Beginner's Manual

Walkthrough (recommended for all beginners, but especially those who are new to Proboards or forum RPGs!)
With so much information at your fingertips, it's hard to know where to begin. That's totally understandable - Cimarron isn't a complex game, but since there's so much you can do in the game, there is a plethora of information to sift through. This walkthrough is how we recommend you get started here at Cimarron. You can do things out of order if you wish, or even skip steps (not recommended), but this is simply what we thought would be the easiest way to introduce you to Cimarron.

➤ First, read the rules. Rules are important. These are the things that can get you in trouble if you don't pay attention to. Don't wanna get kicked off the site unintentionally? Good, we don't either! Take a look at this very small list of rules and you'll be good to go. Proceed to the next step only if you think you can handle and adhere to these rules.
➤ Next, go ahead and join. Read more about joining accounts below under Joining (because yes, there's a specific way to do it).
➤ Now is the time to get started with the game. You'd think the first step would be creating your character, right? Well, it is, but you should know a few things about characters before you go creating a bunch. This is why we recommend visiting the Guidebook now.
➤ The Guidebook has information about every single aspect of gameplay you'll face - from creating characters and claiming land, to round ups and life in the human world. Some information may be more relevant to you (and your characters) than others, but everything that applies to you, you should make yourself familiar with.
➤ There's a ton of other information in the game essentials board that can help you become familiar with the game in general. For example, check out the plot to read more into the story of Cimarron and what's going on in the game. If you're lost as to where to post from time to time, check out the atlas, where a site map can be found that describes the purpose of each board in the forum.
➤ If you're interested in a canon character (meaning a character that was actually in the Spirit movie), you'll need to try out for the role. Check out the canon character list to find the one you're interested in, and then go to the News & Events board to see what try-outs are currently being held. If you don't see the one you're looking for, reply to this thread and tell us what canon you want to try out for, and we'll get the try-out set up just for you.
➤ Now you wait for your character to be accepted and/or for the try-out results to be released. As soon as that happens, you can begin to play!

Cimarron Basics
Okay, so you find yourself here at Cimarron, and you may be wondering "what on earth am I looking at?" Well to begin, for the sake of simplicity, we'll assume you know what a roleplay is, and how it works on the Proboards platform. (If this is not the case, however, all of our staff are eager to answer any and every question you may have for us. We won't mind introducing you to things - we're just glad to have piqued your interest!)

With that settled, Cimarron is an account-per-character roleplay. This means that, for every character you have, you'll need to create and maintain a separate profile for them. In the past, Proboards roleplays typically let you have multiple characters on one account; and though it worked well enough back then, after a while, people began to realize that it might be beneficial to let each character have their own profile, enabling them to post in and keep track of their own threads. With the introduction of the newer Proboards version 5 came the development of plugins - apps that allowed forum moderators to install features that provided further personalization of their sites, one of which being the Shop feature. This plugin allows users to purchase items using a site-based currency that can affect the game experience, whereas before, if an RPG wanted to offer game items to players and their characters, things had to be done manually - a method that consumed much more time and effort and did not guarantee accuracy. Now that we are able to utilize the Shop plugin, having separate accounts for everyone's characters makes sense, as each character can accrue and use their own items as they wish, and staff no longer need to manually add or remove virtual items and money. In addition, v5 allows forum members to easily switch between accounts with the click of a button.

Other features of Cimarron should also be mentioned. We do not have a word count minimum for your posts; this way, we can encourage you to actually write instead of worry about writing enough. This also helps people to reply faster, since they don't have to meet a length requirement if they are running short on muse, and people don't have to write or read through 'filler' text that rambles on and on just to meet a quota.

Joining
So you want to be a part of Cimarron - awesome! If you haven't already, the obvious first step is to create an account. You should join with the username you'd like to use as your alias. This is the name you, the player, will be known by around the forum. Because it's how we'll get to know you, please try to pick something you'll stick with and won't want to change. Additionally, we highly recommend your alias to be a name and not a number. The account you make with this alias will be your OOC account. This is the account you'll use for most of your OOC interactions, the one people contact when they need to get in touch with you. For each of the characters you end up making, you'll make them each their own account, which will be attached to your primary OOC account. That way each one gets their own profile to post with IC.

Now that you've created your OOC account, you can fill out your profile however you'd like, or you can meet other members in the cbox or chat board, or jump right in and create your first character. Check out the other sections of the guidebook for more information on what you can do now!

Profile Fields
When you're playing an RPG that uses an account-per-character format, one of its main purposes (and benefits!) is the freedom of the player to customize their character's profile; and this is where profile fields come in. Perhaps you noticed while customizing your own profile that there were a bunch of interesting looking fields that aren't seen on every forum. Here, we will guide you through the process of filling out all the necessary information, so that your character's accounts will be complete and pristine. Be sure to only do this once you have a character and their biography has been accepted.

After navigating to your profile and clicking on "Edit Profile," go to the page we need to look at by clicking the "Personal" tab. In front of you should now be all the deliciously customizable facets of your character's profile that will help their account look just shiny. Among the many things you can do on this page - alter the display name, change gender, add a website and a signature - what we need is at the very bottom of the page. Keep on scrolling until you see the fields beneath 'Personal Notes' - these should be Gif, Alias, Age, Application, Plotter, and Music.

Gif is the field into which you'll insert a link to an image for your mini profile. It doesn't need to be a gif, of course, as it is simply the image that shows up when you hover over your character's mini profile. Whatever image you link to in this field will be cut off at a certain point - so make sure the image you've chosen is around 200 x 120 pixels.

Alias is, of course, your player name, the OOC title you've chosen to go by. That way everyone knows who owns your character when they post around the forum.

Age is for your character's current age. Rocket science, right?

Application refers to your character's biography. Here you'll need to post a direct link to your character's accepted application. This way, if another player needs to know something about your character, they don't have to go digging to find it.

Plotter is the term used to describe the plot threads players make to help make connections with others in the game. If you have created a plot thread, simply link to it in this field; otherwise, we highly suggest you create one. Meeting other (awesome) characters and creating intricate stories of love, hate, adventure, revenge and more is simply addicting, and a plot thread will help you do just that!

Music can be a little tricky, but with the right tools, it's not difficult at all to do. This field allows your character to have a song play on their personal profile with only a click. If your character has a theme song or some other song that seems fitting, you can insert an .mp3 link here - but it must be a direct link. This means no youtube videos or privately uploaded song files will work! What most people use is kiwi6.com - it's fast and impossibly easy to upload public files from your computer without any extra hassle. All you have to do is download whatever .mp3 you want to your computer, then upload it by signing up on kiwi6, after which you'll be provided a direct link that anyone can use and listen to. This is what you'll be putting into this field.

And just like that, you're finished! Your character's profile is complete. You can further embellish it with other cool additions, avatars and code, but the basics are there and you're ready to dive into roleplaying.