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1. Don't Cheat.
This is arguably the most important rule. There are many different ways to cheat whilst role-playing (sometimes referred to as 'munching' or 'God-modding'), too many for me to go into here, but I recommend that you read the Anti-Munch Project. If you're new to role-play then it outlines several things that you should avoid. Think of the AMP as a list of role-playing guidelines. In certain situations it's okay to break them, but I wouldn't recommend it until you've been role-playing for a while and know how to recognize these situations.

As well as being a term interchangeable with munching, God-modding also refers to a particular type of munching. God-modders are arguably the worst form of munchers, because their characters have powers akin to Gods. They can dodge bullets, fly, run incredibly fast, do martial arts... Basically, a God-modder can do anything. It should be easy to see why this can get annoying.

2. Be Realistic.
In some role-plays you might be able to get away with bending the laws of physics, but in 'realistic' role-plays in particular you will have to bear what can and can't be done in mind.

3. Stick to your Story.
It can get increasingly annoying if somebody that you are role-playing with keeps changing their character, saying that they grew up with their parents on a farm one day, then claiming that they watched their parents die at the age of 1. Once you've got a story going in a role-play, stick to it.

4. Only Control Yourself.
There's nothing wrong with interacting with another user's character when role-play (in fact, it's encouraged) but don't control them. For example, it's fine for your character to offer another character a beer or that you throw a knife at them, but it is not okay to assume that the character takes the beer or that the knife hits him. I'll go into battles themselves in more detail later on, but the basic idea is that you let people control their own characters. After all, you wouldn't like it if somebody was controlling your character, would you?

5. Offline? Leave Them Alone!
If somebody says that they are going offline but you wish to continue role-playing, then the best way to do it is to pretend that the character started to ignore you or went off to do something else. Just because somebody has gone offline without making excuses IC does not mean that you can attack them, kill them, draw funny faces on them with pen, or anything like that.

Newb: Beginner; low-skilled at RPing.

Semi-Literate: Potential; moderate at RPing.

Literate: Excellent; great at RPing. Literate means one who can read and write.

Novelist: Proficient; high-skilled at RPing. These people create beautiful literature.

IC: In Character.

OC: Original Character.

OOC: Out of Character.

RP/RPC: Role-Play / Role-Play Character. RP is to assume the role of.

PC/NPC: Playable Character / Non-Playable Character.

Canon: RP referring to any character that is preexisting in any form of media.

DM: Dungeon-Mastering; individual(s) orchestrating and manipulating a role-playing campaign.

Paradox: Role-play that occurs at a different time and/or place.

Time-Skip: Skipping the role-play forward to current events.

Play-By-Post: Turn-based role-playing. Waiting for all parties involved to respond in an orderly fashion.

Some of these are self-explanatory, but I've went ahead and gone into detail for some.

Auto-Hitting: Do things that they declare are impossible to be prevented or blocked, to a RPC/NPC, or declare one hit after another on a RPC/NPC.

Aim-Botters: The people who never miss a single shot no matter how difficult or how improvable it is.

Auto-Hitters: Aim-botter and Puppet Master mixed to make a person who tells you how to hit you and how his or her hit connected. This is sometimes allowed.

Baghdad Bobbits: The people who arbitrarily declare themselves the winner with instant death attacks.

Day Dreamers: The people who RP completely irrelevant things.

Gaseous Snakes: The people who've taken actions before they start RP'ing.
(Two users agree to combat (or having agreed), but one of the users comes in with premeditated tactics to give them an advantage. Ex. Let's say, that user is aware that his/her opponent wields fire, so the user comes with fire extinguishers to one-up the other. This is considered poor role-playing.)

Ghosts: Those characters which mysteriously appear in different areas with no explanation due to poor writing.

God-Modders: Power-Play; Gods - Ominous Power Characters. Indestructible, auto-hitting, never to concede death, those that take a hit and zero damage, and have ominous power.

Hi-Jackers: They interfere with things that only another can do; manipulating the role-play.

Hives: The person with too many NPCs.
(Ex. This is similar to Gaseous Snakes, in which a player tries to one-up his/her opponent by continuously spawning NPCs to assist their character and overwhelm the other. This is considered poor role-playing. NOTE: This doens't necessarily apply to Dungeon Master/Game Creators, as it is in their job description to do so.)

IDKFA-ers: Are basically RPCs with totally unrealistic and irrelevant items and/or abilities.

