-Character creation is 32 point buy, level 1, all official races and classes allowed as long as you run it by me first (but see below), max gold for your class.

-My general policy is: I want to give everyone as much freedom as possible, so you can pretty much do anything as long as everyone's having fun. So if you have your heart set on being a wizard, knock yourself out; if you really just want to out-munchkin everyone with your cheesed-out wizard, I'll be having a talk with you down the road. If you're dying to play something with a level adjustment, talk to me and we'll work something out. Similarly, if one of the rules below doesn't work for you, like if you really need a spell from Stormwrack for thematic purposes, let me know.

-I'm not one to sweat minor details too much. Don't worry about your encumbrance unless you're trying to wear full plate with an 8 strength or something. Similarly, unless you just got mugged, I'm willing to assume you're always reasonably stocked up on things like nonmagical ammo, cheap spell components, and rations. If you want to carry an abnormal amount of those things, then yeah, pay for it and put it on your character sheet as normal.

-Social interactions must be played out, aside from those that would normally take forever like Gather Information. Charisma and successful skill rolls in this regard will be treated as adding to good roleplay, or making up for bad.

-Spells that aren't in the PHB1 are considered exotic, and will have to be researched or discovered in game. (All spellcasting classes will be considered able to learn spells from scrolls and research spells for this purpose.)

-Spells like Commune and Scry will be nerfed to some degree to avoid magical mystery solving and scry-teleport-fry issues.

-Combat movement and actions will be fairly fluid to keep things moving. I won't take actions away from you, and I'll draw maps if it becomes important, but I might, for instance, allow everyone in a block of init to just act as a group or describe general distances between opponents rather than map everything every time. (Any help you can provide me, such as "I'll keep swinging at the guy for the next few rounds as long as my health doesn't get too low," will be much appreciated, though not generally mandatory.)

-The usual rules of polite posting apply. Don't announce other peoples' actions, let me know if you're going to be absent a while, and so on.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:41, Wed 26 Oct 2011.

With regard to character backstories, I'm holding off somewhat on game world specifics until I know what the groups are, because most of the campaign setups are going to involve travel to lands foreign to your characters before the game starts. It's a big multiverse, so as long as your character history is plausible, it'll probably work; just leave the specifics a little vague so I can go over them with you.

Also, since your character will probably be uprooted from their history before the game starts, don't feel like you need a novella for a background or anything. "Background: I learned how to fight in my hometown and then went off in search of adventure." is entirely acceptable if you just want to define the character through play.

A minor but important point: Dinosaurs will not be appearing in this game in any way, shape, or form.

Starting adventures have all been worked out, and I've made a world map, although I'll be keeping it under my hat for the time being since some of you will know it better than others. A group can start as soon as its players have finished their characters, or they can start with what they have in the next few days if they have enough players and some people aren't caught up yet.

As a reminder, I don't know whether your sheet is a work in progress or intended for submission until you PM me. If you're done with your sheet but you haven't had your name changed, it means you need to do this :)

Posting and game conventions:
-As mentioned before, be polite, and no declaring other peoples’ actions, whether PC or NPC. (Exception: Animal companions and summoned creatures are under your control except in exceptional circumstances.)

-If you’re a prepared spellcaster, make sure you’ve noted on your character sheet what spells you have set up; we’re not starting out with a rest period. After that, when you do rest, please private me whether you’re changing your prepared spells or not.

-Feel free to color your dialogue or not. Please do make some kind of OOC note when you’re not talking or acting in character, like for dice results. Also, if you’re specifically trying to avoid the ears of your fellow party members by talking in a foreign language, private it to me and I’ll private it back to those that can understand it; otherwise, just go ahead and note the language you’re speaking in and let the others decide for themselves whether they understand or not.

-Be very specific in the dice roller. Make clear what you’re doing and who you’re doing it to. Also, please copy the results into your post, rather than just leaving them there for me to look up.

-Feel free to use titles for your characters, but keep in mind they’ll be self-assigned and likely perceived as such. Everyone is starting on an even social footing. (Well, technically, everyone is starting with the same social ceiling and some people elected to go below it.)

-I’ll be rolling Spot and Listen in secret for you, since I’ll assume you’re always being alert. I will not be rolling Sense Motive for you; I’ll leave it up to you when you want to be suspicious of someone.

-There’s a few things worth noting about my no-railroading policy. First, just as a matter of necessity in a play-by-post, there’ll be times when I assume what you’re doing to keep things moving. I’ll try to keep it to minor stuff, but if I accidentally step on an action you’d intended – for example, I describe walking through a town with beggars in it, but your character always stops and throws coins to beggars – SAY SO. We’ll back things up as necessary. Similarly, shooting a villain as soon as he starts a speech, even though I already typed the whole thing out, is perfectly allowable if your character would have done so under the circumstances.

-On a related note, unless I have specific orders to the contrary, I’ll assume that anyone can speak for their group in terms of things like moving around and entering initiative, since otherwise we’ll have to get group consensus on a lot of things and it’ll bog down. You’ll need to get in an objection quickly if you have one, since I can’t really rewind over the party seeing an ambush in the next room or something.

-As a more general no-railroading matter, never assume that because you’ve been presented with a potential adventure hook/plot item/NPC party member, I want you to take it. My job is to impartially arbitrate whatever actions you guys want to take.

-New rules are proposed and discussed in the OOC thread, and get posted here once there seems to be a consensus.

-If things can't progress because your character's action is needed, and three days go by (either from your last post or when you were needed, depending on the circumstances), I'll make a best guess at what your character would do and move things along. It's not always easy to tell when someone isn't posting because they're absent vs. because they don't think they need to post, so please PM me if you think your group needs a bump and I haven't done it yet, or if I did it wrongly. This rule doesn't apply to Group 2.

-If you don't post for two weeks and you haven't given me any notice, you're out. Again, doesn't apply to Group 2.

Congratulations to Group 1 for necessitating training rules being posted :)

-Leveling up takes one full day of practice.

-Learning a new class takes one full day of training by someone with a level in that class, but you can be trained at any time, not just when you're ready to level.

-As soon as you have enough experience points to level up, you're treated as being that level for purposes of gaining further experience points.

-In the case of NPCs with NPC class levels that gain experience with a PC party, once they're trained in at least one PC class, they can swap out one NPC class level for a PC class level immediately, and can swap out one more level every time they level up. For example, if a level 2 Peasant is trained in the Wizard class, he can immediately become a Peasant 1 / Wizard 1, and when he levels he can become Wizard 3.