begin

The very beginning

Logging on

The very first thing you need to do in order to play DM is, ofcourse, logging on to the mud. DM is located on telnet mud.nu 4000, so all you have to do is find some way to get on telnet and voila!, you have connection.
The first thing you see is the opening screen of Dutch Mountains, and (if everything is ok) a blinking cursor asking you the following:

Account or player name:

If you have never played before on DM, the first thing you need to do is to create an account. You can do this by typing 'new' at the opening screen. You'll be asked to choose a name for your account then, while a warning message points out that you can't use the name you choose for your account for one of your player characters. Since no one except immortals can see the name of your account unless you want them to, you shouldn't think too long about choosing an account name. Just pick your real name, or the name of your dog, or your father's car, whatever.

After that you'll be asked to choose a password, to type your password again, and to provide an e-mail address. This e-mail address will be used to send you a validation code of your account, so don't pick a non-existent address or an address you can't reach.

Well, after that you enter your account. The account system is pretty much self-explaining, and there is a good help function available, so I'm not gonna explain every single detail of how it works. But the first thing you should do is ofcourse create a player character, otherwise your newly created account won't be saved during the next reboot.

Creating a character

So just hit the 'c' key, to create a new character. After that, you get a warning message, followed by the following prompt:

Enter a name for your new character:

Think good before you choose. As the warning message states, DM has a name policy which forbids you to use all names that are, in general, not 'medieval'. So pick a name from a fantasy book you read, or make one up yourself. The name policy is a very touchy subject amongst DM immortals, so you are encouraged to use your common sense while choosing a name in stead of trying how far you can push the immortals. After endless explaining that names like 'fuckyoubitch', 'hotpotatoe' and 'frietekot' don't contribute to a fantasy oriented mud, you will probably get deleted faster that you can log on if you try such names.

Now then, let's suppose you chose the name 'Gobo' (ofcourse you didn't, but I have to have an example now). You will be asked if this is really the name you want to use, on which you answer yes, and then you will get the following prompt:

What race do you want to be? (Type 'Help' for info)
Valid choices are
  [Human Dwarf Giant Elf Halfelf Gnome Halfling Help]:

The choice you make know is very important for the rest of the game. If you, for example, want to play a mage-like character, it's not very wise to choose 'Giant' as race, since giants tend to be kinda stupid which isn't handy for a mage. For now, I assume you want to play a warrior (the easiest class to start with), and in that case it is handy to pick giant for race. Giants are stupid, but they are pretty stong and thus they make good warriors. If you want to know more about a race, you can type HELP at the prompt. But ok, you've chosen 'giant' for now. You'll receive the following prompt then:

What is your sex (Male/Female/Neutral) ?

This looks kinda clear to me; just pick what you like. It doesn't affect any game play variables, like strength or so, it is only important for the role you want to play. The next prompt you'll get is the following:

What class must your character have? (Type 'Help' for info)
Valid choices are
  [Cleric Thief Warrior Paladin Antipaladin Druid Help]:

Now, you need to make the most important decision of the creation process: what class are you gonna play? The question is up to you. You can get more information about the classes by typing HELP . Note that not all the classes are listed here. As a giant, you are just so plain stupid that you'll never become a good mage, or a psionicist. You are also not dextrous enough to become a decent monk. Therefore, you can't play those classes being as a Giant. For your convenience, I'll give a short listing of all the classes, including the race that is in general considered to be the best for that class.

Warrior:Imagine a big dude in heavy armor with a big sword. That's about it. Playing warrior consists of hitting hard and hitting alot. Ofcourse, you get all kind of skills, but almost all of them are used to make you hit harder/more often. But ofcourse, this can be great fun.
Best class: Giant
Paladin:A paladin is a holy warrior, devoted to the cause of good. Practically, this means that he doesn't hit as hard as a warrior, but that he has a lot of fancy skills and spells. He can, for example, heal himself, and he is very good at fighting bad monsters.
Best class: Human
Antipaladin:The antipaladin is ofcourse the opposite of the paladin, ergo, a warrior devoted to the cause of evil. An antipaladin also doesn't hit as hard as a warrior, but can cast very nasty spells and use some even nastier skills.
Best class: Human
Druid:The druid is a relative new class on DM, and therefore he hasn't much skills. The most important skill of the druid is his ability to polymorph, thereby changing into a tree. Trees have lotsa branches and thus hit *extremely* hard, which is great fun. Another nice ability of the druid is that they can brew potions from certain ingredients that can be found on several places on the mud.
Best class: Giant
Monk:If you ever dreamed of being a great martial artist, this is your change. The monk is modelled after those funny guys with orange and purple dresses, that live in monasteries in the Himalaya etc. They only hit with their bare hands, and can do some awesome things with that. Most of these things are automatic, however, so the monk is considered kinda boring to play.
Best class: Human
Thief:The thief is, well, a thief. He can pickpocket monsters, pick locks, disable traps, hide, and other thievish things. He doesn't fight very good, however, since he doesn't have many fighting skills. Backstabbing monsters is nice, however, since this can do a lot of damage.
Best class: Halfling
Cleric:The most important character on DM. Withouth a cleric, it is very hard to raise in level. Why? Clerics can:(1) heal people, which goes much faster than restoring hitpoints the normal way, and (2) cast 'sanctuary', a spell which halves all damage. When you start playing cleric, you will level very fast most of the times, since everyone can use a cleric. Playing cleric is kinda difficult, however, since you have to pay close attention most of the times and since you have an awesome lot of spells.
Best class: Dwarf
Psionicist:A psionicist is, simply put, the easiest way to get somewhere. By using the powers of their mind they can altar the patterns of reality and thereby create gateways to other places on the mud (Oh great sentence, but don't mind that: I love the psi class). They have some other nice skills as well which makes them great fun to play (at least, so I think). They are hard to level though.
Best class: Halfelf
Mage:The mage is the most versatile class on DM. They just have such an amazing array of great spells! The only problem is that they are really hard to level, since they don't hit hard and don't get much hitpoints. A mage is definetely not a good choice for a first character.
Best class: Halfelf

