Thanks for the advice all. I probably should have waited to post up the actual game.  I decided to do it last night before I went to bed... Which lead to my being extremely tired by the time I finished it. Therefore, I probably didn't spend anywhere near as much time as I should have on my pitch. Like I said, this is the first PbP that I'm opening up to people I don't personally know, and I haven't yet actually been a player in a PbP game, so I wasn't really sure what the best way to advertise for players would be.

Gaffer, thanks for your suggestions there. I'm sitting at at least a dozen apps right now, roughly 12 hours after posting the W-P, so I've been trying to think of an effective method to whittle down the players. I added to the W-P post earlier that any who are not selected will have first dibs on joining the game in the event of player attrition.

Be honest, say something like 'Hey i was a little to open on my requirements, I would like bit more info, background on the person you would like to play so i can get a better feel for characters and players that would fit with my GM style and the rest of the group i'm putting together'

I wouldn't try running more than one group, especially since you're inexperienced at running even one.  The suggestion of expanding your requirements is a good one, you do want to get the best, since you have a choice.  And just that may eliminate your problem, if some of them are not willing to do any follow up.  Don't be afraid to take the higher number you thought of, if you still have that many good applicants; the normal dropout rate will likely soon bring the group down in size.

I will sometimes run a very short introductory adventure with more than one group, and then merge the two.  In my experience, this weeds out the players who really aren't serious about a long term commitment.  But you should probably "plant" an NPC in each group, whose duty it is to bring the groups together once you feel you have your solid group.

The other thing to do is create a waiting list.  No need to disclose who gets priority--whether the strongest applicants or on a first come, first serve basis or some other reason.

I usually find that if you create a waiting list; ask if they want to be in it - most will just lose interest the moment they don't get accepted straight away.

That's not been my experience.  I've had about half of them come back when I tell them there's an opening.  But I think there may be more power behind it if the game has been going for some time and has proven it is here to stay.

When I started my Way of the Wicked campaign I had 37 people apply in the space of three days. I know your pain XD

I settled for a group of 4 at first but then I got ambitious and started a second group (also of 4). I thought that since there were so many good submissions that it would be a waste not to take the ones that I liked and somehow try to make it work. Of course it failed spectacularly and I ended up discontinuing the second group. With more time to focus on the first group, we've been going strong now for over a year and a half and are sitting around 12,000 posts.

The morale of the story / TLDR: Pick up as many as you're comfortable running with. Sometimes less is more.

*shrug* May be the system. I think I've had one person, total, say yes, please keep me on the waiting list. And then by the time I needed them, they weren't responding to PMs.

If you end up doing a waiting list, I recommend:  (1) asking them if they may want to join later (not necessarily calling it a "wait list"); and (2) ask them if they would be willing to take over an existing character if needed.  I've found that those who are flexible make the best players.

I think I have one guy that took over a character, and after the character died, he rejoined as another, who since died, and then finally created his own on the third character, which is still going strong.  I love flexibility like that in players.

In reply to Heath (msg # 14):

That's a good suggestion, I have also found that the players in my in-person groups who are the most flexible are also the most fun to play with.

What I do, is get them to take over a character, but I will allow them to make their own to replace that one straight away; to avoid the disconnect of different ways of playing the character. Less an issue with a short-term character.

A good game for 4 people beats a spectacular failure with 8!

In reply to willvr (msg # 16):

Ok, so you have them initially take over the old character, then phase that character out whenever a logical opportunity presents itself?

That's what I do, yeah.

Some players have chosen to stick with the one they've taken over; but most would like to be able to create their own; and if they can stick with an old one for a bit, that gives me greater confidence they can stick with one they make themselves.

In reply to willvr (msg # 19):

Yeah that makes sense.  My philosophy is always "work with me, and I'll work with you", so that would probably be a good judge for me as well.  Thanks for the idea!

I would start out with a few more players than you think you'll need, because attrition ALWAYS kicks in.  I've been in a couple of games where the players were all by-invitation-only, and we still ended up with one or two dropping out before we even completed the first scene, in both games.

As others have said, pick the best options from the RTJs you've received...there is absolutely no obligation to say 'yes' to everyone who says, "I wanna play!"  A good place to start is take everyone who sent some expression of interest and ask them for some kind of character concept.  (Personally, I'd skip the 'two paragraphs of in-character writing'...I often feel like I'm still figuring my character out until I've been playing for a couple of months, so unless I've got a REALLY solid concept in mind, stuff like that is an exercise in frustration for me.)

Some other criteria to consider?
--Posting rates...if everyone in your game can post daily or every-other day, the game will click along pretty briskly and nobody should have time to sit back and get bored waiting for someone else.
--Time Zones/Geographical Locations...if everyone is in the same area, they tend to post close to the same time, which makes it easy to keep the game clicking along (I've been in games where half the players were in Europe, and half in the States, and the GM basically ended up writing two sets of updates to keep everyone involved)--if they're in the same general area, it's easier to come up with 'geography' for the game (I'm in a SR game that's set in the Balkan states...I think I'm the only player that doesn't live within an hour or two of the Adriatic Sea...)

