[Information] House Rules

[mountainbound]

Ringlabor: House Rules
Please familiarize yourself with the info below.

Guidelines for Posting

• Your first post: please take some time on your first post, and be sure that it indicates not only your character's first actions, but also your character's feelings about his/her environment and situation in general. Let this post give an embodied snapshot of your character up to that moment in his/her life.
• Posting rate expectations: Please be able to post once per 2-3 days.
• Post in the third person, in the present tense.
• Posts should be at least four lines long. Include what is necessary, give everyone else a lush description of what you're feeling and thinking, your motives and intentions, as well as what you're doing and saying.
• Speech is in "bold with quotes", thoughts are in italics, OOC comments bracketed or Fieldset boxed at bottom.
• If you will not be able to post for some time, please let the DM know.
• Friendly banter is encouraged and rewarded both IC and OCC.

Guidelines for Die Rolls
You may roll your dice in the Dice thread, or in the game thread. Rolls in the game thread should be hidden by Spoilertags.

Link to the Dice thread at the bottom of your post, something like this:

Action Intimidate: 14

Guidelines for Combat
In order to keep combat from dragging on, I am using the following system:

• The party has initiative by default. You are the heroes, though sometimes your enemies will hit you first -- consider it the DM's dramatic license.
• When in combat, you can post in the OOC thread if you wish to delay or wait for another player to post first.
• List current/max hp, your AC, and other relevant information (such as Endure Elements, Stoneskin, etc) at the bottom of combat posts.
• When in combat, remember to continue role-playing with the others. Sometimes combat is the best time for staging an interaction, though people often go into "mechanics mode" when the swords come out.

What is a quality post?

• Combat experience will be as per standard rules. We're using the Medium advancement rate.
• Role play experience will awarded for quality posts that are a pleasure to read.
  A quality post includes:
  -- Juicy details (such as character background tid-bits and good tactile detail about what you're seeing, feeling, smelling, and thinking). Every post should contain some amount of detail.
  -- Interacting/talking with other players -- also known as role playing.
  -- Creative skill, spell, or ability use - novel approaches will be rewarded
  -- Taking heroic chances and making heroic sacrifices. I generally don't punish people for being heroes -- that's the point.
  -- Combat and appropriate use of mechanics (making the DM's life easier)
  
• Experience will be awarded at suitable breaks during game play. You can level up 'in the field' when determined by the DM.

Enemy Status
Cumulative damage against any enemy is listed in the Combat Notes at the bottom of a post. To give players an idea of how badly wounded a creature is, without giving away its total max HP, I use the following descriptions:
Undamaged... creature is at max HP.
Wounded... creature has been damaged, but is still above 30% max HP.
Seriously Wounded... creature is close to or has dropped below 30% max HP.
Dead (or Destroyed)... creature is either dead or so close to dead that it no longer poses a serious threat to the party.


Maps
Given the many RL obligations I have, I often don't have time to create maps. When I do, they're usually pretty primitive.