Ninja'd!
As with my first game Romance of the River Kingdoms, I envisage a number of ways to deal with encounters; diplomacy, stealth, fighting, trickery or just plain running away. I don't have much truck with games that push every encounter to combat as that punishes characters for creating a 'face' character, or a stealthy character, or for coming up with cunning plans. A clever, bloodless victory is just as good an outcome as a dead foe (and in this case very in-genre).
I should note that I'll be free-forming experience (unless anyone selects item creation feats, and even then I'll probably wing it), so you level up when you've done "some" adventuring. So, no need to kill everything for the XP.
Also, I like that each action by the PCs leads to consequences, and spins off new pathways and opportunities. Although I've got background notes, there isn't an "arc" as such that needs to be followed (again, same as River Kingdoms and my Iron Heroes game). In PbP I enjoy the luxury of time to ponder things and react to PC actions. It's all fun!