McFlys: The people who do things in hindsight.
(Again, this is similar to Gaseous Snakes. This differs, however, in that they will not only do it from the start, but continue throughout the battle. They will - without restraint, or proper, healthy role-playing standards - do everything to deflect attacks and manipulate the situation to their advantage and liking. Ex: Their character is tied up in a chair and held up at gunpoint by their opponent. They will either edit their initial post to which they have a tool to saw through their bonds, or respond with a post in which their character is now mysteriously equipped with a bullet-proof vest. This is considered poor role-playing.)

Min-Maxers: The people who balance their characters by having massive powers and irrelevant weaknesses.

Miss Cleos/Medagamers: The people who get an edge by obtaining information from outside of the role-play and applying it in-character.

Modding: The people who alter in-character information.

Oxymorons: The people who play as characters that are completely impossible.
(This is only a matter of a opinion to some, and, through proper definitions, may be allowed - depending on the scenario. Ex: an angelic demon.)

Nimby: The people who quite readily attack characters, but then stop all attacks on their own.

Prosecutors: The people who accuse others of breaking the rules and guidelines in half when they may not of, when typically guilty of doing so themselves.

Puppet-Masters: The people who RP other player's characters for them.
(The only time this is allowed is when a player permits another/other player/players to manipulate their characters.)

Quakers: The people who pick up things that spawn from seemingly nowhere.

Shoe Elves: The people who RP actions and time against others while the others aren't present.

Revisionists: The people who ignore and/or alter RPs that they don't like.

Speed Hackers: The people who RP an absurdly time consuming sequence occurring between other player's actions. (Ex: A: I walk to the door and step outside.// B: Suddenly, twelve men grab you, carry you off to my secret lair in Tibet, and torture you for weeks. When you finally die from the agony, we bury you in the frozen wastes. Hundreds of years later, arhcaeologists discover your frozen body and try to determine if you're another Lucy..)

Trinities: The people who gain abilities as they need them with no prior exposure.

Twinks: The people who have absurdly strong powers with no definition.

Zoicite: The people who alter their character as needed for the situation.

Short Definition
The Mary Sue is a term in writing for a certain type of character. This character is an extension of the author's ego. That means it is a copy of everything (or at least a lot) of what the creator wanted. In Role Play terms, it is a powerful, 'perfect' character. There are few true Mary Sues, but there are way too many normal Mary Sues.

Detailed Definition
The Mary Sue is an ideal character. Strong, attractive, popular, and cool, the Mary Sue (Gary Stu for male characters) is a huge pitfall. Everyone wants to play one, but no one ever should. These characters are, bluntly, stupid.

The characters often have a great number of skills. They don't have to be masters, but they have a lot, and they are great at most of them. In simple terms, the character is a Jack of All trades, but is as good as someone who specializes in that sole trade.

The Mary Sue is also highly beautiful (in more than one aspect). They appear to be heavenly, and are often exquisite in many different types of clothing. Their soul tends to be 'beautiful' (to the creator, which means it may not be innocent). That can make for a wicked personality.

The Mary Sue is a huge part of any story or Role Play. They suck up the other character's roles, hogging the plot to them. The Role Play dies because of it, and the Mary Sue brought everyone down with her.

For some reason or another, role-play battles are one thing that people often find to be quite hard. They take a little bit of getting used to, but once you've role-played a fight a couple of times and you've gotten used to the way that they work, you'll learn that role-play battles are often the most fun part of role-play!

Main Pointers
As with role-play of any kind, users take it in turns to describe their action and speech. The only difference with battles, really, is that users are describing their attacks. The more that you can elaborate upon your attacks, the easier it is for people to role-play with you; if you say that you shoot them, it's hard for them to respond. If you said that you shot them but indicated what gun you used, where you were aiming the gun and gave a brief idea of what might happen if the bullet hit them (in case the user is not familiar with guns), then obviously it becomes easier for the user to reply properly.

Never assume that your attacks hit the target. If everybody assumed that all of their attacks went through, then role-play would be incredibly boring and a lot of characters would die. A good role-player will always leave some way for their opponent to counter the attack, or at least give them a chance to do so; unstoppable attacks are seen as 'god-modding' and people will not want to role-play with you if you never let them do anything.

Take a few punches. This is exactly the same as assuming that all of your attacks hit the target, really; if you avoid all of a user's attacks then they're not going to want to role-play with you. Just because you think that your character should be able to do a back-flip or dodge bullets, or that you think that they would be good ways to get out of attacks, bear your character in mind, again trying to remember to be realistic. Just because dodging bullets would get you out of a sticky situation doesn't mean that you should do it. Rather than trying to avoid everything, accept the fact that once or twice your character might get their a** kicked.

