When I create a form, can I just email it to the group and they can reply?

If you meant you wanted to share the form via email, then you can do that by either sending the link to your form and include it in your email body, or you can share it right from within the Form Builder.

However, if what you want is to "literally" have the form "inside an email", then I highly recommend you read my detailed reply on this thread https://www.jotform.com/answers/1081591#1081792