Roleplaying Handbook

Dark Jedi Brotherhood

This article is part of the series: Roleplaying

Key Information

Roleplaying Handbook Activities 104: Roleplaying

Documentation

Society: The Envoy Corps Rewards for RP Activity Exarch Reports

Staff

Exarch Marick Tyris Arconae

This page serves as the central hub of information for Roleplaying Activity in the Brotherhood. It contains the policies, links to resources, and is home to the shared systems and rulesets used in the Brotherhood.

• The Exarch Staff can be reached at: exarch-staff@googlegroups.com

Shadow Academy Exams

The Shadow Academy is a great place to get started learning more about the Brotherhood's RP activities. The exams are not required, but are a great resource for getting started with either running or joining your first RP.

Activities 104: Roleplaying

• Course Notes and Exam - This course will show you how to quickly and easily join a roleplaying (RP) activity, set up an RP activity, as well as what to do when participating in a session, and how to run one yourself if interested!

Exarch Resources

You can find a folder of all the Exarch Resources on Google Drive at the link below:

• Exarch Resources Folder

Lore

• Star Wars Drinks for RP
• Star Wars Cusines

Adventure Kits

The following "kits" were made to help you run your first RP with some visual aides.

• RP Planning Template — A good template (make a copy) to use for “setting up” your activity.
• Bounty RP Template (Make a copy) — A good way to start with some pre-made fields for a Target/Bounty in an easy-to-share Google Slides format.
• RP Template (Make a copy) — A good way to start with some pre-made assets in an easy-to-share Google Slides format.

Players Tokens & NPCs

Tokens are popular to use when using a map for your roleplaying activity. Use the site below to drag and drop an image, adjust it, and save it to use in any of your games and maps!

• Quickly Create Player Tokens

Map Making

• Star Wars Assets for Map Making
• Dungeon Fog — Browser-based map builder with slight learning curve.
• r/Star_Wars_Maps/ — Finding maps for reference in a session.
• Cartographers Guild — A forum thread of cool maps for reference use.

Creating an RP

It's highly recommended that you take the Activities 104: Roleplaying exam to better familiarize yourself with the technical steps needed for starting up your session, but it is not required. Any member is able to host or create an RP, but if you have any questions, please reach out to a member of the Exarch staff or email us at: exarch-staff@googlegroups.com.

Here is a quick list of commands and what they can do for RP activity:

Command	Function
/rp create	Create an RP session. Can be initiated from any channel.
/rp edit	Edit the RP session parameters.
/rp joins	Enable or disable the join button on the advertisement message.
/rp advertise	Will let you pick a channel to advertise your RP
/rp snapshot create	Will let you select from your available character sheet loadouts and attach it to the session.
/rp snapshot list	Will show you a list of attached snapshots

Dice Bot

If you choose to utilize dice for your roleplaying session, you can do so by adding Dice Maiden to the RP via the "Add Dice Bot" button.

• Here is a handy link to the list of commands Dice Maiden recognizes.

Some popular ones that come up a lot:

Command	Function
/roll help	Displays basic usage instructions.
/roll help alias	Displays alias instructions.
/roll 1dX+Y	Rolls one dice, where X is the number of sided dice you want to roll. +Y adds a modifier value
/roll 1dX+Y ! Description of action	Any text following the "!" will post with the role.
/roll 2dX d1	Advantage roll where X is the dice sides value. Rolls two dice and keeps the highest.
/roll 2dX kl1	Disadvantage roll where X the dice sides value. Roll two dice and keep the lowest.

Types of Roleplaying Activities

When running and setting up the RP Typefield, for your RP these are the recommended "game types" or archetypes that can be used to help organize the types of Roleplaying activity you are running.

SOCIAL

• Suggested size: 3+ players
• Suggested run time: 1-4 weeks
  • Optional: Voice Session (2-4 hours)

Social RPs can be set up in a cantina, an event space, or any venue, really. They are usually treated as casual sessions, and are a good way to get as many members involved as they tend to be more free-form and less structured. They’re also great for focusing on interpersonal character drama and not getting bogged down in mechanics, turn orders, or awareness of Star Wars/Brotherhood lore. While dice rolls are not required, they can be used to help play games that make use of “drink points”, or casual attribute checks such as arm-wrestling, darts, billiards, etc.

ADVENTURE

• Suggested size: 3-6 players
• Suggested run time: 1-3 weeks
  • Optional: Voice Session (2-4 Hours)

Adventures function more like a conventional TableTop/DnD session. There will usually be a venue, an objective, and a more hands-on structure set by the DM and an overarching plot/story. While dice rolls are not required, they are what most TableTop players are accustomed to and tend to help keep members engaged and with more indication of what they can/can’t do.