I would NOT try running multiple groups unless you're REALLY comfortable with the idea, but starting out solo missions or small groups that spin into one larger group?  I've seen that done a lot and it seems to work really well, and it's a good way to get players started in the game right way if they've got solid concepts, while leaving yourself a little time to work with other players who sound appealing, but need a little polish on their characters before they start to play.

But first off, I would NOT worry about having too many RTJs.  My experience is, most GMs get more RTJs than slots they have open in their game, and those GMs who take anyone who applies?  Most either wind up with their game imploding under its own bulk, or they have a revolving door of players who start and find out that either the game, the GM, or the other players were not what they were expecting.  While most GMs have some kind of RTJ checklist that players should handle in their initial approach to the game, there's nothing wrong with asking people if they're interested, and once they say 'yes', asking them to do a little legwork to demonstrate that interest.

Personally, I -hate- having decisions made based on timezones. Because unless I'm incredibly lucky, that rules me out of most games, as whilst Australia isn't exactly small or unique, finding a game full of only Australians or NZers would be rare; and if it's not that, my timezone is way out there for everyone else.

I'll only add that when I find a GM is going to run a second group in a game, I withdraw my application.

I'm sure it succeeds sometimes, but never in my experience.

And if a GM can't cull the applications to a manageable number, then I have less confidence that they're going to manage the other decision requirements to keep a game going.

Negative people :P

I agree with what most of the answers are though. Decide on what you need to figure out whether a player will be a good fit for your game. If they look like a good fit but the character is wrong, I would put them at the top of the backup list after the people who have the right nature as players and the right concept.

Don't worry about people wandering off before your RTJ talks are done. If they won't stick around to finish their character, they won't stick around to play. also try to figure out what kind of pace everyone expects. Some players who are otherwise awesome will drop out if the game is too fast for them or too slow.

If someone isn't meeting the criteria/standards you have, try to help them reach higher but don't stress over it too much if you don't feel happy to take them on. Do not run for a player who makes you feel uncomfortable or unenthusiastic.

If you still have too many people by the time play starts you have a couple of options.

1/ Pick the characters you think will work best as a team either in terms of plot or skill balance or whatever. Tell the rest you don't have room but would like to keep them on-call in case an opportunity comes up.

2/ Run two smaller groups. Some people say this is a bad idea. I run a game with 4 3-man teams which is slow, but going fine. This is depends on how you feel about it. If you can take the characters and your plan and spin it out to work for more than one group, great. If you don't have a plan for group 2 and are only doing it to honour their RTJs, it's probably going to be rocky.

3/ Find a co-GM to run a second group. This works if you either run very separate plots or if you and your co-GM trust each other and communicate on the plot a lot. I suggest that if you can't think of who you would ask off the top of your head, don't do it.

I'm in a Shadowrun game that started out this way...the three groups ran on their own long enough to get past the initial attrition of people who are excited to make characters but not so excited to keep playing them...as the numbers began to drop, the teams were combined, so that by the time we got to the heart of the operation, it was just one large team (we've continued to lose people, so it's getting down to a pretty lean group...there are only three of us left in the game from those initial groups, which each started out at 5-8 characters per group...)

Funny thing...I happened to recognize this one since I help run this game.  And actually, I think face might be the only PC to still be around - one of the other originals is a GMNPC and a second has a new player even though the character hasn't changed.

Same note...I'm running a custom setting game using WHF rules and started with 9 or 10 players for the same reason.  Still have 9 of them.  So moral is be careful... you might still end up with a ton of players.

Yeah, that's one of the risks involved in running a game.  If you bank on everyone sticking around from the initial round of RTJs, you're likely to wind up holding an empty bag.  My first game on here was a game a friend of mine set up and was populated only by players he'd invited (which, you would think, would guarantee some degree of devoted participation, right?)  Within six months, the game was dead.

But you can go to the opposite extreme, pad the game out with lots of extra players to account for natural attrition...and everyone will stick around long enough to all get frustrated because the game isn't fast enough due to too many players and not enough GM time to keep them all moving along. (I've been through that one, too).

So, really, there are no guarantees that ANY approach to handling RTJs (either an overabundance or a severe shortage) will yield results that you'll be satisfied with.  All you can do is pick one that you feel is a good fit and run with it.  If it works out, great...if it doesn't?  You can either change how you're handling it or you can start over with a different game.  But the best advice is, I think, run your game in a way that feels right to you.  There's a lot of effort in running a game, and it becomes that much more laborious if you're forcing yourself to do it someone else's way.  Do what's going to be fun and enjoyable for you.  That won't work for every player...but the ones it does work for will stick around and the game will last that much longer because EVERYONE is having fun with it.

