WHAT IS DRAGON 3D???

In DRAGON 3D, all players are required to actually play their online characters LIVE IN HARDCORE fully in character, which means acting out the CHARACTER, not having the character behave as if it were yourself. Exceptions to this rule are:

1. Players may discuss technical gaming/online details of Dragon 3D at the ORCISH INN in the Friendly Town of GNORR at the start of the game.
2. Players may speak as users to the Dungeon Master only in cases where technical details are vital to gameplay or connection.
3. Dungeon Masters and Admins are exempt from this rule both in game chat and private chat.

The World of Spencer's Faerie Queen Can Be Found In Gorby's Backyard

The world of DRAGON 3D is similar to that of Spenser's Faerie Queene, borrowing some detail from L. Sprague deCamp and Fletcher Pratt's Compleat Enchanter in the sense that it uses the Fimbulwinter, Freya's Homely House, Grendel's Cave and other Odinesque details; you will find the Blatant Beast where you'd expect -- in the Withery Woods, and the usual suspects in the Mead Halls of Valhalla.

Discussing Game Details in the Mead Halls of Valhalla, Grass Valley, CA

In DRAGON 3D you will also encounter elements of the worlds of Jack of Shadows, H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allen Poe and, of course, the horrific views expressed from time to time by Gorby's longtime friend and literary agent, Forrest J Ackerman, editor of Famous Monsters Magazine during the 1970s and 80s.

Veteran Player/Film Producer Daniel Skolnik Being Fitted With +3 Armor as Photographer/Inventor James Rodney Looks On

Dragon 3D is an already enormous and constantly growing world, with emphasis on roleplaying, team cooperation, PACK OF GREEN discipline and strategy, rather than gimmicks and gingerbread.

Guild LoL members tend to prefer the elegance of simplicity and gaming speed rather than icky-sticky levels and problems that are obviously constructed to win design awards and not to actually experience.

Gorby Drums As Sorcs Enchant Low Level Chars for Advance On Dragon Lair

Environment is important, yes, to give the playing field some life and character, and to help the immersion process, but... there is a limit, and the limit is reached when the game becomes more beautiful than it is playable.

No hassles getting home. Sure, there's a bit of a walk in the overworlds, but the dungeons and overworld areas are built to return the players to the same general area from whence they entered, or there's a good gaming reason why they are forced to walk all the way back, such as a field of enemies blocking them after they've expended all their potions on the bosses. We do reserve the right to inject the unexpected diabolical plot-twist now and again...

Thorosh and Gorby Set Up Lighting At Dragon 3D Convention 2007

World Without End -- DRAGON 3D is produced by a team of game developers, for sheer fun; we make lots of original ONLINE 3d action games, and the LIVE ROLE PLAYING GAME IN HARDCORE keeps up our creative edge by letting the dice rolls come out where they may.

This means knowledge on a level beyond any computer skills. We're talking about over 120 combined years of experience running D&D, AD&D and Galaxy HexBoards since 1977! These skills translate well into DRAGON 3D, because although it's played on a LIVE ACTION FIELD such as a Celtic Festival or a street fair, the gaming itself and its moves, countermoves, dungeon monsters, lairs, combat -- and resulting damage, consquences, treasures and rewards -- are based on dice thrown percentages determining the probabilities, modified by interactions, chat and other factors as set by the Dungeon Masters for that game.

Our playing community has been running around 350+ from around the world, and every year at Labor Day we gather in a mind-boggling international party for a solid 72 hours with total verbal pandemonium! It is very awesome to gather with players from every culture on the planet. In 1999, we had over 1000 at our annual LAN party -- we had celeb players, costume awards, fantasy writers and game developers, so we drew quite a crowd.

Players of All Ages And Every Level Enjoy Dragon 3D Games -- Here at a SongFest Prior to JumpOff Point, Dragon 3D Convention, 2006

Demographics of our player ages range from teens to a young mid-80's.

We are dedicated gamers -- mostly game designers, scifi/fantasy sfwwa writers, filmmakers, tv writers, professional standup comedians, stage magicians, mathematicians, language experts, doctors, lawyers, architects, Certified Public Accountants and several tv producers and directors.

