So since we may be getting into a fight soon, how do you guys want to handle combat as far as initiative and mapping goes? I am ashamed to say I am fairly tech illiterate, but I've been wanting to try and learn some map software for this sort of thing. Problem there is my wallet i kinda light after buying all my textbooks and a lot of them aren't cheap, so I don't want to splurge on something unless I know I'll be able to get my head around it. I don't supposed there are any that you have typically used or might suggest?
Barring that, I can do what I do for my home games and just draw up floorplans on notebook paper with a scale indicator, then make a scan and post it here, or I guess we could try and just do everything by description. That would be the quickest way, but also with the most room for misunderstanding.
Initiative seems like the place where things could REALLY slow down for a PbP. I really don't want a fight with a group of gangers to last half a month, so I'm wondering if there might be a way to simplify things? How would you guys feel about an AD&D style thing on a per-pass basis? Basically, rather than acting one at a time, everyone posts the action they intend to take, along with relevant rolls, then after everyone has posted I'll integrate that with what actions the mooks are going to take and everything will play out in a single post (in relevant initiative order) before we move on to the next pass. It's concievable that there could be situations in which the actions someone was plannig to take here becomes nonviable (the guy you were going to shoot was dead), and it does add a little more chaos since you declare actions before you see the results of the actions of those higher in the initiative order, but that might lead to some interesting shit happening. Thoughts?
I guess since we're a couple pages in, it would be a good time to gather thoughts on the game so far. Anything that seems to be missing? Anything that needs work? Anything you'd like to see get more of a focus? I know it's kinda early game-wise, but RL wise it's been about two weeks (I think), and I like to do lil check ins periodically.