In reply to facemaker329 (msg # 27):

Good advice, face. All I'll add at this point is not to create a game unless YOU are determined to see it through no matter what. That's my rule and I've only closed down one game before it reached some sort of finale, even when all but two players out of an initial nine dropped out.

In reply to Visceri22 (msg # 12):

This reminds me of a play by post roleplay site I was on, I think it was, last year. As a preface, this is going to be a long and rambling story, it involves a dragonball z based game, and was not done in a normal play by post format.

Some of the things that worked particularly well for that forum included that the players were expected to keep things going on their own for, pretty much everything. The players were basically given a little direction and told to run with it. This worked well because the site had a filter on who could post, this being a character submission system (which was moderated). This in place, the role of the GM's became quite simple: they only had to run boss fights and make occasional narration posts (for a while, at least). Players were honest, and because everyone had a character sheet to provide numbers to work with, the players could handle how successful they were in their endeavors against mook type enemies and in pvp situations. This resulted in combat that was not so much tactical/grid based, but descriptive and in some cases creativity based. For example, one character had the ability to hurl molten gold at a target (and limited ability to reshape said gold). They threw, essentially, golden spikes at my character. It hit and did damage, so to be descriptive, I included it pinning him to the wall (not technically included in the effect of the attack, but it worked descriptively).

It helped that the forum had a character sheet style set up, where you would make an account by filling in some basic details of your character (a bio, a picture, that kind of thing) then picking a class and getting your stats.

Also working in the favor of the game was that it was a site unto itself, forums were split into such things as a forum for each planet, an archive forum, an ooc forum, and an afterlife forum.

One last thing that worked particularly well was that at the end of each thread, players who participated in it were awarded xp tokens based on their participation (and awards could be adjusted if players did a particularly good or bad job in their roleplaying, for example, upward if they contributed to the thread positively and interacted with the other players to solve the problem, while a lowered reward would be given to those who simply posted some irrelevent posts of their character wandering off to go do their own thing that had little or nothing to do with the thread itself). Of course, the xp tokens became kind of...muddled in their effectiveness, as the admin would fiddle with how much was given per token turned in, what the maximum level was at the time, what else could be done with the tokens, and of course, introduced the concept of bonus xp weekends (when turning in the tokens got double, or even triple normal xp).

One of the helpful aspects of it was that there was no dice rolling involved. No random number to ruin your moment of dramatic awesome, as attacks dealt a set amount of damage based on your character stats and how much you invested in the skill, and your defenses were based, again, on character stats. The unfortunate part of this was that you could not customize your stats by spending points or anything, they ran on a set base (based in part on your class, but everyone had basically the same base stats at low level) and adding the majority of your points based on gear...that you got by completing quest threads...and that's about it. That's where the mechanics fell apart in the area of customizing your character, but the admin/owner was dead set on items being the means of customizing your character.

This set up worked for quite a while. With only two gm's, and by occasionally allowing competent players to run mid-boss npc type characters to challenge other players in minor threads, the game ran quite well. The main problem it had was...well, the admin-owner of the site. To avoid disparaging him with a detailed analysis, let's leave it at: he was unwilling to listen to the opinions of others, was secretly running multiple characters, and regularly utilized his ability to change the rules to ensure his characters would not lose.

That said, the game had upwards of 30 active, competent players. That aspect of it was quite beautiful to see (as I am not used to seeing an abundance of paragraph wielding players all participating in the same play by post game at once...but then, I haven't been doing play by post regularly for a while).

TLDR: I saw a different way to run a large game, and it was good. It involves giving the players their own threads that they can run each other through. Having access to a forum with sub forums aids in the process, allowing the GM to focus on whatever they need to while players generally split up into two's and threes to keep their posting rate relatively quick. Closing a thread and giving a semi-automated award based on word count (and allowing the closing gm to adjust individual awards to compensate for high word counts that happen to be pointless padding, or to reward good roleplaying/compensate good roleplaying that had a low word count helps to balance the rewards and make them fairly easy to handle).

For a shadowrun game, a fair amount of the failings of the site I discussed without explicitly naming would not be a problem. After all, you have a set up for how much xp awards should be, how to handle money, what kind of gear exists and when, and so on

I'm running a Zombie Apocalypse based Special Forces game.  I have 12 players and I'm keeping it at that.  I've lost a couple, but as I've lost them, I've replaced them with new players.  It makes things a bit difficult, but it accurately fills in a Spec Ops team (at least a SFOD-A team).  Players are easy to swap out between missions, they just get transferred to another team, new players are very easily added in.

It's all a matter of what you feel comfortable running.  One of the things I do for my 'frequent fliers' is I have a few different RP only threads.  Characters can easily drop in RP for however long they want and drop out.  It keeps the players that have a higher post rate from losing interest.  Especially helpful during the holidays and the past month where I've had issues.