The only thing I would add is not all applicants will be affected by Federal holidays. I know Federal holidays make no impact over here, and I have holidays which you too don't have. So, I personally would use the word 'public' holiday.

Otherise, it's fine :)

That's a good point, Fenix.  Probably best to have that posted in a more global fashion.  I'll add it to the list.

That is a good point Fenix maybe just ammend to holidays with an understanding that those who will be having a holiday soon can post notice of that in advance on the OOC portion.

In my MnM game, we have a vaction thread specifically for that, so the vacations don't get lost in the OOC thread.

I'd also say, 24 hours after GM posting.  I mean, if you post at 8 am, then I posta  question at noon, and you responde on 3 pm, the clock start at 3, if my question was important for my action.

Allthough I would try to post, if yes, do X, if no do Y

Alrighty folks, I've updated the standards at the beginning of this thread.  Shall we continue to work on a few more standards?  I'd say for both GMs and PCs.

For GMs, one that comes to mind is this.

Initiative and combat information.

I think we've discussed this elsewhere, but revealing the parry and toughness of the NPCs in combat is a good way to make the GM's life easier.  The players can determine for themselves (and the GM can check up as well) whether they have hit and hurt the NPC during the combat.  I think this is something all GM's should try to provide.

Initiative?

What is the best way to present it?

Alphabetical
NPC 1    4S
NPC 2    QH
Player 1 3D
Player 2 AD
Player 3 7C

Card Order
Player 2 AD
NPC 2    QH
Player 3 7C
NPC 1    4S
Player 1 3D

Personally I like Card Order, but I can understand how it is easy to lose people using that system.  Which would be easier in the long run?

I like card order but I have had some problems doing it.  It may be solely due to my absent minded nature but I invariably left someone out each time I would enter the cards.  I know that it is easier for the players to follow when it is in card order, but I figured since we didn't necessarily post  in order of cards it wasn't that big of a deal.  I'm relying on my players in the game to let me know if it is a problem. I'm willing to make the change if it, is but the alphabet system makes my life much easier.

What I do is copy the list from "last round", pull the cards, enter them next to the name, then rearrage so they are in order

I've always done it that way as well, but I can see how you might miss someone as you move through the round.  Perhaps another addition to the thought, and something I've noticed in the 50 Fathoms game, is having the players mark the beginning of their post with their initiative cards.

See I think CF just doesn't like me cause it's usually me he misses ;)

I think the combination of using alphabetical for the post, and then having the players put their initiative at the start of the post may be the easiest. That way the players can easily find themselves, and the Gm and cross-reference the list off the private line.

on the initial question
P:# T:# W:# F:#

maybe adding Bennies would make sense.

That's a thought.....  hmmmmm

Alright.  I've added the Bennies to the line setting.

Did we ever decide the best way to set initiative information for combat?  I think each player putting their card at the top of their prospective post is a good step, but what did we decide about the best way to present the information by the GM?

I'm also a fan of "in order of initiative", which seems the most common way.

EDIT: I usually start out with all the names alphabetical, then the enemies, then give each a card, and then re-sort them in card order.  After that, I just plug in the new round's card info and re-sort.  Presto, no risk of losing people!
This message was last edited by the player at 04:25, Sun 18 Feb 2007.

While we wait for everyone to verify their thoughts, I have another thought to pose to everyone.  And posing I suppose is the perfect seguay into this topic. ^_^

The question is trying to get a handle on the different posting styles that are out there.  I know some people like color for speech and some do not.  I am one that does not care for color in most situations, but with multiple languages, it allows people to speak in languages without having to remind everyone all the time.

OK.  Here are a few suggestions that I've used before.

---

OK all.  When things start, please consider the main story In Character only.  If you must use OOC in this part, please mark this in with the Aqua tags (<aqua> </aqua>).  This will make it easy to see, and once it is taken care of, easy to remove.

With regards to speech and thought...

When speaking, surround this with double quotes and the Bold tags (<b> </b>).  I don't use too many colors, because after a while this just becomes hard to read.  Anyone can react to spoken words, if they are close enough to hear them.

If you wish to express a thought, use the Italic tags (<i> </i>) to surround it.  Thoughts are more for the players to see the inner workings of the character, and no one should react to this unless they have some way of picking up thoughts.  It should be reacted to only if it is spoken.

