot, war, intrigue and ally amongst themselves, with powerful mortals and extra planar beings such as elemental rulers and demons. In this they resemble their mortal worshipers, for to an extent, deities are defined and shaped by their worshipers, their areas of interest and their divine spark. Because they lose strength if their worship dwindles away and is forgotten, deities task their clerics, and others to whom they grant divine spells, with spreading their praise and doctrine, recruiting new worshipers and keeping the faith alive.

Patron Deities

The deities of Faerun are deeply entangled in the functioning lives of mortals. Characters of Toril nearly always have a patron deity. Everyone in Faerun knows, those who die without having a patron deity to send a servant to collect them at their death, spend eternity writhing in the Wall of the Faithless or disappearing into the hells of the devils or the infernos of the demons.

Having a patron deity implies some true personal attachment to that deity. Given this relationship, it is practically unheard of for a character to have a patron with a radically different alignment than her own. When choosing a Patron, if you are a divine spell caster, you must follow the ‘one-step’ rule (unless noted otherwise) – that is, your alignment must be within one step of your patron’s.

Using the alignment chart below, find your deities alignment, then your options are one step up, down or to the side.

Lawful Good	Neutral Good	Chaotic Good
Lawful Neutral	True Neutral	Chaotic Neutral
Lawful Evil	Neutral Evil	Chaotic Evil

If the alignment is true neutral, your options would form a cross. If your deities alignment is LN, the cross does not carry over to the other side, leaving LG, TN, and LE as your only options.

You can only have one patron deity at a time. It is possible to change patrons, but doing so is not a decision made lightly or quickly. If you are a cleric, druid, paladin, or spell casting ranger, this process is more difficult and requires the help of your new church. If you are any other character class, changing a patron is a simple matter of deciding to do so, that does not require intervention by the church of your new patron (although obtaining its blessing is customary, to show allegiance to the new deity). A character who frequently changes patron deities is likely to gain a reputation of being weak in her faith, and risks being branded as one of the false in the afterlife.

Domains

A complete list of domains can be found here.

Gods of Faerun

Instead of typing out an entry for each of the hundred and one gods, there are plenty of good sources on the web already, including the one below. Note: there are a few references to events that have not occured, as the year in ALFA split off from canon in 1376. If you see mention of a Spell Plague or to the Upheavel era, these are not included in ALFA Lore. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in our Realm’s Lore forum.

Forgotten Realms Wiki: Deity Portal

Nature Deities

As mentioned in Section 2, on classes, divine spell casters receive their spells from the deities. While paladins follow a lawful good line and clerics follow the line of their chosen patron, druids must serve a nature deity in order to be granted spells. The following are a list of deities that can grant druids spells – if there is another deity you have in mind, contact your HDM about it. Some, of course, may not be able to be taken with the NWN engine (given its current limitations), but this will hopefully soon be corrected.

Note that in ALFA, Rangers do not need to follow a Nature diety in order to gain spells.

Nature deities are any of the following: Aerdrie Faenya, Angharradh, Anhur, Auril, Baervan Wildwanderer, Chauntea, Deep Sashelas, Eldath, Gwaeron Windstrom, Isis, Jannath, Lurue, Malar, Mielikki, Nobanion, Osiris, Rillifane Rallathil, Sebek, Segojan Earthcaller, Set, Sheela Peryroyl, Shiallia, Silvanus, Solonor Thelandira, Talona, Talos, Thard Harr, Ubtao, Ulutiu, Umberlee

Death, Dying and Deities

When mortals die their souls are drawn to the Fugue Plane. Most of this place is flat, gray, bland, and no notable topographical features. The spirits of the dead gather here, usually unaware that they have died. From time to time (anywhere from once a day to over a tenday, depending on the deity involved), the powers send representatives – usually outsiders of the appropriate alignment – to the Fugue Plane to gather the souls of their own worshipers.

While most souls wander the Fugue Plane until their deity calls them, the Faithless and the False are compelled to enter the city of Judgment and be judged by Kelemvor. The Faithless firmly denied any faith or only gave lip service to gods for most of their lives without truly believing. The False intentionally betrayed a faith they believed in and to which they had made a personal commitment.

