The Guide
From The Simming League
The Guide is an overview of the major aspects of simming and online role-playing, with links to more in depth articles.
Contents |
Basics
Simming, also known as online role-playing (RPG), is an internet based hobby that blends elements of a role-playing game and a storytelling game. In it, people create a character. Gathering in a chat room, on a message board, or via an e-mail string, each person types out the the actions, thoughts, and words of their character, advancing a storyline. Elements of chance are determined by roiling dice, by a designated sim or game master, or collaboratively among the players.
Most sims are set within a universe created by a popular film or television series, usually science fiction or fantasy based, although a number of sims exist within member created universes. The particular universe within which the sim takes place is known as a genre. If the sim is based upon a work of fiction, it is extremely rare for a simmer to play a character featured in that fiction. It is also rare for a sim to recreate a scene out of fiction. Rather, simmers create their own characters and adventures that are set within the larger framework of the genre.
E-mail (also known as Play-by-Email) and message board based sims read like a written story. Each simmer types their part of the story, usually a page or two at a time, and posts it for the other players to see. Other playes respond with their parts of the story, advancing the plot. E-mail and message board based sims are favored by people who enjoy writing and character and plot development.
Sims taking place in a chat room tend to be written in snippets that convey actions, commands, and short conservations. They are favored by individuals who enjoy action and frenetic energy. A shorthand is often employed in chat sims to speed up typing.
The number of rules, depth of plots, detail of writing, rating, and adherence to canon varies widely across sims.
Characters
A character is the basic element of simming/RPGing.
Storyline
- Also see: Canon
- Also see: Determining chance
- Also see: Genre
- Also see: Rating
- Also see: Sim or game master
- Also see: Storyline
Host
Organization
History
- Also see: Timeline of simming
Simming/online role-playing traces its roots to the fanzines and off-line role-playing games of the 1970s and 1980s. In the early 1990s, as bulletin board services and national online services grew in popularity, fanzines and off-line RPGs were adopted to the online world, giving birth to simming/online RPGing. CompuServe offered an area where offline RPGs such as AD&D and RuneQuest could be played online. America Online ran the QuantumLink Serial, which was an online fanzine, and Quantum Space, an early play by email sim. Seperate from the efforts sponsered by online services, individuals brought their pre-existing fanzines and off-line RPGs online and created new sims/online RPGs.
In late 1991 and early 1992, the growing popularity of simming/online RPGing forced a new degree of organization. Star Trek sims/online RPGs especially were swamped by dozens of new members. Records reveal mass chaos. To restore order, Star Trek simmers organized sim/RPG clubs containing multiple sims/RPGs and crews. This was a major evolution. Previously, most sims/RPGs were unorganized pick up games, independent entities consisting of one ship, or mass fleet actions without defined crews.
Star Trek simming/online RPGing was the most popular genera throughout the 1990s, accounting for the vast majority of gaming - although other genera, such as Star Wars, Babylon 5, and SeaQuest enjoyed their share of popularity. By 1993, one successful club had come to dominate Star Trek simming/online RPGing on each of the major online services of the era - Starfleet Online (SFOL) (later renamed Spacefleet Online) on America Online, Starfleet Online on Prodigy, and Fleet 74 on CompuServe. Starfleet Online on Prodigy and Fleet 74 on CompuServe remained the dominate players on their respective services until the services folded in the late 1990s.
Between 1994 and 1995, disagreements over the future direction of SFOL on America Online caused a massive split, promiting dozens of sims and high ranking leaders to leave and form new groups, including the Continuum Online. With the dominance of SFOL on AOL broken, combined with the massive membership growth of AOL during this period, new clubs unrelated to the SFOL split were able to establish themselves on AOL, including the United Space Federation.
As the decade progressed, groups offering multiple genres under one roof and/or spanning multiple online services were grew, including the Alliance Simulation Group and the United Federation, which later became the Federation Sim Fleet.
