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From Irish RPG and Gaming Wiki
This site is a wiki for anything related to Irish Roleplaying and Gaming. A wiki is a collaborative webpage, meaning that once someone creates an account, they can add and modify the content on this site. Wikis are great; just check out Wikipedia for example.
Table of contents |
What is Roleplaying?
Roleplaying isn’t just Dungeons and Dragons. Nor is it something that only teenagers and Goths/Vampire-wannabes do. Roleplaying is enjoyed by many people of different ages throughout Ireland. (Also it doesn’t involve Satanism nor does it cause suicides).
Roleplaying is about imagination. A group of players normally take on roles and create stories and games. Remember back to when you played Cops and Robbers as a child. You played a Cop or a Robber and you all joined in to create a fantasy adventure about good guys and bad guys. Roleplaying is similar but very different and much more mature (or so we like to think).
Tabletop Roleplaying is normally played by a group of people (from 3 to 6) around a table. One person takes on the role of Games Master (also called Storyteller, Dungeon Master, Director or any other of the numerous titles). They have the toughest job but the most rewarding. They describe the world to the other players and are abdicators of rules and fairness. The other players create characters and play roles in the world created by the Games Master. A game or story is created as the players’ characters (PC for short) have adventures in this imagined world.
Live Action Roleplaying (or LARPs as they are commonly referred to) often has much more players. In this type of game, players act out their characters in ‘live action’, even dressing in costume. Certain actions such as violent actions are not acted out but are instead determined by the Games Masters (where there is often more than one).
There are many types of games and stories available such as games about magic (Sorcerer), science fiction (Traveller) and horror (Call of Cthulhu, World of Darkness), games based on your favourite TV shows like Star Trek, Buffy and Farscape and even games based on popular computer games such as Warcraft. There are also numerous games with very abstract ideas about roleplaying such as Universalis. The list of available games is quite long and impossible to fully describe here. Check out your local retailer to see what is currently available.
If you want to learn more about Roleplaying or try Roleplaying, visit one of the many conventions that are run during the year or check out your local club.
What is Gaming?
People think of Computer Gaming when they hear the term Gaming. That’s not what is meant here. Computer Gaming is part of it but not the major part of it. It’s not that we’re snobs, it’s just that there is a huge amount of resources are already available for Computer Gaming and there is little point competing with that.
Roleplaying games are not games in the traditional sense as there is no perceivable point in ‘winning’ in a story yet they do have systems that are very much game-like. In fact the modern incarnation of Roleplaying has its roots in tabletop wargaming.
Gaming covers Board Games (including Monopoly, Go and Settlers of Catan), Card Games (for example Poker), Collectable Card Games (also known as CCGs, a popular example is Magic the Gathering), Wargaming with miniatures (the enduring 40K is well known), Roleplaying Games and Computer Games (particularly roleplaying based ones such as MUDs, MUSHs and MORPHS, World of Warcraft is a popular one in the community right now).
In general we don’t include Gambling as part of Gaming but Card Games such as Poker ‘‘are’’ part of Gaming.
To get a feel of what Gaming is all about, have a look at what kind of events are ran at the many Irish conventions.
What does this site provide?
Information updated by Gamers for Gamers on anything and everything related to Irish Gaming: Conventions including a Convention Calender, where to buy stuff, Organisations and Clubs and other online Irish Gaming Resources.
It also contains historic data such as no longer running Conventions such as Icon and dead Clubs such as Fresian Games or the IGO.
How do I use this site?
To read and view content on this site, you can just browse it like any webpage. You can explore by category, by location, by random page or just look at a list of all pages.
But to really use the site requires a little more effort on your part. You the Web Surfer (that means it’s not just me writing stuff) need to keep articles up to date and add new content. To do this, just create a new account and log in. You can now edit and create articles.
There are a number of articles waiting to be written or fleshed out; have a look at the Category:Stubs to see if there is anything you can fill in. (Scenarios/Adventures can and should be made available on IrishGaming.com’s Scenario Bank).
Please note that new articles should be placed in the relevant categories and that you should make sure that small changes are marked as minor edits (otherwise you flood the RSS/Atom feed with unnecessary updates).
So there is some sort of community?
Yep you betcha. Been around a long time with some folks being involved for over ten years. Have a look at the community and the groups sections to get a feel for it.
We’ve also been writing a Letter of Introduction to the online community so that’s a good place to start to learn more.
How do I get involved?
If you want to get involved, go to one of the many conventions that are run in Ireland annually (and even quarterly); Gaelcon which is run in October in Dublin and Warpcon which is run in January in Cork are among the biggest. They are great fun and the people who run them and attend them are all very friendly. You can even write and run scenarios for them if you are so inclined and offers to staff are always welcome.
There are smaller local conventions and many other events ran by the many clubs and groups. Many of these clubs also have weekly meets, are open to new members and which provide a smaller friendly atmosphere for trying out Gaming.
Online, you can join the Igaming Mailing List and IrishGaming.com Forums and add to those ‘heated’ discussions about the Community, Roleplaying, Gaming and Life.
Recent Updates
You can take a look at the Recent Changes page for a complete detailed list of changes or you can subscribe to the RSS or Atom feeds (which are slightly more sanitised and digestible).
(These recent updates are taken from the RSS feed and may not be as accurate as the old recent changes page)
