GM advice?

Before I run my first game as PBP, I would like to hear from others who have. Anything and everything you can provide - expectations I should have/set for participants, expectations I should provide for players, dos and don'ts, whatever else you feel would be of value.

Thank you!

Communication, communication, communication.

It's all about communication. You cannot over-communicate with PBP.

Tell your players what you expect RE: posting frequency, tell them what you will do if hey don't meet your freq expectations ("I will boot you after 2 weeks of failing to meet X posting frequency."), tell them your expectations for their OOC communication habits (i.e. "Let me know if if you're going to be AFK for more than 3 days" (or a week or whatever you expect), tell them what you will do if they fail to meet that OOC communication standard ("I will boot you no questions asked after 1 violation of this communication standard").

Then - and this is very important - adhere to these standards yourself.

Also, Is recommend you give yourself the "forum/thread infrastructure" to support the game. I like to create an OOC Chat Thread, an OOC Resource Thread (system info), and IC Resource Thread (in-world info, maps, NPCs, etc.), a "Character Sheets" forum/thread (or have each player create a thread for their PC), but I may go overboard on this stuff...

Good luck!

I'd recommend not starting with your masterpiece game. Do some short games (one shots) for awhile. Meet a variety of people and find the ones who you work well with, who are dependable, and who understand and enjoy your style (and vice versa with you and their style). Once you have those people, you can do something big, something awesome. It too might fall apart, and don't take it too seriously when it does. Such is the way of online gaming, so fragile in the face of real life.

Also, play in some games. Playing takes a lot less time than GMing, and you get to experience a variety of styles. I have never played in a game here that I didn't learn something from the GM and other players that made my games better.

I'd steer clear from anything so complicated that it requires multiple rulebooks or character sheets that mostly can't be scribbled on a napkin; generally we'll be catching posts when we have two minutes time spare, with plenty of other things on our mind, YouTube on in the background and only a half remembered idea of what each player's been doing in the past two minutes of game time (which in real life could well have been last month if you're doing something combat heavy). If there's a massive barrier in the form of a game that's hard to get the rules of, needing to do constant dice rolls, or the game not flowing fast enough there's going to be some failure (see last month's Cyberpunk debacle)

D&D5 is the exception; most people will have the rules for Players Handbook and can be handled pretty easily since Initiative Orders are pretty obvious, hits-misses and damages are pretty easy to handle, and if you catch players between turns you can interrupt if they trigger traps or readied actions. Just do some good grid work and you're good to go. I wouldn't run combats TOO complicated though; spending two weeks to get through twenty goblins will kill your enthusiasm REAL quick

FATE and Fate Accelerated are rules people can get for cheap/free and are narrative heavy and dice roll light if people like writing blocks of text. PBtA games also have their character creation and rulesheets available for free and run about the same way (and that's why I'm running three of them). Anything more complicated or esoteric WILL need handholding through it for people who don't have the rules on them or your level of expertise.

A game that you'll be sure people own (D&D tends to be a sure bet here) or can get easily because they are either free or cheap can help.
For free games, check out my resources page here.
For cheap games, use this site's referral link for DrivethruRPG and check out games that are up to 5$.

Another thing to keep in mind is if you start out with 4 or 5 players and one stops posting for a 2-3 weeks without a word, start thinking about how you might introduce a new player into the game. If people drop out don't feel bad. Real life takes priority to the PbP. And sometimes we or our players have dreams of these epic games but realize epic games are possible only over long long periods of time in a PbP format. Once you are sure the person has dropped out advertise for the new player position here in the gamers tavern.

I have noticed in all the games I play there are only one or two original players that stuck around for the long term. So you might replace quite a few over time.

IMO, the advice guiding you away from more traditionally complex games is misplaced. Those, frankly, are the games with the largest player base. And if that's what interests you, and thats what you can find people to play, go for it.

IMO, it's more important that you and your players are invested in the game, and know the system - that you "choose the right players" - than it is to "choose the right system". In my experience games like Fate and PbtA trade mechanical back and forth and numbers gamesmanship, for narrative and OOC back-and-forth and meta gamesmanship. It doesn't really resolve any quicker, it's just tends to involve more narrative/rp, rather than mechanics. Which does lend well to PbP - don't get me wrong - those games have value, BUT is not inherently better or quicker for PbP - it's still back and forth - just different priorities and purposes for that back and forth.

My $0.02.

The advice in thread is amazing, and I find myself more or less in agreement with all of it. My addition is that, its important to consider pacing. PbP games are significantly slower no matter what you're playing. For example, one fight can easily take a week or more. Even if all your players are posting once a day, which is a good level of participation, games will progress at a level that is best described as "incremental". You may find yourself forced to present the game to the players differently. One technique I've used is limiting combat and doling out experience for non-combat encounters. This also means there is a lot of room for treating the game like a collaborative story, which can be very cool.

Thank you all. The advice and guidance is appreciated.

I would also add that games that require negotiation, that is rapid back-and-forth communication to sort out an action, is really hard to do when it can be two days between each post. Try and find ways to eliminate/minimize anything that requires immediate responses by the players or by the GM, before the action can be completed. What happens is the other players, shut out of the game for a week or two, stop checking as often.

Party planning is really hard to do in PbP, especially when there's an entire day between posts. It can sometimes take weeks to resolve one simple situation as the party tries to figure out what path they want to agree on. One thing I've thought about doing is creating a Discord server for the players OOC chatter. That way they have a real-time way to do their planning!

The negotiating and party planning points are good. Looking back on games those were always slow going.