This will be a Play by E-mail game. I'm hoping for an average post rate of 2-3 per player per week, although if you want to post more than this that's fine. We might use IRC or MSN sessions to resolve combat (and I do expect some combat) if time differences allow.

I'm planning to use a few pictures and diagrams when appropriate to add atmosphere and avoid ambiguity (I find that's particularly handy during combat). I'll try and keep them small though, so anyone still on dial-up shouldn't hate me too much.



House rules

1.) GMs decision is open to initial discussion but as far as final decisions go this ain't a democracy unless I ask for a vote!

2.) Play nice. Actually  play nasty if you want (you are playing hardened criminals after all), but write nice when you're OOC.

2b) In particular, no personal attacks on other players on basis of - well, pretty much anything really - will be tolerated.

2c) With the limited exception of rule 10, no godmodding or autoing.  Failure to comply with this one will simply see you put on moderated status, which is a pain for all concerned.

2d) If you want to get into some kind of competition with another PC I've found the story often reads better if you can agree somehow on what happens between you (on IM for instance) then post as a joint post. This also has the advantage to you that if you don't have to use the combat rules both characters are likely to end up healthier! Even if you do use the combat rules to find out how the combat goes, the joint post still reads nicer if you rewrite it as narrative which means you're more likely to get CP awarded for it. If there's a dispute you can't sort out by yourself feel free to involve me.

3.) I prefer that post titles be in the format Threadname/day and time/location. This has two advantages.

First, it allows characters to post for two different timelines consecutively; this isn't the sort of thing that we want to be doing for the sake of it because it can play hell with continuity, but if peeps are careful it can avoid everyone else waiting while two characters get into a massive debate in a separate thread.

Secondly it means I can import everything into my thread reader software if things get sufficiently complicated to warrant it.

4.) One line posts are OK if your intention is just to show that you're still here but don't intend for your character to do anything interesting at that time.  I will be looking at the quality of posts when it comes to awarding experience points though, so don't write one-liners all the time.

5.) I prefer that you don't quote large blocks of someone else's post above yours - its a fairly small game so it shouldn't be too hard to work out where your post follows on from.

6.) Please take care with spelling and grammar. I am going to be somewhat draconian on this, given that there are plenty of free spelling and grammar checkers out there which you can use if you need to (the grammar checkers are a bit harder to find but there are some alternatives listed here). 

7.) Writing style is a bit harder to deal with; what is grammatically correct can still be tiring to read. I don't want to end up patronizing those of you that write just fine, so I'll just suggest that anyone thinking of writing for a PBEM who doesn't know what commas are finds out before their introductory post....

8.) Adult topics are allowed, but please mention at the top of the post if you're putting in anything gratuitous. There isn't any point me imposing a lower age limit as its impossible to police. I'm not convinced that physical age is the important issue anyway; as far as I'm concerned if you can write like an adult you can write with them.

9.) If you're not going to be able to post for a few days, let me know. This way we can either arrange for your character to take a back seat for a bit or you can give me your take on how they are going to react.

10.) If someone is slow to post and _doesn't_ warn me then, initially, I will post for them based on their character's personality description in order to keep the game moving. If this happens more than every so often then I will allow other players to post for that character, again based on the personality description (and they will get any XP points as a result). If it starts happening too frequently then I reserve the right to drop the lazy/busy player in the interests of everyone else.------------

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If anyone has suggestions for modifications to these rules please let me know off-list; some of them are set in stone; others less so.  If at any point you're not enjoying the game let me know - there's a good chance that you're not the only one but if I don't know about it I can't do anything about it!