This is a topic about my DMing. I'll try and explain a few conventions I have come to use to facilitate things on the engine.
First, as a general rule, think of us as a group of players around a table and the engine as our computerized version of map and miniatures. Luckily the engine does give alot more info and atmosphere than just a grid on paper, but many things it cannot do. I will try to work a lot with descriptions on top of the engine. Often when you arrive to an area, a short description of the general circumstance is given. Feel free to ask about how it is around you, if you are clueless as to what is going on, what the characters you are meeting look like, etc. But please do keep in mind that there are typically 3-5 players and one DM, so my time for personal correspondence with a player during a quest is limited. It is unfortunately slow to type things.
In light of the above, if your PC takes some action on the engine (walks to relevant distance from the group for some reason, opens/loots/searches something, etc.), please also type a short emote describing it. Also, typing things takes time, so things that happen quick and/or concurrently will have to be taken in series. Again, 1DM and 3-5 players. Be patient and wait for your turn instead of rushing on with whatever consequences you think should happen. I will call a "OoC halt" to resolve these matters, using rolls to determine who gets initiative, if necessary. Do not think you can beat the other characters to [whatever] if you manage to type it first, or if you can run to it first on the engine. For example, the player to first type "*loots the corpse of the boss monster*" doesn't get all the possible goodies. Others will see him begin the activity, and can react and cut in as they wish. This is not an FPS game. Only in battles is the real-time nature of the engine the way it is played.
A few I would like my players to know I play by:
1) Engine representing areas vs IC areas:
The IC world is hugely bigger than the on-engine areas.
We have a small area on the engine, compassing maybe a max of one square km, that is the on-server area for, say, "Wooded Forest". Wooded Forest is ICly more than a hundred square km. If I take the party to the "Wooded Forest" I will often use this area, for it is what we have to work with. But do not automatically assume that all IC events in Wooded Forest happen in the same one square km patch out of those hundreds.
Generic DM playground areas ("a forest, a hill, a cave") can alleviate this problem, but communicate with me if you are confused what is ICly going on. If you are ported to an area like "Wooded Forest" assume that ICly the area represents some other part of it than the one on the engine normally, unless otherwise stated. Actually it might be a good idea to RP as if "Wooded Forest" is not always the same small patch even when otherwise RPing.
2) Loot:
A) If you loot something from the auto-drops on the engine, please emote it, as what other PCs would see yours do. E.g. *takes a crossbow from a corpse* or *reaches into the pockets of the corpse, and takes out some small items* (latter for gold and gem(s))
B) When you have defeated an "encounter", you can carefully go through and loot the corpses, and most probably get extra gains in addition to auto-drops. This activity takes several minutes of time, however, so if you have more hostiles breathing down your neck, you can deduce what that means. Also your companions will always take note of this activity, and can react. Perhaps stop you, or more likely, join you in on the fun.
Use an emote to the effect of "*Carefully loots the corpses for any valuables*", and roll a search check to do this. Usual outcome is an amount of gold = enemy richness factor / number of looters * search check. This represents a collection of generic valuables you find on the corpse(s).
Searching for things other than valuables, e.g. clues to who they were, is done separately.
C) Search above applies to humanoids and such, but I encourage you to be creative with non-humanoid monsters if you got the skill points to back you up. That dire wolf might not carry coins, but if you got knowledge:nature and/or craft alchemy maybe you figure out to pull out fangs that are useful as magical material components. Use your creativity for what your PC might try with what creatures. (Also see SRD knowledge skill for which applies to which critter type)
3) Battlefield Medicine
For PCs, we have the negative HP system, and during battle that and the real-time engine mainly determines who lives or dies. For NPCs, they die at 0hp. Especially for fallen NPCs, after the battle the PCs are allowed to try and revive them with their healing skills, possibly aided by magic. To try to revive a NPC, emote starting first aid. At this point, other PCs can cut in, if they for example think they would be more competent at the job. Then expend a use of healing magic (any) for a +10 bonus if desired. Finally make a heal skill check. DCs to save the character are usually 20 and up.
In battlefield medicine, the party needs to be organized. If a lengthier than few lines argument as to who should do it breaks out, it means the subject bleeds to death while the party squabbles. Also there won't be "everyone gets a try and highest check counts". For a single character to try to save several fallen characters in a row, the DCs quickly become much harder.
You can try battlefield medicine by these rules to fallen PCs (dead on the engine), but as a general rule, it fails. Also, 20 is the typical minimum DC, there is no maximum. If I rule someone, PC or NPC, dies, and you disagree, I will entertain maximum one tell per player as to why. If I still rule the char dies, it dies, and that's it. Sometimes the blow that fells you lobs off your head, and the head rolls and falls down a cliff at the base of which lives a starving colony of ravenous brain scavenging demonic squirrels. That's part of the DM arbitration in telling the story.
4) Being floored and AI ignoring you.
Dropping to negatives makes the AI ignore you, we all know that. However, your PCs don't know that. And with a DM on the helm, creatures can be smarter than the AI. So if you see a friend bleeding among hostiles and take no hurry to reach him cause you see he is only at -3 ... Well, in DnD that means the hostiles more likely than not will finish off that friend. And so they might in my DMing. Considering yourself warned.
5) Mature content
I will allow PCs to perform whatever they want under my DMing, no topic or event is expressly forbidden. Violence and sex can be powerful driving forces in storytelling - long as it's clear which is the master and which the servant. As such, I have little tolerance for graphic descriptions of sex or violence. Such acts will be noted as having happened, think of a black box with a sterile description on it, and we move on with the adventure story.
Note that I am also aiming to do what is fun for me. So if your game just happens to always lead to sex and/or pain and gore, no matter how "RP motivated" each instance might be, expect me to steer somewhere else rather soon.
