An introduction to simming
by E. Mattias Blennow, AKA Colonel Scott Wright of the sim group "NAARO"

What is a sim?
Many people are totally unaware of what a sim is. The easiest explanation is that it is a type of role playing game played over the internet by using IRC (Internet Relay Chat). It is very similar to FFRP (Free Form Role Playing), which is also played with IRC.
A FFRP is played out in a certain setting and is ongoing 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. In a FFRP you automatically assume the role of your character when you enter the IRC channel.
In a sim, this differs. The sim is not going on all the time. For each sim, there is a "sim group" or "sim organisation" with a certain number of members. Each member has created a character which he plays in the sim, often with a BIO (a description of who the character is, what he/she looks like, what his/her background is and so on), to go with it. The characters are often displayed at the group's homepage on a roster, the BIOs of the characters are most often also found on the homepage along with the background story of the sim and other stuff important for the sim or just of interest to the simmers.
A sim has a set time (most often once a week), when the members of the sim gather at the IRC channel of the sim and perform a mission of some kind. The sim session has a definite start and a definite ending - when the session starts and ends is up to those who run the sim.
Between the sims, one or more stories based on what happened during the last sim are often posted at the group's homepage. The content of the stories is to create a notion of what happens to the characters between the missions (sims) and to give a background to why the next mission has to be completed.

What is also important to remember, while being a member of a sim group, you often make new friends from around the world as you do not sim all the time but rather about an hour every week, people often stay to chat after the sims or enter the sim channel some time earlier just to chat with friends.

Reading a story from a sim:
It might be confusing to read stories from a sim due to the fact that they are based on what happens during the sims. Sometimes, events that can't be read in any story will be mentioned (most firefights etc. are played out in the sims). It is just important to remember this and imagine what might have happened (of course the best way to know exactly what happens would be to join the sim...).

Reading a log from a sim:
Most sims are logged, everything everyone writes is stored in a .txt file. If you should ever come across a sim log, you might get confused (at least if you have not seen one before). If the log belongs to a group called NAARO (North Atlantic Alien Resitance Organisation, my group), or any group that uses the same simming guidelines, this is what different written characters mean:

Character	Meaning
plain text	If anyone just writes plain text during a sim, this indicates that his character sais what is written
::action::	If something is placed within double colons, it is an action. For instance "::walks from A to B::" would mean that the character walks from A to B.
<<	The beginning of an "out of sim phrase". If a person would like to talk as himself (not as his character) during a sim (ie. comment on what's happening etc.). He/she starts this phrase by typing <<.
>>	The end of an "out of sim phrase". See above.
w	Indicates that the character is whispering.
+COM+	Indicates that the character is speaking into his Comlink.

There might be other characters that are used but these are the basics.

The NAARO:
The NAARO (North Atlantic Alien Resistance Organisation), is a sim group lead by myself ("Colonel Scott Wright"), and one of my friends ("Major Stephen Davies"). We started the sim at the beginning of 1999. The sim is based on the game X-COM by Microprose but has the setting that X-COM lost the alien war and alien forces now occupies the earth - the NAARO is now acting out a sort of guerilla war against the aliens (to find out more, read our background story).

Webpage:
The N.A.A.R.O.

E-Mail:
"Colonel Scott Wright"