CHARACTER

• Suggested size: 2-3 players
• Suggested run time: N/A

Character focused RPs can be anything that focuses on character development and interactions with other characters in the Brotherhood. These can range from an overdue conversation between two characters meeting at a given location, to a slice of life outing, to sparring or training matches, and even for duels. The idea with Character RPs is that there is no impetus for scheduling or a DM, and the onus is placed on a small group of members to self-manage and enjoy writing together in RP format.

OTHER

• Covers anything that falls outside the previous three archetypes.

Finalizing

Once an RP is complete, the DM (Leader) can close out the session. This will automatically generate a URL with an HTML transcript of the RP, and submit the word count to the Exarch Staff for review and processing.

Roleplaying Policy

The following section contains policies created to help maintain the operation and integrity of Roleplaying Activities so that members can have fun and be safe while running and participating in these activities.

RP Etiquette

As seen in the Activities 104: Roleplaying Exam:

Being a part of a roleplaying group can be a very intimate thing. The characters that have been created are held dear to a player's heart. So putting them out into the world for potentially bad things to happen to them is a kind of trust-fall in an RP activity. As a member of the group, players are encouraged to be respectful of each other and their characters when telling a story together using each of your respective characters.

When waiting for other players to post, be kind! Everyone in the Brotherhood is here for entertainment and enjoyment, but real life does happen and can throw off your plans to post. It’s okay to @mention another player to remind them or follow up, but you never know what might have come up for them. Likewise, if you know you’re going to be unable to post for a period of time (a few hours, a day, etc.) you should tell your DM and fellow players so that they know.

You should always ask another player for permission if writing their character. You should also extend the same level of care and attention to them as you would for your own characters.

If you ever feel like a DM or another player is being unfair or you feel like they’re creating a negative experience, please reach out to a member of the Exarch Staff and they can take a look into the situation for you.

Co-DM/GM Policy

By default, Golden Envoy Marks are awarded to the member that creates an RP activity as the DM of the session. This member is designated as the “Leader” role for the administrative abilities of dbb0t for the RP thread (as they are the only one that can Add Dice Bot, and finalize the session). A second member can act as a "Co-DM" if necessary for your Roleplaying activity. A Co-DM is not required but may be helpful especially with larger or more ambitious activities.

Some good examples include:

• A busy work schedule that prevents you from answering players for a long stretch of time during the day.
• Help with keeping track of larger groups through maps, resources, or lore dumps.
• Help reverse-shadow a new DM.
• Time zone coverage.

When selecting a Co-DM, an email must be sent to the Exarch Staff (exarch-staff@googlegroups.com) at the beginning of the session. This creates a paper trail and ensures that when processing the RP on the backend, we attribute credit to the Co-DM.

As part of the review process the Exarch staff already does, Exarch Staff will check the RP thread to make sure that the co-DM contributed in a meaningful way, and manually append the additional dossier when submitting the activity. In general, the Exarch Staff will trust the DMs, and only take action if there appears to be blatant abuse of the system.

Processing Roleplaying Activity

The Exarch and the Exarch Staff are responsible for reviewing Roleplaying activities and submitting them to the site for final approval. Cluster of Ice will be automatically awarded with XP and credits after your RP is processed.

In order for an RP to qualify for Golden Envoy Marks, or Envoy Marks:

• 100 words minimum are required by a DM or a Player.

Additionally:

• The RP must have Run for at least 2 weeks
  • or each participant has contributed at least 500 words.

CI Adherence Policy

Roleplaying activity is awarded based on the cumulative word count from your posts in the RP session. 500 words are equal to 1 Cluster of Ice (CI). As a result, RP activities must utilize the Brotherhood character sheets system in some way, and stay relevant to the Brotherhood’s lore and sandbox within the Star Wars universe. For more information on the Cluster of Ice, see: Cluster of Ice: Text Roleplaying 

Rulesets and Systems

DM/GM's have the option of deciding what system they will use when running a session. The following list is a collection of suggested guides for running different kind of RP activities.

Rulesets
Author	System
Turel Sorenn	Starfighter PvE Guide
Teebu Nyrrire	Clan Taldryan d6 Source Book
Exarch	Brotherhood d20
Leeadra Halcyon	Drinking Game (D10)
Archenskov	Brotherhood Fate (Beta)
Grot	Blades in the Dark (Beta)
Aura Ta'var	Dice-less Social
Clan Vizsla	Swoop Racing