Greetz and Well Met, new Innmates!

Welcome to your new digital home, the Red Dragon Inn! This sticky is intended to get you settled into life here in record time. Maybe this is the first gaming forum you’ve joined, maybe not. Still, there’s some things it would help you to know and understand as you look around. 

How to Post

This is pretty much the bread and butter of your experience here, be it a reply to someone else’s post or creating a new thread. Replying is the simpler of the two. Click “Reply“ on the last post in the thread and a text entry box appears. Put something in the subject line, even “asdf” or “qwerty” or “Yeah, that’s cool!”. Then, tab into the text box, type your reply and hit “Submit” below. Done! At any time you may go back and edit, reply or even delete your post by clicking those words at the bottom of your post.

Starting your own thread in a forum is only slightly trickier. Let’s say you have a new Posting Game. Click that forum header, then see that “Add a New Topic” there at the top left above the list of threads? Click that. You’ll need to have a long name (what the thread is called within the forum) and a short name (what your thread will go by in the Recently Updated Topics list). Put up the introductory post and badda-boom you’re done! 

Avatars

So, you want a neat picture to go with your username? Click on your own username, then go down to the bottom of the page where it says "Edit User Profile." Near the last of the many data fields you'll see one for "Change Avatar." That will bring up a list of all avatars available. Take a moment, browse through the multitude of pictures there and find one that suits you! You can change it later if you want.

Applauds and Smites

At Red Dragon Inn, if you’re particularly impressed with someone’s post, you give them an Applaud; in the opposite case, a Smite. You can Applaud or Smite an Innmate (what we call ourselves here) only once per thread. Applauds are great and I hope you earn a bunch! Smites--enh, not so much. They aren’t the Big Bad at RDI (that, my friend is Banning, touched on later), and eventually you’ll pick one up somewhere. So if one day you log on and see a red number in your Karma, just shrug it off and keep on truckin’! I’ve smote an Innmate only once even after being here over a year, and I certainly would not smite a Newbie since you may not fully understand the system and how surprisingly little we pay attention to smites. To clarify, this is purely aesthetic in nature, a little imperfect barometer of feedback from the RDI community.

Chat

We have a wonderfully active Chat feature here. We call it DragonChat at RDI. Here’s a hint to improve your Chat experiences. You see that line “There are currently ‘X’ users logged into DragonChat”? Click on the word in blue. At the next screen, either log on to the room in use IF it has a name or, if you want to start one, type in a name where it says “Or Create a Room.” You don’t need to set a password even though you’ll want to use one for private rooms (be sure to PM the password to those you want to join you). I say this because simply logging on to an un-named Chat room is tricky--puts Chat in the mood to boot you off. A named Chat room is much better behaved. Hope to see you there! Oh, and make sure your pop-up blockers are disabled first! That one's really important!

Voting for the Inn

At the Home page, scroll down until you see this little box on the left hand side, “Die Roller’s Top 50.” Click on the small down arrow, click 5-Don’t Miss! And then “Rate the Inn” button. You can do this once every 24 hours. You don’t even need to be a member to vote, so please recruit friends and relatives--they can help us out! Votes put RDI higher on Effie’s Great Wyrm Top 100, which gets the site more exposure to fellow gamers like you. 

Mods

Our Mods are the best! T_catt11 is the Boss, Eol is a lovable maniac, Merideth is even more maternal than ever (she just had her first child), Alacrity wields the Ban Hammer, and I’ve seen him use it (so behave!), Grugg is maybe the closest thing we have to a Troll, but he’s really far away from Troll-ish just a little grumpy sometimes. You can see a list of Mods under the Staff List tab at the top of the screen, and easily recognize them by their purple names. If you got questions, they got answers, so drop ‘em a Private Message if you need to!

Titles and Ranks

Ranks (the little bluish-purple words beneath your username) are a reflection of how many posts you’ve made. I think it goes Newbie/Occasional Visitor/Regular Visitor/Veteran Visitor/Resident/RDI Fixture/?? You’ll be a Newbie until you’ve made 25 posts. 

