01 What is IdleRPG?

IdleRPG is a quiet, asynchronous role-playing game that runs entirely on IRC. Your character — a name, a class, a level, ten equipment slots — levels up simply by staying idle in the bot's channel. You do nothing. The bot does everything. The longer you remain present, the more powerful you become.

Talking, parting, changing nick or quitting all add time to your next level. So do failed quests and hand-of-god misfires. The mechanics gently reward presence and patience, and gently punish noise. It's a game you'd say "hello" to once a week.

02 Getting started

1. Join the bot's IRC channel

Connect to the IRC network the bot runs on, then join the bot's channel. Stay connected and stay in that channel — that's what "idling" means here.

2. Register a character

Open a private message with the bot and register:

/msg bot REGISTER <name> <password> <class>
# example
/msg bot REGISTER Nebula moonbeam77 Void Sorceress

The class string is purely cosmetic — you can be anything ("Space Mechanic", "Sky Bearer", "Trail-blazer"). It shows up on your sheet and in event messages. Names must be unique and the password is what you'll use here on the website too.

3. Sign in here

Open Sign in and use the same name and password. Once you're in, the header gains a My Hero link to your own character sheet, where you can also change your password.

03 The levelling clock

Each character has a personal countdown — the next field on your sheet. While it counts down, you're idling. When it reaches zero, you level up, and a fresh, longer countdown begins.

The default schedule (each bot can tune these): level 1 takes 10 minutes. Each subsequent level multiplies by roughly 1.16×, so level 10 takes a couple of hours, level 30 takes about a day, level 60 takes several days, and the climb gets exponentially slower from there.

Numbers are approximate — your bot's exact factor may differ. Check the dashboard's leaderboard to see actual time-to-next for everyone, or your own sheet for your countdown.

04 Penalties

Almost everything you do in the channel pushes the level countdown back. The base costs (your bot may differ):

Your sheet's Penalty Time block (visible to you and to admins) breaks the total down by category — message, nick, part, kick, quit, quest, logout — so you can see exactly where your time has gone.

05 Events & items

Quests

Periodically the bot picks a small party of online characters and sends them on a quest — sometimes a simple wait-and-succeed timer, sometimes a multi-stop scavenger hunt with map coordinates. Quests last anywhere from a couple of hours to a day. Success shaves time off everyone's next level. Failure (a quest member parts, quits, or talks too much) is the big penalty above. The dashboard's "Active Quest" panel shows what's running.

Battles

Around once a day per active player, the bot pits two characters against each other. Roll = level + items + alignment bonus + dice. Winners gain a few items / minor next-level reduction; losers lose a little. Wins and losses are tallied on every sheet.

Calamities & godsends

Random bad / good things happen: lose an item, find an item, slip on a banana peel, locate buried gold. Pure flavour with small mechanical effects.

Hand of God

Every so often the bot reaches down and either pushes you toward or pulls you away from your next level. You'll see a chat line announcing it. Net effect over time: zero. Net effect in any one moment: rude.

Boss fights

At threshold levels (often 30, 60, 90) the bot challenges you to a small encounter. Win → significant item / gold reward and a boss kill on your sheet. Lose → a moderate penalty. Boss kills are tracked.

Items & equipment

Every character has ten equipment slots: amulet, charm, helm, boots, gloves, ring, leggings, shield, tunic, weapon. Each item has a numeric power. Item Power on your sheet is the sum of all ten — it's used in battle rolls and matters more than raw level in tight fights.

06 Alignment, guilds, networks

Alignment

Every character is one of three alignments. You set yours from IRC with /msg bot ALIGN good|evil|neutral. Effects:

Guilds

Optional. Anyone can found or join a guild from IRC. Members appear together on the dashboard and on the guild directory. Each guild has its own page showing aggregate stats, alignment split, and member roster.

Networks (multi-network bots)

Some bots span multiple IRC networks. Each character lives on one network, and the dashboard's "Networks" panel tells you how the population is split. Cross-network battles and quests work just like local ones.

07 Using this site

Everything except admin tools is publicly visible — no login needed to read. Signing in only adds the things that are specifically yours.

Theme picker

Click the moon icon in the header to pick a theme — Orbital, Lux, Claude, or Indigo. Your choice is remembered for your browser. Admins can set the site-wide default in Command → Site Settings, including a custom site name and tag.

Changing your password

Sign in, open My Hero, and use the Security panel. You'll need your current password to confirm. The new password works immediately for both this site and the IRC bot.

08 Bot commands — quick reference

All commands go to the bot in a private message: /msg bot <command>. Exact command set depends on the bot, but these are the conventional ones:

# Player commands
REGISTER <name> <password> <class>   # create a character
LOGIN    <name> <password>           # sign back in from a new connection
LOGOUT                              # sign out (counts a small penalty)
NEWPASS  <new password>             # change your password
ALIGN    good | evil | neutral      # pick / change alignment
CLASS    <new class string>          # rename your class (cosmetic)
WHOAMI                              # quick stat dump
INFO     <name>                       # peek at another character
QUEST                               # status of the active quest
REMOVEME                            # delete your own character (irreversible)

# Admin commands
MKADMIN  <name>                       # promote
DELADMIN <name>                       # demote
CHPASS   <name> <new password>      # force-reset someone's password
DELETE   <name>                       # delete a character
PAUSE | UNPAUSE                     # freeze / resume the world
BACKUP                              # write a snapshot of irpg.db
REHASH                              # reload the bot's config

The web's Command page mirrors the most common admin actions (view everything, edit, reset password, promote / demote, delete, CSV export, site settings) so you usually don't need to drop into IRC to do them.

09 House rules — conditions of play

These are the basic conditions for participating. Admins enforce them at their discretion; consequences range from a polite warning to a deleted character.

• One person, one character. Multi-accounting (running two or more characters belonging to the same human) ruins the leaderboards and is the most common reason for a reset.
• No account sharing. Your password is yours. Don't hand it out and don't ask anyone else for theirs.
• No anti-penalty automation. Auto-rejoin scripts, auto-LOGIN-after-disconnect, away-message ping replies — anything that defeats the spirit of the penalty system. If you're disconnected, you're disconnected; that's the game.
• Be a decent person in channel. No harassment, no slurs, no doxxing, no posting other people's personal information. Standard IRC etiquette applies.
• Don't try to break the bot. Probing for exploits, spamming commands, injecting weird payloads — all grounds for a ban.
• Privacy. Don't share other players' IRC hosts or real names. Admins see them out of necessity, not for chatting about.
• Admins are players too. They earn their levels the same way you do. Respect goes both ways.

By signing in here you accept these conditions and the bot operator's right to enforce them.

10 Frequently asked

Why isn't my level going up?

Check your Penalty Time on My Hero. If you've spoken, parted, or changed nick recently, that's where the time went. Penalties never cancel a level, they just push it back.

I forgot my password.

Ask an admin in the bot's channel for a reset. They can do it from the web's Command page or from IRC with CHPASS. Once they tell you the new password, sign in here or with the bot's NEWPASS and pick something new immediately.

How do I change my class string?

From IRC: /msg bot CLASS <new class>. There is no web equivalent for regular players — only admins can rename it from the website's edit dialog.

Can I move my character between IRC networks?

Generally no — your character lives where it was registered. Some operators do migrations on request; ask in channel.

What happens if the bot crashes?

The bot writes the database to disk every few minutes, so at worst you lose a few minutes of progress. The web reads the same file, so it reflects whatever the bot last wrote. The System page shows whether the database is readable and how recent the backups are.

Is the source open?

The IdleRPG bot itself is well-known open-source software with many variants. This website is a separate frontend that just reads irpg.db — drop it in your web root and configure the path. See the bundled README.md for setup.