GM Bearington's page

I post at least once a day almost always. As a player, I am able to make applicable posts closer to twice a day. As a GM, it averages out to one substantial post and another post with some quick responses a day.

I expect players to post once a day, if not more. I understand that the GM is the primary pace setter, but feel free to respond to other character's posts as appropriate! Please keep as much ooc conversation in the discussion tab as possible. I don't mind comments or questions in gameplay, but if your post is majority ooc text, take it to the discussion tab. If you are inactive for more than five days, you will be booted. I understand life comes up, but in a five day period you should have time for a quick one liner. If you know you will be absent during our game, please let me know! I will bot you as appropriate and your seat at the table remains yours.

Really, my only rule here is to not submit a post that consists purely of dice rolls. In a F2F game, I'd allow it, but part of the beauty of the PBP medium is that you can put serious effort into your posts. Even if it is just one line of descriptive text, that is significantly better than dice rolls. Not only does it make your posts uninteresting, it brings the overall quality of the game down for everyone. Why should other players bother to try if you aren't even pretending to try?

Here are three excellent guides/primers on using the Play by Post format to experience Pathfinder:
DH's Guide to PbP
Painlord's Guide to PbP GMing
Painlord's Advanced PbP Play

I will roll initiative, opposed perception, and some saves (typically out of combat) for you. I have yet to decide how best to handle knowledge checks, but I am leaning towards rolling them for the player. Feel free to persuade me either way until I make a complete decision on this. If you have unusual/situational modifiers to any of theses things, you are free to apply them both pro and reactively, but you must let me know you have such options before the game starts. While not 100% by the rules, the PbP medium is not very good for some of these abilities and I am sacrificing being by the book for practicality.

I will post chronicle sheets on a google drive that I will provide the link for. Your chronicles will last for a month or until everyone has confirmed they have acquired it. If you need access to it again, you will need to provide me with an email address and I will send it to you. I save all chronicle sheets to my hard drive, so don't fret if you miss the one month window.

If you know that there are debates occurring about some aspect of your character, please inform me ASAP. I do not enjoy making decisions when they are immediately relevant to the game. I will provide my thoughts on the matter and you are most certainly welcome to provide yours, but understand that as the GM my word is final in the games I run.

Please post any information I would need to know about your character. This includes perception, initiative, and all your defensive stats (AC, CMD, Saves, etc.). I may ask you to make additions to your tagline. PLEASE don't take offense. All this does is make my life easier by not having to click around for your information.

I use block initiative and resolve posts in the order they are presented by the initiative. If your post is invalidated by someone who posted after you but is at a higher initiative, I will do my best to turn your post into a valid but equivalent one. You have until your next post or 24 hours (whichever is sooner) to make changes to it. For maps, I utilize Google Slides. I wait 24 hours from my previous post before putting characters into the next initiative block, effectively putting you in delay. This is not a punishment, I just like to keep combat moving so we don't spend a week on three rounds of combat due to slow posting.
An example:

Initiative
Biggy McSmasher <--- It would currently be this character's turn
Bad Guy
Bad Dude
Spellsy Mc Spells
I'm not a rogue
A DRAGON!

A whole 24 hours pass and there is not a word from the player. Time for delay!
Initiative
Bad Guy
Bad Dude
Biggy McSmasher <--- It would currently be all of their turns and the enemies turns were resolved
Spellsy Mc Spells <---/
I'm not a rogue <---/
A DRAGON!

Please include botting instructions in your character sheet. I don't mind botting characters with instructions, but if there are no instructions present you are waiving your right to veto your botted actions. This will most likely only occur during combat. During noncombat, you will sulk in silence.