Posting Guidelines

By JohnS

The following is an example of what I usually send to my players at the start of a campaign to explain the guidelines.


Types of Posts

Game Turn: Posted by the GM and will be a combination of character described actions and the outcomes as determined by the GM. Game turns will serve to:

• Summarize action
• Advance the story
• Solicit player response

Player Post: In character descriptions of actions, reactions, thoughts and dialogue usually in response to a GM post or character interaction. These posts will all impact the resultant Game Turn.

Flash Posts: These posts, usually sent by the GM, are measures used to provide a player with specific in game information or to advance action outside of a Game Turn. Usually these will be NPC dialogue in response to characters, the results of successful or failed skill rolls, or other information needed to continue the action.


Posting Format

Out of respect for various mailing programs and personal preferences please send all posts in plain text format. While HTML posts are not a bane to existence they can make for nasty formatting and difficult reading on some mailing programs/services.

All in characters posts (Game Turns, Player and Flash Posts) are to be written in the third person singular format. For example if your character is Private Joe Stephenson, CS Grunt:

Private Stephenson surveyed the scene with awe. The sorcerer’s fury was powerful, lightning rained down from heaven, smoke and flame furled from the mage’s hands. However, as impressive as the situation was it was also offensive to his sensibilities.

Leveling his C-14 Firebreather Stephenson took a bead on the mage and squeezed off a burst of fragmentation grenades. As the projectiles closed on the enemy of humanity, Stephenson shouted “Eat this freak!”

Internal character thoughts and motivations are highly encouraged. This is a game of character development after all, and to explore your character’s thoughts and reactions to a particular situations should add to the enjoyment and level of descriptive detail.

When replying to or quoting a previous post please be liberal with the cut and paste functions. This will reduce the amount of scrolling and bad formatting for everyone. When quoting please indicate where your new text begins by heading the post with your character’s name in [square brackets].


Stephenson wrote:

> Leveling his C-14 Firebreather Stephenson
> took a bead on the mage and squeezed off
> a burst of fragmentation grenades. As the
> projectiles closed on the enemy of humanity,
> Stephenson shouted “Eat this freak!”

[GM]

As the grenades detonate, the hot fragments of accelerated metal bounced harmlessly off the sorcerer’s Armor of Ithan. Seeing the object of his discontent the magic user wields a large fireball in Stephenson’s direction, shouting back

“Freak? You’re the one dressed in black and skulls!”

If you require the GM to check a particular skill or ability please include an Out of Character (OOC) comment at the bottom of your post.


Mechanics

Dice rolling and other checks will be performed by the GM and communicated to the players via a Game Turn or Flash Post. Not that he doesn’t trust such high caliber players, but for logistical ease and consistency – and also because the GM sometimes ‘influences’ results for dramatic or plot purposes.


Spell Checking & Misc.

The GM is a bad speller and grammatically challenged. However, he does ask that you try hard to avoid obvious mistakes of tense, spelling, and grammar.

One Line Posts are discouraged and may result in bad things happening to a character as the GM fills out the details from his imagination.

Please attempt to have as much fun as humanly, safely, and legally possible.


Regards,
JohnS
GM