Message-board role-playing
Internet forums are the most common medium for Play-by-Post gaming. Some online forums provide benefits such as online dice rolling, character profiling and game history. Others emphasize the use of free-hand and the absence of dice and chance. Thanks to online forums, players can easily keep track of all aspects of the game, can see what is happening elsewhere and can re-read anything they have previously written. Many online services provide free game hosting for gamemasters.
In some message-board role-playing forums, dice rolls are made by the GMs either in real life or through a number generating program external to the role-playing message board. This relies heavily on trust from the players, and can potentially lead to problems such as favoritism.
Message-board role-playing is faster than play-by-email, but as all players can see all the posts there can possibly be problems on forums that do not support private messages. Sites like Proboards, Invisionfree and others of that sort are used for this. There can also be issues where multiple players respond to a post at once and contradict each other, requiring posts to either be edited or deleted. Sometimes the GMs will need to sort out such a situation when it occurs if an agreement cannot be reached by the players.
Some message boards allow members of any level of writing to join. These are usually called free-for-all, or beginner RPGs. A member who does not write long posts or use proper grammar may be referred to as a "noob". Some sites are advanced, with a word minimum for every post. The word minimum usually falls between 200 to 800 words. Intermediate RPGs usually require three to five, sometimes more, paragraphs per post. In advanced roleplays it might be required to have in excess of eight paragraphs per post, but such forums are rare.
In some cases, the GM is not present and dice rolling is not required. Combat and other measures are handled by a set of rules that prevent the likes of:
"Bob stabbed Joe, Joe died." From happening.
To make it "Bob flicked out his switchblade with a wicked grin, and lunged at Joe with it; intending to stab his stomach with the sudden motion."
The difference is that things don't automatically hit, but it requires a high level of player trust due to someone just being able to post "Dodges, avoids, etc." every single combat post.