I would like to ask a few questions and suggest a few stuff:
* Are you going to run sessions on chat (real-time) or have each player post his/her move in a daily/weekly basis (possibly with a countdown timer)? In the 1st case the session is going to run quite smoothly but people have to be of the same timezone and have the same amount of free time (which is quite impossible) while in the 2nd case the session is going to run at a snail's pace.
* How many 4th edition books/stuff/rules/errata do you accept? What kind of house rules are you going to implement? According to my experience, it is better to have every player know the rules since the beginning in order to avoid future quarells and misunderstandings.
* Are you going to use battle grid? If yes, you may use the elemental icons (
) to represent the tileset (1 icon= 5x5 ft. grid square) and facial expressions (
8)
) to represent characters, NPC and monsters. However, it is possible to run the game without battle grid, though it would be better to avoid a lot of tactical (pull/push/slide) Encounter Powers & Daily Powers.
* What is going to happen if a player doesn't show up in the chatroom or don't his/her character action at the appropriate topic within the turn's deadline? Are you going to run that character by yourself for this turn or for the whole encounter, using every single item and Encounter/Daily Power and Utility Power at your disposal? Are you going to drop him/her, though this may kill the rest of the party? After all, combat encounters are designed according to the level of the current party by taking into account every single party member and one member less may cause lots of problems, especially if one of the 4 roles remain unclaimed [4 roles= Defender, Leader, Striker, Controller]). Are you going to have this character act like being "Dominated" by the player's party (a.k.a. one basic attack at the nearest enemy but no any powers). Are you going to have the character take a "Full Defence" action or just staying idle? Finally, what if the character actually dies during the absence of his/her owner?
* Are you going to use an online Random Number Generator (e.g. Random.org) to calculate the dice results? Are you going to actually calculate everything by tossing around your d20 dice-set that sits near your monitor and informs us after that?
* What kind of freedom your players are going to have? Are you going to run a sandbox campaign (go everywhere you go, do whatever you wish, but you also take full responsibility of the consequences), a run-by-the-nose campaign (the king sends you there to do that, you are Lawful Good so you have to obey, you complete the mission, then the mayor sends you to another mission, once again you have to obey and go to the 2nd mission, you complete the 2nd mission, then the king sends you somewhere else, repeat, repeat, repeat...), anything between (a run-by-the-nose system where you have some serious choices to do or a sandbox where you can move around only a very small area, like a city or a village).
In order to have a faster running/more enjoyable experience, I suggest you should use plenty of Minions. Sure, when you gather with your pals around a table to roll some dice and having fun, minions go out too fast to be really enjoyable, but since we are going to play online and the faster a combat goes the less people become bored I think tons of Minions is a must-have. A Standard monster or max two (or an Elite monster in the rare case) with a fair number of minions of the same level is probably the best. Better leave Solos for the very rare occasion (I think they are going to need tons of time to go down during an online session) and better have them underleveled in order to go down faster than normal.
