HowTo PBeM

My experience with Play By e-Mail games is admitantly limited. But I've seen enough similarities and differences between the styles to be able to create my own. As such, this isn't an instruction on how to PBeM for ALL games! Just this one.

It's also been my experience that half the time the established structure maintained in the beginning gets changed or dropped altogether part way through the campaign. Sometimes it works out and a natural order establishes, sometimes it turns into something a little chaotic. My effort here will be to describe how I'll be administrating the group and turns, and to keep that organization throughout. However, I'm always open to suggestions. If after some time of following what's set down here the players feel a change would be welcomed, I'll certainly entertain the suggestion and probably incorporate it if it's workable and what the players want.

As a group we'll be using a closed Yahoo Groups forum to post among each other. If you become approved as a player, you'll be given the address.

THE BASICS FOR TIR-ALYN

I'm going to assume everyone coming here knows the concept of PBeM.

But in short I will say this for those unsure: The point of PBeM is to play an RPG, (in this case D&D 3rd Ed.), via sending e-mails back and forth. In its simplest form, Players post actions and the DM posts results and situations. The whole process is supposed to be a sort of organized chaos.
Players will likely send "conversational" posts discussing situations and possibilities much like gabbing around the gaming table, without yet stating what the character officialy does. Then when ready, players submit an Official Post which is a description of what they want their character to do. The format for Official Posts should for this game be in 3rd person present-tense. eg: "Fred hops on the table and throws the frog through the window, hoping to hit the elf on the nose." This will help me to compile the Official Posts into a Game Update, which is the official description of what happened and the results of which.
It's encouraged for players to submit If-Then or alternative actions in case circumstances change in mid-course. eg: "If the frog hits the elf, Fred yells 'Nookie nookie, ya pointy-eared devil! That's for Smegley!' Otherwise he'll duck below the window and hide, preparing another frog."

TURNS & POSTING

I'll try to keep it simple, but organized. As stated in the Player Expectations, players need to be able to make Official Posts at least four times a week. Of course that's a minimum and posting more than that is encouraged. In the beginning I'll be taking all "pending" Official Posts and compiling them into a Game Post. Players can send Unofficial Posts as much as they like, and that's also encouraged to help facilitate cooperation in actions.

Also, as long as it's not in the middle of Combat or some situation that's Time Constricted, a player may send an updated Official Post before the Game Post is sent as often as desired. However, once Combat begins or if the situation is pressed for time, only the first Official Post per player will be recognized.

COMBAT POSTING & INITIATIVE

Turn posting during combat isn't any more complicated, but there are a couple of important things to remember.
I'll announce when combat has begun and tell everyone order of initiative. Players can still send Unofficial Posts, of course but I'd like to keep it to a minimum during combat. If I feel it's taking too long for people to send Official Posts, I might have to have the opponents accelerate things a bit.
Characters with early initiative have the option of delaying their action until after another character. Also, characters with later initiative can make If-Then posts.

For example: Fred has 1st initiative and Smegley goes second. Fred decides he'll wait to act until after Smegley does and sends a post of (in essence) "F' holds back for a moment. If S' does X, then F' will do Y. If S' doesn't however, F' will do Z instead." Anytime an If-Then post is sent, an alternative must be included otherwise if the situation doesn't end up conforming to what the player wants to have happen, I'll end up having the character do nothing for that turn, or still do the posted action but the result may end up being different than expected.

If a later initiative character posts they'll wait to see what an early initiative character does before acting, they must also have an If-Then or alternative action inclusion, especially if the early initiative player also posted a "wait n see."
If say Fred posts he was going to wait n see what Smegley does, and Smegley posts he's waiting for Fred, if neither post alternative actions then both end up losing their turn standing around looking at each other stupidly.