Hello! I'm ImpLaughs (most call me Imp) and I've been looking for a play-by-post place for a while! I'm not new to role playing by any means, though. I used to run several role playing subreddits of varying genres, I've been playing table top games for about three years total, and I love writing and telling stories. This place seemed awesome and full of creative people to have fun adventures with!

Though I'm not new to role playing or play-by-post, I am new to play-by-post in a non-reddit format. I'd greatly appreciate it if someone gave me a run down of how things work around here, how to join a game, how to run a game, things to avoid, and the like. I'm also interested in how roleplaying is done in this format, on the subreddits I was a part of players did something along the lines of this:

Imp jumps onto the boat, boots covered in mud, and quickly scans the top deck. Spotting the wheel, he grinned as he quickly grabbed hold of the mechanism, getting a feel for the ship as his stomach churned. If Imp knew one thing...it wasn't how to drive a boat. "Well...never too late to learn!" He grinned to himself only to be interrupted by several bullets flying over him. Imp's knees brought him down out of instinct, fear coursing through every atom in his body. "Oh right...forgot I was being chased." With adrenaline fueling him, Imp tried to bring the boat to open sea to escape his captors, who were 'borrowing' someone else's boat to make chase.

Then whoever wanted to interact would add on to it or, in certain cases, the moderators (basically the people running the huge game) would respond. Generally people played as mainly their character but in some circumstances they had to play as not only their character but as the obstacles before them (pirates, monsters, mother nature as they try to cross a wooden bridge atop a chasm, etc.) to create drama and continue the story. Basically, I'm asking if we ever have to do this or will the person running the game always handle those situations of creating drama and "playing" as the obstacles.

I'm absolutely excited to explore this forum and get back into role playing and having good fun with everyone! :D

So basically, you have Interest Checks, and roleplays. You find the level of writing you want, Free, Casual, or Advanced, and then you can check the interest checks section, either the general or writing-level specific ones, and see if you find any ideas that catch your attention. If that RP garners enough interest, the GM will head over to the actual roleplay section, whether it be a 1v1, Area, or any of the other three, and then posts whatever back story, information, or canon that pertains to the universe, and then GM will usually outline a character application skeleton for you to fill out and build your character, which can either be very advanced and list many different points of information, or simple and asking for the bare amount of information needed for your character.

Next, you wait and see if the character is accepted by the GM, and then you can post it the official character tabs for that particular roleplay, and then get working on your first 'In character' post.

Anything I should elaborate on?

Thanks for such a quick response!

That seems pretty simple! From what I gather; Free is for posts about the length of my example, Casual is a paragraph to three, and Adv. is for five or more paragraphs? I looked at a couple in the free section and it seems everyone's length varies, or do I have it wrong and Free literally means "write however long you want, brah."?

I'm also concerned about the times people post. Do most games have a turn order or is it more of a free for all when it comes to posting? Or is that something that varies GM to GM?

@ImpLaughs Free posts usually tend to be one liners and single paragraphs, but it's really more of a "post as much as you can/want" not really many standards to be met in free.

As for the posting order, I say it tends to vary with GM, and does sort of change with RP level. In my experience, Advnaced roleplays do follow a bit of order, where the GM posts first, and then all the players make their posts, all making one post, and once everybody has posted, the cycle resets basically, but sometimes the order and such can vary depending on RP and GM. I would assume that Free roleplays are usually a free for all, and with Casual, I can't say that it's much different from either. It just really depends, to be honest.

@Firecracker_ Alright cool! Thanks for helping me out, can't wait to get started in one then! Everyone here seems rather chill and friendly. Of all the forums I checked out, this one seemed more my speed and seemed the best :)

Welcome :)