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PbP Matters
1. I expect a posting schedule of once a day during the week and once over the weekend. If you know you are going to be away, please let me know in advance and we can work something out. Otherwise, if you go missing, where necessary, I will bot your characters for the sake of keeping things moving. Thus, a good idea is to leave botting instructions for combat (preformatted dice roll expressions are a life saver here) and some commonly used non-combat skills in your profile page.
2. I am living and working in Japan, meaning I am in a very different time zone from most people on the boards. Occasionally my work schedule doesn't allow me to post at the same time everyday, so if there are posts coming in at odd times don't worry.
3. Please feel free to use the discussion thread for important OOC matters. For OOC matters in the gameplay thread, please use the [ ooc ] tag.
4. If you have any disagreements over some of my GM calls or interpretation of the scenario, please bring up in the discussion thread or, even better, pm me.
5. If you have played and/or GMed a scenario before, please do not metagame or spoil the plot and let me know ahead of time.
6. I keep track of images and maps on google slides. I understand there are times where editing them is difficult. In these cases, please be as specific as you can as to where you wish your character to move, what actions to take, etc. If you regularly have issues with accessing the google slides, please let me know. (Incidentally, Android and IOS has a Google Slides app in case you work off mobile devices.)
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Normal Combat
7. I run initiative in blocks. If your character is up, I will bold their name in the initiative list. If your block is up, feel free to post in any order, please don't wait for the person ahead of you to post, as that drags combats out. I will resolve things in posted order unless someone specifies they wait until after someone else does something. Also as much as possible, I will group enemies together.
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Rolls and Skill Checks
8. I will do your initiative rolls, as well as perception rolls for the purpose of determining surprise (if any). For PF2 I also will roll secret checks for you.
9. On knowledge checks for general information, I will usually put them in spoilers with the necessary DCs.
For PF1 and Starfinder: Just go ahead and roll, and I'll trust that you would resist reading them if the roll fails (or least not to metagame Really, please don’t!.) There might be exceptions for plot-critical information though, where I might explicitly ask for knowledge checks. As for knowledge checks to identify creatures, I’ll put the most basic information in spoiler as well, i.e. identity and creature type. If your roll would reveal more, I’ll provide in the next post. If you wish, you can ask for what information you want, e.g. DR, resistances, special attacks, etc.
For PF2 I'll try rolling for you and then spoiler the information you recall there. At the start of combat I'll include the type of check to recall information about an enemy and if you take the recall information action please tell me your bonus and I'll roll it for you.
10. On skill checks where team efforts can happen, e.g. hacking a terminal with computers or influencing the attitudes of NPCs with diplomacy, please be explicit when making rolls whether you are attempting the check on your own, or whether you are aiding. There might be situations where only one character is allowed to attempt the check (and the rest to aid) – I’ll state so if that’s the case.
11. On skill checks in general, if I feel you have roleplayed well, e.g. gave a good description of what your character does to search for a trail, came up with creative ways to befriend a hostile NPC, gave a very rousing speech, I do give bonuses.
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Roleplaying Matters
12. The maps and handouts link (at the top of the page, and under my GM name) will display all the maps, handouts, pictures, etc as the scenario progresses. The most current map will be on top, and linked in the combat posts while previous pages will be left there in order for your reference.
13. Please have your full character information up on your character's profile page or a link to a character sheet. Also, please have your tag line updated with the key information.
14. Finally, playing by pbp provides many advantages compared to face-to-face games, the chief one being having the time and space to flesh out your thoughts and actions. So please make use of this and have posts that are more than simply dice rolls. :)
