Alright ladies, gentlemen, tieflings. Here's the basics of how this will work to alleviate a few things before the details are fleshed out and we have a finished model to work from.
Characters will be part of a faction, the number of factions available and their goals is still in debate, but you're part of one such faction. People can take a variety of missions, quests, adventures through this faction likely kept track of through a thread, IE, either myself or Girlinhat will post a list of missions and if there's something you like the look of you can sign up to take it, either by yourself or in a squad. These missions will have a ranking system, what you can take will depend on your actions within the faction, reputation, good-standing with leaders, everyone is one big dysfunctional family. No-name Joe can't take a mission to save the Princess, because the faction won't trust some new kid with something so important.
These missions will likely be seperated into two types, type one will be short, quick, lot of dice rolls and combat oriented for you roguelike hack and slash lovers that want drop in and out gaming, turn up with your character take the mission to kill some goblins with your buddies, have a nice short adventure of jolly co-operation and done. We'll keep track of your characters for whenever you want to turn up again for another one.
Type two, the kind of missions that lean toward the people who want their adventures, roleplay oriented with longer campaigns, a lot more to do to complete them and likely take a long as hell time to finish. Develop your characters, find a love interest, hunt elk in the everglades to make a tent with their hides, and bring back tales of adventure grossly over exaggerated about how you fought off an elder wyrm wielding nothing but a chicken in a blizzard that would make Pharasma Herself shiver for the new kids at the faction.
A few of you might now be thinking "Who's this crazy lady shouting about factions at us" well, you're wrong about one thing. I'm not shouting. I introduced GiH to D&D, one miss Alouette based Elias' personality off my character and self, I've followed your old campaign every step of the way, and now I'm writing some of your scenes, how this game works, and helping GiH DM it.
Oh, and to answer something I saw earlier, I'm not sure where it was but this will only be plotless monster bashing if that's the route you choose to take. Personally, I am a DM that takes roleplay over the dice, if you do something creative, in-character, and I like it. I'll write up a rule for what you want to do on the spot assuming it's not totally insane, sky's not quite the limit but it's close. Your bluff, diplomacy, and intimidate checks? Best damned tell me how you go about them, I'll give you a +1 if it's good. -1 if it's lazy. Want to break the limits on what your magic can do? I'll try and work something out with GiH.
D&D is a game about roleplay, imagination, creativity and fantasy where you're given freedom, let's try and bring that back so we aren't so dice heavy shall we?