How to Play Greywick

Greywick is a free browser text-adventure RPG: you explore, talk, quest, and fight by typing short commands or clicking the buttons the game offers. This guide takes you from your first character to fighting bosses with friends. Nothing to install — just make an account and go.

Getting started

1. Create a free account at the sign-up page — just a username and password.
2. Choose a race, then a class. If your class casts spells, you'll also pick a favoured school of magic.
3. You begin in your homeland. Type look to survey the room, a direction like north to travel, and help any time to see your options.

You can keep up to five heroes per account, and the world remembers each one — where you've been, what you've done, and what you carry.

Commands: how you play

Type a command, or click the buttons in the side panel — they do the same thing. The essentials:

• look — describe the room and what's here; examine <thing> to inspect something.
• north / south / east / west / in / out / up / down — travel. go <place> works too.
• take <item>, drop <item>, inventory (or i) — manage what you carry.
• talk to <npc>, then ask about <topic> — conversation, quests, and lore.
• equip <item> / remove <item>, read <note>, rest, character, journal.
• help — always available; lists what you can do right now.

Combat

Battles are turn-based and tactical, rolled on dice you can see. On your turn you choose an action:

• attack — strike with your weapon. power — an all-out blow: harder to land, hits harder.
• defend — fight cautiously (attackers have disadvantage). hold — do nothing and let the moment pass.
• study — read the foe: your next strike has advantage, and it tells you what the thing resists, fears and is about to do. Swift, so you still act.
• Special moves — type a class ability's name (or click it) to cast a spell or use a signature move.
• flee — try to break off and escape.

The battle line: position matters

Every fight lays out on a line of four ranks — your rear, your front, the enemy front, and the enemy rear. Melee heroes start at the front and clash at once; archers and casters stand at the back. A melee weapon reaches its own rank and the one next to it; a bow or a spell can reach any rank (but at disadvantage if a foe is right on top of the shooter). advance and retreat shift you a rank for free; charge rushes the whole way in to strike at once, off-balance (at disadvantage); disengage pulls back without giving the foe a free swing. Foes play the same way — archers kite you, brutes hold the front and telegraph a heavy blow you can interrupt.

Reactions: the blow you saw coming

When a heavy foe rears back — you'll see ⚠ winding up! beside its name — it is telling you exactly what happens next. You can break the wind-up on your own turn by knocking it down or stunning it. But if the blow does come, the fight stops and asks you, and this is the one decision you make on somebody else's turn:

• brace — take it on your guard. Half damage. The answer when you can't afford a gamble.
• parry — contest it: your blade against their blow. Turn it aside entirely, or wear the whole thing. The gambler's answer.
• slip — wear it, but go with it: give ground a rank, and leave them overcommitted and open. Buys position and a soft target, paid for in blood.

Answering spends your reaction, not your turn — you get one back each round. Taking the blow standing keeps it, in case something worse is coming.

Swift moves: setting up, then striking

Some moves are swift — they cost you something, but not your turn, so you set up and then still act. Every move that lines up a strike works this way: trip and feint knock a foe off balance, a fighting stance settles in, and a class's own set-up (a barbarian's Rage, a rogue's Cunning Action, a monk's Step of the Wind, a ranger's Camouflage) grants advantage on the blow you are about to throw. Spend the set-up first, then attack — that is the whole shape of a good turn. trip, feint and study share a single swift moment each turn, so which one you take is a real choice: trip knocks them down (advantage and the bonus damage a downed foe takes), feint rattles them, study aims you and tells you what you're facing. Taking a second one costs your whole turn. Purely defensive moves are the other trade: defend, Patient Defense and the like cost your action, because turtling is what you're buying.

Knowing when to walk away

Rooms hold what they hold, and the world does not wait for you to be ready for it. Walking into a room with foes in it starts the fight — but if what's waiting is far past you, you stop on the threshold instead. You haven't been seen yet: leave by any exit and you go clean. Take stock first if you like — look, your pack, your journal and map cost you nothing. Do anything else and the room stops waiting. This mercy comes once per room: walk back in knowing what's there and it's a fight, not a warning. Afterwards, that way is marked deadly on your exits and ringed on your map, so you don't blunder back in by accident.

