Getting started

What RPG Thunder is

You play a hero on a long road east, from Ashsquare towards the far end of the map. You rest in town, then commit to an expedition and see if you come back. Fights are turn-based: enemies show what they're about to do, and you pick one of your 4 abilities in reply.

• Death is permanent. A dead character stays dead, and their level, gold and gear go with them.
• Every life counts. Echoes, class unlocks, life skills and one heirloom carry over, so the next life goes further. See Life, death and heirs.
• It respects your time. There's no energy, so play as long as you like. Expeditions wait for you between any two steps.

All 26 cities are open, Ashsquare to Zenterlaw. Reach the last one in a single life and you've won.

Where to play

It's one character everywhere. Log in with your Discord account and whatever you do in Discord shows up on the web and the other way round.

No Discord? You can play on the web with just your email address. That character lives on the web only. It can't join parties yet, since parties meet in Discord threads, and it can't trade in Discord servers.

In Discord

1. Add RPG Thunder to a server, or to your own account to play in DMs and any server.
2. Type /play (or /start). The game opens as an Activity right in the channel, and a new account plays the cold open first, then chooses its first hero. If it doesn't open, a private link lets you play the same game in your browser. In a DM with the bot, /start plays the cold open in chat instead.
3. Play with /town and its buttons, or open the Activity with /play or from the app launcher: the same game with a battle scene and a route map, inside Discord.

Your own screens are private: only you see them. Big moments, like deaths, boss kills and rare loot, are posted to the server for everyone.

In the Activity, the faces at the top are the other people in the same Activity with you. Invite friends on the Party screen opens Discord's invite for the channel. Share, on an obituary, after a gate boss or after a big win, sends a link to the game, and Share card sends the card itself. A friend who starts from your link can earn you both a title: see Bring a friend.

On the web

1. Go to play.rpgthunder.com.
2. Choose Log in with Discord. Or, without Discord, enter your email underNo Discord? Play with your email, pass the quick Cloudflare check that proves you're human, then type the 6-digit code we send you or open the link in the email. You stay logged in on that device until you log out.
3. With email, pick the name other players will see. It has to be 3 to 24 letters or numbers, and names that are rude or pretend to be staff are turned away.
4. If you haven't played yet, the game starts at once (with email, after you chooseStart your journey). The narrator and the cold opencome first, then you pick one of the heroes on Choose your hero.

The app has five tabs. Town is home, with the roads out and the town's services, plus gathering and crafting from level 3. Hero holds your Pack, Moves, Talents, Legacy and Style. Jobs is the job board and the weekly chest.Stable is your creatures and eggs. More has everything else: your party, the social screens, achievements and the journal.

In town, a red dot on a tab or a tile means something is waiting there: a job or the weekly chest to claim, an egg ready to hatch, talent points to spend, a new achievement, or items in your Pack you haven't looked at yet.

Open the Pack and those items carry a New tag. The Pack sorts by slot, rarity, level or newest, and gear you don't want sells for gold from there.

Main commands

Server admins can run /setup auto once: the bot makes an RPG Thunder category with channels for public moments, obituaries and new releases, and starts posting there. To use channels you already have, /setup graveyard and /setup game pick the channels for obituaries and for public moments, and /changelog channel picks where new releases are announced (see the changelog). Until both are set, one channel gets both kinds of post.

The bot's welcome post and the setup tip both have a Set up channels button that does the same as /setup auto. Until the channels are set, admins see the tip again once a day.

The cold open

A new account starts on the far road, not in town. You play a relative from your family's past: a level 52 Warrior, two steps from a gate boss that nobody in the family has faced. One short fight teaches the battle screen: how enemies show their next move. Then comes the boss, and the story goes the way family stories go in this game.

