As nauthiz said, this. However I'd go back a bit further: Game Set Up Is Key.
Make your required posting frequency known in advance, preferably in the Game Info, or your RTJ requirements thread. If you are willing to post once per day (and stick to this baring emergencies) there is no reason your Players cannot as well. Especially for combat. It's okay to have two posting requirements, "once per day by [TIME]" and "at least once every other day" for non-combat" (or whatever speed you prefer, if you are posting every 2 days or once a week, that's your pace, and it's fine to set your pace as the requirement).
For me it's a strict "post by 4pm or I post for you" requirement for combats, and "post at least once every 3 days for non-combat scenes, but I will be moving things forward every three days or so as needed for the scene".
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If you're using any sort of a turn based system group folks together so nobody is waiting on anybody else. You should be waiting on the players, then the players should be waiting on you. If players decide to start waiting on other players, it can turn into a death spiral as people wait on each other without either realizing it.
Yeah, throw "PC initiative order" out the window. It's fine for "who starts the fight" or if there is a timing issue, but for the most part "Initiative Order" doesn't work in PbP.
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Minimize dice rolling. If your chosen system relies on multiple back and forth dice rolls to resolve combat actions (attack roll, then defense roll, then damage roll, etc) devise a way to minimize that which works for you and your players. This might mean you roll everything, or having your players roll on enemies' behalf so they can figure out whatever else they might need to roll, etc, etc.
If you're running a system (like GURPS) where there is a lot of back and forth with attack and defense/resistance rolling, the simplest is to have the effects of failed defense/resistance listed in your post (similarly if it's a PC attack) and then have the Player defend/resist and post their next action at once. This keeps PC autonomy in the Player's hands and in systems witj limited resource economy (limited # of rerolls, limited # of special resistances, iteratively reduced defenses, etc) the Player is still deciding when and where to spend those resources.
It is a bit slower this way, there will always be Players who need to ask questions, do something backwards, etc.
Also, and this is a big one: Describe things adequately. If you have Players constantly asking how far away the enemies are, is the bad guy injured, is there any cover, how many enemies are left, etc, it's because you're not adequately describing the scene. This will slow play to a crawl as the Players have to repeated ask for clarifications before they can make decisions.
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If you're not doing a narrative cinematic scene, avoid "cinematic hordes"/large pitched battles. While there's a certain degree of triumph that comes from a player's character mowing down scores of enemy chaff, it can end up just drawing things out unnecessarily. So chose the enemies you decide to throw at the players with speed in mind.
Yup. If you're running a system (like D&D) that doesn't have good 'narrative/cinematic mass combat tools", it might be best to "make do" like every attack from a Player is actually '10 rounds worth of combat and resolves versus ten times the number of foes' sort of thing.
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Above all, whatever you do, if you don't want combat to take weeks and weeks (or months and months), don't slow down.
Yup. If you can run a post every day, you can skate through small combats very quickly. Now when to break into "non-combat time" for things like chases and when to drop back into combat time. Also, it's okay if enemies surrender, or flee, or even (if they look to be winning) demand the PCs surrender. It's okay if the PCs flee and you let them get away (if that's what the mobs would do). Don't make every battle a meatgrinder and they'll fly by pretty fast.