Deulmasters FAQ -- At long last!!!STERS -- FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

From: johnjohn@cco.caltech.edu (John Carlos White)

Date: Fri, 14 May 1993 17:46:02 +0000

Note from the compiling-thing:

This FAQ post was started because of the number of people who asked
what Duelmasters is all about.  Not only does it explain that, but it
should answer many of the questions that beginning managers have about
the game.

Personally, I feel that Duelmasters is a game of exploration and
experimentation.  The game isn't documented well - on purpose.  RSI
feels that every person should learn about the game by playing it.  It
adds to the "exploratory" aspect -- it's easy to learn, but very
difficult to master.  Unfortunately, RSI doesn't really tell you
enough about the game to survive, so most new managers learn the ropes
by having someone explain some of the basics to them.  It is in this
spirit that I started to compile these FAQ's; hopefully, reading them
will help you understand the basic tenets of the game and understand
the basic information that you need to succeed.  You should find that
most managers will be willing to share information when conversing
over the NET, but I do hesitate to boldly write down information that
people have spent years finding out.  I have tried to include all
"common knowledge" items, so you'll have to figure out, or ask for
anything more.

May your sword shine, and your enemies scream!

Thanatos
aka John White:  johnjohn@cco.caltech.edu

WHAT IS DUELMASTERS?
HOW MUCH ROOM IS THERE FOR ROLE-PLAYING?
HOW DO I START MY TEAM?
HOW DO I KNOW WHICH ROLLUPS ARE GOOD AND WHICH
AREN'T?
WHAT IS THE DARK ARENA (DA) ?
WHAT ARE THE FIGHTING STYLES?
WHICH STYLE IS THE BEST?
WHICH WEAPON IS THE BEST?
WHAT KIND OF ARMOR IS THE BEST?
WHAT IS MEANT BY "RUNNING" A WARRIOR?
WHAT EFFECT DOES EACH OF THE TACTICS HAVE?
WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO RUN...
WHAT IS TRAINING?
WHAT IS AN EXPERT RATING AND WHAT DOES IT DO?
HOW MANY SKILLS DOES IT TAKE TO GET AN EXPERT RATING?
HOW ARE WARRIORS RANKED?
WHAT IS AD OR ADM?
WHAT DOES [insert term/abbreviation] MEAN?
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN REGULAR DM AND AD?
HOW DO I WIN?
HOW DO I FIND OUT MORE?
ARE THERE SPECIAL EVENTS?

WHAT IS DUELMASTERS?

Duelmasters is a play by snail-mail game which simulates gladiatorial
combat in an arena setting.  Each players is the manager of a stable
of 5 warriors and is responsible for evaluating potential, deciding
fighting strategy, deciding challenges, and a host of other things.

HOW MUCH ROOM IS THERE FOR ROLE-PLAYING?

Most active players take on a managerial persona to interact with
other players.  Players have an entire section of the arena newsletter
to write personal ads to each other, as well as writing team
spotlights and a separate column for the arena Duelmaster.  Here is
are some example ads culled from the pages of DM-18's personals on
turn 159:

Half Pint -- Change your name! how about Half-man? Half-Worth?
Half-Life? -- Mega Spritz!, the Wizardguard destroyer!
Andruil -- These challenges aren't personal, are they?  Hey I don't mind
the wins, but I'll take 4 skills over a win any day! -- Thanatos

You get the idea.  Of course, you could get people mad at you by
writing personals like this!

HOW DO I START MY TEAM?

The address of the company which runs Duelmasters is:

Reality Simulations Inc.
P.O. Box 22400
Tempe, AZ 85285-2400
(602) 967-7979 - Customer Service

1.	Write to them (or call) and request a team set up.

2.	In 1-6 weeks, you will get an envelope with the roll-up rules
and five brand-new warriors.  They will each have 70 points randomly
assigned to them in the areas of Strength, Constitution, Size, Wit,
Will, Speed, and Deftness.  You will have 14 points with which you can
customize your warrior (You can add a maximum of 6 points to any one
stat.  Size is unalterable.  No stat may be higher than 21).

