End of the World: Zombie Apocalypse -The Layover [ EDIT ]

Posting Frequency:
Although I'm fairly lenient, I would like to see a post from each player every day during weekdays (every other day is acceptable if it doesn't become a habit), and each player can expect to see a post from me each day. I understand that for many of us, Play-by-Post is convenient because we have jobs, school, family, friends, and other personal responsibilities; and that sometimes these responsibilities interfere with even PbP roleplaying, so if something comes up and you're not able to post for a while, just let me know by PM or in the forums and I'm happy to arrange something. Lack of activity without explanation is what I'm mostly focused on curbing; it's unfair to the Game Master, and it's unfair to other players.

Consequences of Inactivity:
If a player isn't posting regularly and hasn't given the GM a heads up, their character is subject to hijack by the Game Master. In the interests of keeping the game's progress and pacing moving forward, I may occasionally roleplay a hijacked character as being fairly active (though I assure you it is highly unlikely that any hijacked character's activity with be to the benefit of the character or the party that character is with). Typically, however, I will roleplay a hijacked character as having done little-to-nothing-at-all. Whether it's because the hijacked character froze at a key moment, wasn't paying attention, or any other reason; the consequences that an inactive and hijacked character face are often quite lethal... Inactive players may very well log in after an unannounced hiatus and find their characters dead, undead, or re-dead.

Expectations regarding Gameplay Style:
There are more monsters in a zombie apocalypse than just the zombies, and every character will face their own challenges and dangers based on how they play the game. Passive characters who prefer to hunker down and lay low will have a different (though not necessarily safer) experience than more active characters that prefer a take a more on hands-on approach to the apocalypse, and neither approach is guaranteed to be better or worse than the other. Because the underlying goal of this game is survival, there are no expectations on my part of the characters working together as a cohesive team, and there should be none of those expectations on the players' parts. Each character will be dealt with as if they are a separate individual attempting to stay alive by whatever means necessary. Though the characters all begin in the same location, they are not guaranteed to interact with one another, to know one another, or to even meet one another though the course of the game. Their interactions with one another depend largely on decisions made by the players and should the characters cross paths, I don't expect them to necessarily play nice together. If characters want to work as a team because it ensures their survival, that's just as acceptable as if they choose not to work together.

Character Creation Info:
As stated before, The End of the World is a roleplaying system in which players play themselves as characters. A face-to-face campaign usually begins with a group of friends sitting around a table playing themselves as characters who are sitting around a table waiting to play a roleplaying game when the apocalypse kicks off (I think that's considered "meta"). Because this is a PbP game, and we don’t actually know one another in real life (probably), we're going to make some minor adjustments to the character creation process; none of which will impact the game itself or the character's chance of surviving and all of which will be explained in the Character Creation thread.
One of the other major differences to this game versus the original design will be that some or all of you may not wish play yourself, or at least admit to a group of strangers that you just met online that you are playing yourself. That's fine; I'm not trying to fish for your personal data. If you want to play, but you don't want to divulge personal information about yourself, just make a character that is "sort of like yourself". Maybe give them a job similar to your own. Give them stats similar to how you perceive yours to be (or if you’re a Navy Seal or a ninja, at least how you perceive us average people to be statted). Equipment, in the beginning, will be rather mundane, oftentimes useless, and sometimes more useful than you ever imagined. Later on you may come across some really cool stuff that makes loud noises, awesome explosions, and goes really fast; but during the creation process you be geared up with little more than what you’ll find if you patted yourself down while reading this.

In Summary:
1. Please don't sign up to play this game if you don’t intend to post regularly. I've run this game before and the players had fun until players stopped posting. It only takes one or two inactive players to hold the entire game up, and then no matter how well a game is being run, interest begins to wane. I understand expecting a post every day or every other day is a lot, and I understand that we all have lives in the real world, and I'm more than happy to make arrangements if something comes up and you give me a heads up. But I will do everything in my power to keep gameplay moving forward constantly, and if that means hijacking and even killing an inactive player’s character, I will. So please just give me a heads up if you need to go on hiatus so your character won't be penalized.
2. Please understand that this game will be lethal. Bad people do bad things; they don’t need provocation, and they're smart enough to know that the odds of their own survival are more favorable if they shoot first and ask questions later. Characters can find themselves in just as much hot water by hesitating as they can by acting impulsively. The last time I ran this game, things started out a bit slowly, but as soon as the **** started to hit the fan, it got real messy fast. The fact that the characters are just regular, relatively unexceptional people makes them the precise demographic that separates an apocalypse from a lousy day at the office. Nobody here is likely to be a member of a Navy Seal team, a backup quarterback for a pro football team, or a properly credentialed ninja. Try and play your character based on what you would do in a given situation, and accept that there's a good chance that your best efforts will probably get you killed.
3. Finally, while this game can be quite lethal and thus it is highly unlikely, I want to make it clear that I would love to see each character somehow manage to survive. I have no interest in creating a game just to invite a handful of players to make characters I can kill off; this stuff takes too much time to sit down and write for that. As invaluable as any stats, equipment, or other advantages are to a character (no matter how lousy or great they may seem on paper); decisions on the players' parts can make all the difference between a character's life or death in any given situation. A well-suited character can die by the overconfidence of its player just as easily as a seemingly inept character can escape danger with a cautious and clever player at the helm who maximizes the positive and negative advantages to their favor. Survival isn't impossible for anyone in other words, and I wish everyone that plays the best of luck.