Accept defeat. If your character gets shot in the head at point blank range, or gets a knife through their heart, accept that your character is dead. Depending on the type of role-play it may be possible for your character to be revived later on, but you shouldn't count on it. Coming back from the dead can be done well in certain situations, say in a role-play centering around the use of magic, but just because you know that your character would be revived eventually is no need to do it too quickly. What I mean by this is that if your character dies, don't bring them back to life instantly if at all. If your character dies, then you've officially lost the fight, too.

The Game Master, or GM, of a role-play can have great responsibilities in terms of guiding and maintaining the role-play. This guide will help you understand these responsibilities and advise you on how best to handle them.

Overview
The creator is usually considered the GM of the game, and they do have unquestionable control in most cases. They are the referees in fights, they are the controllers of NPCs (unless they are created by others), and they are the controllers of the plot/storyline. But I'll do my best to address each case individually.

Just how much control over the story does the creator have usually?
Like I said, the creator usually has indefinite control over the story, though it really depends on the GM. There needs to be leniency, and there needs to be space for sub-plots to fall in. In essence, you really just need to trust in their judgment before doing anything about it. I myself was left with control over a guild at once point when the leader left for a bit, and I ended up moving the story along as I saw fit. How ever, the story was already in place and I just had to work the others through it. I did the best I could with the absence of the guild leader and ended up doing a pretty good job in the opinions of my comrades. The reason for that is because I allowed space for each of their characters, I took questions and answered them, and I took charge in a way that I deemed justifiable.

The best you can do is trust the GM knows what they're doing, though don't be afraid to put a little of your on stuff in (within reason of course).

What to do when:

You have a lackluster role-player?
While I question the definition, I believe there are more than a few things to do here. If by lackluster you mean he/she is illiterate by your standards, then there is something you can do. While it does tend to push them away from what I've seen, you could ask them to put more work into their writing and try to follow the story more so, as well as being more exuberant in their posting style. This isn't an actual insult so much as a constructive criticism in my opinion. I've had it done to be a long time ago, and I grew from it. I've told others that and they've bettered themselves as well. Problem is that most users see it as an insult and a stab at their own pride as a role-player.

A role-player goes against the plot?
If some one goes against the plot, it's not always a bad thing unless it's to an extravagant extent. If they change the entire storyline with what they're doing, then yes it is the GM's duty to step in. Before they can do that, they need to have permission from the GM first and THEN move into it.

Now, I said it's not always a bad thing also. Sub-plots make for an interesting read also. If there is a romance brewing, then that's a sub-plot. If by chance the role-player found out his/her lost sister was still alive, then yes that's also a sub-plot. They go on and on, and they can improve upon the actual story itself.

Someone isn't posting very often?
There is a matter of how lenient the GM is in posting. More so, how active the actual thread itself is. I know a few role-plays where the GM only asks that the users post every week to every two weeks in very advanced role-plays. Also, there are role-plays that don't merely go into paragraphs, but dwell into short stories themselves. A rarity indeed in Barton Town, though there are a number of threads out there dedicated to that form of role-playing. On the opposite of this is the threads that have posts every 10 minutes from different users. These are more likely to get the role-player reamed if they post one once a day or even every few days. Not only does it make the person look bad in the eyes of the others, but it also makes for a lack of story knowledge. Story is vital for all participants to know. For one thing, knowing the plot would help many to avoid these issues I'm discussing.

Someone just doesn't give a flip?
If they don't care then there is nothing you can do about it. Kindly ask them to leave, have the GM ask them to leave, and if that doesn't work, then you may report the user and have a site moderator step in. And don't be scared to use that 'Report this Post' button, but just use it wisely.

Do we just inform a mod and let them handle it or should we try to get them back on track on our own?
If the role-player has been repeatedly asked to change what ever it is they are doing wrong by the GM, and there is no reconciling on the defendant's side, then there is the chance of having to call a moderator to step in. This is, however, a last resort and you can only do it if he's breaking site rules. Harassment, however, is one of the rules that needs to be upheld, and if the person continues without care or regard of his actions, is actively hurting the plot or the other users' sub-plots and stories, all without the permission of the GM (and especially if in spite of the GM), then there is justification to report the user in question.

This is, like I said, a last resort. More times than not it's better that the people participating ask the user to control himself/herself. If it's by PMs or even by OOC posting in the thread itself, the users are the first persons that the individuals in question must face. If you can do something to prevent mod interference, then it should be done.