For everyone but the GM, iPC.exe — the program which allows players to connect and play — is the nuts and bolts of their online gaming experience.

Be sure to read through the help screens at least once since I don’t plan to duplicate that information here. Don't worry if you don't understand it all at first - as with any powerful program there is a bit of a learning curve - but do get a feel for where to find things. The Help:About box shows which version of iPC you are currently using in big red type. Do check with your GM before entering into a game to ensure you and he are running the same version in order to prevent conflicts. As of this writing the current edition of iPC is version 3.1.63.

Getting Started:
Load the internet Player Client by clicking on the blue fist icon wherever you tucked it away when GRiP installed itself on your machine. Normally this is the GRiP folder under Programs in your Start menu or at C:\GRIP\GRIP - iPC on your hard drive.

I have linked the icons and tabs on the image below to the section of this site which deals with that item. A similarly linked navigation bar appears at the bottom of each page. Feel free to explore.

iPC opens into a standard Windows environment with a Menu Bar above a row of Toolbar Buttons and Pulldown Boxes, each of which is described in the Help system. Below the menu and tool bars are three sections: the PC icon column on the left, a tabbed workspace in the middle and a place to show NPC icons to the right. The Status Bar along the bottom of the window provides toggles between various states of interest to gamers.

Graphical user environments traditionally allow several ways of calling up any given feature. GRiP goes beyond this by also being as RPG and play style neutral as it can manage. This means that there are any number ways of using the program to enhance your role playing - you aren’t locked in to the way the programmers like to play. The help system describes one way of using iPC to play online. In the interests of showing GRiP’s flexibility, I will describe another way of using the interface. As you become familiar with the various pieces of the program, you are sure to develop a style uniquely your own.

Options:
The Options Screen allows each user to personalize their iPC to their own preferences: where iPC looks for its files and data, internet options, and how text displays in your copy of iPC are all adjustabel from here.

While learning the interface, feel free to explore, opening menus, clicking buttons and generally playing with it - the worst that can happen is that the program will lock up or crash. If it does, close it down, reopen it and try again. Be a bit more careful with your explorations while playing online since that same crash will force the game to pause while you come back online. Or worse, it might not...

Click on one of the icons below to find out what it does: