As for building a strong character, people are pretty friendly about helping with that, too. Ask around in the discussion thread and you'll get plenty of advice. There are also several opportunities for rebuilds, throughout the course of a character's career.

IMO it's still possible to build a perfectly viable character using just the PHB. Yes, you'll be missing out on a few things, but, hey, we all managed to have fun somehow when there was just the PHB.

We don't have a proper FAQ yet (though we should really get around to it...). The best place to ask questions is in the discussion thread. Don't be shy; I guarantee we've had people who were much bigger newbies than you.

Hey, Arbanax, I got your questions about L4W.

It's pretty easy to get into a game. You just have to make your character, get it approved, and hang around roleplaying in the tavern until an adventure starts up that's suitable for your character. Once you get into the tavern, you will eventually get into a game, though it may take weeks (or even months, in extreme cases, though I don't think that's happened recently.)

Making a character does involve editing the wiki. There is a learning curve to that, but we try to make it as easy as possible. There is a sample character template, which you can copy and just fill in the numbers. It will take care of most of the formatting for you (but sadly not all...). And, of course, people will help you if you ask. Because it's a wiki, we can edit your sheet for you if you're really stuck.

(continued later; apparently there's a 1000 character limit in these things)

Hello Covaithe

I've been looking at the living worlds campaign stuff and trying to get my head around what is involved in playing. Since you are involved I thought I'd ask a couple of questions, say if you mind.

1. How easy is it to get into a game?
2. How easy is it to edit the wiki for someone with next to know experience?
3. When rolling up Rellek for Nerdy I kept getting things wrong, I have no real way of testing how sound my character is, what do you do about newbs like me?
4. WOTC have introduced a lot more info, PHB2 Arcane and Martial power etc, will I be at a great disadvantage if I don't have access to these books or the DDI? (I can't afford to join even if I wanted...)
6. Where can I submit other questions or see a faq for someone like me who has never been on a living worlds campaign before?

Thanks for listening I hope you can help I'd like to explore what this sort of campaign could be like.

Arbanax aka Dave Rellek Spirestrike in Defenders of Greensfen.