Example:
Str	12	+1	13
Con	5		5
Siz	10		10
Wit	11	+6	17
Wil	12	+5	17
Spd	9		9
Dft	11	+2	13

3.	After you design your warriors, you decide whether you want to
be in a 2 week turnaround game or a 4 week game.  You can ask to be in
a specific arena, or have RSI randomly assign you to one.

4.	After fill in out the form completely, you send it back to
RSI.  The next time the arena is run (the next turn), they will send
you your warrior overviews, which will tell you basic information
about your warriors.

5.	Then you can fill out strategy sheet for reach of the warriors
and send that back.  Ah, something important: Each turn costs $3.25
+$1.50/warrior fought (i.e. the maximum cost is $10.75 for 5
warriors).  No money, no play.

6.	On the next turn, you'll get sent a blow-by-blow printout of
your warriors' fights.  Evaluate your fights, and repeat steps 5&6
indefinitely.

One of the first things your should do is request "The Red Book of
Alastari."  It gives a pretty good general game overview with weapons,
armor, fighting style, and tactic descriptions.

HOW DO I KNOW WHICH ROLLUPS ARE GOOD AND WHICH AREN'T?

That really depends on what you think good is.  Some managers delight
in running warriors for 10 fights, winning and killing as much as they
can, and then Dark Arena'ing the warrior.  Others run warriors over
the long haul, aiming for success in AD, the advanced game.

Generally, long term warriors stress the stats that bring a warrior
skills (wit, will, deftness, and to a certain degree, speed).  Short
term warriors (dixies, power warriors, 10-and-outs) usually stress the
stats which bring speed, power and damage (will, strength, speed, and
size).  They also usually have a serious deficit in wit or will.  A
GOOD way to find out what to do with your rollups is to post them on
the net and ask "what should I do?"  You'll get answers.  If you don't
want to be so public, then email someone.

It is important to note that warrior design theory is EXTREMELY
dynamic.  It really isn't something that can be nailed down.  If you
keep your self from experimenting with warrior design, you're really
missing out on the fun of the game.

WHAT IS THE DARK ARENA (DA) ?

The Dark Arena is where managers send the warriors which they don't
want any more.  There, they fight RSI generated warriors of tremendous
power.  Fights are always to the death.  It is possible to win in the
DA, but not very likely.  Note: Whenever one of your warriors dies, in
the DA or in normal combat, you get a new rollup, free of charge.
There are warriors who can win consistently in the DA, but they are EXTREMELY
rare.

WHAT ARE THE FIGHTING STYLES?

When you fill out the rollup sheet (both team and individual, you must
choose a "life-long" fighting style for each of your warriors.  The 10
styles are Lunging, Striking, Bashing, Slashing, Aimed Blow, Wall of
Steel, Parry-Strike, Parry-Riposte, Parry-Lunge, and Total Parry.  A
description of each style is available in the "Red Book of Alastari"
which you can get from RSI for free, if you're a player.  It is the
interaction between the styles that makes a large part of strategy in
Duelmasters.

WHICH STYLE IS THE BEST?

Good question.  Each style has its strengths and weaknesses.  For
example, most offensive styles have very strong offense, and are
weaker on defense.  Some styles have very good endurance, while some
don't.  Some styles do well short-term, while some excell over the
long term.  It's all a matter of taste.  Most people recommend that
new managers start off running Bashers and Lungers, as they are easy
to design and run.  I don't know about the first part of that
statement, but I find that they are pretty easy to run.

Also, if I found the design of the ultimate win ning machine after
several years of game play and hundreds, or even thousands of dollars,
it would be kind of silly for me to tell a beginning manager, wouldn't
it?

WHICH WEAPON IS THE BEST?

Different weapons suit different styles.  Following this post is a
chart which tells which weapons are suited to which styles, and one to
tell what stats are needed to use them.  Also, each warrior has his
own "favorite" weapon, with which he performs even better.  Experiment
with different weapons until you find his favorite!

WHAT KIND OF ARMOR IS THE BEST?

That too depends on several things.  Heavy armor protects the best,
but weighs down your warrior, taxing endurance, and even penalizing
decise and init.  That hurts styles that are based on drawing out
endurance as long as possible while still being extremely offensive,
like lungers and strikers.  Defensive styles, like the Total Parry or
"tank" parry-strike, which try to wear down their opponent by going
pure defensive, usually do well with heavy armor.

On the warrior's overview, there is a line on encumbrance: Here are
the means by which to deceipher the words:

PHRASE	WEIGHT
	Very Little Carry	9
	Cannot Carry A Lot	18
	Normal (no comment)	27
	Good Carry	36
	Tremendous Carry	45
	Seemingly Unlimited	54

The numbers are a recommendation on the MAXIMUM amount of armor
and weapons you should carry.  The number can be exceeded, but
there are penalties in init, decise, and endurance.

WHAT IS MEANT BY "RUNNING" A WARRIOR?

This can mean the particular selection of armor and weapons but
usually centers around the most variable aspect of the game: The
strategy input area of the strategy sheet.  This part has five
variables for each minute 1 to 6+ of the fight and a desperation
strategy as well.  The five variables are Offensive Effort, Activity
Level, Kill Desire, Offensive Tactic, and Defensive Tactic.  The first
three are mandatory for each minute, and vary from 1 to 10, 10 being
highest.  The last two are optional and have letter codes for the the
tactics (Bash, Slash, Lunge, Decise or Parry, Dodge, Riposte,
reSponsive).  So to say that I run my Lungers 10-10-10-L in minute one
means that I use a 10 offensive effort, activity level, and kill
desire with a Lunge tactic for the first minute of his fight.

WHAT EFFECT DOES EACH OF THE TACTICS HAVE?

This is described in the Red Book, but here's a rough description.
Note: the Red Book lists which styles can use which strategies, so
request it!!!

BASH: The bash tactic modifies the warrior to a more stable stance,
focusing on landing blows with increased power.  The tactic increases
the chance of smashing **through** a parry, and _slows_ down the
warrior (penalizes decise and init).

SLASH: Has much the same effect of the bash tactic, slowing down the
warrior, but increasing damage and the ability to twist around to
parry.

LUNGE: Increases the power of the lunge, and ability to slip attacks
past blows.  I'm uncertain whether it slows down the warrior.  It may
actually increase init.

DECISE: This tactice increases the warrior's ability to get the jump
on the opponent and get in the first blow, at the cost of attack and
defense penalties.

As for the defensive tactics:

PARRY: Increases warrior's ability to block blows aimed at him.
Penalizes attack, init, and decise.  Probably defense and riposte too.

DODGE: Warrior focuses on trying to avoid and step around blows, at
the cost of offensive skill areas.

RIPOSTE: The warrior focuses on catching the opponent in that crucial
instant when the attack has failed, and the opponent hasn't recovered
enough to defend yet.  Actually helps attack, but penalizes parry and
defense skills.

RESPONSIVENESS: The least used tactic, is very much like Decise in a
defensive manner.  The warrior fucuses on moving instantly to foil the
opponents attack and attempt to riposte.

WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO RUN...

Good question again.  This is actually harder than you might think.
Different managers run different styles different ways.  Also,
warriors are individuals, and have a favorite fighting rhythm at which
the perform better.  Find this rhythm!!  By the way, this is one of
the main discussions on the net, so feel free to join in on the
question asking!!

By the way, a future addition to this post will hopefully include a
section to suggest basic strategies with which you can experiment
with.

WHAT IS TRAINING?

On each fight, you have the option to train either a stat or try to
learn skills for each of your warriors.  Stat training is based on
will.  You have roughly a 5% chance of rasing a stat for each point of
will divided by the number of times you've raised that stat before + 1
(will*5/[# of previous raises +1]).  Learning skills is based on how
high your wit is.  Dennis Cleary claims that a 17 wit warrior averages
2 skills a fight, and a 13 wit warrior averages 1 skill a fight.  Your
warriors will learn skills in six different areas: attack, initiative,
and decisiveness are the offensive skills while Parry, Defense
(dodging), and Riposte (the counter-attack) are the defensive ones.
The more skills a warrior learns, the better he becomes as a fighter.

