Hydaelyn Role-Players

Okay, so an update:

I got the game yesterday and rolled my character on Balmung on my first try. I know many of you have already expressed that you don't take level into account for roleplay, which is great and all because I tend to be a slow, single-minded leveler, but I'll still need time to put Siobhain in something less...skimpy... Or more skimpy. Whichever.

I digress, I'm interested in starting a 'Fight Club' LS (not a FC, but maybe one of those will come along later. P.S. Thank you Zarek for getting this fight club thing stuck in my head...) on Balmung. This is just in the concept-easily-scrapped phase, but both I and my man-friend enjoy seeing and participating in fights and we enjoy all of the potential character development that can come from it, whether it's mastering new skills under the tutelage of more experienced characters, forging friendships or rivalries, etc.

So, a few things to cover:

1. This will be a Linkshell, I think, because I'd like anyone to have the freedom to hear about it through word-of-mouth, and anyone from any group to come join in. There won't be any level or class requirements, you won't have to dedicate yourself to show up each time, and you won't have to rally around me while I go strutting... where ever there's room for Sio-strutting.

2. The theme will be Combat Training; like-minded individuals who either enjoy fighting, watching how others fight, or learning/teaching all coming together. Anyone with a pearl would be able to call out to others, even if they don't personally know them, inviting whomever to meet them for a round or two.

3. I'm afraid the thing that I, and many other RPers, dislike about RP combat that I'd like to weed out is the whole 'Who's going to win and who's going to lose and who might be god-moding a tiny bit' thing. Levels aren't going to be a requirement, as I mentioned, because many people don't like equating their level to their character's skill. That's fine and acceptable, but there'll have to be some sort of skeleton to prevent novices from beating down seasoned veterans based on the /roll system.

I'm all for anyone who wants to get together and discuss things OOCly about who'll win and who'll lose and coming to that conclusion on their own, but for those who don't have any preconceived idea of how to handle it and for any future events such as competitions with Gil involved (donations from others and myself pooled together for the winner), we'll need two things: 1. Your level of skill in the 'class' you choose to fight in and 2. A simple roll system.

  - 1. An example of this would be, say Siobhain is a Paladin, full out Master for some reason, but she wanted to learn to be a Marauder instead. Her rank in Paladin might be 'Veteran' but her rank in Marauder would be 'Novice'. This would be to help pit people of roughly equivalent levels of skill against one another. You'd fight normally but without any concerns about 'accidentally' super-overpowering someone who's just far more experienced with the class they're using than you are with yours. Doesn't mean you have to water down your RP to suit your rank, just that you won't have anyone breathing down your neck about how unfair they think it is. People who are particularly skilled with certain classes could also teach Novices what they know. At least there should be some terminology.

   - 2. A roll system that -can- be used in fights when you don't want to decide OOC who is going to win or lose, or in those potential event situations where we -definitely- don't want to decide before hand who is going to win or lose might go thusly-- You'd have a set number of times you can be struck in order. First you roll to see who goes first. Highest roll wins. That person writes up an attack. Afterwards, both people roll again- if the attacker wins that roll, the blow connects, if not, the individual dodges. The attackee would respond with their dodge or the effects of the strike and a counter attack. Rinse and repeat until the set number of strikes has been reached by one person or the other. The alternative is saying who got the most strikes out of a set number. Say we pick seven strikes. When one person reaches four, the fight is over. This would be much like many refereed sparring matches-- and as I said before, for regular every day training, you don't have to use this at all.

4. Magic-use in combat sparring? I'm personally not 100 percent for it. There are academies for these sorts of things where novice combat fighters with no magic experience won't get lit up by a novice fire mage or something. While experienced magic users are free to come test their phyical skills or learn new ones, unless someone is willing to act as a supervisor for magical-combat and advanced combat (Magic vs. Physical) I'll probably not think Magic-users will be encouraged to come.

5. Can your whole FC/LS get involved? Why yes, yes you can. Bring as many people as you'd like and let them see how they do against non-guildies. You still have authority over your people, however, on these grounds the people helping to referee, train, and mediate everyone should be respected and heeded. If you or your guild members have an issue with someone else or some other guild's members, you'd still be encouraged to participate but all the rivalries would have to be put aside. This training, where ever it's located, is a more or less neutral situation. Think of it as the Kirin Tor with bloody noses and broken bones.

6. Regulating the flow will be done with some basic rules. No meta-gaming or god-moding, as usual, no harassment, no OOC drama, etc. If one of the characters acts up in character and out of character, they'll be removed by one of the... hrm... 'officers'. Officers will likely just be individuals who offer to become teachers and do a good job at it and thus are given a level of respect if not authority. They won't be able to boss members of another FC or LS around by any means, but so long as they're all together everyone will have to respect their mediation and either calm it down or take their rage elsewhere.

