Questions on how to GM on GP

Ok I was thinking about starting my own campaign and i wanna ask some questions about how to Gm on GP. i know you have a thread that's going to this soon but hopefully some of the questions i have might help the making of this thread.

1. What kinda of differences do you have from being GM at a table and being a GM on GP
2. Whats the rule of thumb when it comes to checks and combat
3. What are different ways to run combat on the forums. pros/cons
4. How long should character creation last
5. What is the best way to set up the forums in the game thread so it makes it easy for players.
6. Whats the options, forum mechanics wise, do the GM's have on GP.

That's all I got so far. I haven't GM'ed on GP but I'll update this thread if anyone else has another good question. Hoping for discussions to help anyone wanted to GM.

[Edit]
7. What system is a good system to start GMing with on GP?

My own take is have them create good characters, but then just get into it. Gameplay is slower in PbP, so up front investment of time for rich background is largely wasted. Instead, build that up over time our in side channels, even PM, but don't hold up gameplay for it.

Keep the game going. At a table, you can prompt the players, but in PBP, you don't know where the players are, or if they are aware of your last post. A week goes by no reply and the momentum is lost. Set a rule, like two days and then act for them and move on. Also, don't be overly strict about turn order for the same reason.

Oh thats a good point, so you have two days as a wait time for someone to post then you continue on? do you make there character take a turn or just assume they follow along?

Thanks for this thread, I'm on GP since one week, and I was thinking of starting a campaign. I have a question of my own : do you think that some system are easier than other when it comes to play by post gaming.
An exemple : WoD or Cthulu must be easier than D&D or Shadowrun.
Less action oriented, more time to think about the mysteries or the roleplay.
Am I wrong? What is your experience abou this subject?

As far as combat there are two ways that seem to work best for things like initiative. A round based combat. I ran into this first in End of the World, basically you split the conflict into two or more "teams". So heroes, enemies, maybe even fleeing citizens. Then each team goes. Each person in that team takes their actions, then it moves to the next team.

Initiative in that game was generally based on whoever narratively got the drop on the other. It was only if they were on even footing that a contested roll between the teams would be needed.

The other style is the Star Wars system from FFG. That system everyone rolls an initiative roll, but once your heroes and enemies are put in order the slots become generic. By that I mean that if the order is:

Person 1 (PC)
Person 2 (PC)
Enemy 1 (Enemy)
Person 3 (PC)

Then after you have that order the spots become generic spots like:

PC
PC
Enemy
PC

So any of the players will go first, followed by another player that has yet to act. Then an enemy will go, then another player. The actual final order of the players doesn't matter.

Both of those systems are nice because for a player who doesn't post as often they don't as often hit a point where they hold up the game.

I like the first system and use it often because it speeds up the player turns and then I can lump all enemy posts into one and toss it back to the players, but the second system seems more fair to a real life combat.

Either is fine, I think. Just be up front about it with them and be consistent.

I am running a game of Feng Shui 2 on here, which is very action oriented. A staple is that the characters might be attacked by like 30 mooks at once. Rolling for 30 enemies every time their action comes up is a giant pain. (Fortunately, there is an online mook attack generator at atlasgames.com so I just told they players for mass attacks like that, I would not roll on GP but post the results.)

I am running another game of D&D 5 e, where the PCs are being mass grappled (6 PCs, 12 enemies). That's a lot of opposed rolls every round. If their players don't post every day, I have to keep track of unresolved rolls. If I kept this up I might roll the opposed roll for the players with the original post, or, killer in Pathfinder, assign a static defense (i.e., assume they roll 10s or 11s).

Think about things like that when choosing a game; mechanical difficulties with a system. See if someone is running a game of the system you have in mind and review their threads, looking for how they implemented it, our house ruled it to simplify.

One thing that I've found that helps speed things along is to have the GM roll for the characters when it makes sense. As opposed to calling for everyone to 'give me an blankity-blank roll' I'll just make the rolls myself and get on with the action. Generally I'll make it clear in the OOC game forum that I will do that from time to time if I want to pick the pace up a bit.

I was going to touch on the initiative options as well, but PhantomNimbus has that more than covered.

As far as forum setups go, I would just recommend looking at some of the public games and see how they've been set up. I like to have a separate sub-forum for non-game posts (OOC discussion, Character Creation, NPC notes, etc...) and keep the in-game posts in the main forum.

When setting up a game I would also recommend stating up front what you expect out of players in terms of:
1) Posting Frequency: What will happen if the expected frequency is not met. For example I'll give everyone 48 hours to post before I'll take action for their character (and I do give a little leeway on top of that if the player has been active in the past). If you haven't logged on in two weeks and haven't notified anyone that you'll be gone your character will be dropped from the game.
2) Character Creation: Allowable resources and/or races, alignments, etc. for the characters.
3) Adult Situations: If you're going to have situations in the game that might make people uncomfortable, state it up front. (Keleth does an excellent job covering this in the latest Modifier Podcast. Think it's worth repeating here.)

