If you are interested in playing this game, and I hope you are, some things I need to lay out in advance about expectations, mine for the players and what the players can expect from me as GM.

First About My Style: I usually have a running timeline or story that the NPCs are following, often adjusted depending on player actions and adventure consequences. That means that there is a clock ticking and events will unfold as time passes. If the players want to hang around doing stuff in a one-night extended sleepless push, that is fine, and I welcome the interaction. But the NPCs are moving to the World Clock, so don’t expect the entire story to unfold in 24 game hours. Which is not to say that I discourage interaction, far from it; just that events in game will occur at a logical pace for game time, so if you guys stretch out a scene, it is you guys interacting; I will applaud and award XP for it.  A long night of discussing your next move in a coffee shop is great, even better throwing in some romance with a local or a game of cards.  Just don’t expect that something will occur that advances the story if time hasn’t really passed.  The game will seem open and sand-boxy even as a story line unfolds because of this.  There will be set missions/adventures/hooks, and minor and major plot lines running in the fore and background.

The core reasoning here is to give the players room to Role Play their characters; there is a plot, a story moving, and you are free to interact with it all you want.  If you don’t interact with it, it will still move on, and the background scenery will change or evolve.  If you interact with it, you can influence that change.  I will do my best to present interesting NPCs, situations, and story lines to entertain all of us; and actively solicit ideas and suggestions for where to go and take things.

I happily accept constructive criticism, compliments, and assistance respectfully communicated.  If you want to run an NPC in a scene, run it by me first.  If you have an idea for how a story line could go, tell me.  If you want to help keep track of combat or loot or information gained, you are welcome to pitch in.  Likewise, if you have ideas for interesting NPCs (villains, rivals or otherwise) or situations for the players to work through, please let me know.

Rules: As GM my interpretation of the rules is controlling.  I will accept suggestions and advice, again respectfully communicated, and will consider dissenting opinions.  But I preserve my prerogative as GM to have the final say on this issue.

Time Zones and RL: I am usually a bit off from many on the site, sitting at GMT+9.  I will do my best to post regularly and keep the action going, but patience for RL issues and time zones is a must.  As much as I enjoy PbP gaming, RL always takes precedence.  Take any delays in posting from me as an opportunity, better yet, as an invitation, to keep Role-Playing.

Writing and Grammar: My web browser has spell check ability, and any good word processor will give grammar advice. Poor grammar and writing out strange accents make it harder to read and understand a post; focus on good grammar and getting the wording right. I don’t expect three paragraphs for every post, but context, mood, thinking, posture, tone of voice are all important details. A post with just in-character speech is unacceptable.  If English is your second language, I am sympathetic and understanding (it is mine also); I urge you to take advantage of the tools available.  Separate spoken text in quotes & bold and remember:  do not post a message that contains only spoken text.  See below for more on posting etiquette.

Second, The Players: I expect characters to be interested in their surroundings, curious, good-hearted even if they are scruffy scoundrels; not evil or psychopathic.  The players and their characters must have a certain level of interested involvement.  That means not simply reacting to events as they unfold or waiting for a GM prompt, but actively investigating leads, clues, and hints: your character should be motivated to act, and to act as part of a group.  Conflict between characters is fine, but not between players.  I strongly encourage the use of the OOC thread, an OOC note separated out at the bottom of a post, or private messages to communicate player-to-player how a scene will unfold, what the characters are thinking, how they are motivated, etc. Remember, you the player only have the text on the screen, but your characters can read body language, interpret tone, etc. So, hashing things out amicably OOC is Great!

I also expect the Characters to be Good People.  As mentioned above, they don’t all have to be paladins or lawful good, but they are good at heart and willing to do the right thing, eventually.  Good People believe in the inherent good potential in all people.  They believe evil people can be redeemed.  A Good Person will believe that a villain can be redeemed, even in the face of betrayal and evidence to the contrary.  That doesn’t mean being gullible or stupid, but it does mean that smart good people set it up for a villain to do the right thing, with a contingency expecting them not to do so.  Good People don’t kill innocents or allow innocents to be killed.  They don’t usually break the law (some feel it is okay when necessary.)  Generally, they feel a sense of justice and act accordingly.  Also, Selfishness is the root of evil; selfishness, greed and related behavior is the path to the Dark Side.

Finally, neither I nor the campaign will put up with hostile loners, apathetic brooders, Machiavellian manipulators, or other characters that must be coaxed into engaging with the world and cooperating with the rest of the group.

Please observe The Agency Rule and proper etiquette: it is bad form to remove another player’s agency from their own character; to perform an action on/against another player's character without that player having a chance to react. For example, Red’s player can't simply write that he picks up Mary and carries her into the building over his shoulder. Mary’s player would have to agree or have a chance to avoid Red's grasp. Likewise, with NPCs; they have agency in matters that affect them.  (In the RTJ put a smiley like this :) at the end of the message.)

We acknowledge that there are often considerable differences between player knowledge and character knowledge, extending not only into awareness of the immediate scene or situation, but also into real-world versus in-game skills, other character thoughts, feelings, and motivations.  However, reasonable assumptions and allowance will be made by both GM and PC to account for such knowledge, permit out-of-character discussions regarding such knowledge, and generally assume characters are people of an intelligence and wisdom commensurate with their characteristics, background, and experience.   Likewise, I expect mature players will not use player knowledge their characters do not share to inform character actions.

Lastly, there will be no PvP in this game.  Don’t argue with me that it would be in-character for your character to attack another PC.  If that is the case, you and your character were selected for the game in error.  Arm wrestling does not count as PvP.

If you are still with me after reading that wall of text, here are the posting guidelines:

Use "bold type" within quotes for anything spoken out loud.  I don't mind if you use a color with bold for your spoken text but make it a dark color with good contrast against a light background.  If you want to post something your character is thinking in terms of an internal monologue use italics type and the rest of us will know that we could not hear that.

I will not be using the languages tags; it is too complicated.  I will trust your maturity to keep player and character knowledge separate should a conversation occur in a language you don't speak.

Please use third person tense when describing your character’s actions and words.  Usually past tense works, but if there are any contingent actions, present/future works as well.  For example, "Blah," he said.  He will then run if attacked.

Finally, append any OOC text at the end of your post, including dice rolls, but please put a horizontal line followed by <OOC> to differentiate.  Please don't alternate IC and OOC text, the goal here is to make things easier to read.  OOC text is colored orange, again to help it stand out.

VERY IMPORTANT: Do Not make a post that consists only of spoken words.  We can't see your character, so we need body language, tone, hand gestures, etc. described.  The more context you can provide the better.

Also important:  don't write out strange accents, they just make it hard to read your posts.  Use one or two words to convey that there is an accent, include a note about the accent in the description, and then leave it at that.  Thank you.