The Basics

Oh, heck! There's a dice system? What's that? How the heck do you do it?

What's a Dice System?
To add both randomness and logic to our RP, sometimes we roll a dice to determine the success of an event. It's a more sophisticated version of flipping a coin to decide if your character did or didn't do a thing. This is why D&D players go around with little bags of surprisingly expensive polyhedrons. You give up a little bit of control - with a dice system, you can't just declare that you sneakily stole the artifact right off the snake-infested altar - but you also gain a little bit of security, because it means that someone can't just declare that the artifact sneakily snuck off the snake-infested altar to steal you.

How to Roll
Blizzard has provided us with a fancy random number generator*. To use it, you simply type /roll, then the number of 'sides' you want your dice to have, then hit Enter. It will generate a whole number between 1 and the number you specify. Type in /roll 20, and you have a 20 sided dice. Type in /roll 100, and you've got a 100 sided dice.

So, let's say you really want that artifact, snakes be damned. Probably, the person running the event has predicted your thiefy ways, and tells the group to roll to steal the artifact, but if they haven't, you simply message them and let them know your character is going to try. They then will tell you to roll for it.

Be polite! Don't just randomly roll without letting the event-runner know what you're doing! They're herding cats right now, and a lot of extra rolls are confusing!

So, you roll. The event-runner has already determined what number you have to beat to be successful. Sometimes they'll let you know what you need to beat, and sometimes they'll just tell you whether or not you did it. Either way, your next emote should reflect what happened.

Hitpoints
You start with a pool of hitpoints, as determined by the event-runner. As you are attacked, they go down, and as you're healed, they go up. The same holds for enemies. It is generally polite to keep track of your HP in your TRP - ideally under your Currently, so that healers can quickly determine who needs healing. You can also keep track of it with pen and paper, or any other method you'd like.

Injury and Death
Injury is always a possibility. Ruins are often haunted, and many spirits don't care about the subtle difference between 'archaeologist' and 'grave robber'. Valuable artifacts are often valuable because they are dangerous, and dangerous things are always sought by dangerous people. If you don't want your character to ever be injured, adventuring is probably not for you.

Death is a different matter. While your character can definitely be reduced to 0 HP, it's up to you if that means they really died. The specific alternative - KOed for the duration of the fight, KOed for the duration of the adventure, whatever - is up to the event-runner, but actual death  is up to the player.

Customization
Exactly what is a successful roll to hit? How much damage does it do? How do you heal? All of this is up to the event-runner, and is usually explained at the start of the first round of combat in an adventure. If you're ever confused, don't be afraid to ask questions!


 * Here is a footnote on colloquial usage of mathematical terms. For our purposes, it is close enough to random.