I want to run a game, halp?

[Zyden]

tl;dr - Lots of F2F gaming experience but not much online. How can I benefit from other people's prior experience running games here to avoid common pitfalls?


Long Version


So, I joined this site a few months ago. The games I've gotten involved in that have made it off the ground are very fun. I'm having a very good experience. A few things I signed up for never launched, but that's okay.


Now my mind is turning towards running a game of my own. I'm new to writing, but enjoying it. I'm contemplating running Dark Sun/Athas or maybe Planescape (more likely of the two) using the Pathfinder framework (I will post an interest check thread in the LFP forum when the time comes). Those are two of my favorite settings of all time and 3.5 is probably the rules system I'm most familiar with.


My primary concern is that the way I've always witnessed PF played IRL involves a fair amount of rolling, especially in combat. I'm worried this is going to cause the game to be slow. Of course, maybe that's the nature of PbP games?


My secondary question... and maybe there is a post I just haven't found... is what are the common DM/ST pitfalls of running a PbP game? I'd rather not reinvent the wheel.

 

[ninbinz]

I'm only barely familiar with dice based games but you could consider changing the combat rules to best suit yourself, you could even choose combat system from another game.


Your players can always be a pitfall, always be on the lookout for the one who joins but doesn't play, you could end up waiting on them at a point where the rest of the group is having fun and wanting to push forward. Dice role play or not, this is a common issue.