// Ugh, the tabletop rape thing is one of the creepy factors that have been used deliberately to keep women out of gaming. Fortunately, as shown here, there are plenty of people who won’t tolerate such behaviour. And you are all much appreciated.
//The thing about whether to stop some player-led diversion from happening or not is up to the GM. If it happens too bluntly, it feels like railroading: the kind of game where there is only one path to the story, and if you deviate by the tiniest bit you end up with nothing to do. The opposite extreme is the sandbox style, where the world-creating has been done in advance, there are things happening everywhere, and wherever the players go and whatever they do, there will be something going on. This is much more prep work for the GM, needless to say. But you can play somewhere between the two, where there’s a general sense of what the universe is like, some big background that influences what happens at a smaller scale, there’s a plot that might be mostly linear, but can be adapted to shift and if necessary follow the players around. Because players are very good at running away from the plot.
//And absolutely, face to face reaction time does make things simpler. Here, compounded with the time difference, we have people who may have pretty constant computer access all day, so they can keep reacting, and people who might only be able to log on during lunch break or in the evening. We do need to be a bit more patient about GM responses. We also need to be prepared for not having ALL of our ideas come to fruition. Some plans just don’t work out. Some information turns out to be untrue. Some people miss appointments, for reasons that range from trivial to dramatic. Any of those things could delay or derail our plots.