Character Creation and Leveling

Im ready to join in, feel free to weave me in when and how you see fit. If someone has the time to fill me in on the basics, (such as the coloured font/bold font) im sure I can figure most of it out but just a quick note so I can jot down the basics would be cool

In terms of etiquette and things like that, there are a few things that I've found to be pretty common throughout play-by-post games:

Character actions are posted in unadorned plain text.
Your speech is done in bold text.
Internal thoughts are handled through italics. I've seen some folks use colored and italics for this to help differentiate.
Telepathy and the like ML has been using Crimson Bold Italics to differentiate
I do information about the spell I am casting or the actual game mechanic I am using in red font. I also try to include a link to the spell in the post, just a quirk of mine so I can get to the spell details quicker.
Anything out of character is posted using the OOC tags.

---

In general, I have a block of information I put at the bottom of my character's posts in combat that I keep in a google doc for quick access:

Casting silence.
1st 4/4 | 2nd 3/3 | 3rd 2/2
39/39 HP | 13 AC | Inspiration 0 | Wild Shape 2/2
Currently Prepared ([*] indicates a ritual spell):
1 - [Heal in Wild Shape form - 1d8], Goodberry, Ice Knife, Create or Destroy Water
2 - [Heal in Wild Shape form - 2d8], Heat Metal, Moonbeam, Locate Animals or Plants [*], Barkskin
3 - [Heal in Wild Shape form - 3d8], Water Breathing [*]

This lets me capture the mechanics I'm using that round, my spell slots available, my HP, AC, special features, etc, as well as my current prepped spell list (for casters only, obviously :) )

Looks like this in text form (remove the '/' character in the first tag to make it work):

[co/lor="red"]Casting [u/rl=http://engl393-dnd5th.wikia.com/wiki/Silence][/i]silence[/i][/url].[/color]
[co/lor="blue"]1st 4/4 | 2nd 3/3 | 3rd 2/2[/color]
[co/lor="teal"]39/39 HP | 13 AC | Inspiration 0 | Wild Shape 2/2[/color]
[co/lor="tomato"]Currently Prepared ([*] indicates a ritual spell):
1 - [Heal in Wild Shape form - 1d8], Goodberry, Ice Knife, Create or Destroy Water
2 - [Heal in Wild Shape form - 2d8], Heat Metal, Moonbeam, Locate Animals or Plants [*], Barkskin
3 - [Heal in Wild Shape form - 3d8], Water Breathing [*][/color]


I do not expect you all to do it to this level! I do ask that you keep track of your current HP, modified AC, and special abilities in some way that's easy for you and easy for me to also see. :)

---

In terms of things that make it go smoother, a lot of times in live games, people will wait to roll damage until after seeing if the hit lands. To speed up PBP games, it's common to include both the attack and damage in one set of rolls:

Rogue Rapier Stab with sneak attack: 1d20+5, 1d8+3, 1d6.

This will let the DM grab your damage right away if it hits, or they can ignore it if it's a miss.

Spoilers are very useful for things like speaking in other languages (so other players can read it if they have the language or can skip it if they don't have it). Also useful from a DM perspective for things like perception rolls:

---

With regards to the GamersPlane dice roller, there are some things to be aware of (examples included as rolls on this post):

The system doesn't currently allow for adding dice rolls together (such as 1d10+1d4). If you type in a roll like that in the dice roller, you will end up with 1d10+1 and a second roll of 1d4.

You can put multiple rolls in a single line, very helpful for advantaged rolls:

Advantage Attack Roll: 1d20+5, 1d20+5, 1d8+3

Reroll Aces is from other game systems where you "explode" the die when it gets its maximum value. So if you were to roll a 1d6 with reroll aces, and you got a 6, it would reroll the 6 and add the new dice to the total in addition to the 6. Example below.

Thank you i appreciate all that information, and I'll do my best to keep it up to par. If there's something I'm messing up on or missing, please point it out so that I can correct it!

It'll all shake out into a habit soon enough. :) I'll get you written in soonish, just need to figure out a good way. I've got a pretty solid idea, just waiting to get all of HypCo's details to make sure both write-ins work well.