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Message: <blockquote data-quote="IronWolf" data-source="post: 5293426" data-attributes="member: 21076">I've run a couple of reasonably long running Play-by-Post games, though not on EN World.  The biggest thing is to be prepared for the slower pace they run at.  They can be a lot of fun to play though given the right people playing and a DM that is good at keeping things moving.One of the early things I do is advise players that I will temporarily NPC their character if they go too long without posting.  This is not to punish them, simply a means to keep the game moving.  While I NPC a character I do not have their character do anything that would seem out of character.  And in some cases, it just means moving the game forward without any action from them.  I have not had any issues with this in the games I have run.Roleplaying encounters can work great in PbP games.  People have more time to sink into character and craft an in character response.  So working in roleplaying encounters in the game really help highlight one of the pros of PbP gaming.Now a lot of people will say to avoid combat in a PbP and a lot of this depends on your players.  Some folks really like to bash things, even in a PbP game!  They key is not letting combat bog down the game pace and to keep things moving.  When we go to combat rounds in games I run we probably average one round of combat per 24 to 36 hours of posting time.  If after 24-ish hours I've had everyone but one character post actions I will move forward with the round.  This helps avoid getting stalled if someone can't post quickly enough.As for the combat posts themselves, I have the players roll using the dice roler on the boards we use and they describe their actions and such.  I let all the players post and then I work out the results of the round working in the critters as needed in initiative.For mapping I use something similar and post a jpeg or png of a map and dots representing characters and critters.  The map gets updated at the end of each round and I embed the map in the post under a spoiler tag.  I don't make the players post exact coordinates for movement just describe where they are going and then I move their dot for them.  Despite not having the players use exact graph coordinates it seems to work for us with minimal confusion.</blockquote>

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