DarkRP - A Beginner's Guide

As we all know, DarkRP is a cruel inhospitable place. Much like it's inhabitants, it knows no remorse, no boundaries, no compassion, and only the brave or insanely stupid dare take on and attempt to tame this wasteland. I've been there. I've seen things, man. Vietnam's got nothing compared to DarkRP, let me tell you for free. For any eager young souls curious about this gamemode, this guide is for you; I will teach you how to survive and maybe thrive. Listen carefully and it will all make sense soon, my child.

<WARNING: A LOT OF READING IMMINENT.>

also ♥♥♥♥ off I don't own any copyrighted material used in this guide

The Golden Rules

These Golden Rules are rules you absolutely MUST abide by, otherwise the all-seeing eyes will come after you and commit unspeakable atrocities against you. There are plenty of them, however I will now consolidate this list into the 5 primary rules you have to follow:

Do not 'RDM' (randomly kill)

RDM stands for 'Random DeathMatch'. This literally translates to unprovoked murder. Do not do this, otherwise you'll get verbally harassed by your victim and his mates and even the admins. Hell, the admin's are likely to jail you for this. (I'll go into more detail for the consequences for breaking these rules later).

Try not to break 'NLR' (new life rule)

The 'new life rule' is basically where you are restricted from returning to the area where you died or interacting with your killers for 2 or more minutes. Unless you act out inside the so-called NLR area, there shouldn't be too many repercussions for breaking this rule. You'll probably get a stern telling off from the admins. In my personal opinion, it is okay to ignore this rule if you're a victim of RDM but I don't make the rules so...

Always follow 'FearRP'

FearRP is the idea that your in-game life has some value to it, and that you must protect it at all cost. This will mean either giving away your money to a pair of muggers or admitting you don't have any money and accepting your fate. If you 'break' FearRP, it means you probably pulled a gun on a dude who already pulled a gun on you.

Do not Prop Abuse

Prop abuse is where you, well, abuse props in the game to gain an unfair advantage. There are many ways you can do this such as using props as weapons (propkilling) or using props to climb up to high areas (propclimbing). If you do this, just die. Please.

Never go postal

My username is not important. What is important is what I'm going to do. I just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hate this server and the admin worms feasting on the donations. My whole playtime is cold, bitter NLR... and I always wanted to get banned permenantly. This is the time of vengeance, and no printer is worth saving. And I will put in the spawn as many as I can. It's time for me to RDM... and it's time for me to get banned. My server purge crusade begins... here...

General Laws

Laws can be set by the mayor, and they can be whatever law he pleases. Though, there are plenty of laws that have been set by default such as do not murder, mug, another crime beginning with the letter M, ect. Other default laws may include:

Do not walk around with your gun out in public

The cops get REAL finicky with people holding their guns in public, probably for good reason. The playerbase of DarkRP can be unpredictable at best, and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ruthless at worst. Just think of it like public exposure: you just wouldn't do it. Have some common decency, pervert. Which brings me to my next point... well, the next bit has nothing to do with public exposure but it's related to the weapon thi- you get the idea.

Own a gun licence when owning/selling guns

This is probably the least enforced rule in the game. The idea is that you need to own a gun licence given to you by the mayor so that you can legally own a gun. However, nobody enforces the gun laws until the people start shooting.

Don't deal drugs and/or own money printers

Much like real life, it is not aviseable to sell crack out of your house because the cops are likely to kick down your door for this... or maybe gangsters who catch wind of your operation. Drug dealing may be a great way to earn money but like in real life it is incredibly risky. Same goes for money printers. People can usually identify money printers by the distinct sounds they make, so try to find a secluded area to base if you intend on using money printers.

Don't be homeless

This isn't really against the law, but the cops (and the rest of the playerbase as a whole) love to be real derogatory towards hobos probably because of their tendancy to fling their ♥♥♥♥ all about the place. You kind of have to expect this sort of abuse when you play as a hobo though.

Choose Your Server!

There's plenty to choose from. An easy way to identify their quality is to look at the ping, amount of players currently playing and how many bars the server has. If it has a very low ping and a high amount of players and a full bar (that is bright green btw) then go for it. One thing you can't really account for is the type of people on that server, but that's impossible to predict. Besides, the unpredictability is part of the reason why DarkRP is so... enjoyable? I guess?

Getting Started

A lot of this depends on what you want to do, so I'll keep this section brief and to-the-point:

#1: To purchase property, you must press R whilst looking at a door.
#2: To lock doors, equip the 'Keys' in your inventory (located under '2') and press the Left Mouse Button.
#3: To unlock doors, do the same as #2 but click the Right Mouse Button.

Buying an apartment/house:

There's not much reason to do this, apart from having a place to call your own I guess.
...or a place to have a final stand.
Then again, having a place like Jim has here isn't that great since there isn't much opportunity for a quick escape. You also have to make sure nothing valuable is in your house.

Base Building

If you wanted to have a well defended, well fortified base then the first places you'd have to look are areas where not many players frequent and that is tucked right out of the way of everyone else. For example, the industrial area in rp_downtown:

As for building defences for your base, I'll leave that for the next section. For now, let's talk stores.

Setting up shop

Now you're going to want to employ the opposite tactics compared to base building; set up shop as near to the hotspots as you can.


This gives you many advantages:
#1: It's convenient for everyone and increases accessibility. More customers = lod$ of £mone, right?
#2: The cops won't be that far. Cops like to patrol areas where there are a lot of people hanging about. So if your store gets raided, you bet your bottom dollar the law will be of assistance.

Make sure you place fading doors with keypads (check the toolbar in the spawn menu, it's all pretty self-explanatory) for added security and, if you're a store owner, an interesting way to manage transactions. I'll leave that up to you to find out how though.

Half-wayish Break

Now, after that unhealthy amount of reading, I bet you're tired huh? No worries. Have a break. Have a kit-kat. Grab yourself a cup of tea or something. I'll be waiting.







https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CN49Feexb8







Still there? You good? Alright, let's get right back on topic.

Building Defences

Death's Door

The infamous death's door is that one door which works in a very interesting way if you place a certain material over it. First, find the door in the prop spawn menu under the tab 'Construction Props'. It should be located somewhere near the very top and is called "Storefront_Template001a_Bars". Spawn it, then equip the material tool. Select one of a wild variety of materials, my reccomended one would be the 'hunter/myplastic' material (grid made of white squares) and shoot it at the door. You will notice that on one side, the door has some kind of black or white sheet covering it that prevents you from looking through it. However, on the other side of the door, you will be able to see straight through the door. This gives you an (admittedly slightly unfair) advantage over the opposition, but damn if it isn't useful. You can't shoot through them though, so you'll have to get creative.
(left default, centre with material, right with material on the other side)

Ideally, a good base defence utilizing this strategy would look like this:
This is perfect: you and your friends can see exactly what the attackers are doing, and have the ability to lock them in using the front gate (the button is located behind the right wall) with access to the higher ground and all the angles. There's no way an attack could survive an ambush like that. I won't teach you how to build all this because it's too much effort and I cba. Look for another guide to help you with that.

KOS Sign

Ah yes, the infamous KOS sign. A sure sign that absolutely nothing dodgy is going on in this neck of the woods. This is usually a double-edged sword. In one way, it can act as a deterrent that strikes fear into the hearts of individuals and passers-by. However to rival gangs, this can also spell oppertunity for them and these signs can also be a red flag for the cops. Use these at your own discretion and caution.

Fading Doors

Fading doors, I really do not need to talk about. It's fairly obvious what they do; they turn normal props totally transparent, allowing you to walk straight through them. If you understand basic mechanics (binding a certain key to make a certain thing work, and binding buttons and/or keypads with the same key so that they activate whatever it is, that's basically what this is) of Garry's Mod then it is very likely you'll understand how to work fading doors. These combined with keypads have proven to be invaluable to defending your store/base.

So, uh, here's memes:

Get A Job, Hippie! (Part I) - Civillian Jobs

You heard the man. If you want to survive DarkRP, you need a steady income. You'll need it in order to buy adequate weaponry and any vices you may require. Luckily, the employment system doesn't require any qualifications AT ALL. It all runs off a democratic process (except for any of the civillian or most of the criminal jobs).















So now here's a list of the vast employment options available in DarkRP and the oppertunities you can take advantage of with them:

The Citizen

Amongst the most worthless ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ in this list. They're like hobos with a salary. The majority of these guys hang out in the spawn room AFK because the majority of the playerbase will immediately switch to a different profession.

The Hobo

What is there really to say about the hobo? Well, everybody hates them and they hate everybody in return. They earn no money and can only beg on the streets hoping someone will give them some green. Hell, it even got so bad to the point where a war was being staged on this server I was playing on between the Hobos & Police. I myself partook in that war on the side of the Hobos and...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4ChTL-3c3o
They were in the props, man. The ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ props.

The Medic

This guy's invaluable. The problem with most people who play as the medic however is that they tend to run about the map ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ around. The best thing you can do as a medic is set up shop somewhere near a hotspot where players frequent and charge for your services. People are likely to pay considering how rare medics usually are.

OPTIONAL:

Start a Euthanasia Clinic

Starting up a Euthanasia Clinic as a 'medic' is a great way to earn some extra cash. Essentially, it's a store that specializes in assisted suicide. These are great because on top of the normal salary you get as a medic, people will usually take a liking to these kinds of places very quickly and, to be perfectly honest, who can blame them? The best part about this is that your clients are willing to pay a lot more money than usual for you to put a bullet in their head.

Prerequisites:
A gun (preferably a pump shotgun)
A back room
Change your jobname (using "/job <jobname>" to 'Euthanasia Specialist')

The Gun Dealer

The infamous gun dealer. This sorry bastard usually gets the rough end of the stick due to the fact that every single ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ on the server will more than likely want a gun and will stop at nothing to obtain a gun and will harass the gun dealer at any moments notice (hence their representation as zombies in the picture). Though you can make a decent profit out of the guns you deal, your store is likely to get raided by criminals even if they know you've got ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ in your store; they'll more than likely just raid you to kill you.

OPTIONAL:

Slave Trade

I've had plenty of fun doing this in my time on DarkRP. Essentially, you become a gun dealer but you use your gun store as a front to trade slaves with the public. You can't do this on your own though since gun dealers aren't allowed to kidnap; only gangsters and terrorists are. So there's two ways of doing this:

A: Employ a couple gangsters to kidnap an unsuspecting person off the street so they can bring him back to your gun store's back room where you can lock him up tightly. Note that you will have to pay off the gangsters at least 50% (25% each) of the profit because these ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ don't work for free. This could be an easy loophole around the "gun dealers can't kidnap" rule, because all you're doing is selling him on right? It is, however, MUCH riskier.

B: Hire a pair of lackeys (security guards) to run around picking up random dudes off the street, but not kidnapping them directly. Instead tell them to tell their victims, "my boss has a business proposition for you and would like to see you at the gun store." This is a more discreet, but slightly riskier way to do this as security guards can't kidnap either.

Prerequisites
A gun store with a back door
2 lackeys/gangster mercenaries
Access to a textscreen (so you can advertise a slave for sale)
A £10,000 price tag for each slave (more if it's a high profile target)
Make sure none of your victims are armed or part of the police force or gangs.

The Banker

Actually, I changed my mind. This guy gets the short end of the stick and nobody wants to be this guy. On most of the servers I've played, the banker is the only guy allowed to own printers, so long as it's other people's printers. He essentially stores other people's printers for them so that the cops don't go banging on the owner's doors. Problem is, this makes the banker a very likely target for gangsters and the like. I mean, how could you turn down the oppertunity to grab 6+ money printers at the same time. For this reason alone most people ignore picking the banker and choose to hide their printers in their own homes, and with good reason.

Get A Job, Hippie! (Part II) - Criminal Jobs

Gangsters & Mob Bosses

Wherever there's a gangster, there's sure to be trouble. These guys are much more intolerant and much quicker to react compared to the rest of the playerbase. Luckily, they're not that threatening when they're on their own and usually won't step out of line that often. However, once they organised themselves into a gang and have created a headquarters of sorts, that's when they start to get dangerous. They'll start pulling raids on the local stores, mugging the civillians and sometimes even raid the police department if they're feeling ballsy. They're much harder to deal with when they get a Mob Boss on their side, who is the one who calls the shots and is equipped with a pro lockpick (picks locks faster than other lockpicks) and an unarrest baton if he partakes in a jailbreak.

If hostile takeovers, robberies, muggings and loan sharking is your thing then the gangster is for you. Just make sure you have a couple homies to back you up.

The Thief

The Thief is both a gangster's best friend, and their worst enemy. They're also amongst the most incompetant criminals in the game due to the fact that they often raid people's properties underprepared, lacking firepower and any tactics. Like the gangster, however, they are at their most dangerous when in packs. A single thief being backed up by a couple gangsters can be lethal.

The Drug Dealer

These guys go door to door and sell cookies, spread the word of God and behave as best they can at all costs. Just kidding. What the ♥♥♥♥ do you think they do? The clues in the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ name. This is another risky job because, surprise surprise, drug dealing is illegal and gangs may want to steal your contraband. It is fun though and, on many servers, drugs can give you special abilities. Just don't take too much, or else the obvious will happen (you die).

The Prostitute (WHY IS THIS WORD CENSORED, GABEN!? IT'S NOT RUDE, IT'S A NAME FOR ♥♥♥♥'S SAKE)

The ♥♥♥♥♥- dammit.
The slag oh thank god this one isn't censored sells her body for money. Obviously. I think in some cases this regains your health, though in many other areas this can also cause damage to you because of the fact that condoms don't exist in Garry's Mod so catching an STI is very likely. It's best if this is done out of sight and not in public because prostitution is illegal and the cops will honestly look for any reason to arrest you at this point.

tbh I'm more annoyed about the fact that pro- *sigh* "heartheartheartheartheartheartheartheart", as a word, needs to be censored on steam. This is such ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Why isn't there an option for us to turn off the censorship? I mean, this is the internet for ♥♥♥♥'s sake. I can ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ swear as ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ long as I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ want. ♥♥♥♥.

The Hitman

This guy's fairly popular, mainly because he can kill whoever you're quarrelling with. They can get paid a boatload of money for doing what they do too. You can set your price for a thousand or more and you'll still probably get people asking you to kill dudes. Don't set your price too high though, otherwise you won't be getting any customers any time soon. Of course, shooting someone in the middle of a crowded street is certainly not adviseable. spoiler alert: because of the cops!

The Terrorists

Praise Allah, infidels!
...Or uhh... Northern Ireland is Irish, you English bastards!
...For the revolution, capitalist dog?
...Ni hao?
please don't get offended, jesus christ save me

My point is, you can be a terrorist and you can choose whatever ideology or goal you want to follow (so long as it isn't controversial like any of the above I just mentioned, a lot of servers don't like such topics brought up as they're 'likely to start arguments' even though the Gmod community are ALWAYS bickering about something at any given time). In a couple servers I've frequented in my time, terrorists can't commit terror attacks without:

A. A Leader
B. An achieveable goal

A popular terrorist pasttime seems to be kidnapping the mayor and either holding him for ransom or keeping him captive until he bends the law to their will. It can get pretty wild. Trust me, I've been on both sides of the equation.

Get A Job, Hippie! (Part III) - Authorities

Civil Protection

The cops. The fuzz. The rozzers. The po-po. The pigs. These guys go by many names, but make no mistake, they have one aim in life; to enforce the laws of the land and bring about peace and justice to DarkRP. Ironically, the law is the cause of most of the large-scale conflicts that happen in the game. The police are some of the more fun jobs to play as. You get given a badge, a gun, the ability to arrest troublemakers (within reason) and some basic body armour. There's also the Police Chief who has authority over all Civil Protection units and has access to better gear. What more could you ask for?

Quite a bit actually. Civil Protection are amongst the least played law enforcement roles in the game, partially due to the fact that they only have pistols and as such can't defend or attack as efficiently. Everyone seems to flock to their big brothers, which is the result of a very well deserved stereotype which I'll now proceed to discuss/rant.

S.W.A.T Teams

These guys are 125% more powerful than your average Civil Protection. They get more body armour, automatic assault rifles or SMGs, a pistol, arrest batons, battering rams and, on some servers, shields. There's even variations of S.W.A.T to choose from, namely the Sniper and Medic. So why have I chosen to represent them in such a stupid way? Because this is the class all the 8-year-olds flock to! I mean if it doesn't have high health or big guns, it's not worth playing because of short memory spans, am I right!?

