including charter, policies concerning posts with spoilers, and
abbreviations frequently seen on the group. It should be read by anyone who wishes to interact with the natives on rec.games.roguelike.adom. See reader questions & answers on this topic! - Help others by sharing your knowledge Archive-name: games/roguelike/adom/newsgroup Posting-Frequency: Monthly Last-modified: February 01, 1999 Version: 0.9.4 URL: http://www.aleph-null.com/adom/rgrafaq.html Copyright: (c) 1998, 1999 by Richard Fowler Maintainer: Richard Fowler <thinker@aleph-null.com> r.g.r.adom FAQ Last updated : 01 Feb 1999 This deals with Frequently Asked Questions about or involving the newsgroup rec.games.roguelike.adom (r.g.r.adom). It does not deal with questions about the game itself, as those are in the ADOM FAQ, posted regularly to r.g.r.adom, or available at http://www.aleph-null.com/adom/adomfaq.html. The r.g.r.adom FAQ is for those seeking information about the newsgroup, and the traditions and customs of its denizens. It tends to be a friendly group, but some of the newer residents expressed a desire for a guide to assist them through smoother enculturation. Here it is! This document is always available at http://www.aleph-null.com/adom/rgrafaq.html, or by e-mail by sending a request to rgrafaq@aleph-null.com. Suggestions for additions or changes should be made to thinker@aleph-null.com, the maintainer of this FAQ. -------------------------------------- Table of Contents Section 1: Origins & History 1.0 The newsgroup's charter "What's this newsgroup for? What's it about?" 1.1 A little history Section 2: Posting advice & guidelines 2.0 If you're new to USENET 2.1 Spoiler policies 2.1.0 Recommended 'spoiler' post policy "Why do people keep putting lots of space in the middle of their posts?" 2.1.1 What is / what constitutes a spoiler? 2.1.2 Why bother covering them up? 2.1.3 How should I compose posts containing spoilers? 2.1.4 Other general points 2.1.5 Credits for Spoiler policies 2.2 Dealing with stuff that doesn't conform to expectations 2.3 Taboo topics (troll food) 2.4 YAVP--A Guide to good Victory Posting Section 3: Common abbreviations "How do you expect me to read a post when half of it's in code? What do all the abbreviations stand for?" 3.1 Items 3.2 Creatures 3.3 Places 3.4 People 3.5 Other 3.6 The ADOM Code ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section 1: Origins & History 1.0 CHARTER: rec.games.roguelike.adom This group is for the discussion of the game ADOM, by Thomas Biskup, an ASCII-character graphics adventure game in the style of Omega and Nethack. All things pertaining to ADOM are acceptable here, including requests for help locating and playing the game, announcements of new versions of the game (which should also be posted in rec.games.roguelike.announce), and so forth. When posting information about gameplay which is not mentioned in the manual and/or is not "common knowledge", it is customary to put a notice such as [SPOILERS] in the title of the post. Large binary files should not be posted to this group. If you have a large binary which is related to ADOM, please place it on an ftp or web site and post a message to this group saying what the file is and how to get it. Posts on other roguelike games such as Larn or BOSS should be directed to a more appropriate newsgroups such as rec.games.roguelike.misc. Commercial posts (advertisements, MAKE..MONEY.FAST, etc) are also not appropriate for this newsgroup. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1.1 A little history The proposal for rec.games.roguelike.adom passed (232:21) and was created after its first proposal. It's announcement was made on 22 Feb 1997 and propagation began soon after. Before this time, ADOM chat was conducted on rec.games.roguelike.misc, where you can still see the occasional ADOM query/discussion. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section 2: Posting advice & guidelines 2.0 If you're new to USENET Before posting anything, I would strongly advise that you go to the group news.announce.newusers and read the several informative documents about using USENET. They will save you (and many others) a lot of time and frustration. Of course, the fact that you are reading a FAQ shows that you already have some sensitivity to your environment and its requirements, but the documents at news.announce.newusers should help you with some basic netiquette and posting guidelines. They really do mean it when they advise lurking for a while to get a feel for the natives; it's like being at a party where you don't know anybody--you might be successful by barging into a conversation and trying to be entertaining, but more likely you'll end up getting a reputation as being rude and insensitive. Listen for a while and when you start noticing that the things you would have said are being said by others, you're probably getting fairly enculturated to us and should jump on into the discussions. Or you can just go for it; it has worked out (eventually) for some. Well, maybe two. Have I mentioned news.announce.newusers yet? :^) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2.1.0 REC.GAMES.ROGUELIKE.ADOM: Recommended 'spoiler' post policy This section used to be an independent document that has been incorporated into the group FAQ with the original author's permission. Please direct questions/suggestions/flames about this section to the maintainer of the r.g.r.adom FAQ, as listed at the top of this document. These policies reflect a general consensus of r.g.r.adom users, although not everyone follows or even agrees with them entirely. Following them should prevent flames of the "Use spoiler space, you..." variety. -------------------------------------- 2.1.1 What is / what constitutes a spoiler? A spoiler is any piece of information which gives away something another player might not know, or which requires some degree of 'special' insight. For instance: While it is not a spoiler to say that the Dwarven Elder in the Caverns of Chaos will offer quests to players, it *is* a spoiler to explain the quests, and detail how to complete them successfully. It is not a spoiler to say that an artifact named 'Kinslayer' exists, but it *is* a spoiler to list its powers and statistics (which can normally only be found via great identify) or to reveal the location or acquisition method of any artifacts (which can normally only be found via actually playing). -------------------------------------- 2.1.2 Why bother covering them up? Won't people just find this all out anyway? Because it can ruin the game for people if they know exactly what they must do, without discovering it for themselves. This is why spoiler protection is strongly recommended--so that those who wish to read spoilers can, and those who wish to avoid them can, too. -------------------------------------- 2.1.3 How should I compose posts containing spoilers? We recommend the following format: Subject lines should contain [SPOILER] in the subject line (which should be kept as near to the content of the message as possible in replies), possibly [Minor SPOILER] or [Major SPOILER] depending on how 'severe' the spoilers could be considered (how much of the game do they affect?) Make sure to include a spoiler warning within the text itself, as many peruse the group from message to message without looking at subject lines. This is where the inclusion of spoiler space is appreciated. Spoiler space is simply a break between the spoiler warning (or the top of the message) and the spoily content. Personally, I recommend asterisks or similar every (other) line, for about 20 lines (this can be an opportunity to be clever and expressive). Some people recommend the use of the '^L' character to insert a page break, but this does not work properly for a number of newsreaders, so if you use this method, please include some space filler as well (lest you be accused of being agents of spoiliness, er...chaos). You can really fill this space with anything you want, but it's preferred you don't insert 30k ASCII graphics. Use common sense, bearing in mind the purpose of the exercise. If only part of a post is a spoiler, put the spoiler space before the spoiler section (which should go at the end of the message). This allows you to give 'hints' which are not really spoilers followed by spoiler space before the *real* spoilers--so that readers may pick either the hints or the heavy stuff. -------------------------------------- 2.1.4 Other general points If your followup to a spoiler post must include those spoilers, be sure to preserve the spoiler space and tag. If you've moved on from that topic, then change the subject line and delete spoilers as appropriate. I personally use the following format for 'changed' subject lines: Re: Wilderness strategies [Was: avoiding encounters] The above example being a post which no longer contains spoilers--some users will automatically delete spoiler posts, so if your post is *not* a spoiler, remove the spoiler tag, please. Of course, if it is still a spoiler, leave the tag in place. -------------------------------------- 2.1.5 Credits for Section 2.1 Written by Matt Chatterley (neddy@itl.net) with contributions from many readers of rec.games.roguelike.adom. Edited and maintained by Richard Fowler (thinker@aleph-null.com), with the continued aid of many ADOMites. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2.2 Dealing with stuff that doesn't conform to expectations Sometimes things show up in the newsgroup that it's denizens do not expect or desire. Universally belonging to this category are commercial solicitations, MLM plans, porn ads, and all the other junk commonly known as spam (no offense intended, Hormel). While you should feel free to respond to the instigator of the offensive message (or their provider) according to your own inclinations, please do not include any response to the newsgroup, as many residents have spam-filtering services and would otherwise never see the spam if it weren't included in a response. Let it die the ignoble, ignored, silent death it deserves. There have also been occasions when personalities have collided, leading to lengthy threads that contained little content other than flames and defenses (whether by the original participants or others). Feel free to express your opinions, but unless they are relevant to ADOM, please take them to e-mail or a more appropriate forum. What should I do if someone is posting spoilers with no space, and no spoiler warning headings? You should email them politely (we're a nice bunch, please, no flames!). It's likely they're a new user and not aware that we prefer spoiler posts to be marked, informing them that some users may not like them posting as such, and refer them to this document. See section 2.1 for advised methods for posting spoilers and the reasoning behind it all. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2.3 Taboo topics (troll food) While the charter does not forbid discussions of the following nature, they tend to quickly degenerate to flame wars and so are not considered fit for polite company. If you want to discuss their merits, you can, but you will likely find the crowd to be short-tempered and even hostile. These are some of the quickest ways into killfiles and will hopefully be ignored or replied to only by e-mail if they come up. Discussions regarding the potential release of the source code when 1.0 is completed. For or against, most of the reasonable things that can be said on this topic have been said and it's all up to Thomas, anyway. Please leave it alone as all it does is stir up dust and irritate participants (and designers). The functional status of the Save feature. It is designed as a "save so you can continue your game later" feature, not as a "save just in case something bad happens so I can avoid negative consequences" feature. Thomas is well aware that people "savescum" and while he has made it harder for people to edit savefiles with impunity, he has not taken action to prevent back-ups. Playing a character after it has died (by restoring a backed-up savefile) is, according to the designs of the game's creator, cheating. Having said that, many, if not most, have done it at some time. If it makes the game more enjoyable for you, do it, but be aware that completing the game using this method is not considered a victory. More like a tour. Reformed savescummers report an improvement in game enjoyment after kicking the habit, so you might give it try if you've gotten hooked on cheating while exploring the Chain. In summary, sinning in this way is usually accepted and forgiven, but advocating this sin might be met with less than friendly comments. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2.4 YAVP--A Guide to good Victory Posting Woohoo! You finally won! Now you want to share your accomplishment with the whole ADOM community. The first and easiest instinct might be to just copy your character's .flg file into a message and post it. Unfortunately, that usually results in a long post, most of which nobody will ever read. Sure, you want to share it, and many of us would like to give you your due credit, but a plain old .flg file is just too much. At the very least, you'll want to edit out the repetitive stuff that every winner would be expected to have (there go most of the carried-items and the monsters-killed lists). Items or monsters that are unusual or that you are particularly proud of should be left in (one person collected monster statues for their palace, another saved several wish items for improving their homeland). This much trimming should get you out of hot water for wasting bandwidth (and download time), but it's still not the best. For the best possible VP, you get to add more stuff back in: tell us your character's story. Which quests did you take and in what order? Any tense times or close calls? Lucky moments? Epic battles in the wilderness? Just how did you get those stats so high? Just picture your character around the campfire telling other adventurers about their time in the Drakalor Chain, teaching and being impressive. If the story stays in character, all the better ("Grok not want paper with marks, but keep finding them. They good for cleaning big sword. Later learned some reading and wondered what marks meant."). Have fun with it and we probably will, too. Note that in addition to your adventures, any meta-game alterations should be noted; if you pool-save-scummed at the very end to get rid of some corruptions, you really should mention it or better yet, play out the ending that Thomas intended. Posts of characters that have been edited or otherwise cheated in any way are not considered "wins" but if the cheat was subtle and the game had other worthy elements, you might get a pat on the back or two for your almost-win. Posting cheats is an at-your-own-risk venture; the other adventurers might just throw you in the campfire for invoking such demonic forces in your effort to defeat Chaos. (After all, breaking the rules is chaotic and they might think you've defeated one lord of ChAoS just to put up another.