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There are many kinds of recreational role-playing in the world. The purpose of this page is to describe what forms of role play are allowed in Alternate DBZ RP, and how they are supported.

Alternate Dragonball Z RP supports two main modes of role play: Freeform and Competitive. RPs from each mode coexist in the same universe, and what happens in one effects the other. However, the room's default RPing mode is Competitive. That is to say that in the event of a conflict between two players, or within any official plot event in the room, competitive rules will always be enforced over freeform.

Competitive Role Playing

Competitive roleplay is a world of play that exists between the airtight, number-dictated rules of "Strict" play (like Dungeons and Dragons) and the unimposing, imagination-based Freeform. In competitive play, players rely strongly, though not completely, on numbers for all fighting situations and situations where a character's particular caliber of (usually fighting) abilities strongly influence RP action. For all other situations, such as a social play between two characters, very few rules are enforced. The exception lies with details about a character that could have a significant effect on others, such as wealth and powerful personal posessions, which may be regulated by the staff.

Fights in competitive play usually consist of a largely freeform post, followed by any calculated numbers or figures that may be pertinent to the action taken. For instance, a fighter attacking another in melee would list a damage and speed power for each attack made, and these would be derived from the rules. All actions taken against a character that may not desire it to succeed must be played as "attempted." That is to say, players should not write that a thrown punch breaks another character's nose. The player should write that the character throws a punch, and then the other character's player decides if it hits, and if so, what damage it does. The numbers are considered by the receiving player, who compares it to other numbers that work against offenses (damage against durability, speed against detection, and so on) when it is his/her turn to post. The numbers serve only as guidelines and while strongly overwhelming numbers should by and large dictate a particular course of action (an attack that completely overwhelms a defense should probably not cause a small scratch), we leave it to the defender to decide what exactly occurs. Players who abuse this liberty will likely find themselves without other players who want to play with them.

Most of the rules in this section of the website apply to competitive play. Playing in freeform allows a player to, by and large, ignore them.

Freeform Role Playing

Freeform role playing is the root of all role play. In it, players write as though taking turns writing a fiction novel. The only restrictions to what is done lies with the setting and any far-reaching implications of the characters's assertions (being wealthy or powerful, for instance) Alt DBZ also provides for the role-playing of fights in freeform. However, if you wish these plays' actions to carry over into the rest of the room, a few rules must be maintained.

Freeform Fighting

If you decide to roleplay a fight between two characters in freeform mode, all participating players must agree to and conform to this mode. If one player insists on using competitive rules, all players must use those rules, or the RP may not occur. With official freeform fighting, we ask that you only mind the following basic rules:

1. Be mindful of power level comparisons. You are allowed to stretch what ability one PL has toward a higher one, but stretching it too far is not allowed. Use common sense. Use the base power level numbers -- don't worry about modifiers and specific figures on any actions. Use words rather than numbers to indicate potency.
    
2. Stay in-character in all respects. This includes the theme of the techniques your character has learned. In going freeform, you no longer are bound to the exact wording of techniques, but please keep characters abilities within a reasonable scope of progress to what they have learned so far.
    
3. Power gains are altered. If your character has felt challenge in a freeform fight (which means fighting an opponent that you do not outclass, and that does not outclass you), then your character gains 1.5% of his/her own power (not a percentage of the opponent's power, as per competitive play). Passive Training is redeemed as normal. Techniques that affect gain do not apply to freeform gains.

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