All Faithless receive the same punishment: They form a living wall around the City of Judgment, held together by a super-natural greenish mold. This mold prevents them from escaping the wall and eventually breaks down their substance until the soul and its consciousness are dissolved.

The False are punished according to their crimes in life and serve their sentence in the City of Judgment for eternity.

Nearly all of the beings in the city are members of the False, the rest being deceased followers of Jergal and Kelemvor who enact the will of their deities upon the doomed souls. Depending upon the severity of their crimes, some of the False may receive relatively light punishment, such as escorting visiting baatezu or patrolling the city for unauthorized guests. Others are punished in ways that would surprise the cruelest of demons.

For an adventurer (and anyone else) been labeled as a False or Faithless has further consequences – it becomes near impossible to be raised from the dead. Any attempts made through the Resurrection or Raise Dead spells fail. Short of a Miracle or Wish, attempting to raise a False or Faithless from the dead is futile.

A Day in the Life

Before setting digital foot in-game, Nivonen the Ilmaterian cleric or Mirabilus the Evoker should begin life as properly set-up ALFA PCs. Stats should reflect real people, not a min/maxed divine spell-casting tank or a wizard with nothing going but intelligence. Incorporate stats into your perception of the PC and play them true. Clerics choose domain powers in keeping with the PC concept. Wizards choose a familiar and any specialty magic school for the definition they give a PC, not for powergaming purposes. Send your biography to a DM of your server; fill in deity and description fields, and slip Silk the rogue into game.

When Leafwalker Half-Elven first encounters a human of the city where his dead mother was born, he does not rush into greetings. Seeking trust, he offers to scout, to return the lost party to the forest outskirts. Orcs attack. Bull the Uthgardt flies into a rage to protect the fair druidess Garnet, but spends his reserve of strength in the frenzy. Pascal of Torm must sacrifice his life to cover the retreat of the party, falling mortally wounded with a prayer on his lips and his sword in the heart of the last orc. Nivonen offers to take the pain, for life is pain, and such is his purpose. He eases the passing of the paladin, who goes to the arms of his god glad for a valiant death. Grieving, the party burns the bodies of the orcs, never noting when Silk slips something small into her sleeve from within Pascal’s pocket. Leafwalker, shaken by the death of the human of his mother’s city, leads them all the way to the city walls, with Bull carrying the dead to the Temple of Torm for proper services.

Playing In The Community

A nice short chapter, just giving a bit of detail about how you can get the most out of the Community, whether that be participating in discussions, a nice social chat, or helping out keeping the place running.

Volunteering to DM in ALFA

In ALFA, we are always looking for more DMs. In a world like ALFA, DMs are not something that there can ever be enough of. If you’ve got a talent for telling a story, or if you’ve ever wanted to try out those hundred and one characters that you have brewing in your head, or maybe you’ve just always wanted to see a certain plot run – well then DMing is for you!

If you’ve never DMed before, do not fear! There are many people who are more than happy to help you find your feet in the DM Client and answer whatever questions you may have. If you’re interested in DMing speak to your local DM!

Exploits And Cheating

Please don’t. Generally this section is extremely simple if it feels wrong it probably is. Examples of cheating include taking advantage of bugs to gain xp, gp, or items, combat logging (logging out mid combat), and or any other activity that unbalances the experience of the world for your fellow players. Seriously please don’t cheat Baldur’s Gate’s logging is robust and chances are it will show up in the logs. Reports of bugs, however, are always appreciated by the DM team and those that help out in reporting bugs are appreciated and remembered.

Remediation

Very rarely players’ play-style may be out of sync with community standards. Players in breach of the above community guidelines may choose to enter a probationary period in order to adjust their play-style to align with the above standards. 

During remediation the running reminders will be strictly enforced by xp loss, the PC may not leave the server, and hourly player gold and experience levels may be reviewed and adjusted to ensure they are in line with community standards. Players will also need to provide a bio if one is not currently on file and are encouraged to write short stories about their character.

Note that repeated remediation intervention may result in a temporary or permanent ban.

In extreme cases including but not limited to griefing, harassment, excessive power gaming, cheating, exploiting, or any other clear offense, a player may be banned temporarily or permanently. This is however intended to be a very rare occurrence on a case by case basis.

DMs are committed to ensuring a fair and level playing field exists for all players and endeavor to apply the guidelines above in an effort to make sure those conditions obtain.