The rules for the game will be posted here. It is possible, and likely, that rules may be revised or added as we go.

If you have questions about any rule, it is okay to post them here. But if you do, please keep everything strictly on topic. Thanks.

General Rules:

• Fun: This is the goal of the game. It is not about winning, showing how cool you are or which rule you can pull through your sphincter. Enjoy the game!
• Respect: This makes it easy to have fun. Everyone respects everyone for what they bring to the game. Players play and DMs DM.
• Respect My Au-Thor-I-Tie!: I believe the game is about the players, not the DM. I am not here to entertain myself at your character's expense but to create the best game I can for you. I will be glad to discuss anything on which you are not clear or with which you disagree. But once I make a ruling that is final. Don't get in a huff over any ruling but instead see the big picture of what we are all doing together. Whatever ruling I make will be for the good of the game and never personal.
• Disassociative Personality Disorders: I encourage any player to be invested in their character. Just remember that the character is a fictional entity and not You. If your character gets mad at another player's character and wants to hit him with a soggy halibut, go for it. But whatever happens in-game stays in-game. Don't let your emotional investment bleed into real world problems.
• Trust: At any given time I may ask that you use the online dice roller at http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/ to make a roll. But, in general, I am simply trusting you to be honest about your roll. Don't make me regret that trust.

Game Mechanics:

• Abilities: Your ability scores should have been generated by rolling 4d6 (rerolling 1's) and then dropping the lowest die. Repeat this until you have generated 6 scores. These scores may be arranged as you like (eg, the first roll did not have to be your strength roll). You may not borrow points from one ability to boost another, however. If you have somehow rolled your character's abilities differently than this, it is okay to redo your character before the game starts.
• Starting Items: Your character starts with a traveler's outfit, your starting gold, and 3 days rations. I also gave Gaumer a hat and Webmetz a mundane item. If Chrysalis, sab39, and/or Aubreii want one specific and mundane article of clothing, let me know before we start. Besides this, anything and everything must be acquired in-game.
• Initiative: Initiative rolls will be made each round of combat. That way you won't suffer if you are the low guy on the roll for the first round.
• Natural 1's: A natural roll of 1 always fails. Always. No matter your modifiers or circumstances, you always have that 05% chance of botching it. A natural 1 may have different effects, from making a grievous error in your Diplomacy attempt to dropping your weapon or accidentally striking your comrade. The effect will be determined by me.
• Natural 20's: A natural roll of 20 always succeeds. Always. No matter your modifiers or Difficulty Class, you always have a 05% chance of success. I will be realistic of course. A 20 doesn't mean you can do the impossible...but it might get you close.
• Critical Hits: Weapons and spells requiring an attack roll have the possibility of making a critical hit based on the threat range of the weapon. If you roll a Natural 20, make another immediate roll for the critical hit attempt. If that roll would hit the target (doesn't have to be within the threat range, just adequate to hit) then a critical hit has been achieved.
• Critical Hit Damage: On a critical hit, roll your damage, add your modifiers, and multiply by two. I am including all modifiers, even bonuses for weapons.
• Instant Kill: If you roll a Natural 20 and then another Natural 20 on your critical hit roll, roll again for that same attack. If that roll is also a Natural 20, then you have instantly killed your opponent, period.
• Multiple Attacks: If your character gets multiple attacks, that only applies to melee or ranged attacks. It does not apply to the use of spells. Keep in mind that to use your multiple attacks you must use the Full-Round Attack Action, so you may only take a 5-foot step during this attack.
• Grid Maps: One of the great difficulties of playing online is in trying to accurately place characters during combat. Where possible I will post a map layout of the combat area and we will place your character's initial starting position. From there you will give me your movement by coordinates. For example, if the combat grid is labeled A-K across the top and 1-8 down the side and you are in grid B-4, you would tell me that you intend to move to D-7 on your move action. I haven't tried this yet so we'll figure this out as we go. This may take some trial and error. The biggest headache will be me constantly updating the grid and reposting. If it is too much effort I'll scrap the idea and we'll wing it. Most likely, I'll give you a visual of the encounter situation, place you, and we'll visualize movement from there. Since it's all written down it should be easy enough to manage and verify.
• Declared Intent: What you say is what you'll do. If you open a door and it blows up in your face, don't exclaim "Well, of course I checked for traps first!". If you didn't say you did it, you didn't do it.
• Experience Points: I track experience myself. I will not give you XP at the end of each session but instead inform you when you advance to the next level. Don't bother trying to track XP yourself.
• Skills, Feats, and Spells: For the most part, acquiring any of these should be a result of an in-game experience. If you have been walking the whole game and have never owned a horse, you'd have to justify your sudden acquisition of Mounted Combat. So, if there is a skill or feat you'd like to have, make an effort to expose yourself to that environment. If you let me know in advance something you'd like (skills, spells, whatever) I will try to work it into the game so your character can go where you want to go.
• Core Rulebook Usage: All skills, feats, classes, prestige classes, spells, familiars, etc. are to be derived from the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and/or Monster Manual. Nothing from any book other than the three core books is intended to be used. The DM has the right to approve anything he wishes, alter even core rule book material, or deny/ignore requests for using non-core rulebook material.
• Use of Skill Checks: You may attempt to use any of your skills at any time. If you think the situation calls for it and you want to use a check to accomplish something, that is fine. If the situation is either inappropriate for a check or you are using the wrong skill, I will let you know. This is not to say that you must use a check for every single thing you do. I have played games where DMs require characters to make a Listen check to hear someone talking across a quiet, empty room 10 feet away. Um...no. Even in a crowded room of humans, you don't need a Spot check to see the dwarf in the oversized yellow sombrero. There will also be times where a check may be needed but your character (and you) are unaware of it. For example, you enter a room and I know there is a ninja hiding within. You'd get a Spot check but if I told you needed such a check you'd know there must be something to spot. In such cases I will roll for you (part of the reason I always need an updated character sheet). Lastly, there may be situations where you need a check but must inform me of taking it to gain the benefit. For example, an NPC suggests you try a drink (from his flask with the black skull on it?) and you do so without a Sense Motive check then that's your consequence.
• Sleep Deprivation, Fatigue, and Exhaustion: Casters need 8 hours of total (not necessarily uninterrupted) sleep. If they have to enter into combat, movement, or any other activity that is stressful, then 1 hour is added to the total. This is the same as the rules in the PHB page 178.
  However, to the benefit of the players, I am not using the section titled "Recent Casting Limit/Rest Interruptions" on that same page. As long as you get your rest, you can prepare spells, regardless of what you cast the day before.
  All characters, casters or otherwise, must get four hours of uninterrupted sleep. If they do not, they are Fatigued the next day. Fatigue has a penalty of -2 to Strength and Dexterity scores and the character cannot run or charge. Doing anything while Fatigued that normally causes Fatigue results in the character being Exhausted.
  An Exhausted character can only move at half-speed and takes a -6 penalty to Str and Dex.
• Spell Components: I assume you have the components you need unless the item is very specific of expensive. Just assume you have taken the time to keep up with your supplies.
• Spell Preparation: Only sorcerers and bards (and approved classes of the same sort) may cast a specific spell without preparing that specific spell in advance. A cleric, for example, can not cast Bless on the fly but must have prepared it beforehand. The exception is the cleric's ability to use Spontaneous Casting to cast Cure spells.
• Dismissing a spell is a free action. Maintaining a spell is a free action that requires a Concentration check to maintain if you receive damage (same as with casting) equal to (DC 10+damage taken+spell level cast). You can still only have one spell in effect at a time that requires concentration to maintain.
• The "RP" in "RPG": This is a role-playing game. So get into your character's mindset and role-play. I will give more credence to your character's words and actions than I will to a Bluff or Diplomacy check. In fact, most often I will go solely based on how you have your character interact with NPCs versus something like "I'm going to go talk this guy into letting me through that door so I'm gonna roll my Diplomacy check now."
• Death: If you reach 0 hit points you're unconscious (unless you have the Diehard feat), losing 1 hp/round unless stabilized. At -10 hp, you are dead. If your character should die, we will discuss whether you would like to have your character brought back (if possible) or create a new character. You may only have one Player Character at a time however. If you want to be brought back that may leave you out of action for a bit but we'll attempt to bring your character back. If you want a new character then we'll roll one up and treat your former character appropriately depending on the circumstances of death. I want character death to be taken seriously but I don't want you excluded from the game because your character died.

Skill Check Rolling Protocol

There are many times where a player should not know the results of a skill check (or ability check or saving throw). For example, if a character is using Search to search a room, the player should not know the roll. If they failed to find anything, it creates a more realistic experience if the player does not if they failed to find something because they missed something or because there was nothing to find.

