I've never played traditional pen and paper games but I've always wanted to try and the cloest to that is 'Play-by-Post' (PbP), forum-styled RP. How does it works? Basically, one user is the Dungeon Master (DM), and we have several players all playing their own character, the DM makes a post about the scenario and we post our character's actions and reactions. This works in combat as well.

We sends 20 rolls for our characters to the DM, he will use each roll for each action, sometimes rolling secretly against us, if he needs to, and strikes the roll off the list.

I have since played 4 'Play-by-Post' games so far and it's been alot of fun. Believe it or not, it's rather addictive.

The first PbP game I played was named 'Local Heros' where our characters all start from Level 1. I played a female sun elf wizard, named Istrienille Silverleaf (alias Isi). And leveling one level took us 2 months. Phew! Things are a bit slow on PbP, since we all have to wait for all players to post their turn and with all of us residing in different parts of the world, this takes a while. But in game time, it only took 1 day to level up.

Isi starts off being a typical aloof, arrogant and unfriendly sun elf who gradually warms up to her allies.

The second PbP game was 'Whisper Company' where my character is another sun elf, named Ithilwen Autumnfire. Warmage level 3. Well, I do love elves and I love to play a spellcasting class, and sun elves have their flavored class in wizard. Ithilwen is a stoic elf who speaks very little and only when she has something factual to say, which is not much. She does not like small talk and thinks that small talks are a waste of time. Needless to say, she didn't click very well with her allies. She's true neutral.

Having played 2 PbP games was still not enough for me. When someone starts a 3rd PbP game, I jumped onto the wagon soon. This time I played an Neutral Evil half-moon elf, hexblade level 6. She's cold, scheming and attractive. Manipulating her ways to profit and benefits, she is open to any sort of alliances as long as there is something worthwhile wagered.

Interestingly, the forum I am a staff at started a staff RP and it was the most fun of all the PbP games I'm playing so far. I'm playing another spellcaster - aren't you sick of hearing me say that? A star elf sorceress and dragon disciple, named Axilya Ellarion. Axilya has 20 charisma points, which should lend weight to whatever she says. :D

Axilya is a little naive but kind elf who's always been sheltered by her father, a moon elf in his fourth century. On the way back to Evereska, her father signed up on a quest he could not refused but deemed too dangerous for Axilya to tag along, therefore ordered her to return to Evereska on herself.

Naughty Axilya wandered around and found herself in Baldur's Gate where she heard someone looking for a group of adventurers to help investigate the death of Gorion - a harper mage who had a bhaalspawn ward under his care. (Yeah, altered-storyline of Baldur's Gate)

Axilya being playful and with a lust for adventures, decided to sign on the expedition even though she was supposed to return to Evereska. Among those who signed up were several interesting characters, two of whom were sun elves; one from Evereska and the other from Evermeet.