RuneScape/Beginner's guide

Hello, World!
After creating your character, you magically pop up in Explorer Jack's house, in the city of ../Lumbridge/. He will start you on the Lumbridge tasks, which you can find more information about in another section of the RuneScape guide, as well as on the RuneScape website.

Before getting too overwhelmed, you may want to figure out what you'd like to do. There are so many ways to go about playing RuneScape
 * An important fact to note about RuneScape is that there are no classes or specs. Every character has the ability to access all of the different combat skills and styles, resulting in hundreds of different possible skill combinations and greater customization to the way your character handles combat.

Different Playstyles
General - This is the most common type of character. Almost always, a person's first character, and usually their main character. This type of character focuses on everything in the game, training all skills, finishing all possible quests and completing as much game content as possible. They don't have a certain focus in the game and simply do whatever they feel like doing.

Skillers - These characters usually have very low combat levels and exceedingly high skill levels. In some cases, skillers are something like level 20, 40, or 60 combat, but usually they are level 3's. These characters focus on making enough money as possible and can usually be found hanging out in vanity items in their spare time. For the most part, these characters will have a few level 99 skills, resulting in ridiculous money-making potential for a level 3.

Pures - These characters focus on PVP more than anything. The main types of PVP in RuneScape include the Wilderness and the Dueling Arena. Many of the minigames in RuneScape also feature PVP (but all of that is covered in the minigame guides). A pure will strategically level his or her character's combat skills in a combination that he or she believes will fare the best for them while fighting other players. They aim to obliterate their enemies and are mostly always highly competitive people. There are many different types of pures. Pures are almost always backed by a main account, which provides them with weapons, armor, potions, and the best food possible for maximum PVP potential.

Banks
Banks are incredibly important in RuneScape, because when your character dies, (which will happen, especially if you are new to the game) you loose all but your three most valuable items, whether they are equipped or in your inventory. If you die with coins you will loose them, unless they were all you were carrying, in which case you would only keep three.

So to keep all your coins/gps and valuable items safe, deposit your inventory into a bank as often as possible. Non-members have access to 68 bank slots, which is plenty, and can gain 10 more by confirming their email address on their RuneScape account. This is done on the home page. Banks are found in all major cities, and in a non-members world, (also known as F2P or "Free to play" worlds) you are never too far away from a bank.

F2P Bank Locations
Banks are easily located by the symbol on the minimap.

Non-members banks are located in:
 * ../Lumbridge/, on the third floor of the castle.
 * ../Varrock/, both east and west of Varrock square, as well as the Grand Exchange.
 * ../Falador/, in two locations, one near the south entrance and one near the center of Falador, just south of the barber shop.
 * ../Edgeville/, the bank should be easy to spot as Edgeville is a small village and the bank is usually rather crowded.
 * ../Draynor Village/, just north of the willow trees. Again, Draynor is very small, the bank easily being the most crowded area.
 * ../Al Kharid/. Unless you have done the Prince Ali rescue quest, you will have to pay a 10gp toll to pass through the gate to Al Kharid, which is located in ../Lumbridge/, just accross the river from the castle. Once you pass the gate head south and you'll find the bank.

Dying
Not the most pleasant experience in RuneScape, but it's going to happen. Upon death, you will automatically respawn in ../Lumbridge/ and you will lose all but your three best items, as mentioned before. To see which items you will lose if you were to die, go to the equipped items panel and click the button labeled "Items Kept Upon Death". It will show you exactly what you would keep and lose, as well as the value of your carried items and the value of your risked items (the ones you'd lose).

If you die, the only way to retrieve your lost items is to run back to the exact spot you were killed at and loot the items before they become visible to other players. If you have the default gravestone, you will have X minutes until this happens. As soon as other people see your stuff sitting on the ground, even if you've got bronze items and not much else, you can count on them grabbing it, so act fast.

Notes about dying:
 * If you have attacked someone in the Wilderness recently and have a skull above your character's head, you will not keep anything upon death.
 * You can change how long your gravestone stays intact by paying a fee to ? in ../Lumbridge/ church. Most of the grave designs are members-only, however.
 * If you are a member and have completed the Recruitment Drive quest, you can switch your respawn point from ../Lumbridge/ to ../Falador/. This can be undone.

Gettin' Around Town
Unfortunately, there are no mounts in RuneScape. There are a number of ways to get around in RuneScape, as you can discern from the Transportation Guide, but walking will be the way to go in the beginning. Clicking the run button near the minimap will speed things up quite a bit. Note that you can target which way you want to head by click both on the main screen or on the minimap. You energy depletes quite fast, but you can rest to restore your energy by right clicking the run button and choosing the "Rest" option. If you are near a musician, right click on him or her and listen to them play. This will cause your energy to restore a significant amount faster.

Notes on running and energy:
 * Your energy will deplete faster or slower depending on how much weight you are carrying between your inventory and equipped items. Example: you will run out of energy faster carrying an inventory full of coal than some runes and mage robes. You can view your total carried weight by going to the equipped items panel.
 * If you are/were a member and trained ../Agility/ at all, your energy will be restored faster than someone with a lower Agility skill than you. This is one of the very few benefits that a member or ex-member gains in a free world.