Beginners Guide to Layonara: Difference between revisions

Layonara is a place you come to create and explore stories in a sword-and-sorcery style fantasy world. And truly, that's the game: creating meaningful stories. The kind you'd like to tell and retell over again. The kind of stories that excite you, appall you, make you giddy, and ultimately invoke every other emotion somewhere along the way.

If your mind is where the story of your character starts for you, the Forums are where the story of your character starts for everyone else. Specifically, it starts with Character Submission. You can think of the character submission as a prelude or introduction to the first chapter of the character's life. Our Character Approvers will help you fit your character into the fabric of the world that is Layonara. In fact, this is where the game really begins. So take your time and dive into the finding out who your character is at the beginning of his/her life.

Our website will help you learn about the places and people in Layonara. You can give your character a history in the world and that history will help shape the character. This will give you a frame of reference for future role play. While you learn about our world, consider these questions: Who are the parents? Why did your character decide to become an adventurer? Who trained them to swing a sword or tame their spellweaving?  These are the sorts of questions you want to consider when developing the first page or two of your character's story.

Bioware's Neverwinter Nights (NWN) video game client provides a visual interface for the environment and character interactions, allowing for both a deeper sense of immersion in the world, as well as a means to play with people from around the world in real time. You will very quickly learn that the module is HUGE, with literally hundreds of areas to explore. Mostly, though, these areas serve as the backdrop for the ongoing stories in the world, from the Red Light goblin caves to Le'tennodin's Tomb under the Thunder Peaks. Each place in Layonara has a history - some long, some short - and you will have a chance to leave your character's mark in that history.

We've added dozens of systems to enrich the environment and role play. We've also provided a massive source of information regarding the mechanics of Neverwinter Nights right here on the Wiki, from the Feats list to a Glossary of commonly used terms. Any questions you may have regarding game play on the Neverwinter Nights client can be posted in the Ask A Gamemaster forums, and someone from our team will reply within the day, if not a few minutes.

Last but not least are the chat rooms of [https://discord.gg/YQRd5hB Discord]. You can use Discord to get real-time responses from players and GMs (Gamemasters) alike. This is especially handy when you can't load up the Neverwinter Nights client for whatever reason but you want to role play an interaction between player characters that doesn't require combat or NPCs. You simply emote and dialogue just as if you were in the game client. You can also get support for any other questions or issues you may have through Discord.

Now that you know what tools you have to work with, let's talk about some of the terms and methods used in Layonara to create stories through role play. Layonara sees all kinds of players, from former/current PnP (pen-and-paper) players, to those that have only played video game RPGs (role-playing games), to those that have not played much or any of either. Maybe you haven't even played through the single player client of Neverwinter Nights. Or maybe you're wondering why you're even bothering to read this with the fifteen years of role playing you already have under your belt. Either way, Layonara is both for experienced players as well as people brand new to role playing, and we strive to utilize the mix of experience to teach the new players about story telling and role play in an interactive and safe environment. And if you haven't read the Role Players Guide to NWN, you should.

The Non-player Character, or NPC for short, is every other entity with some level of intelligence that roams around the world and in some way interacts with the PCs. NPCs are always present and outnumber the PCs a million to one. NPCs are as unique in personality and goals as any PC might be, so don't just assume they will respond favorably or predictably to your PCs actions. NPCs are usually given life by GMs, as they are part of the world that the GM represents, part of the world with which your PC interacts. The king whose castle you defended is an NPC, and so is the yawning cat who won't stop sneaking into your PCs house at night.

Mechanical advancement is likely the manner of advancement with which you are most familiar. It is represented by your character increasing in measured abilities and skills, such as strength or lock-picking. NWN handles this via the 3rd edition Dungeons & Dragons (DnD) style of advancement, which includes growing in "levels" based on numerical experience point (XP) ceilings. Each new level your character reaches provides some manner of mechanical benefit, primarily based on the class/type of character he/she is. A fighter will gain more fighting skills, a wizard will gain more magic, and so on. One very important thing to note is that while mechanical advancement often comes as part of advancing your character's personal goals or advancing his/her position in society, gaining mechanical advancement does not also include gaining character or worldly advancement. What this means is that your mechanical level is not necessarily indicative of your character's rank in society or any amount of personal growth. For example, a 10th level character may be the mayor of a city, while a 40th level character might hardly be known in the world. When the Queen shows up in the city, she's going to visit with the 10 level Mayor, even though the 40th level character has mechanical abilities and skills that far outclass the 10th level character. If you want to be the ultimate warrior, you will eventually want to peak out mechanically, but if you want anyone to care that you're the ultimate warrior, you will want to spend more time developing who your character is and interacting with the world.

This kind of advancement has to do with one's position in the world, and often involves one's social status. If character advancement has to do with how your character views himself/herself, then worldly advancement has to do with how the world (and all its various societies) views your character. How much political power your character wields, how well known he/she is, and the kind of respect your character engenders are all aspects of worldly advancement. A few examples of worldly advancement include becoming the captain of a ship, becoming the second-most famous pie-maker in the city, and founding a local merchant guild. You will definitively find some overlap of character and worldly advancement on occasion, as that personal decision to betray the Queen and join the side of the dragon because the Queen did not return your affection (character advancement) may have just landed you on the top of the most wanted criminal's list (worldly advancement).