I talked yesterday about the main pitfall in pbp gaming -- the slow pace -- and identified three key areas that can be addressed to make it less of an issue. We're going to look at the first of those areas today: momentum.
So, you've decided you want to run a play by post game. You've found your venue (either forum or a chat server like Discord or G+ Hangout). The first thing you want to do is recruit players and get them to make characters. The instant you start your recruitment thread you want to start thinking about momentum. As a general rule you want to get through the character creation process as quickly as possible and into the actual game. If you are able to do this quickly -- within a week, say -- your players will be enthusiastic about their new characters and excited to get started. The longer the character creation drags out the less excited people become, the more shiny things they see other than your game to distract them, etc. I set a firm deadline for starting play once recruitment begins, and will start play even if I don't have my ideal number of players or some are still working on their characters. It's easy enough to add folks in, but harder to rekindle excitement lost if the rest of the players are twiddling their thumbs waiting for one person to finish their character.
Also, during the recruitment phase is the best time to set posting expectations. I typically shoot for all my players to make a minimum of one post per day. If this doesn't happen all the time that's fine, as long as there's a majority of players to make decisions, but it is ideal. Especially during combat or individual actions, the one post per 24 hours is ideal.
Now that all of your characters are created and you're ready to jump into the IC thread there are some things you can do as a DM to establish and keep momentum up. One of the biggest things to keep in mind is you should never slow down a game waiting on input from one player, and try and set things up in such a way that you are never relying on input from a single player. I try to discourage individual actions (such as scouting ahead) even though it somewhat breaks immersion, but if players insist on taking those actions I make it clear that the player needs to be able to respond quickly to posts, usually multiple times within 24 hours. I don't want the rest of the players sitting around with nothing to do for a week while one PC takes their time responding to posts regarding their scouting attempt.
Tangentially to the above, I usually run games on a majority rules basis: as soon as the majority of players decide on a course of action (do we take the left or right corridor?) that is what happens, even if not everyone has weighed in. This rule favors frequent posters, but so be it. I'd much rather keep things moving for the majority of players than get input from one or two slower posters. Additionally, stress how important it is to make posts that drive the action forward. I frequently see posts to the effect of "My character is happy to go with the majority" or "My character doesn't care which corridor we take". These posts are, in my mind, literally worthless, as they don't do anything to drive the action forward. Insist that your players care which way to go, if only to reach a majority; if they don't care, then why are they playing in your game? Everything that is posted should drive things forward. If you're running the game, make sure that your posts give your characters things to act on.
If you can start off strong, and continue the momentum of regular posting for a good two or three months, chances are you'll have interested, engaged players who will both carry the momentum going forward and be better situated to weather the inevitable slow downs.
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