Black Dragon Inn
Black Dragon Inn, often abbreviated as Blkdragon Inn or BDI, is a medieval Fantasy online text-based role-playing game played over IRC. The game is named after the fictional inn in the setting where almost all of the roleplay takes place. With some restrictions, players are able to create any characters within the fantasy genre and "play" them, whether interacting with each other or building storylines for their characters to go through. The IRC channel BDI uses is #Blkdragon*Inn on the SorceryNet server. Another channel, #BDI*OOC for "Out of character", is where the player community interacts outside of the game setting.
BDI's open setting and broad player base make it the most populated channel on the SorceryNet IRC server. It is considered by many roleplayers to be one of the oldest and most established online freeform roleplaying games there is.
Setting and roleplay
The Black Dragon Inn is located inside the city of Drache in the fictional kingdom of Arangoth, a sort of nexus for world trade, travel and adventuring. This helps explain the stark diversity of characters from all over the setting world which has over 25 unique player-created countries and nationalities. Some of these places include the militaristic Imperium of Alesia; the forest-covered Elvendeep; the dangerous orc kingdom of Zul Kiras and the faraway, orient-inspired islands of Xiunhai-la and Panguro. The open setting permits players to make up any homeland they wish for their characters, as long as it stays within the genre and isn't a real world country such as for instance, Japan.
As with most medieval fantasy settings, many characters tend to be members of fictional humanoid races such as elves, dwarves, shapeshifters, orcs, as well as darker ones like vampires or demons. A great deal of races also tend to be player-invented such as the tail-bearing Leturians. Since there are few restrictions on character types, the professions, ambitions and lifestyles of the characters vary tremendously as do their reactions to each other. Seafaring captains, warriors, arcane mages and priests of various fictional deities are only a few examples. With BDI being as open as it is and requiring no player or character registration in order to roleplay, one encounters many different writing styles there as well.
While a majority of the roleplay centers around encounters and interactions of strangers or acquaintances in the inn, this location is often used as a meeting point to start a storyline set elsewhere in the city or the world. The storylines are run by the players themselves, often under the guiding hand of the storyline's creator who is for that duration called a GM or Game Master. Storylines range in length and player involvement from as little as a day with two players to as long as a year with the entire channel participating. BDI's operators have run several large-scale events in the past that have put the city of Drache under supernatural siege or created an international fighting tournament at the local arena, among others.
At any given time there are usually no less than fifty players inside the main channel, some of whom are usually roleplaying. This is one of the unusual facets of BDI, that roleplay can be found there almost 24 hours a day.
Out of character
BDI's Out of character room or OOC is a chat room that players use to talk to one another and discuss what's going on in character or any other topics. Often storylines get discussed in the OOC channel before they are implemented in character. Since many people wind up making friends with their fellow roleplayers in here, the OOC channel has become the center of an online community where roleplayers come to chat.
History and background
Created on the EFNet IRC server in 1995 by players named BLKDRAGON and AngelSin, the channel has kept growing to this day. It had since moved networks twice, first to StarChat in 2000 and then to SorceryNet in 2003. While few of the channel's original creators are around any more, BDI had continued under its own momentum with its steadily large player base. A number of associated spinoff channels split off from BDI over the years one of which is DragonMyst Inn.
The world map is constantly under development through the consensus of everyone who has IDeaS for the setting. A team of operators supports the channel, producing ideas, enforcing the rules and assisting players with various facets of roleplaying.