It's really annoying because it makes the S.W.A.T teams the most abused job in the game and this would all be solved if more mature individuals were put in those great big combat boots. What I'm saying is if you're above the age of 16, go for it. If you're 8 years old, why are you even on the internet?

The Mayor & Secret Service

The big cheese. This guy gets paid the most in his salary out of all the other jobs, and has the most authority (below that-which-shall-not-be-named until later) in the server. He can set whatever laws he wants to set and can order the police force to do whatever... that is if they can be arsed. You can even trigger lockdowns which are basically states of emergency. If the server is in absolute chaos, trigger the lockdown. The secret service are basically his bodyguards/bumbuddies/minions ect.

OPTIONAL

Build the wall

"They're bringing crime. They're bringing murder. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people. We need to build a wall. And it has to be built quickly. I will built the greatest wall you have ever seen. And in that wall we're going to have a beautiful, big, fat door where people can come into the country but they have to come in legally."

Prerequisites
A small loan of a million dollars
Time and patience
Your vote
Memes
A fantastic wig

OPTIONAL

Tax the stores

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEtgRBjEZp0

Hear me out, guys. You want to make a little extra money in your already unimaginable position of power? Easy! Just extort the money from gun stores, medical stores, and individuals including drug dealers under the pretense that you'll turn a blind eye if they pay up. Let's say make the tax about £500 minimum, yeah? It's a little risky and there's a 50/50 chance that your target will say 'no' at first, but pressure him enough and maybe apply a little bit of force and they'll pay up soon enough.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVY1-v97Mic

Prerequisites
Police Bodyguards
Actually having stores around
Made taxation a law

The Admin

This is them. The all-seeing eye. They-that-shall-not-be-named-until-now. These guys maintain order on the server and you are in no position to back-talk them, it's 'do as they say or else'. You can NOT become an admin unless you are willing to commit to the job and can be trusted by the server owner themselves. The quality of admins vary wildly. There's many types of admin, from the 10-year-old-who-paid-his-way-into-that-position-with-his-dad's-credit-card to the outright abusive, from the firm but fair to a little too lenient, from the community-spirited to the psychopath. Watch your back around these guys and play by the rules. They're always watching.

Well, Now What?

Now what the hell do I do, Yoshi? I got the money, I got the guns, I got the leet base, I got the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, I got everything! What else is there to do?

You don't get it, do you?
You don't see the bigger picture, huh?
Well let me tell you, sonny, that none of this will last. Nothing. Nada.

At any moments notice your base is going to get torn down piece by piece by those vultures who you name your 'competetors', your money gone, your guns gone, your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ gone, all of it gone. You will be reborn into a new life, this time on a different path. Who knows where this path'll lead you?

Maybe a path of righteousness... maybe a path of chaos... maybe you'll end wars... maybe you'll start wars... Maybe you'll start a cult, maybe you'll scuttle through the tunnels like a rat. My point is, my friend, that DarkRP is more than a game. It's a cycle. A cycle that, though the journey may vary, the destination will forever remain the same: in your demise. So savour the journey. Savour every moment you can of it. Yes, even the bad moments. Because, like life itself, it will not last. It is to be savoured... so savour. Savour and relish in the gift of life.

Conclusion

Well, thanks for reading this I guess. That's assuming you did, anyway. I ain't counting on anything, but I at least hope it was useful to some people. I spent almost a week on making the scenes for this guide and all things considered, I'm pretty proud of it myself.

This is where I sign off I guess. Hope you lot have a good day, and remember:

Happy modding.

[Cheeto]

nice

[Ginja Ninja]

How do I use the booster? I know you deposit money in it but what do I do afterwards?

[gordn]

nice guide, thank you

[..]

For some reason,I cracked up at the Hatred reference.

[Nick]

What's LTAP?

[MonkeyMan2104]

How do I change my job?

[Otter]

where do i find the list of mods or workshops for the map and stuff

[VEEZEEMEDSTUD139]

Oh okay....THANKS mate

[Black Joshi]

Oh. I think in most cases it's a SWEP, but again I dunno if it's different on your end. Plus the server I frequent, Cloud Gaming, seems to have its own prostitute class broken as no SWEP of such kind can be found, even though there usually is one.

[VEEZEEMEDSTUD139]

Actually I wanted to know how to give the service being the PROS*****E..?
I know to to bexome that....but I don't know about earning money in that RP