• It opens with the narrator. A dark screen and 4 cards of text, each read aloud by the announcer, with the words always on screen. Tap to go on, or choose Skip intro. On Discord the cards come as one message: Continue goes on to the road, and Skip skips the cold open.
• The boss speaks. The gate boss reads his own lines aloud, and your moves wait until he has finished. The bosses of Ashsquare, Birchfall, Cornerfax, Dayfal, Everflint, Griffonburg and Hedgegarde do the same.
• The cast talks. After the fall, Mother Sorrel speaks at the graveside, then Osric greets you at the springs. Each shows a portrait and is read aloud, and the narrator reads the scene-setting. A line that uses your hero's name stays text. This happens after every later death too.
• It's free and it doesn't count. No rations, Echoes, XP or gold, no obituary, no leaderboard or achievement progress, and nothing on the wiki.
• Something survives. The relative carries the family treasure. Your first heir inherits it as their heirloom.
• You can skip it. Skip on the road card jumps to the letter that calls you home, and you still get the treasure.
• Your first hero is generation 2. The relative was the first. See Heirs.

Your first hour

1. Choose your hero

After the cold open, Osric's letter calls the family home and you choose who answers it. You're offered 3 relatives. Each has a class and one or two traits. Every new account starts with Warrior only, so at first the traits are what makes them different.

Your first 6 heroes don't leave empty-handed. Each starts with 14 rations in the pack, 1 healing potion and the general store's plain weapon for their class, plus a leather jerkin, already worn. After that, the family packs its own lunch.

Then your hero arrives in Ashsquare, a couple of short scenes about how they got there. Press Continue to read on or Skip to move on. In the Activity, your very first hero then sets straight out on a patrol, packed with the starter kit's food, and comes back to town after it. In Discord chat you land in town.

2. Look around Ashsquare

Everyone starts in Ashsquare, a level 1 city. Town is safe. Check your pack, then pick a way out.

Not sure what to do? The first button in town always shows the sensible next step, like claiming a finished job, a look at the job board, a patrol, a night at the inn or the road to the next city. The rest of the game opens up as you level: the job board at level 2, gathering and crafting at level 3, the daily gauntlet at 3, caches at 3, the world boss at 5, the market at 8, parties at 10 and talents at 10, counting the best level any of your lives reached.

3. Go on a patrol

A patrol is a short loop of 3 steps around town, fighting the local wildlife. Each step eats a ration. Your first 6 heroes already carry enough. After that, buy 3 at the gate before you set out (1 gold each). It's the low-risk way to earn your first levels and some gold, though you can still die.

Once per account, Mother Sorrel has your back. The first time a hero would fall on a patrol around Ashsquare, Birchfall, Cornerfax or Dayfal, she steps into the fight, pours a Minor Healing Potion down them and the fight goes on with the HP it heals. She leaves a spare in your pack too. Gate roads don't count, and after that you're on your own.

Your HP doesn't reset between fights. It carries over for the whole life. Winning a fight on the road heals 25% of your max HP, and the rest comes back in town: slowly by itself, or at once with a potion, the general store or the inn. The town screen shows your HP and how long until it's full. Below 50%, the game checks you really mean to fight.

4. Take the gate expedition

When you feel ready, set out on a gate expedition: a branching route to Birchfall. At the end of the road waits Cinder-Grasp the Smothered, Ashsquare's gate boss. Beat it and the road opens. The road is longer than a patrol, so bring more food. Run out and every step costs you HP instead.

The first time anyone on your account beats that boss, you also unlock the Cleric class for every life after. Your future relatives will be very grateful, or at least more varied.

5. Come back later

Stop whenever you like. An expedition you've already started waits between any two steps, and rested XP builds up while you're in town. See Supplies and gathering for rations, food and gathering spots.

While you were away

Come back after about 4 hours or more and the first thing you see is one short card of what happened without you. It shows only what applies, at most 6 lines:

• Rested XP that built up, and gathering spots that grew back.
• Eggs that finished incubating, and finished jobs waiting to be claimed.
• A new day of jobs, a new world boss, or a boss your server felled.
• Yesterday's gauntlet medal, if you played.
• Ghosts of yours that other players put to rest, and respects paid to your last obituary.
• A party that invited you.

It appears once per return, in Discord above your town screen and on the web at the top of the Town tab. Tap Got it and it's gone. If nothing happened, you see nothing. Missing a day costs you nothing, because there are no streaks to lose.

Next, read How a run works for the rules of the road.