[quote=@Takashi]

1.) The type of plot. Will it be a quest? A war? Slice of life fantasy? If we have a larger group, my personal suggestion would be a guild-type RP so we have a central hub for everyone to interact it, can send small teams out on their own escapades, and have the opportunity for large scale events, like the guild coming under attack. I have a setting for this in mind if people like this idea.
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For one, I think a good mix of slice of life and actiony stuff works best. It would allow for some good character interaction in the slice of lifey stuff, and some good combat and action to keep things from getting stale. So I think a guild-like setting would work best. Maybe a group of mercenaries? Or maybe even bandits, could work here.

It would allow the characters to have some fairly good down time to interact with other characters, develop relationships, and etc, and allow for new character introduced later to have an easy time getting involved with the others. Perhaps even have them all get involved in a war or something later. It'd definitely keep things interesting for a story Arc.

[quote=@Takashi]
2.) Scale of the world. Simple enough decision to make. Do we want people travelling across Middle Earth to the dark lands or Mordor, or do we wanna just keep it to one city/region? If you want local, we should also pick a climate. [/quote]

I think, it should start of as simple first. Keep it to a single city/region to begin with. As the RP progresses, we could expand the range of the RP outwards. It would keep things from getting completely stale, and who doesn't love traveling to foreign, and distant lands to explore?~

Not much else to say there, other than start in a small region, then work outwards.

[quote=@Takashi]
3.) General level of power permitted for the characters. It's no fun being Jack the Stable Boy when Lord Deathstruction is blowing up cities. Let's pick a general power tier. Players are free to make a character below that tier, but not above it. I tend to like things toned down a bit. Your powers could trash a city block, but it maxes out there. [/quote]

A bit more difficult question to answer. For one, all characters should be reasonably powered and balanced so that they aren't massively OP. If they can trash a city block in one attack, then that should either be really tiring or have some major draw back. Kind of like newtons third law here: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

The more powerful the attack, the bigger the drain on ones energy/magic reserves. Or they have some physical repercussion for some such attack. Being unable to move while casting it. Being temporarily unable to move after using it. It would depend on how much power a character possesses.

This would also allow for some people to get stronger as time progresses, and potentially nullify the weakness. It'd still be there - but it'd be less pronounced, and thus showing a good bit of character growth.

[quote=@Takashi]
4.) Offer any suggestions for races you want early so they can be worked in.[/quote]

Well, if this is going to be eastern fantasy, I think some non-human races would work well. The more intelligent beings in Eastern folklore for example. Kitsunes, Onis, Tengu, etc. Of course, it'd need to be kept within reason I think and they would be rarer than humans. Personally, a few non-human races always add a bit of flavor to an RP. Not to mention Racial tensions could always be a thing, and an interesting plot to explore.

I do think all this talk about 'mechanics' is a bit arbitrary when it comes to RP's, however. In real life there aren't really 'mechanics' for anything. Incorporating stats and limiters and such things into an RP, I've always found simply silly and ridiculous.

Of course, when it comes to things like magic, special abilities, and things like that its a bit of a different story. Obviously a character would need time/practice to develop a new skill or ability. However, I don't think limiting it by saying 'you have to do this certain thing' to achieve it is all that good. As long as the character logically can learn to do such a thing, simply have them post attempting to learn and do it.

Whether they're successful or unsuccessful, well, that'd be up to the characters controller and the GM, I think. As long as they just didn't pull the skill out of their ass after not even posting that the character was attempting to learn it, then I think it's alright.

Unless I entirely misread that conversation above. If so, ignore me.

That's my two cents on this thing. Feel free to discuss, or shoot any of my ideas down. I won't bite~ xP