A Quick-Start

Guide for Guests

You're going to your first FALO gather and you aren't sure what you should do, how much you need to know about your character, what will be expected of you, what the rules are, etc. Well, to begin with, you won't be "expected" to do much of anything except try to portray your character and respectfully attend the brief meeting, moderated by an elder, where members introduce themselves and their guests and FALO-centric announcements are made. While the rest of the day and evening is predominantly in-character, the meeting, you will discover, has both in-character and out-of-character elements. This is necessitated by the need address elements of FALO that simply cannot be done smoothly and quickly in-character.

What do you need to know about your character? You should have a rough idea of what your character is about, but if you don't have everything worked out quite yet, don't worry. If someone asks you a question you haven't prepared for, you can either make something up on the spot (you won't likely be held to it forever; the whole point of being a guest is to experiment), or you can politely whisper that you haven't worked out that detail, and your conversation partner will nod knowingly (we've all been there) and steer the conversation in another direction. The key is to try to remain in character and share in the camaraderie, food, music, and whatever roleplays you feel comfortable in participating in.

As to roleplays... a FALO gather is not a planned game event. It is a gathering of characters, and those characters interact in a setting within the FALO world of E'atara as is appropriate to those... well, characters. While the whole day technically involves roleplaying, members each have their own story line and may set up a short scenario termed a "roleplay." Such roleplays often take the form of an unexpected event or visitor that augment someone's story line and is intended to involve others in that story. Roleplays can often generate a sequence of events/decisions that result in undertaking a quest (often carried out "between gathers" and either written or told later).

Some gathers are roleplay heavy; others are relatively calm. Not everyone participates in every roleplay. The nature of your character depends on whether you do and how. Many people only watch the first couple of gathers until they get a feel for things. Others jump right in with their characters. Either is fine. The key is, you can't force someone to react a certain way, you can't harm or kill another member's character (unless such is planned in advance), and you can't invalidate another character by disregarding what he/she should be able to do. For instance, a healer heals. If a roleplay requires that someone not be healed, the orchestrator of that roleplay will usually talk to the healers in advance and work out a reason. It isn't appropriate just to make a character fail because it suits your story. This is the main reason many people start slow in interacting with roleplaying scenarios. There are no dice or cue cards to determine what happens, and it takes a little time to learn how roleplays unfold and which characters are capable of what.

To help you out a little more, below are links to a few key things someone new to FALO might want to look over before going to their first gather:

Character Guidelines - these are important because FALO does not accept everything.

Key By-Law Sections:

     Section A, Purpose and Definition - a little about what FALO is about.

     Section G, Health and Safety - how to be healthy and safe at a gather.

     Section I, Roleplay - the formal version of what is expressed above.

     Section K, Guests - a little about you.

FALO Chronicle 2007-2008 - a look at the highlights of some of the more recent gathers.

FALO Files - character sketches of current members.

FALO Forum - The FALO message board and chatroom is a great place to meet people, learn a little more about FALO, and delve into fantasy in general. You must register on the message board in order to have access to the chatroom.

Also make use of the member who invites you. They are a valuable resource and will want to help you have a good experience. At one time or another, they have also faced most of the questions before you... if they haven't, they likely know who to go to for an answer.