The numbers: AC, DC, HP, and your abilities

Greywick runs on light "5e-lite" tabletop rules — but you don't need to know Dungeons & Dragons. Here's every number the game puts in front of you, in plain terms:

• HP (hit points) — your health. Reach 0 and you're knocked out; rest or heal to recover.
• AC (armour class) — how hard you are to hit. An attacker rolls a 20-sided die plus bonuses; if the total meets or beats your AC, the blow lands. Higher AC is better.
• DC (difficulty class) — the number a foe's saving throw must beat to shrug off one of your spells. Higher DC means your magic is harder to resist.
• Atk — the bonus added to your own to-hit roll. Strike (×N) — how many blows you land per attack (it rises with Extra Attack).
• The six ability scores — STR strength, DEX dexterity, CON constitution, INT intelligence, WIS wisdom, CHA charisma. Each gives a modifier (a 14 counts as +2) that feeds your attacks, defences, and saves; your class leans on one or two of them.
• Advantage / disadvantage — roll twice and keep the better result (advantage) or the worse (disadvantage). study a foe to gain advantage on your next strike; fighting off-balance gives disadvantage.
• Stamina — a warrior's pool for heavy and signature moves; it refills a little each round of a fight and fully on a rest. Casters use spell slots instead — charges shown as pips by level (1st, 2nd…), spent per spell and restored on a rest. At-will cantrips cost nothing.
• Insight & Resolve — narrative resources tracked on your sheet that certain choices, discoveries, and lore grant you; they open deeper responses at key moments in the story.

Conditions and lingering effects

Attacks can leave conditions: prone, stunned, frightened, or damage-over-time. A frost weapon builds stacking frostbite that bites for cold each turn; a cleric can lay a healing renewal that mends an ally over several turns. Effects fade if they aren't kept up.

Searching for hidden treasure

Not every prize sits in plain sight. In the deep rooms of a dungeon, type search to hunt for concealed caches — a legendary blade behind a loose stone, a hoard under the roots. Rumours from townsfolk and scratched maps hint at what's worth searching for, and where. What you uncover stays found.

Gear, rarity, and sets

Weapons, armour, and cloaks come in rarities — Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary, and the loot-only Mythic — shown as a coloured tag in your pack. Better gear carries more enchantments: bonuses to hit, to armour, to your ability scores, elemental riders, even imbued spells. equip a piece to wear it.

The best gear comes in class sets: collect matching pieces to unlock escalating set bonuses. Sets are class-bound — your gear is yours alone. A merchant will sell you up to Epic arms if your purse is deep enough, but the Legendary sets and the Mythic relics of the deep are won, never bought.

Blacksmiths, vendors, and coin

Kills and quests earn gold. Spend it at merchants: barkeeps pour drinks and rent rooms (a full rest), pedlars sell provisions and cloaks, and blacksmiths sell weapons and armour up to Rare — talk to them, then menu to see the stock and buy <item>.

Quests

Characters offer quests — accept them through conversation, and they're recorded in your journal. Most ask you to clear something out or recover something, then report back. High-end quests send you against a region's great bosses, who guard the finest loot.

A quest that will put you in a fight carries a level — shown on the giver's own topic before you ask, and on the card in your journal after. It's what the fighting wants, not what the story expects, and nothing is ever locked behind it: a task pitched above you says so plainly and then lets you go anyway. A quest with no level attached has nothing waiting to fight you.

Playing with friends

Greywick is multiplayer. Add friends, invite them to a party, and adventure together: the leader chooses where the party travels, everyone shares a chat, and you fight the same battles turn by turn, each controlling your own hero.

Loot rolls: Need, Greed, or Pass

When a party fight drops an item, everyone gets a roll. Choose Need (only if it's your class's gear), Greed (you want it anyway), or Pass. Need beats Greed, and the highest roll wins — so each piece tends to go to whoever it fits. No more one-sword-for-everyone: each drop goes to exactly one winner.

Saving and your heroes

Your progress saves automatically as you play. Come back any time and pick up where you left off — or start another of your five heroes. When you're ready, create your free account and begin.