Guide based off of the concept by Eris.

Street Races-

Street races can be started by anyone in any of the city sections, in Dragon City or not.

Since street races are unofficial, they have no prizes, gear or drakkals, besides the five drakkals gained per post. Gear stats have no effect on the winner of the race, unlike official races. The one thing that remains the same is that the staff are the only ones who may roll the dice to determine the winner.

When the creator of the race decides that a race has gone on long enough, they will PM a staff member with their request for a staff member to roll the dice. The member in charge of the street race must include a list of all participating members; to maintain the fairness of a street race, list the member names and not character names (this way, even if a member enters two or more characters, everybody will have a fair chance of winning).

The member who gets the highest roll will come in first. The member with the second highest roll will get second, and so on and so forth. Members may role-play out the various endings to the race, or do some post-race mingling if they choose, but it is not mandatory.

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Official Races-

Sign-Ups-

Official races can only be started by a race official. Specifically, it would either be an Elite Race Official (administrator) or Race Official (global moderator); regular moderators (Security Force) do not start races.

A race will start when a race official announces it in the ‘Sign-ups’ sub-board of the ‘Official Races’ board. They will explain the layout of the race, the prizes (except in special occasions), and all that other information they deem important. Race officials will always have a form that you must fill out in order to be counted a contestant for a race. Even if it’s not included in the form, you must also list the gear you will be using; only seven gears per dragon, maximum!

The Initial Thrust-

The race official will start the thread for the race, and all members will reply to it with their characters getting into the starting gate (it’s sort of a signal of ‘I'm ready’). When the contestants are all lined up at the starting gate (the race official thinks everything is ready), they will announce the start of the race.

The race is begun with a roll (that’s what the little dice icon in the UBBC list is for…) on a six sided dice (basically, the six sided dice represents your dragon’s natural speed, strength, etc., with no gear enhancements). No gear may be used in this first roll.

This roll determines the order in which the racers exit the gate, and thus the continuing ‘order’ of posting throughout the race. The person with the highest roll will be the first person out the gate, and the first person in the order of posting. The person with the second highest roll will be the next person out of the gate, and the second person in the posting order. So on and so forth.

This roll also determines your ‘starting’ point standings, which will be further explained below.

Example:

Let's say Bob, Helga, and Billy are in a race together. They're about to leave the gates, and the race official (me) is rolling to see who leaves the gate first.

Bob:

[dice=6]

Helga:

[dice=6]

Billy:

[dice=6]

Since Helga got the highest number on her dice roll, she is currently in the lead. Bob is in second place, and Billy is in last. Helga also has the highest points right now, three, because she is in first place (the first-thrust winner gets points equal to the number of contestants; the second place gets the next number down, then third place the next number down, and so on; even if it doesn't make sense to you, I get it, so just watch what I do, savvy?). Bob has two points and Billy has one point.

Due to Helga leaving the gate first, the owner of Helga will be the first person to make a role-play post in the race. Then Bob's owner, and then Billy's owner. Regardless of future positions, this order is held throughout the race.

Attacking and Defending-

You want to play rough during the race? Or just want to know why the heck there are attack and defense gears? Well, races are very heavily reliant on those gears.

Members may attack the two (or one, in the case of first and last place) racers closest to them at any time in the race. They may use their dragon’s or their own strength (six sides), or they may use gear to enhance the dice sides, and thus the chances they have of winning. When attacking, make it very obvious that you intend to attack. List the gears used at the end of you post in OOC format.

However, for every attack, the other will get a chance to activate a defensive gear. This will enhance their defensive roll (which will be further explained below), to try and counteract the power of the attack.

After both the attacker and defender’s posts have been made, no members may post until an official has rolled for that attack.

For every attack and defend, there are two rolls, one for the attacker and one for the defender. Whoever’s post is the higher succeeded in either attacking or defending. Whoever wins will gain one point for their score.

Example:

Lets say that, seeing as he's in last place, Billy wants to move up in the point standings. He's trailing pretty close to Bob, and decides that he wants to attack him. Billy has black shadow gear equipped (+1 attack stat - meaning one extra side to his dice roll) and Bob has blue absorption armor equipped (+3 defense stat - three more sides to his dice roll).

Billy's owner clearly states that Billy is going to attack Bob. Bob's owner clearly states that Bob has activated his blue absorption armor to block Billy's attack. Now for the dice roll.

Billy (Attack):

[dice=7]

Bob (Defense):

[dice=9]

Billy's roll was higher than Bob's, so Billy's attack was successful, and he gains one point. Now he is tied with Bob in the point standings.

Points-

So, you probably want to know how exactly you win the race. And my above sentence probably piqued your curiosity on the topic of points, too. Obviously the sub-title didn’t help either.

Alright, points are what determine who wins the race. The person who has the most points at the end of the race wins.

Thrust-

Notice that I don’t mention thrust above as a point earner? Want to know why? Thrusts can only happen at the beginning and end of a race; while they aren’t allowed during races, these are the biggest point earners. It’s still possible to win even if you get a horrible initial or final thrust, but these two thrust rolls will certainly help you a lot.

Determining a Winner-

When the race official decides that a race has gone on long enough, they will announce the ‘final thrust’, which is the last time anybody may gain points in the race. Now more attacking may be done after the race official announces it.

Racers may then activate as many thrust gear as they wish to try and get a chance at winning the last thrust, one of the most important rolls of the race. The race official will add all of the cummulated stat-adds to the dice rolls for each racer, and then roll for each racer. The point additions are the same as they are for the final thrust (the winner gets points equal to the number of contestants, the second place winner gets the next number down in points, and so on and so forth).

Example:

Helga, Bob, and Billy have been battling it out in the race for some time now. Let's say that their point standings are this:

Helga: 12 points

Bob: 13 points

Billy: 10 points

The race official has just announced that they have reached the final thrust of the race. All of the racers activate as many thrust gears as they can to try and cross the finish first. So as not to waste space listing gear, just assume that their dice rolls are as such:

Helga:

[dice=15]

Bob:

[dice=10]

Billy:

[dice=13]

Helga's roll was highest, so she got the three points and raised her points to fifteen. Bob came in last, getting only one point and raising his standing to fourteen. Billy, although he came in second and got two points, only managed to bring his point standing up to twelve. Since Bob's points were more than his, he still got third place. Helga got first place, and Bob got second place.

Prizes-

Prizes can vary as much as the race official of the race chooses to allow. The length, ‘difficulty’, and even the different whims of the race official can all help decide what the prizes for the race will be.

The race prizes, however, in drakkal amounts, will always be between 75 and 700 drakkals, and the gear prizes will never go above ‘+8’ in stats. There might be the odd occasion where this rule is broken (usually with the intent of something very big happening soon), but this will be the norm of prizes for the races.

Suggesting a Race-

Have an idea for a race that you would like to suggest (I mean something original, not just ‘an oval track’)? Send that idea to me (Cepheus), and I’ll decide whether or not to use your race idea (provided it’s better than the previous example, hasn’t been done before, and doesn’t seem too heavily based off of another race, it will probably be used). You probably won’t get to see your race for a while, as races can take a very long time, but it’ll probably make it up there at some point.