If I can make a few comments based on personal experience - and for info I have about 6 months pbp under my belt (including 2 months running a game) and about 30 years of gaming...
- pbps are much more forgiving for not having the rules to hand; no need to make decisions on the spot when you have plenty of time to go and look it up. You don't sound like the type who is 'backward about coming forward' as we say, ie you'll ask and listen to the players if necessary for the sake of getting it right.
- corollary to point 1 is, while I dislike rules lawyers, I have a burning loathing for people who try to cheat and weasel advantages out of things. Don't let anyone tell you what happens in *your* game. I am reasonably familiar with the rule set we are using, so if *I* see someone trying to take liberties, trust me, I'll be on their case!
- the longer I go on, the more I am convinced - for pbps AND regular games - that rather than just letting people call out random class and race combos
because that's looks cool, give them enough background on style, setting (if required) and 'mission brief', then make people work together to come up with a reason for why their PCs are doing this. Whoever suggested the 'adventuring company' for this game deserves a pat on the back - it is a simple idea but already we've got people thinking about roles for their characters in the group beyond 'melee', 'arcane' etc and actually thinking 'OK, if we get hired to do job X, who organises the supplies, who finds the maps/does the navigation, who leads the group on the ground, whose lead do we follow in combat' etc etc. It can only help to foster a team mentality - and it is a team game - and that is going to have a huge bearing on whether the game is a success.
- linked to that is that setting down ground rules for the players is advised, and being draconian is not necessarily a bad thing. I played a game on another site where the GM laid out posting style, do's and don't's of RP and a few other things in his recruitment thread and I'm sure lots of people looked at it and thought 'hell no!'. It was one of, if not, the best game I have played pbp so far - lots of in-depth descriptive postings (a continuous string of 1 liners gets old rather quickly) which built up a really strong bond between players and PCs. You've already got to the stage of many of these decisions and I like a lot of what you have laid down eg the low cash and restriction on equipment, and the sources allowed.
- I'm interested by your comment about not being your ideal party. I have no issues making changes before we start if you have a model that suits you better. Again, while it may put noses out of joint, DO IT NOW, rather than see characters destroy your game or otherwise screw up what you want to do. A few weeks of not having fun at your end means the game dies, and then all the players are out a game, so we all lose. Make changes now, and worst case, a couple of people say 'OK, not for me' and drop out - for you and those that are left, you've tightened up the rest of it enough that its chances of surviving beyond the first few weeks have grown exponentially.
If it's any consolation, if I'd opened a recruitment thread and got some of these PCs (and I'm naming no names) I wouldn't be as happy as I might either
And from a player point of view, I scan about 8 pbp sites every day. The proportion of games that interest me is very low. Personal preference, I know, but I have fairly narrow ranges of things that appeal to me, and for every 1 of those I find, the vast majority are quickly ignored as people dive in with, quite frankly, appalling abortions of races and splat book classes. It'll be a cold day in hell before I adventure with a half-pixie totemist/artificer!
This game ticks the boxes for me. I want to still be playing it in 6 months time. I hope to get some good interaction between the characters, and an interesting world, with exciting things to do in it. If you're putting the time and effort in to write and run it, the least we as players can do is treat it with respect and give something back by making the best efforts we can.
I didn't know I'd said what kind of game I wanted to run. Just a short game that could go forward. Actually, I tend towards sandboxes, but I find players take options for sites and go with them; so I make up sites, and try to get Players to go there; or make up where they're going to go.
