Game Expectations
Posting Rate: it's pbp, I get it -- please try to make decent-sized posts 3/week. I think that will be fine if we make chonky posts that move stuff forward.
Posting Format: Also, I want to have an understanding of 'reasonable assumption of what other player will do' -- I've seen it called several things. We'll assume people are coming with the party unless they then stated otherwise, will assume they take objects offered to them -- binoculars etc. -- unless explicitly overruled, etc. This is to get around drawn out scenes for things like an NPC handing you a viewing device to look at the mountains in the distance, another post to indicate you're taking it, and then another describing what you see. There will be some gray areas, but I think tending to be more permissive, generous, in interpretations of these kinds of actions will keep things moving better, and anything to keep up the pace of pbp is helpful.
I'm also going to try to speed stuff up by making long posts that offer several options and aren't just strictly narrative -- more like laying out the options in one post. For example, a post about the main room of a tavern might have a few narrative paragraphs, and then have another page or so of details about the room and pictures of things in it so you don't have to ask me 'is their a chest in the room, how big is it, can I open it?' If you open the chest I'll then go ahead an make a list of all the major contents that you might conceivably interact with, etc. I'll also describe the npcs in the area so we won't have to have back and forth posts about things like 'Are there other npcs here, how many, who are they, can I talk to them?' I'll just have a list of NPCs, descriptions, furniture, and significant actions so you can read all that and decide what to do, including many things you won't want to immediately interact with.
Battlemaps: This system doesn't really have tight movement rules like D&D5e or PF1e, but I think it's always helpful to have something visual. I think I'll post maps on Excalidraw -- and attach the svg file to the relevant forum. I'm just going to post images of whole areas and not bother with fog of war functions -- that doesn't work well for pbp, so just don't metagame about it so this can be easier.
Combat: I'm just going to post npc stat blocks so you can resolve a lot of simple combat rolls on your own i.e., calculate if it hits, how much damage, and tell me instead of asking me if it hits, if so for how much, etc. -- again, I get that theoretically the suspense has an aesthetic appeal, but let's be real about what works well in this format. I think we should do combat by everyone announcing actions as soon as they can and then resolve in order of initiative -- I want to avoid situations as much as possible of one player waiting for another. I get there's some strategy to reacting to and anticipating moves. At least let's post likely actions, and you can modify it later if something happens in the interim so we're not all just waiting around for one person to post their action. On a similar note, I'd like everyone to put 3 common combat actions on their sheets I can use as a default if you're busy or unavailable.