Play by Post Stuff

Some of you I've played with in the past, others are new faces and have mentioned being new to the medium of play by post as well. To that end, I've pulled together a quick summary of some "standards" you'll see me using throughout the game.

In short:

Your characters actions are posted in unadorned plain text. I try to keep these in third person, present tense.
Your speech is done in bold text.
Internal thoughts are handled through italics.
Information about the spell you are casting in red font. I also try to include a link to the spell in the post, but I don't ask you to do that if you don't want. Just a quirk of mine so I can get to the spell details quicker.
Anything out of character is posted using the OOC tags.
DM Information I try to post in this color.
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A few housekeeping items, so you all know what to expect:

1) Given the nature of PbP games, I will roll all initiatives. Typically combat will be side based, meaning all the PCs will go in one batch and then all the NPCs will go in one batch. In order to keep it "easy" to understand, I'll post the current combat lineup in Bold Teal. If your name is in bold, you are free to take your action. If not, no action for you!

Example:
COMBAT! Bold below may act:
Evil Monkey
Bob
Bill
Susan

Army of Grifters


2) Please roll attack and damage when you declare your attack. If you roll a 20, edit in an extra dice for the crit damage. For example, make a roll like: Longbow Shot: 1d20+3, 1d8+1.

3) If you think your action will need a roll, post it. If I don't need/want it, I'll just ignore the result. :)

4) For the most part, we'll be doing Theater of the Mind for combat, though I can provide maps as needed.

All in all, we're all here to have fun and roll some digital dice. If there's an issue with anything, please let me know and we'll do what we can to make sure everyone is having a great time!

Quick questions:
1) Should we just roll twice so you can pick advantage/disadvantages as you wish (probably works for critical damage as well).
Example: I magically kick that goblin into submission: attack roll 1d20+2,1d20+2, damage roll 1d3,1d3
2) Also, you mean this Theater of the Mind? (mostly to share for those who haven't seen it

I'm perfectly fine if you want to include the second roll and I'll take or leave as needed.

Yes, that theater of the mind. I've found that battle grids in PBP can be restrictively onerous for both players and DMs. If there is a particular fight that has a strong need for one, we'll find something that works. Otherwise, we'll play it pretty fast and loose.

By the way... How will the out of-combat-posting work? Would there be some sort of "turn based posting"? For example, each player posts only once before the GM resolves those actions? Maybe 1-2 posts per day allowed? No structure at all?

I'm asking as I've seem some different styles on GP, but one of the more "free-for-all posting" games I'm doing has been dangerously close to having a single player dominating the scene.

I’m going to be playing so players need to answer or interact. I won’t generally do another action or thought (post) until the GM or player or both answer.

I try to give everyone a chance to interact before pushing things along. However, if someone's actions would fundamentally change the way the scene is going, or if a character and an NPC are engaged in dialog, I will typically respond a bit more rapidly. I do my best to make sure that one person doesn't dominate the game (unless the party has nominated them to run a segment, like having someone do all the talking with someone, for example).

Most PBP games I've been involved with tend to settle into their own "normal". So we shall see what ours turns out to be. :)