Mode of Play
1) Dice will be rolled by me, for ease of convenience and speed of play. Declare any dramatic actions and charm uses in the OOC thread when appropriate, and write up your actions in the IC thread.
2) That said, as the game goes on, it'll become clear that lots of actions will not need to be rolled for, as your dicepools will overwhelm the obvious difficulties by a factor. In such circumstances, which include most things the books describe as an automatic success, you can write up your own result.
3) For important combats, declare your overall strategy and intended charm use here in the OOC thread. As this isn't a combat-focused game, but we all love a good fight scene anyway, I've adopted this policy to make things as quick as possible.
4) For important social combats, the same shall apply, with one important reversal- after I have rolled the dice and made a post, it will be up to you to post the resolution, either because you can decide the NPC's finishing position or because it's your PC, so it'll be your job to take the result I post in the OCO thread and put it into action.
5) Be prepared to loose some social combats. While you can and should spend WP when it matters intensely, this game is a game of politics and it works best if you are willing to loose some rounds as well as win.
6) You and I share your allies, henchmen, retainers and familiars. Feel free to put words in their mouth and declare their actions, and I shall do the same. That way, common conversational partners won't hold things up with every conversation and loyal servants will do what they're told today rather than tomorrow.
7) Similarly, feel free to use common sense in puppeting NPC's. As a rule of thumb, if I bold the NPC's name on their first appearance, treat them with the same respect you'd show a PC. If I don't, then they are intended to move the plot ahead and as set dressing, and you can use them much in the way I described in Post 4. This category will include minor servants, merchants, mook ninjas and so on, as well as the odd dynast.
8) Feel free to puppet each other, so that conversations and extended scenes become possible. This is obviously a tricky business, so be careful, utilise the OOC thread and the edit function, and be respectful of each others desires and concepts.
9) Be comfortable with long periods downtime, and posts covering downtime. It'll be a common feature of this game to cover entire seasons with a few rolls of the dice and three or four posts- say, a millitary campaign decided by a War + Int roll, ending in a boost of your Resources, and then a colour psot describing how six months were spent beating down the rebellious serfs. As such, feel very free to post just to say when you think a scene is done and when I move the game on, be it a for day, a month or three years, be ready to think through how that time changes your PC's position.
10. Houserule for Craft: Craft as it stands annoys me, but I don't want to meld it all into one ability, so here is a ad-hoc hodegepodge for this game. Craft is now technically one single Ability. The first dot in Craft you take is assigned to a discipline (Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Wood). As you raise the skill, that dot goes up to the new level and you gain a new discipline at the next rung down. i.e Craft 5 (Air 5, Earth 4, Wood 3, Fire 2, Water 1) or Craft 3 (Earth 3, Wood 2, Water 1) Specialties can be purchased in the disciplines to raise them to equal your highest discipline, and the usual cap of 3 specialties does not apply here.
Bound Devil Chambers Conspiracy Exalted PbP game in RPG.net