WHAT IS AN EXPERT RATING AND WHAT DOES IT DO?

When your warrior has learned enough skills in an area, he will be
rated expert in that area.  This gives your warrior a definite boost
in terms of ability in that area.  For example, the closer you get to
an expert rating in attack, the greater you chance of hitting, doing
extra damage, and of making a critical attack (those really flashy
moves).  There are currently six levels of expertise: Expert, Advanced
Expert, Master, Advanced Master, Grand Master, and Arch Master.

HOW MANY SKILLS DOES IT TAKE TO GET AN EXPERT RATING?

That number is individual for every warrior.  it generally depends on
your warrior's stats and a random "luck factor" that is thrown in.  It
is possible to get Expert or even Advanced Expert in one (or more)
areas on the initial overview, but that is haphazard although
desirable.

HOW ARE WARRIORS RANKED?

The arena ranking system is based on the idea of "recognition points."
Warriors generally gain these points from winning a fight.  they lose
points for losing a fight.  It is possible to lose to a higher ranked
warrior and gain points for a good showing (if your warrior was
sufficiently lower ranked).  The points system serves mainly to divide
the warriors into three main classes: Initiates, Adepts, and Champions
(with the Duelmaster at the very top).  This system serves by keeping
warriors of different classes from being matched up with each other
(i.e. Initiates can only be matched up with each other).  For the
purposes of challenging warriors, the top performers of each class
(the challenger class) can challenge up into the next class.  So
Challenger Initiaties can challenge the warriors of the Adept class
(but not vice versa) as well as other Challenger Initiates and
Initiates.

WHAT IS AD OR ADM?

When a warrior has been determined to be skilled enough and
experienced enough, he is invited to the game of Advanced Duelmasters,
which is also discussed in this newsgroup (to the despair of the
diplomacy fiends).  In AD, warriors are immortal, and continue to
train to become the ultimate warriors.  There is the original AD
arena, three regionals, Home Guard (for the guys who won't do well in
AD even though they did qualify), and Primus (the best of the best of
the best).  Ultra Primus is coming soon apparently.

WHAT DOES [insert term/abbreviation] MEAN?  (submitted by Demon)

Duelmasters is a term rife with terms and abbreviations that can
confuse outsiders.  In order to help you understand the discussions
on the net better, the following is a glossary of common terms and
abbreviations in no particular  order.

DM - Duelmaster, the top warrior in an arena.
       - The game Duelmasters.
    ADM - The Advanced Duelmasters game.  This is not a seperate
          product of RSI's, but rather a higher level of DM that
          warriors go to after meeting certain criteria.
    AD - Advanced Duelmasters.
    Primus - An Advanced Duelmasters arena that ADM warriors go to
             after meeting certain criteria within ADM.
    manager - a person who runs a DM team
    manager (nick) name - most players do not use their real name in
                          the game, and instead take on a pseudonym.
                          For example, mine is Demon, and John's is
                          Thanatos.
    AB - Aimed blow style warrior
    BA - Bashing attack style warrior
    LU - Lunging attack style warrior
    SL - Slashing attack style warrior
    ST - Striking attack style warrior
    PL - Parry- lunge style warrior
    PR - Parry-riposte style warrior
    PS - Parry-strike style warrior
    TP - Total parry style warrior
    WS - Wall of Steel style warrior
    scum - a warrior who parries attacks or absorbs punishment (or
           both) in order to tire his opponent out, usually trying to
           win by having his opponent drop from exhaustion.
         - all TPs (erroneous use)
    waste - Wall of Steel style warrior
    Att - Attack skill area
    Dec - Decisiveness skill area
    Init - Initiative skill area
    Def - Defense (dodge) skill area
    Rip - Riposte (counter-strike) skill area
    DM# - Duelmasters game number #
    arena # - Duelmaster game number #
    tourney - one of the periodic tournaments RSI runs, often denoted
              by the month or season they occur in (eg. April
              tourney).
    FtF - Face-to-Face tournament, a duelmasters convention that
          coincides with one of the tournaments.  In order to
          particpate in the tournament you either have to be present,
          or have someone who is present run your warriors for you.
          Quite a fun event.  NOTE: normally there is only one FtF a
          year, held in Tempe, Arizona in January or February, but in
          1991 there was also a summer FtF held in Baltimore,
          Maryland the weekend before the Origins convention.  It is
          not known at this time whether this will become a regular
          (or even semi-regular) event.
    Home Guard - An Advanced Duelmasters arena that is open to
                 warriors that have achieved a certain level of
                 mediocrity and experience.  Not a pleasant fate for
                 a warrior, but it is better than losing all of the
                 time.
    Regional AD - The three Advanced Duelmasters arenas only open to
                  warriors from arenas with a specific nationality.
                  See Alistari, Andorian Federation, Delarquan
                  Federation, Free Blades
    Alistari - The fictional continent that the Duelmasters games
               take place in.  Is made up of three political factions
               consisting of a number of city states and smaller
               empires.
    Andorian Federation - One of Alistari's political factions, often
                          portrayed as being the "good guys."  Is
                          represented in Advanced Duelmasters by the
                          Andorak arena.
    Delarquan Federation - One of Alistari's political factions,
                           often portrayed as being the "bad guys."
                           Is represented in Advanced Duelmasters by
                           the Darkholm arena.
    Free Blades - One of Alistari's political factions.  Is
                  represented in Advanced Duelmasters by the Free
                  Blades arena.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN REGULAR DM AND AD?

