I'm curious as to what tense people usually tend to write in. I have the bad habit of switching between the two if I'm not careful.

Generally, third person is best for use in collaborative stories and most GMs will assume you will be writing this way. It keeps people from forgetting halfway through a post who exactly they're reading about. First person can certainly work, especially if everyone is using it and there aren't so many people that you would get easily confused (1x1s are probably the best place to use the first person). A little bit of proofreading will probably alleviate most unintentional tense switches. On a semi-related note, I have seen people in the past who actually refuse to write in anything other than the first person (and wouldn't take no for an answer). They always struck me as the type that wanted the RP to revolve around themselves. That was just my perception though, it wasn't necessarily the case.

Third person, past tense primarily.

Same. It's what I prefer to use and I don't think I could RP with someone using something else. I've seen a single person in a group RP use first person and it was just odd.

That depends on what we feel like at the time. Its a nice experiment in a collab to have one player use first person while the other(s) write third person. But its a challenging thing to do right. More than one player writing in first person in a single post is messy, though.

Third person, past tense.

I like to write all my GM posts in present tense. I also like to use second person as much as possible when referring to the player characters. Consider: "She smelled the ogre's lingering body odor." Or: "You smell the ogre's lingering body odor." I think it helps make the scene more immediate and immersive. This can get tricky when you have several different characters who would notice different things, like if you have one character who can see in the dark. For this I have a color system to help delineate which descriptions only your character would notice. I assign each character a color, and will then color the description. Character: Infrared Dude

Cold air breezes through the passageway as you creep through the shadows. Just ahead, a figure emerges from around the corner, exposed face and hands haloed in a rainbow corona of emanating heat. The sounds of padded feet on stone echo in the dark.

As a player, however, I write exclusively in past tense, third person, using first person in inner monologues.

Third-person is a good default for generally describing a narrative because it's easier to narrate when you can assume an omniscient/all-knowing voice like a puppet master pulling the strings. First-person from a character's perspective is much more limiting because you need to constrict your descriptions to your character's voice *and* their limited knowledge. Pretty hard to pull off, and you need to be decisive on your character's personality and weaknesses to really sell it. I personally like mixing third-person narration with first-person thoughts from my character.

For tense, I usually prefer past tenses, generally simple past. But it often moves into past perfect. Very rarely will I move into present perfect. I'm pretty sure the only time I use any of the other tenses is in dialogue. Simply because it reads a lot better when you say a character has done or did this as opposed to reading that they will do this, or are doing that, and expecting the other rpers to automatically convert that into, well, that's what the character did during that post. I actually find it rather strange when I read posts written in present or future, but future tenses are the weirdest to read. Although Clark's example of using present tense in a GM post makes sense, that I can get behind. But for character posts, it just feels weird. In present tense, everything's happening at once, despite the fact that there should be a clear sequence of events. And in future tense, it just seems like no one's sure these actions will actually happen, I always find myself wondering if there's a condition, like Character A will do this if ChAracter B does that, but Character A is supposedly reacting first and Character B's in the next post, following behind. And, yeah.... That's just how it reads to me.

I mix it up depending on my mood; there's a certain visceral impact to be had in first person -- sometimes it just feels like a more natural expression of the character than third person. But third person past is the go-to for general narration: every once in a while a little present tense can liven up the uncertainty of action, but that's far more rare. In one on one encounters, second person can occasionally be useful, but too much and it gets cheesy fast.

Man, I just realized I replied about perspective last night, rather than tense. Much derp.

Third person, past tense, with the usual exception of thoughts.

I use past tense for most posts, but I use present tense for things like altered states, magic, dreams, and sometimes combat. It's a good way to show that things are weird for the character and to get inside a characters perception of their world.

Past tense works better for me. It's easier to visualize a story that way... and it's the traditional Western style. Just feels more comfortable.

@Mogwar Same. I responded after reading your reply. It's cool, it's like a side-quest.

Simple past has the elegance of less words, but that's just how I see it.