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Section 3: Common abbreviations "How do you expect me to read a post when half of it's in code? What do all the abbreviations stand for?" 3.1 Items Since typing out the names of items can become repetitive (and we all need to hoard our carpal-tunnel abuse for playing ADOM), item names are commonly abbreviated in postings. The convention for this comes from discussions of other roguelikes, and generally follows a variant of two forms. The first is to simply use an acronym of the item's name, so that a Potion of Cure Corruption becomes a PoCC. The other convention is to replace the item's category (ie. potion) with the game's symbol for the item, marking the above potion as a !oCC. Some people combine the two claiming the symbolic representation can be confusing when used alone, giving us the !PoCC. I find this last one useful, if a little unsettling at first, because it marks the abbreviation as that of a game item and not some meta-character, like a newsgroup entity such as TB (Thomas Biskup), which I once mentally flashed as a non-existant Tenser of Burning. So which symbols go with which items? Read the manual! Oh, okay, here's the list. [ armor/clothes/robes, shields, gauntlets/gloves, cloaks, girdles,boots, and helmets & necklaces/amulets or tools ( hand weapons } missile weapons (bows, crossbows, hand crossbows, slings) * rocks or jewels / missiles (arrows, quarrels, certain daggers, spears, javelins) = rings ! potions ? scrolls \ wands ~ bracers { musical instruments % food, corpse of... " books, spellbooks (SB) in 0.9.9 gamma 12 the following started being used ' necklaces/amulets ] tools Some of the more commonly abbreviated items are (sometimes with one of the two leading characters missing) \WoW -- Wands of Wishing(WoWi) or Wands of Wonder(WoWo); the difference can be important. "SBoDI -- Spellbook of Divine Intervention (Clerical spellbook) !PoCC -- Potion of Cure Corruption !PoE -- Potion of Exchange (PoEx) !PoEd -- Potion of Education (PoEd) ?SoCR -- Scroll of Chaos Resistance =RoDS -- Ring of Djinni Summoning =RoI -- Ring of Ice =RoS -- Ring of Slaying &AoFA -- Amulet of Free Action &AoLS -- Amulet of Life Saving [GoS -- Gauntlets of Strength, not to be confused with [GoGS -- Girdle of Giant Strength (SoS -- Sword of Sharpness (PD -- Phase Dagger (DoD -- Dagger of Death (<insert item abbreviation here> oD -- weapon of Death; there are several (WoS -- Whip of Slaughtering, not to be confused with (WotS -- Whip of the Snake There are also some specific items, such as the RotHK (Ring of the High Kings) or the PoC (Phial of Caladriel--more commonly seen as "the phial" since it's the only one in the game). Some of the more frequently discussed items almost never have their corresponding symbol, because they're just so darned familiar; but it's really up to you. Keep in mind that the more cryptic you are, the more likely you are to be misunderstood, so try to keep the abbreviations within the Drakalor Chain dialect and not just SiT (Speak in Tongues). If in doubt, type it out. -------------------------------------- 3.2 Creatures There aren't a lot of creatures whose name shortens well, but the ones that do are important. The most notable is WMoPC (Writhing Mass of Primal Chaos), although the ACW (Ancient Chaos Wyrm) and the AKW (Ancient Karmic Wyrm) quickly come to mind, as well. Some have nicknames such as a certain cute puppy frequently called "Kenny" after a cartoon character who dies in almost every episode, and a certain Ancient Blue Wyrm represented by a purple W, frequently heard as "Barney." In general, recurring names are unique monsters that you will eventually encounter in the game, including any references to "Fisty" (Fistinarius), who appears on the final level. -------------------------------------- 3.3 Places The names of the various game locations are frequently abbreviated, usually using the abbreviation shown on the play screen when on that level. The more common ones are: SMC (Small Caves), VD (village Dungeon), CoC (Caverns of Chaos), ID (Infinite Dungeon), ToEF (Tower of Eternal Flame), and the various Temple levels WT, AT, ET, MT (Water, Air, Earth, Mana Temple). -------------------------------------- 3.4 People Some personalities in the newsgroup are frequently recognized by certain references or abbreviations. If any of the following are displeased with their description or reference, please let me know and they will be adjusted accordingly. TB, Thomas, Herr Biskup, the creator -- Thomas Biskup, the author of ADOM. He is active in the group and quite responsive to non-silly ideas and suggestions, as long as the one doing the suggesting has clearly read and followed the readme.1st file included with the current distribution. -------------------------------------- 3.5 Other Frequently seen in Subject headers: YASD -- Yet Another Sad/Stupid/Silly Death YAVP -- Yet Another Victory Post YAFM -- Yet Another Funny Message Frequently seen in text: RNG -- Random Number Generator YMMV -- Your Mileage May Vary TIA -- Thanks In Advance HTH -- Happy To Help LOL -- Laughing Out Loud / Lots of Laughter ROFL -- Rolling On Floor Laughing For more abbreviations along these lines, please see the Usenet Acronyms Dictionary at http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~tajwileb/dictionary.html. -------------------------------------- 3.6 The ADOM Code A Code in the tradition of the Geek/Goth/Trek/Other_Obsession Codes for expressing one's ADOM experience/preferences. Currently in development. When it has a home, I'll list its URL. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Copyright 1998, 1999 by Richard Fowler. This FAQ may be freely distributed as long as these two copyright messages are distributed with it. Karmic creatures are exempted from this restriction. ADOM Copyright 1996-1999 by Thomas Biskup. All rights reserved. User Contributions:
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