Immortality.  Flashier descriptions.  Contact with the best managers
in Alastari (if they deign to listen).  Fighting against the guy who
just won the last tourney, killing three people on the way.  AD
"politics."  I don't want to spoil it for you.

HOW DO I WIN?

I've always contended that you're winning if you're having fun.  I
know one guy who wants to have the top Primus warrior some day (Me
too!  So do a _lot_ of people).  I know another who wants to have the
first team to get 100 kills.  It all depends on what you have a taste
for...

HOW DO I FIND OUT MORE?

There is a program to help new managers get the have of the game, the
DM Sponsor program, where a very experienced manager explains things
to inexperienced (or bad) managers.  A sponsor who has read this
newsgroup pointed out that often times, new mangers will write asking
very broad questions (how do I make a parry-lunger who will destroy
every other warrior ever made?), which they tend not to answer.  They
don't want to spread out that precious information, any more than you
would if you spent the years and thousands to get it.  The best way to
get a response is to have a very specific question which won't take
_too_ long to answer (include a self addressed stamped envelope!).
You can get a list of the DM Sponsors from RSI.  For immediate
gratification, or a close approximation thereof, POST YOUR DAMN
QUESTIONS ON THE NET!!  I, at least, really enjoy interacting with
other people who play Duelmasters for the purpose on discussion. So do
most of the others, and our collective knowledge of the game and
experience with it is pretty high.  We enjoy it.  That's why we bother
to read and post.

ARE THERE SPECIAL EVENTS?

Yes, there are four tournaments a year.  Two are mail in, and two are
face-to-face at hotels; one that seems to move to various regions and
one in Tempe, AZ.  The tournaments usually have a great prize, but
horrible odds (200-400 warriors in each division).  There is another
event called the Bloodgames, run annually.  In the Bloodgames, you run
a team in a 10 turn Bloodbath with the top three warriors advancing
straight to Advanced Duelmasters.  Hook: You get to design one warrior
on your team from scratch...

Well that's the end.  Again, if you have any questions about the post,
email me or post.  If you want to see another FAQ added to the post,
contact me and we'll iron out the wording.

As I said before, RSI doesn't document the game thoroughly, so the
information in this post has been gained through experimentation by
someone, or is just theory.  It is possible that some of the
information is mistaken so if you find some, contact me and I'll
revise it!  Again, if you want to discuss, contact me or post!  As a
last word of advise, don't worry about becoming a spectacular manager
until you have the basics down.

C-ya!

Once again,
Thanatos mgr. Deathknights in Arena 18
John White
johnjohn@cco.caltech.edu