Most skills could be arbitrarily divided into hard skills and soft skills. Soft skills are skills where the reason for success/failure is not readily obvious, such as Search. Hard skills have results that are almost always readily obvious. For example, failing a Balance check while walking a tightrope over a bottomless pit is very apparent.

The following are soft skills. These rolls will be made in secret by the DM and the results narrated in-game:

Soft Skills
Appraise
Decipher Script
Disable Device
Disguise
Forgery
Gather Information
Hide
Listen
Move Silently
Search
Sense Motive
Spot

The following are soft skill exceptions. Although the player/PC wouldn't normally know the results of these rolls, the DM is allowing players to make these checks unless stated otherwise:

Soft Skill Exceptions
Ability Checks: Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma
Bluff
Knowledge
Speak Language
Spellcraft

The following are hard skills. These rolls will be made by the player and the results narrated in-game:

Hard Skills
Ability Checks: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution
Saving Throws, All (unless unaware of the effect)
Balance
Climb
Concentration
Craft
Diplomacy
Escape Artist
Handle Animal
Heal
Intimidate
Jump
Open Lock
Perform
Profession
Ride
Sleight of Hand
Survival
Swim
Tumble
Use Magic Device
Use Rope

The DM may at any time ask a player to roll their own check or roll for them, despite what is stated here.

Posting Rules:

• Actions and Descriptors: If you are describing something or doing something, just type it as usual.
• Spoken Dialog: All spoken dialog (anything your character says) is to be enclosed in quotation marks, italicized, and in green font. Example: "Your character talks here."
• Messages using Whisper tokens Dialog: All received dialog from a Whisper token (those items enchanted by Uma for long-range communication) will be enclosed in quotation marks, italicized, and in teal font. Example: "This is the reply to your message."
• Telepathic Dialog: All telepathic dialog (something your character thinks to an entity with telepathic communication abilities) is to be enclosed in greater/lesser brackets, italicized, and green font. Example: <Your character projects their thoughts here.>
• Foreign Language Spoken Dialog: All spoken dialog (anything your character says) in a foreign language is to be enclosed in quotation marks, italicized, and in orange font. Example: "Your character talks here."
• Out-Of-Character Comments: If you feel you absolutely must say something OOC, enclose it in the {} brackets and in blue font. Example: {Out of Character Comments go here.}
• In-Game Written Text: If you post something that is available text in the game world, type it in brown font. Example: This is my personal journal.
• Spoken Dialog by Marcus Moonshadow: For flavor, all spoken dialog by Marcus Moonshadow will be enclosed in quotation marks, italicized, and in maroon font. Example: "Marcus talks here."
• Feat/Skill/Prestige Class Discussions: All your discussions about your character builds (feats, skills, prestige classes, etc.) should be posted in the Character Development Thread. This will leave the OOC Thread free for its intended purpose, which is primarily discussion about in-game events that need to be made OOC.
• DM Posts: For effect, I may sometimes place something in italics, boldface, or even colored font. But I will also apply the above posting rules to myself. Where necessary I will denote which of a group of NPCs is speaking.
• Waiting Your Turn: Because we are having to post everything, it will be more challenging to have conversations. Let's do our best to stay in character and follow the appropriate flow of posts by others.

Code: (In-Character Dialog)

Code: (In-Character Foreign Language Dialog)

Code: (In-Character Telepathic Dialog)

Code: (In-Character messages received from a Whisper token)

Code: (In-Character Foreign Language Dialog)

Code: (Out of Character Comments)

Code: (In-Game Written Text)

Code: (Dialog by Marcus Moonshadow)

Those are the rules off the top of my head. As I said, these may be added to or revised at any time. If you have any questions about any given rule, please feel free to post them in this thread.

Yes, you've got the idea on posting.

A post in the In-Game Thread may look like:

I approach the guard, trying to look casual but keeping a hand close to my weapon.

"Excuse me, sir. I think I've taken a wrong turn. I have no idea where I am."

Bluff check = 14

I take a quick glance over my shoulder. {Webmetz, do you still have the arrow trained on the guard?}

If you want to say, "Man, I love killing stupid guards!"...That goes in the OOC Thread.

I am glad you are excited about the game. I am looking forward to it. 

"Experience Points: I track experience myself. I will not give you XP at the end of each session but instead inform you when you advance to the next level. Don't bother trying to track XP yourself." - can we ask what our XP is?

How do you change the url to read as text but still be hyperlinked?

Okay, close enough maybe. Thanks!

Amen, my friend. Well said.