One final thing.  If you have more than one paragraph, please leave a separating space between them, for ease of reading.  I have a hard time reading on screen sometimes, and with the extra space, it makes it a little easier on me, and probably others.

---

Those of you in the 50 Fathoms game will recognize these standards.  I posted them there long ago, but did not post them in the recent Rippers game since we were working on standards.

What do you all think of this one?

[Edit]  One thing I know someone pointed out is that not everyone can see th difference between bold and normal text, usually because of the media they are using.  I am thinking that italics may be similar, so perhaps like the surrounding of speech with quotation marks, we should surround thoughts with something as well, like brackets (ex. [thought]).

Would that help?
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:09, Wed 07 Feb 2007.

In a gurps game I was in, everyone picked their own color.  I was blue, the fairy was pink, etc.  In other games, the GM doesn't care, as long as the spoken is in color or bold or something

I prefer italics for emphases within my speech, although I could also do _this_ if a word need emphasis.

I can see italics fine on all my machines, but my handheld doesn't show bolded text. It's odd, because that's the only formatting I have issues with. Colors, italics, super and sub all work fine.

Not that I post from my handheld often, but if I take a trip it's all I have right now.

I think a Notice thread listing generally agreed upon standards would be a good place to store the end result of this thread.  I notice a few good ideas that aren't edited into first post of this thread, and just thought it might be less confusing to do it that way.

Hi all...

Just ran into a small problem, and I'm wondering if we should discuss how best to simulate the tabletop experience in the games.

The problem revolves around the current style of combat that is pretty much used across RPoL.  Everyone rolls their initiative (or dealt in our case), and everyone posts, with the GM summarizing things with the opponents movements and attacks.

This leads to the inevitable trouble of someone posting a wonderful hit, but they are taken out before the hit would be applied in combat through bad timing.

As an example.


 KC Player 3
10H NPCs (3)
 5C Player 1
 4D Player 2


Player 2 makes a spectacular roll, hiting an NPC with enough force to down it.  However, during the summary of the combat, the NPC does enough damage to player 2 to force him to incapacitation.  In this situation, the player's attack would not go off, as he moves later in the combat round.

I know that a combat could be considered simultaneous, but it is not generally set that way in order to give the quicker group an advantage.  Here is my proposal.

When fighting combat, only those players that move before the NPCs post their actions.  Once this happens, the GM posts the NPC reactions and the remaining players post their attacks.  This may lengthen combat a little, but I think it will make things a little more interesting, and at least, a little more fair in the long run.

What do you think?
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:10, Wed 07 Mar 2007.

That sounds like a good compromise Belirach; it gives the PC's going later in the round time to react to what the NPC's did. I like it.

That's what I've been doing in the game I'm runnng

Generally I let my players know that I may redirect their attack depending on what the situation actually looks like by the time we get to their PC.  That way, things move quickly.  Some of the players have standing orders for those circumstances, but it hasn't ever been a problem when I do it.

One of my GMs lists the initiative order, and then has people roll and post by twos, ie one up now, one 'on deck'.  That way no one is required to post too far ahead, though sometimes someone will, if they don't expect to be around to post quickly when their turn comes.  If someone misses, they are skipped, and unless they post by the end of the round, are moved to the top of initiative for the next round.

Of course, this depends on having most players around every day or two.  As always there is no one-solution-fits-all.

In most games I've been in, the GM will say at times "roll a notice/guts/etc." check.

which on rpol is probalby better, doing a skill die and wild die for 6 players would be a pain.

sometimes PCs will say, "I do X" and the GM responces "roll this skill"

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In my WWII game, if all but one or two PCs roll the dice, I'll roll for the last couple, just to keep the game moving.  Similarly, if the player wants to do something, instead of asking for a roll, I'll roll for them.

I could see something like this being included in the standards.

I hope this is the right thread for this question.

I've recently started an Evernight campaign and I'm trying to figure out when I should award experience points.  Since there is no "4-6 hour gaming session", how have the rest of you decided when it's time to award experience?

Based on how things are going, it looks like every 200 posts (excluding combat) might be a nice cutoff point.

Any ideas will be appreciated.

Thanks.

Well, I wouldn't tell your players that, else they might start doing a lot of extraneous posting.  ;-)  But most scenarios have some kind of break point, maybe after each combat, or you could do it once a calendar month.