7. No one will die. You will not be killed. If White Mages and Conjurers have to be -hired- just to make sure a clumsy sword in the face doesn't wipe you off the face of Eorzea, it will happen. Anyone who attempts a killing blow will be asked to leave and refused for the group training and event fights.

This is for fun, for practice, and for character development. If you don't like combat RP, it's not a requirement by any means.

I'm open for suggestions, -constructive- criticism, and I'm looking for help to get this started sooner or later if it seems like a decent idea.

I'm so game. Let's do eet.

I am also game. I'd like a little more feedback on a /roll system and I should probably double check that /rolls can even be done in FF. I sort of just assume there is one in any game but there might not be...?

I think I could get into this as well. Love the amount of thought and work you put into it.

Wonderful! That's at least four interested people and one spectator. Now to think of a name. I'm thinking "Blood Forge".

Edit: Ah, wait, I forgot. There's a 'Celestial Forge' already. *thinks more* I need words. Why am I terrible at words?

I think I remember seeing some comments that /roll isn't in the game (yet). But not 100% sure. I will give it a test tonight unless someone updates before I get on.

"Improvement by Conflict"? Might be a bit long.

Maybe there's another word for 'improvement' that could be used. Reminds me of trial by fire.

"Advance by Conflict"? Go go Microsoft Word Thesaurus.

How about we name it based on like the arena or wherever it's held? That or coming up with a meaningful name/phrase will work. I know ingame there's at least the Bloodsands in Ul'dah....but I'm not sure where else may have them (in some RP last night, Zarek mentioned that he suspected Limsa likely has an underground-ish fight circuit). Just to toss the suggestion in.

(09-09-2013, 01:13 PM)Zarek Wrote: [ -> ]How about we name it based on like the arena or wherever it's held? That or coming up with a meaningful name/phrase will work. I know ingame there's at least the Bloodsands in Ul'dah....but I'm not sure where else may have them (in some RP last night, Zarek mentioned that he suspected Limsa likely has an underground-ish fight circuit). Just to toss the suggestion in.

Zarek makes a good point. Chances are since it's not a Free Company and probably will never be (unless we find a high level of camaraderie) giving it a name like 'Advance by Conflict' or 'Trial by Fire' seems like it'd be hard to describe to people who don't know of it. Naming it after a place or something symbolic would be realistic.

The problem is the place. The intent isn't to start a gambling circuit where people are honed for the purpose of fighting in the ring for profit. It's to train in over to overcome larger adversity. Though, whatever you end up doing with your training in your spare time is largely up to the character, Siobhain likely would not be on board with taking anything to an official arena just because she wouldn't want anyone under the impression that she's trying to start some type of business. I'm open to suggestions and even having a list of places where these little get-togethers could take place-- could be really anywhere that there's a training area or in the middle of nowhere. I haven't been to a ton of places in game so if you know any, throw them on up here for future use.

I like, and it seems kind of vague but it's symbolic of the purpose, either 'The Whetstone' or 'The Grindstone'. Similar to sharpening physical weapons, the point is to hone skills. It's more or less an unofficial coven of fighters or would-be fighters, so I think something that doesn't sound like a company or business would be good. Officially I guess it could be the Grindstone Coven or something, but 'Grindstone' for short would be simple for people to remember and pass around.

I really like the Whetstone/Grindstone angle. Simple, fitting, and like you mentioned (and important for bringing in/opening up RP) easy to pass around by word of mouth without a ton of explanation.

I agree with the whet/grindstone too. Short and sweet and makes sense.

Although I guess Whetstone works better by definition, Grindstone is just simpler. I don't have to define 'whet'. ^.^;

Grindstone it shall be. Now I just need to make a picture somehow (*horrible at symbols*) and throw something up on the LS directory. Still open to comments, suggestions, and questions.

The "Puncher of Faces" would like to get in on this madness. Though Sio may not want it to start into a business..I am secretly hoping that if there is enough membership that bets can be taken and it can become an arena thing of sort. "So I hear Rugged Bear was bested last night by a little Lallafell. Lost all my gil on that night." Would be interesting if certain people were recognized in RP (perhaps even becoming feared or poked fun at) due to people knowing them from the arena. 

On another thing, since racial traits were brought up in an earlier thread, will racial traits be applied here? It might become too complicated, but say a veteren Lallafell, since described as being very agile, could be allowed to do one extra dodge/attack roll per round. I never really played D&D and don't know how fights are really handled. In my RP fights we usually just came to an agreement after a few blows were exchanged about what would happen. The only thing that sucks with that is running into the occasional person who didn't want their character to get hurt because they were a super badass assassin who always won.

I think Limsa or Ul'dah works out perfectly fine. I'm sure pirates love to throw down and Ul'dah already has an establishment that promotes arena style combat.

Oh, wow. If not immediately (as I don't have a lot of free time as it is, usually), then some day I'd really like to be a part of this. This sounds awesome. Not only am I biased as a fan of Fight Club to begin with, but as Edgar previously stated, the thought put into this is crazy. I love it.