House of Cards GM Log

Kinds of Post, a Trilogy of Types

posted by Michael at 05:46 PM, April 27, 2004 | Filed under : Netiquette & Play Procedures | Comments and Followups

In response to Steve’s question about posts, we said…

There are three kinds of posts, and they each have different response characteristics.

1. Posts in which you declare an action that requires a GM response. Further replies to these posts should always await a GM reply. This includes “Daeon catches the greased pig” but not “Daeon puts the ham and cheese slices on the bread and eats his sandwich”. If you think the outcome is very likely and you think the post should be longer, you can add something like “[assuming Daeon catches the pig…] He washes off the grease, and turns the pig into ham.”
   
   
2. Private posts to the GM in which you declare an action that involves some secret that you are holding from your fellow players. Some few such secrets exist, although for the most part we want all posts to be on-list, we’ve allowed some people to have secrets and therefore some posts are off-list. Further replies to these posts should always await a GM reply. This includes “Daeon casts his secret “convert-pig-to-ham-sammich” spell…”
   
   
3. Posts in which an NPC is actively involved in conversation with one or more PCs. Every PC should speak or act once between the NPC/universe’s response time. This includes “Lucas, what can I do with this greased pig I’ve caught?” “That old sow? I’ve heard that a doctor of divinity resides in this vicinity. No? Then perhaps Venesch can slaughter it for you…” Once Venesch agrees to do so, then the players can reply again.

   In most cases, NPC servants/flunkies will do their assigned tasks without GM interference, so Gaston can lugubriously agree to have the ham taken to the kitchen and return with the sandwich without the GMs having to post. The GMs reserve the right to step in with NPC servants/flunkies at any moment.

   
   
4. Posts in which PCs are talking amongst themselves. Players can run this at any speed comfortable for all those involved. To be clear, no one should be pressured to post faster than they are able to just because they are in a private conversation. Howerver, no one is limited if everyone can go a bit faster. It’s the Slowest Common Denominator…
   
   
5. Posts in which 4 or more PCs/NPCs are involved in a conversation. These should follow the round robin suggestions here. The general suggestion is “play nice with other, letting everyone have a turn, including the NPCs.

OK, so there’s 5 kinds of posts.

Follow up: the trackback URL for this entry is: http://www.whiterose.org/MT/mt-tb.cgi/3370

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