Here's another question, what is your solution to someone leaving the game? For what ever reason.

Depends on the game. In cases where the game will work without the character (say we drop from five to four) we just continue on as is. Otherwise I'll post something in the Games Tavern forum and look for a replacement and work the new character into the game in whatever way makes sense.

Yeah, what Szemely said. You should expect that someone may leave, sometimes 2, the internet being something of a flight risk. Do not arrange your game to critically rely on every player remaining.

How about this, what is the best way to deal with a split group? Do you add another thread and lock it from anyone seeing? Or just do it all in one thread and hope the players don't meta the game.

Two threads, although I don't lock it. I let the players decide if they want to read the other thread and they can worry about player versus character knowledge. That's just a personal play-style thing, though.

Is there a game up that currently doing that I can check out?

This game actually split into four or five mini games as each character went off to fulfil their own part of the mission.

I've seen split parties in a couple of games that I'm in, and for the most part having everything in the same thread seems to work well. I think it does depend on players honorably avoiding the meta-game.

One game just used sections within the post to describe activities and actions, which I thought did a decent job of keeping the timeline going.
Example:
Another game used private notes between players and GM to determine action. While this prevents other players from meta-gaming, it does leave a string of posts with grey boxes.

I'm actually running two games using both systems. Red Tavern I try to stream it together and I feel like it adds to the entertainment value for everyone to read, but I worry that people don't get that hidden agenda feel that some might really enjoy.

In the new Tyranny of Dragon sets I'm doing I'm trying to use notes more, but I feel like either I might have to end up retyping the same stuff a few times for new people that join into scenes, or I might just be making too many posts of grey boxes. I know how it can feel to see those and know something is going on but not be sure quite what.

So I'm a little torn between the two. I guess in the end try a bit of both and see what feels best for you.

It's been working in the Red Tavern game rather well I think. I know I've enjoyed reading the exploits of the others while Ütés was trudging through sewers.

It's a group game, so unless something HAS TO be secret I'd rather it not be.

So what happens when a character goes all evil and sets a plan to kill the group. In a case like that your ok with everyone reading how there characters are going to die?

I like secrets, specially if the players know there will be secrets, know some of the secrets, but don't know why the secrets are secret.

That's a case of the "has to be secret" I was talking about ;)

Secrets are fine, I'm more referring to mini-adventures that will have no significant impact on what the other players will do. Could have stated that better, I suppose!

Yeah I like the idea of everyone being able to see that's going on, I just feel it would be hard to not meta game the system.

I suppose that would really depend on your players. I personally haven't seen anyone abuse the openness of what's documented in-game, and I'm sure the GMs I play with would nip that real quick if it's pretty obvious Character B's actions wouldn't reflect what they really know.

I'm trying to do it more in my other game, but I generally try to stick to a few instances:

1. A player has done a check and noticed something that the others have not.
2. A player does an action that no one else has seen. I do this in case they intentionally did that and want to keep it secret.
3. If only certain people have split off to do something.

The only reason I make those secret is because it's fun to see how their characters relay that information back to their party, or don't. I've seen it often times as well where a rogue character might want to pocket some loot without others knowing so they have their own money reserve they skim off the top.

To me it becomes less of making sure everyone else knows what is going on and more of making sure characters are realistically reacting to situations. It might not seem like a big deal in most cases, but a lot of it can also play into how the characters perceive each other. Your characters may genuinely react differently to someone if they know they just murdered an innocent man in an alleyway only moments before you meet them, or your dislike of a rogue who has pocketed a ton of gems, but said he didn't have money to buy a shortsword he wanted might just feel a little more real if it is later revealed in game that he has been sitting on a stash of money.

Like I said I'm really torn on this though because it's really fun to read the exploits of others, but it can easily steer small decisions of others when they know something that they otherwise shouldn't. If your paladin character knows you just murdered someone in cold blood in an alley only 20 feet away, will he continue on the path he was on, or may he try to incite the conflict by walking towards the alley he would otherwise not have passed?

People say they don't metagame, but we all know we metagame a little bit. Even when I see those little grey note boxes and I'm not included I suddenly become just a little bit suspicious of the names on the box. It's really hard not to when you know secrets are moving around.

The plus side to either method though, people have fun either way in game. Make an interesting story, populate with some unique and interesting characters, then let the characters drive out a fun story. You have to sometimes get a little more hands on and railsy with pregen adventures, but it's fun to embellish those.

Also Google Image Search is your best friend for finding NPC pictures. I always slap 'concept art' onto any description and you can find some cool stuff.

Once the game has started, go in and edit it to allow custom character sheets. You can create a new character sheet for an NPC in about 0 seconds flat with that. Just make a new one, throw a name and avatar on it, and then a tiny blurb in the notes about the NPC like where they met the players and what they do. Maybe a quirk about them. Then jump over and add it to the game and off you go.