Apprentice Handbook

What is the Apprentice Handbook?

The Apprentice Handbook (or AppH) is intended as an easy-access handbook, where primarily new players (and those teaching them) will be able to quickly find topical information that is short and to the point in addressing a wide range of topics. The idea for AppH was born when teachers of Apprentice Academy (AppA) realized they were writing the same things to answer the same questions over and over, as is often the case when teaching new players. Rather than refer to existing guides which may be good in themselves, but that often don't allow for quickly and easily finding concise information suitable to answer common questions, a decision was made to simply start collecting short texts for the specific purpose of being used in the Academy's teaching.

How does the Apprentice Handbook work?

Whenever an AppA teacher would normally spend 5-10 minutes answering a question posed by a student on the Academy forums, they are encouraged to instead take an extra minute or two and write the text in a general form, and save it on the Handbook pages. The text entry can be either placed immediately in an appropriate section/page, or it can be simply saved on a scratch page until further notice, from which someone can then later arrange it properly where it belongs. Please note that a key point to the Handbook is brevity! A typical length for a text entry should be in the region of 5-15 lines of text. This will not answer every aspect of complicated matters, but that also is not the intention. The Handbook should provide a short introduction, or the general idea, of its topic. Further information can be provided in additional text entries, or in other sources entirely.

What isn't the Apprentice Handbook?

As suggested by the "brevity rule", AppH is not yet another guide of page after page of long and intricate game concepts explained in essay style. Keep it short. Keep it simple.

Random list of possible entries to write

The purpose of the game

Research

Buildings

Resources

Basic stacking for blues Basic stacking for reds Basic stacking for greens Basic stacking for blacks Basic stacking for whites

Making a run

Exploring vs attacking

What's OK and what isn't (standard RoEs etc)

War

Non-battle Items Offensive enchantments (non-battle spells)

The Black Market

Heroes Unique items Ancient spells

Guilds

Allies

Starting the set

Further reading