As I stated before, the warrior is the easiest class to play, so I assume you choose warrior for now. Then you get the following prompt:

What alignment do you want to have?
Valid choices are [Evil Neutral Good]:

For now, I'd suggest a neutral alignment. Some paladins on the mud can't stand the sight of evil players, for example, and they will attack evil players on sight. The same goes for antipaladins, who will attack very good players when they see them. During the game, it is possible to change your alignment, so your not tied to the alignment you choose now. Note that paladins are always good and antipaladins always evil, so they don't need to choose an alignment. The following question is:

Choose your hometown:
New [O]fcol     New [T]halos     [D]alessa     [K]hamor     [H]elp:

Your hometown is the place where you will start the game, and the place where you will be teleported to when you die and in some other circumstances. It doesn't really matter which one you choose, only if you are very good or very evil. In that case, I'd choose Khamor, since there aren't many paladins or antipaladins wandering about there. Now comes another important part of your future character, the statistics (stats):

Your stats: STR: 18, INT: 14, WIS: 14, DEX: 15, CON: 16 and CHA: 13
Accept these stats (Y/N)?

'Stats' describe the physical and mental conditions of your player character. The system comes from the AD&D game, in which stats are rolled using three six-sided dice. The minimum of a stat is therefore 3 and the maximum 18. Depending on your race, however, you get some modifiers to these rolls. As a giant, you get a bonus on your strenght and your constitution but penalties on your intelligence and wisdom. You can also find items in the game that raise your stats while you wear them. The absolute maximum of a stat is 25, but you don't reach that often. As a giant for example, you can get 25 CON and 25 STR, but your WIS and INT won't get higher than 18, even with equipment. I'll explain the meaning of the stats some more below:

STR(strength): Your strength determines how much weight you can carry, and when it gets higher you can do more damage.
INT(intelligence):Your intelligence affects the amount of mana (needed for spellcasting) you gain when you raise a level, and it also affects your ability to cast spells. Furthermore, a higher INT causes your mana to recover faster after you used it. Finaly, INT affects how quick you are at learning spells and skills.
WIS(wisdom):Your wisdom determines how many practice sessions (needed to practice spells and skills and to raise your stats) you get when you raise a level. Furthermore, it also has an effect on the amount of mana you restore after using it.
DEX(dexterity):Your dexterity affects the amount of moves you gain when you raise a level. It also determines how many items you can carry at a time, and it improves the change to hit an opponent.
CON(constitution):Your constitution affects the amount of hitpoints you gain when you raise a level, and it also affects the amount of hitpoints you regain while recovering from combat.
CHA(charisma):Your charisma only affects the amount of creatues you can 'charm'. This stat is therefore only important for users of the charm spells, e.g. mages en psionicists.

OK, I guess it's now clear that you should try to get your stats as high as possible. You simply do this by hitting the 'N' button until you find stats that satisfy you. You can do this as long as you want, but it tends to get boring after a while and most of the times you are so used to hitting NNNNN.. that you skip the ultimate stats by accident after half an hour rolling. Don't fear if you can't get the ultimate stats: it is possible to raise your stats later in the game. When you raise in level, you get a certain amount of practice sessions. For eight of these sessions, you can raise a stat 1 point. Since your wisdom determines the amount of practice sessions you get, this is the most important stat of all. Whatever you do, make sure your WIS is as high as possible. After wisdom, CON is most important, followed by INT. DEX, STR and CHA aren't really important in this phase of the game.

Well then, when you have found the right stats, hit the 'Y' key, followed by a few 's to skip through some welcome messages, and you are in the game!

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