I believe the original intent of the Lord Cory's Social Hall forum was to give a place for fiction AND for forum RPs. You can find both in that forum, but it has been a long time since any of the RP threads was active. (The "Cerbie's Grill" thread fell inactive in January, 2006. Others went inactive further back.) See the sticky post in Lord Cory's Social Hall, "Rules for this Forum".
Grom Hellscream wrote:1) All rules for other forums apply here. This includes no cussing, racial slurs, perversion, hostility (out of character) and so forth. These rules are placed for your benefit as well as the rest of the players.
2) (My MAJOR rule) No forced actions. Simply...a forced action is an action during roleplaying that decides the fate of a person before the other player can decide his/her own fate. This rule is designed to keep creativity high. If you were allowed to go around ripping hearts out through nostrils, where would the fun be? For example:
*Grom punches Aethany in the chest and rips out the Blacksmiths heart* (forced hit)
*Grom throws his balled fist in the direction of Aenthany's heart*
*Aethany turns, but not fast enough to dodge the fastly approaching hand as it connected with her shoulder* AH!...(actual RP)
With the lack of forced hits, the receiving player must be creative and choose how to dodge, pary, or take the hit. You cannot miss all hits, nor should you take them all, but be realistic with this.
3) The person that starts a thread is the narrator, they make all world changes and move the bad guys (unless another is assigned to that by that player)...This will reduce confusion and allow the person to play out their story.
[There are two other rules, by the way, but these are the most relevant so far.]
What Fon calls "god-modding", Grom called "forced action", and I have called "auto-hit". Grom gave a good example.
Fon, your #2 makes me think you need Grom's Rule #3. If someone posts that they do something that is questionable, who would decide that it is invalid? Essentially you need either a game master or a policy for player(s) nullification of a previous post. Grom's solution was to declare the thread-initiator is the "narrator", and that includes the GM duty of monitoring players' posted actions for forced actions, and impossible sequences of actions.
I recommend also that you expect people to post just one new action at a time. It reduces the chance of inadvertent forced actions or forced
inactions. Example:
James closed the heavy restaurant menu and used it to block the blow-dart. He rolled out of his chair to his right, drawing his pistol as he finished the roll in a crouch and tried to locate the origin of the dart. He fired a shot straight up at the ceiling. Restaurant patrons panicked. Some ducked, some covered, some ducked and covered. Some chose flight and rushed in all directions, looking for a way out. James shot at the ceiling again and brandished the pistol to scatter them away from himself, while he watched for purposeful movement to the exits that would betray the would-be assassin.
In this example, note well that blocking the dart is not what I would consider a "new action"; it is a counter to another's previous action. I think it's perfectly acceptable to respond with one action to a previous post and then initiate your own new action. But that should have been limited to "He rolled out of his chair to his right ... tried to locate the origin of the dart", and maybe as far as firing into the ceiling the first time to cause a stampede. But continuing to the second shot assumes that the assassin is doing nothing this whole time. That constitutes forced inaction. Give the player of the assassin a chance to react to the block and the James' next action. The second part is a good plan for trying to identify the assassin amid the crowd, but it assumes that the assassin doesn't follow up with a second attack or a range of potentially cool stuff. If the assassin player tries to duck out during the commotion, THEN you post the second part to justify spotting the assassin and being able to follow.
I suspect that the italicized part of Fon's example was a scene initiated by the narrator/GM, and that the final two paragraphs of normal font were the single post in response. If that wasn't the case, I'd say the italicized part violates the guidelines.