1. At the start of a sparring match, both opponents /random to determine who acts first - the higher roll is Fighter 1, the lower roll is Fighter 2
   
2. Fighter 1 posts a description of their attempted attack, followed by a /random to determine the numerical effectiveness of the attack.
   
3. Fighter 2 then does a /random to determine the effectiveness of their defense. If the attack roll was higher, the attack hit. If the defense roll was higher, it didn't. Either way, Fighter 2 posts a description of the outcome (such as avoiding the missed hit, or, the effect the successful hit had on their character).
   
4. The sequence of #2 and #3 then repeats, with Fighter 2 making an attack attempt and Fighter 1 defending. The sequence of making an attack, and the attack then being defended against, is called a "turn". 
   
5. Each successful hit is tallied as the fighter's score and used to determine victory.
   

A sparring match ends one of four ways:



KO/TKO: If at any point, the attacker's /random is greater than 900 and the defender's /random is less than 100, the sparring match is finished immediately in favor of the attacker. It's up to the defender whether or not the outcome should be classified as a Knockout (KO) or Technical Knockout (TKO), and they should write their defense post accordingly. A KO is a brief but legitimate lack of consciousness - the fighter went limp and collapsed, even if only for a second (and unlike movies, a real knockout usually only lasts mere moments). A TKO usually represents the fighter being unable to present a defense (they're too dazed or staggered, too exhausted, or too injured), or, having been forced into submitting (such as by a choke hold, arm lock, etc, where submitting is the only option to avoid getting choked unconscious or having a limb broken). After the defender posts their chosen outcome, the referee will call the fight.

Undisputed Victory: If at any point, a fighter has 3 more points than their opponent, the sparring match ends immediately in favor of the fighter with the points lead. In this case, the referee will call the fight, on the grounds that superiority - at least in the moment - has been proven.

Disputed Victory: If neither of the above two conditions occur, then after both fighters have had 5 turns, the fighter with the highest points will be declared the victor by the referee. Due to time constraints, a sparring match will not be allowed to have more than 5 turns per fighter.

Draw: If at the end of 5 turns, both fighters have an equal number of points, the referee will declare the sparring match a draw.

• While in a sparring match, please use the /shout channel for attack and defense descriptions. This allows spectators to filter the match description posts to a different tab from their /say and /emote chatter if they wish to keep things organized.
  

• If you're the unfortunate recipient of a KO/TKO situation, please be a good sport about it and remember that this is all in good fun. Take your bad luck with grace, one day it might be your character who scores a KO/TKO on somebody else.
  

• In the same spirit, please be kind OOCly to your referee (IC is another matter entirely, of course). They're taking time out of their own schedule to help host a fun event.
  

• We know that this kind of rolling system doesn't in any way take into account variation in characters' skill and expertise. Unfortunately, doing so would make the whole situation very complicated, and much slower to play out. It's easier to just have fun. If your character's a very skilled fighter who's sparring someone weak, maybe they can recognize the other person is a newbie and so they're just not fighting to their full strength in order to be a good sport. Or, perhaps the champ's a bit tired from last night's carousing, or maybe they just don't feel the need to put their full effort into some mere sparring match. Even the most untrained derp might, through blind luck, knock out the hero of the realm. Those're just some ideas for how you might justify the system in spite of character disparity. When all else fails, just remember to have fun with it.
  

• If you need to AFK in the middle of your sparring match, we understand that RL comes before RP - absolutely! But, you must also understand that we can't wait for an uncertain return. The night must continue on for everyone else who's still in the scene, so we ask that you please move your character off of the fighting mat (so he or she won't be a distraction to others who will spar). The sparring match the character was in, unfortunately, will be judged a loss, but remember, this is all in fun, and your RL is definitely more important than that.
  

• On the note of the above, if a player hasn't gone AFK but has simply stopped messaging (a "ninja" AFK, perhaps), the referee may choose to call the match in favor of the other player's character. The timing of this is subject to the referee's discretion. You probably won't get a match loss for a few minutes of wait (some people just write slowly), but please do try and be attentive during your sparring match, for the sake of the other players involved.  
  

Sparring matches will (for now) be arranged on-the-fly as participants arrive and form a queue to duke it out. If you want to look pretty on the mats (which isn't required), feel free to grab a couple levels of Pugilist for a nice unarmed fighting stance with your "weapons drawn" using some of those Emperor's fists so you look unarmed. 

Hope you have fun!