How a PBEM works.
Well, somewhat obviously, you're going to get emails sent out to the entire list. Generally try and cut & paste what you're responding to if it isn't obvious, or you're responding to an earlier email. There are two acronyms you'll get to know as you describe your character's actions: IC and OOC. IC is "in character" and is your character talking. OOC is "Out of Character" and is you, the player, talking. Generally, try to keep OOC stuff to a minimum. Quotes generally signify, well, direct quotes from what your character is saying.
-Bland: I walk up to the shopkeeper, introduce myself, and find out if he knows any rumors about the man with the bone dagger.
-Better: Catchstar saunters up to the counter, putting an antique & a silver piece on it. "Hello! I was wondering if I could buy this. Hey, you hear anything more about that cloaked person with the dagger made of bone who caused such a stir last night?"
Obviously, sometimes you can't avoid talking OOC, especially about system-related things.
-"They're wearing no armor, eh?" Altaer says. He hefts his two-handed sword and swings for pain over accuracy (OOC: Using Power attack feat. I'll take a -3 to hit, +3 to damage).
Note that long, OOC strategy conventions in the middle of an ambush may cause the DM to have evil things happen. Try and keep things realistic.
Please don't write other character's actions for them, or perform revisionist history (that's MY province).
-Bad: Spune waves his sword menacingly, and his fellow party members cower away in fear, allowing him to nab the treasure chest and run.
If your actions depend on another character, use the conditional.
-Good: Thravec asks Ernesto for the vials of acid. Assuming he gets them, they will be tied around the rod of Lightning Bolt, and then tossed upstairs at the gate where the Pit Lord came out of.
In fact, the conditional is your friend in a lot of ways. The game slows down if the DM has to constantly ask the party what to do; by planning your actions out in advance, things fly along faster. Don't worry, if something new and unexpected comes up, the game will still stop and ask what your new actions are, but for fairly bland things, the conditional is Good.
-Slow: "We should check that noise out."
-Fast: "Let's investigate the odd noise. Arion, why don't you go scout around the campsite looking for tracks?" Assuming he finds something, we all get up and follow the tracks. If it was just nothing or a random forest noise, let's ignore it and continue as before on the road to Port Evret.
When doing skill checks, just embed them in your turn in an appropriate place.
-Gram takes the coil of rope and ties up the prisoner (Use Rope 11)� with a mess of fat knots that would take all of a minute to undo. "Somebody else want to try this?"
-"Of course we're allowed in. Haven't you heard of the king hiring mercenaries from our land?" (Bluff 24). Aspitis grins to himself at his mastery of that barbarian grasslands accent.
In fact, skill checks are an excellent excuse to use the conditional yet again, depending on whether they succeed.
-Runtboy casually strolls past the shoppers, his nimble fingers relieving them of their excess coinage as he passes (Pick Pockets 22). If Runtboy manages to escape undetected, he will buy himself a large bottle of whiskey and get drunk in the stables. If the shoppers spot his thieving, he will run like hell, hide for a while, and then buy himself a small bottle of whiskey from savings and attempt to get drunk in the stables.
To make things move faster, combat will generally not be run round-by-round. Rather than everyone posting their individual actions for a round, instead, try and form a guideline for how you'll react throughout the fight. Then I will run the fight solo on my
end, and post the results in full-3-D Flav-O-Text. Generally, the tougher the battle, the more often I'll stop to ask what you're doing. If the enemy's commander is downed in the first round on a critical hit, I might well run the entire fight by myself. Nastier battles may have me stopping every 2 rounds to ask for an update on your strategy. Truly epic battles we should probably have an IRC session to run, being that stopping every round in a 10-round fight can take 2 weeks of real time, easily (instead of an hour and a half). This way hopefully will strike a balance between giving everyone control of their character and keeping the game from bogging down like a bowling ball in a pool full of marshmallow peeps.
-Raven will ready his daggers for throwing and launch them at the first orc that comes in range. Once he's done that, he will draw his shortsword and head for the brush by the side of the road so he can sneak around behind the orcs and backstab the rearmost one. He will try to avoid head-on combat if at all possible, but he'll step in to help if someone looks like they're in trouble.
Spellcasters have to go into a bit more detail, of course!
-Brother Greg will open the battle by attempting to cast Hold Person on the hulking fighter in the plate mail. He'll cast his other memorized Hold Person in the second round as well- a second try on the tall fighter if he failed the first round, or the halfling with the short bow if he succeeded. After that, he will heal anyone who seems to need it, and wade in with his quarterstaff, bringing down the Wrath of God on these bandits.
Note that just because this game is PBEM doesn't mean you can't use a messaging service. You're fully free to talk with your party members this way- just have one of you send out an email of your "cleaned up" conversation in character. Same with talking to the DM. Feel free to scout a few small ideas with me before actually sending your letter off.