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I have a dear friend who took the time to write up a series of very informative and helpful essays about roleplaying do's and don'ts. He has graciously given me permission to copy them so that others may read them.

In one of the Play-by-Posts, Selene's player posts: "While Tira was distracted, Selene sneaked up on her. Tira did not notice that she was near, and so she did not notice that the thief grabbed her purse and was off with it."

Such a post is an example of what to avoid, because Tira, another player's character, is prevented from noticing the thief. Now, it might be that Tira has enough reasons to notice Selene sneaking up on her. She might have a magic item that sets off an alarm. She might have excellent ears. She might have a sixth sense. She might have other senses, such as Blindsight (e.g. Echolocation). The purse might be trapped. There might actually not be a purse at all.

What Selene's player is doing here is writing Tira for Tira's player, one of the worst things you can do in Play-by-Posts. It can be extremely frustrating for the affected player. Perhaps, if we continue with the above example, it is a part of Tira's concept that she cannot be sneaked upon, thanks to her magical blindsight. Inadvertendly, Selene's player has destroyed that part of the concept, into which Tira's player has invested time and effort. If Tira was created according to rules, Selene's actions make a charade of the rules. Instead of maxing out the listening skills, Tira's player could have invested those skills elsewhere, if the result was that they were completely ignored. As could the money that was invested in the item that should detect anyone coming within a few foot of her, and which Selene did not set off, even though she used no magic of her own to disable it.

So, if Selene wanted to sneak upon Tira to steel her purse (provided there is one), than the way to state this is by writing the intent and part of the action, but by no means the conclusion. Check the following rewriting of the above example: "While Tira seemed distracted, Selene decided to sneak up on her. It was unlikely Tira would notice her presence, for Selene was excellent at sneaking. Soon, Selene hoped, she would be in possession of Tira's purse. And likely enough, Tira would not even notice"

This would make it clear to Tira's player that Selene is taking an action, and it would give her the hint that it will be difficult for Tira to notice the thief. Now it is the turn of Tira's player not to commit an error: will she notice the thief, or not? If she has blindsight, an appropriate magic item, or a good skill to notice the sneaker, yes, she will. If she doesn't, and is indeed distracted, then, however, she should let Selene go ahead and steal the purse - even if it hurts Tira's player that her character is robbed.

In mature and fair playing, one should stick to common sense and at least some rules, written or unwritten, and stay above all consistent with one's character. If Tira is an absent-minded professor type character, her player should stick to the concept, and let her be robbed. If she is a trained spy or scout, Selene might well find a knife pointing at her instead of the expected purse - and that only if Tira realised Selene's aims, and doesn't just believe her to be a friend.

In other words: Leave some door open for the other poster to get himself out of a situation his character would never get into. But never take that door unless your character has a good reason to be able to get out of that situation.

More concrete advice would be that the use of "likely, probably, possibly, perhaps, almost, to seem, to appear, to attempt, to try, to decide, to plan, would, could" and so forth will prevent situations where players can get frustrated. But as so often, it comes down to common sense, and the maxim of doing unto others as you would like them to do unto you.

Further Examples of how not to post can be given, to complete the above:

*) Never write that you hit another character. You can shoot at them, you can swing your sword at them, you can cast your spells at them. But to decide whether they get hit will be the exclusive right of the attacked character's player. This player should, however, consider the elements of his character (AC or concept), and decide with this in mind whether she is hit or not. She should be fair enough not to get away unscathed against all reason.

*) Never write what another character feels. You can say that the athmosphere is scary, that your voice is calming, that the journey was long and hard. But you should not say that everyone (or anyone in particular, other than your own character) is scared, calmed, or tired.

*) You should never write how the environment affects other characters. You can write that a drink is poisoned, but not that another character suffers form this - he might be immune. You can write that the forest around the camp is burning, but not that another character is suffocating or burnt. They might have abilities that make them immune to fire or deprive them from the need to breathe. You can write that the room fills with water, but not that anyone apart from your character starts drowning. They might be able to breathe underwater.

*) Never write you surprise another character. You can sneak up on them, do something unexpected; but leave it to the other player to decide whether their character is surprised.

In general, you can write that you attempt to do something, or state a fact about the environment. But anything beyond that is the realm of the player whose character is affected.

Now, some players might try an alternative. If you intent to steal something from another character, attack them, spar with them, or affect them in some other ways, it might take a lot of short posts going to and fro, which doesn't make for a very readable and fine writing. In these cases, you might want to act the events out in PMs, Mails or on some Messenger program. Then, when all involved agree on the events, one of them can post it. But in this case, you don't write other characters anyway, since their players have contributed.

Several guides on roleplaying advice gainst allowing anti-social characters, lone wolves, or characters who by nature are uncooperative into the game. This may hold true in a pen-and-paper (pnp), but in my opinion there is a place for such characters in play-by-posts (pbp). The reason for this is that pnp restricts itself to what a character does. By definition, many of these characters above do not do anything, do not talk, and do not interact. They would be out of character if they did. Of course, this puts the DM before a serious problem: How do you give XP to someone who doesn't actually do anything, but for whom doing something would be out-of-character and hence should not be rewarded?

Apart from giving the advice to avoid such characters despite the temptation of playing such, slightly more 'dark' character that many of us feel, I do not know the answer. However, matters are fortunately much more positive when it comes to pbp. Here it is possible to explain why your character doesn't act, and it is also possible to describe what goes on within her. Sentient beings do not just act automatically. Nor do they completely shut down and go into dreamless hibernation when they do not do anything. There always are feelings, thoughts, observations. There also are motivations, dreams and memories.