There's only so much you can do to tweak reality, beyond which you have to enter into the mysterious world of "group karma" of any given dungeon party. If you still don't know what a dungeon party is, you should check out dungeon party.com.

Thorosh (aka Xxaxx aka Claude Needham, Ph.D.) Lectures on Basics of Gaming for noob players, Mill Street Gallery, 2006

How you play your LIVE character is slightly different from your online characters. Your LIVE HARDCORE character is aware of multiple lifetimes, of a span of play over many games, even different games.

Your DRAGON 3D LIVE ROLEPLAYING CHARACTER is transferable to other games such as Diablo ii, Team Fortress 2, Godd Levels, BARDOTOWN(tm) and other online games. You can see some incredible color photos of the tabletop version of BardoTown(tm) by clicking here and screenshots of the online version of BardoTown(tm) are available on bardotown.com.

Beautiful Downtown BardoTown Can Be Visited in Hardcore During Reno AfterLife Adventures

Although there is an area where noobs can level up, most of the leveling areas are of the variety that assume that players are generally very familiar with the basics of physical and magickal combat and that you are also aware of the rules of chivalry, and of basic "server" rules, such as not "clamming up" on a party -- refusing to communicate with your Group Leader, for instance -- and/or deciding to wander off alone, away from the POG (Pack of Green) into certain disaster...

There is, of course, a sufficient amount of harassment on the way there and back that exhausted adventurers are often obliterated at least partially by the dungeon monsters on the road, and it's no use taking to the sides or the hills, because away from the roads, it's even worse trouble for travelers without potions. There are no stores in the wilderness, and no potions to be found except as random treasure spawns.

Gorby Throws Himself Into His Character, Gorby da Silversmith, in his Dragon 3D Forge

DRAGON 3D respects the Number One Rule of LIFE: What You Get Out Of It Depends Upon What You Put Into It. Gameplay in a roleplaying game means acting out the character and getting immersed in the world of that character, living its life, not the one you currently identify with, and perhaps growing inside as a result of the experience.

DRAGON 3D is intended to help the gamer learn to see and feel the separation and connection between the player and the character. When you play the character as the character, forcing yourself to think and react as the character, not the person playing the character -- in other words, you endeavor to keep your own persona/ego out of the picture during gameplay. This is the same ideal to which every serious professional actor aspires, and the best pro-gamers are able to achieve this separation and dis-identification of personality/ego with the game character with long, dedicated practice.

RolePlaying Gaming Is Not Necessarily Combat -- Gorby Working On Stone Steps Leading to Hidden Treasure Trove Before Dragon 3D Adventure

Roleplaying is not killing. Mayhem is not the only thing that happens in DRAGON 3D. The Dungeon Master must be outwitted, and our DMs are very very cunning and very very experienced, so the odds are definitely against you, which is, in a game of wits and frustration, the whole point. What fun is a game that is easily beaten? And DRAGON 3D is not an easy game to beat.

Molly Midway (Fire Sorceress) Lectures Noob Players on Leveling Your Character, Dragon 3D Convention, 2006

If you enjoyed reading Lord of the Rings far more than you enjoyed the bizarrely altered movie, you will enjoy DRAGON 3D even more, and if some of your favorite viewing experiences include Young Frankenstein, Rustler's Rhapsody, Beetlejuice, Abbott & Costello Meet the Monsters, Victor Borge, Eddie Izzard, Ernie Kovacs and Sid Caesar then you're old enough and wise enough to play DRAGON 3D!!!

You will discover that your Bardo Safari experiences will help you immensely in DRAGON 3D.

Dungeon Masters enjoy working with a Dungeon Party because it allows them to flex their DM muscles in ways that are really, truly unusual and fun to experience and learn from.

Our DMs are so doggone good that they know enough to lay in plenty of shocking and unexpected surprises before the party begins.

Plenty of Surprises Includes This UFO Landing, Dragon 3D Adventure, Grass Valley, California, 2007