Titles are given by Mods as recognition of an Innmate’s contribution to the community after many, many posts and up to a year of being an active member. I got mine quite unannounced and unsolicited from Eol, who took notice of how persistent I was in welcoming and encouraging new members. Odyson got his from all the puns he would make in commenting on Loaded Dice threads. Pester not the Mods concerning getting a title, they will find you when the time is right.

Language and Content

We strive for a PG or sometime PG-13 vibe here. See the sticky thread RDI Terms of Service in the Common Room forum. I personally try to keep swears to a minimum and avoid adult situations here. We have a lot of Younglings on the site so be mindful of little ears. Again, I refer to the ToS (gee, that must be important--make sure you read it at least once).

Game Threads

We have tons of role playing “play by post” games here, in almost every genre and edition both rules-based and freeform. A new game will appear in the Recruitment Threads as players and GM’s alike will post trying to drum up interest. A game gets started and appears in whatever thread the GM decides. In these threads, the actual game is taking place and people post “In Character,” so if you’re not a player, read but do not post there. When players need to discuss things about the game “Out Of Character,” they post in that game’s “Q&A” thread.

Ah, another hint--some of the “In Character” gaming posts are really long. If you find yourself in such a detailed game, do not make your post in the text-entry box on the RDI site, do what I’m doing here--type everything out in a word processor program without formatting it like bold, italic and underline then copy and paste into the text box when you are ready. The server on the site will kick you off for being idle in the middle of such a lengthy post. Then using HTML code you can go back and format your post the way you want. Remember, you can always go back into a post and edit it if you goofed.

Audalis Campaign

See the line of tabs at the top of the page? Each one holds a treasure trove of information and interactive functions for role-playing. You could spend a couple of weeks digesting it all. T_catt11 started Audalis in his homebrew game and over the years people have added to its grand tapestry. In fact there’s a contest for people to do just that going on. Give that a look-see, won’t you?

Webcomics

We have two awesome web comics here at RDI, Loaded Dice and a monthly comic RPG MythBreakers. Give ‘em a look-see, if you didn’t know they were here already. Each comic has its own thread(s) in the Webcomics forums for your comments and praise.

Red Dragon Inn Shop

A great place to get cool t-shirts and help support the site! http://207274.spreadshirt.com/ Do not use the Shop RDI tab at the top of the page for it is broken. 

General Advice

Eol’s FaceLicks are a Good Thing
Remember Wheaton’s Law always
Behave, for the Ban Hammer is real
Treat others with respect and it will be returned many-fold.
Put yourself out there it’s the only way people will get to know you.

Enjoy yourself, make friends, have fun at the Inn (that’s why it’s here, after all) and Good Gaming to you! Adventure Awaits!

 

Stickied for epicness!

I can't really add anything of value. I cam drop this in as an archived article though!

Now that was just Purrfect! Thanks PF!

Awesomely done, man.

Even though I'm a... *checks profile* ... "Resident" (AWESOME) I found this useful. Nicely done, chappy.

Well done, my friend.

*evaporates*

great way to be brought into the innmate family!

Thanks PF! Great job!...

Thanks for the kind words, everyone and especially Grim Reaper and Rainbow Brite--good to know this post is doing what it should. Now get out there and post (and vote!)

Hey, thanks! This was really useful and I plan to enjoy my time here at the Red Dragon Inn.

Well that was a nice intro. Covers all the basics: No blood for the blood god, peeing in the sink or leaving toilet seat up. Got it Thanks bro!

Thanks for the article Pit F(r)iend. It really helps.

Hello I am Mischief and was recruited by Tann'Talas to try his game. But I find the site very enjoyable. Thank you for keeping D&D alive.

Welcome to the Asylum!

I think it says something about the Inn that the 'closest thing we have to a troll' was made into a Moderator for the forum.

Also, I love that you mentioned Word Processor posts. There was a time when I thought I was the only one who the submit button hated. I figured other people just got wise to its antics and with a steady hand and cautious eye never lost their posts after that.

Excellent guide.

EDIT: Oh wow, so apparently this has been here for a rather long time it's still a fantastically awesome guide, though, even if I am oblivious