Beyond that, however, everyone takes some kind of action all the time. Even if it is lying down, stretching, yawning. If there is not much else to do, have the character have a snack, read, scratch herself, or sunbathe - within the limits of what is currently possible. Having a sunbath in the tundra is generally not the best idea. These actions may seem mundane, trivial, and in a pnp campaign might be considered to stop the gameflow. Not so in a PbP. If all your character does is lying down and trying to see patterns and figures in the clouds, other posters do not have to react to it, they do not have to wait for you finishing to say it. They have to wait anyway for other people to post. But it will not only state that the character is still around (instead of having them vanish and appear virtually out of thin air), it will also make her more human. Or half-elven, or elven, or whatever race she belongs to.

One of the major problems with a PnP is that the DM can not read your mind. If you are engaged in a conversation with a high official who is provoking you, and you let the other people react, the DM will not know that you are behaving like that because you are actually roleplaying a polite, timid, shy character; someone who wants to observe how others react, or has any other perfectly valid and sensible reason not to interact. Saying in the middle of a conversation that your character doesn't do anything because of this reason or that cause risks to let the in-game discussion lose its impetus.

In PbP, however, much as in books, one can write what the character feels and thinks. Of course, the other players absolutely have to remember that they cannot hear or know this. They cannot read minds anymore than real-life people, and if they can, the read character still gets a will-save and will have to be told before posting.

Feelings can be varied. They can be physical feelings. Enjoying the sun or a light breeze, feeling cold, warming yourself at the campfire. This serves to show that they do not exist in a vacuum, that the world around them has an effect on them, trivial, perhaps, but an effect certainly. Feelings can also go deeper, of course. The cold might make one feel weary, tired, and gloomy. One might silently curse against the blizzard blowing against oneself, or just feel utterly sad and drenched and out of place in the weather; or shy and fearful or distrusting in conversation. Roleplay the fear, the paranoia, even if it happens only in your head. Feelings need not be bad, however: they can be positive. One can feel perfectly at ease, calm, serene just by watching a zen garden or listening to the crackling of the wood in the fire.

Feelings also influence thoughts (and the other way round, too, as they are very closely linked). Thoughts fall in two categories: Observations and philosophical, leaving aside the more coarse desires such as just thinking that you are hungry, tired, wish to eat or go to bed. These too, however, are important; I would just place them under feelings rather than thoughts, because thoughts are processes.

Observations are triggered by outside effects. These can be the environment, and they can be other people. In the first case, looking at a picture, for example, can give raise to comments about the artist's talent (or lack thereof), to questions as to why he painted what he did paint, to wondering, even beyond the actual picture, what the people who build the construction he painted believed and thought, what happened to the young girl in the six hundred year old portrait, or what the story behind an allegory is.

Observations about other people involve analysing their actions. Whether one hits right, or is guilty of a misinterpretation of other people does not matter: it might be the character's fault, but it is not the player's, and as such it is perfectly in-character. It is also quite helpful because it helps build, and indeed explain, relations between PCs, or PCs and NPCs; that is, it helps readers of the PbP understand them, though the characters themselves might not. People are perceived, objectified, analysed and read, whether they like it or not, whether their readers confront them with it or not. I will not go into a discussion of Existentialism here, which would not be in the scope of this essay, but the fact is: do not be afraid to have your character comment on other people's actions within his world.

Of course, thoughts generally build on given a-priori, elements of the character's minds that were there before, and serve as foundations for the building of thoughts. Triggers abound, and can be everywhere: they might not even seem logical to other characters. Have ten people look at the same picture and you get ten different opinions. Some might be close to each other, but given that people have different past, they react to things differently. This is where memories come in.

Memories can be triggered by almost every perception. The sound of an owl shrieking in the forest might remind some people of their youth in the forests, other of their grandmother saying that if you hear an owl someone you know will die, yet others will think about having read about owls somewhere, and some people might jump from owl to owlbear and from there either to their last combat, a friend who once met one, or to the Flying Owlbear Inn where they had this delicious (or atrocious) stew. Even if there is no such memory in your character's history as it is written currently, it is always possible to expand, introduce new, perhaps trivial elements to show that characters do not simply live from one adventure into the next - though the memories can certainly involve adventures too.

Memories can thus be of everything: of people you knew, places you visited, things you read, stories you heard, of tastes (the most famous example in French literature being the "madeleine", a type of cake, which reminded Proust of his childhood just because of the similar taste to the madeleines he had then; it has now become a byword for memories roused by such simple stimuli).

Memories are also often unsolicited, and completely chaotic. They do not stop, unless one tries a conscious effort to seize them, but they unfold. From the owl to the grandmother's superstition about owls, and from there to the superstition about not entering a house with your left foot first, how you were sent back when you did this, and how you tried to provoque fate by putting the left foot first on purpose. How scared you were when your neighbour's son did it, then broke his wrist by falling of his horse. You actually wonder what happened to him. He went of to the big city. It's been a long time since you've last been to a city, actually, not since Athkathla, actually. Pretty interesting city, that... You get the idea.

Caution has of course to be exerced not to overdo it, but as long as it is interesting, it is hard to overdo things. That said, we return to the matter of acting, of doing things. Feelings and thoughts are raised by external stimuli; they also give rise to external effects, or behaviour. Drawing closer to the fire because you feel cold, or wrapping the cloak around you; becoming oblivious to the world around you because you are thinking of your grandmother's owl-stories and forgetting that you are supposed to stand watch over the sleeping camp. Up until you hear the drow laughing right next to you, of course.

It need not be dramatic, but there is always something to do, because there is always something to think, to feel, to remember. Even if doing something is precisely just standing there and not doing anything: The feelings and thoughts and memories, because in a play-by-post they can be written, will explain the activity as well as the inactivity. And hence build your character, boths as a block of stats, by earning XP and as a 'living' entity, by portraying his inner workings.