Something I inherently noticed is a lot of people immediately don't want to get into any kind of emote fight because they don't know or don't trust the person. In retrospect, how will you get to know or trust someone if you don't give them an honest chance? Admittedly, some will be asinine, but you won't know till you try. In response to those that say 'I'll only do it with rolls', that is indeed your option. However, win or lose, I prefer not to use rolls for most combat, and this is the reason why. Even if your character is seasoned, a roll can basically make you look like an idiot. Your skill, creativity, and representation of your character is immediately boiled down into totally random chance. To me, not only is that an unrealistic interpretation of not only my character's skill, but your character's as well, I find it breaks the immersion and capability of both the writer and the aspect that is presented. I understand a lot of people are afraid of emote/freeform fighting because there are asshats out there. The thing is, not everyone is such an asshat, and displaying cynicism by believing the worst of someone trying to fight you before even giving them a chance kind of tells me the reason why nobody likes to fight in the community that I've seen so far except in announced or pre-sanctioned events like grindstone or existing stories. And in a way this makes me sad.
I love fighting. Combat roleplay is one of my favorite types because I'll be blunt: I enjoy conflict. Real conflict. I've never been one for romance drama or any of that, it bores me. No offense to those who enjoy that sort of thing of course. But, then again, I cut my roleplay teeth in a place where no one needed permission to kill or attack you. It was a kill or be killed, real time environment. The HTML-style chat rooms of the early to late 90's and on in to the early 2000's were the place I was. In the vampire clans and similar rooms, everyone was at constant war, and you could expect to be ambushed on the streets of whatever room you were in a lot, especially if you were even halfway good. Characters died a lot if you weren't on top of your game. It wasn't an every day thing, but people took their combat seriously, and in the early days, we had no such dice rollers, so we all had to freeform. Not all of us knew each other, either. Sure, we had godmodders and jackasses, but anyone who wants to not be ostracized plays at least somewhat fair. And I say that's the way to do it. Reputation and the grapevine will weed out the bads. The big problem is, a lot of people's playstyles don't interact well with one another, and therein lies the major problem. In this community from what I've seen, most people go by the 'permission to kill' rules. That being the case, a fight could at best, result in your defeat and humiliation, no death incurred unless you allow it. With this measure of control over character death, I genuinely see no reason not to fight at least some of the time.
Now, I get that some of you have your own ways. But it also depends entirely on the approach in question. Ark for example, is an arrogant bastard. And he's quite strong, yes. But he already knows there's always someone bigger. But for him, the thrill of the battle is what's most important; win or lose, he loves to fight. That's not to say he won't use every dirty magical trick or combination in the book to whip that ass, yet at the same time he's not invincible either. S'vanoh on the other hand, is more tricky than powerful, so naturally when faced with overwhelming power, he could also run away. He is a ninja after all. The other thing I've also noticed is that a lot of people don't throw themselves into fighting. Okay, fair enough, it's not exactly everyone's thing. But also, in a world in constant conflict, expect some people to want to start shit IC because some characters are like that. And there are far too many who cop out with 'oh, it's not worth my time' or 'oh, if they don't do it the way I want, then they're obviously godmodders/metagamers/etc'. I find that elitism and dismissal from a lot of people who fancy themselves too good to fight just because they assume someone is going to shrug hits or no-sell their attacks just because they don't want to play the same way they do is as irritating as people who refuse to take their hits in the first place.
Equally irritating are players who present their characters as strong, or seasoned, and then when confronted with a potential fight refuse to because they don't RP fight, or have such a strict way to do so, it essentially makes their IC posturing utterly pointless. I think if someone is going to play a character that talks of their combat prowess, they should be willing to back it up. I get everyone has their own realistic or fantasy style view of what a fight should be or shouldn't be. In terms of the poll..mmm..honestly, I'd take the fights as they came. I prefer freeform fights over rolls. Rolls are too random. In a scripted event, I can see where rolls have their point, but as a writer who puts a great deal of effort into his writing, I find having to depend on a random dice roller to represent my character's skills, honed or amateur they may be depending on the character, to be insulting both to my character's effort that's been given and to my own creativity and skill as a writer. I prefer to leave the dice to a game fully dependent on stats like Pathfinder. If this rustles some jimmies, my apologies. I simply suppose that I won't be engaging in combat with those people's characters. I've taken my lumps before and I'd certainly do so now.
Till we meet in the field of battle..or not! Game on and have fun.
I love fighting. Combat roleplay is one of my favorite types because I'll be blunt: I enjoy conflict. Real conflict. I've never been one for romance drama or any of that, it bores me. No offense to those who enjoy that sort of thing of course. But, then again, I cut my roleplay teeth in a place where no one needed permission to kill or attack you. It was a kill or be killed, real time environment. The HTML-style chat rooms of the early to late 90's and on in to the early 2000's were the place I was. In the vampire clans and similar rooms, everyone was at constant war, and you could expect to be ambushed on the streets of whatever room you were in a lot, especially if you were even halfway good. Characters died a lot if you weren't on top of your game. It wasn't an every day thing, but people took their combat seriously, and in the early days, we had no such dice rollers, so we all had to freeform. Not all of us knew each other, either. Sure, we had godmodders and jackasses, but anyone who wants to not be ostracized plays at least somewhat fair. And I say that's the way to do it. Reputation and the grapevine will weed out the bads. The big problem is, a lot of people's playstyles don't interact well with one another, and therein lies the major problem. In this community from what I've seen, most people go by the 'permission to kill' rules. That being the case, a fight could at best, result in your defeat and humiliation, no death incurred unless you allow it. With this measure of control over character death, I genuinely see no reason not to fight at least some of the time.
Now, I get that some of you have your own ways. But it also depends entirely on the approach in question. Ark for example, is an arrogant bastard. And he's quite strong, yes. But he already knows there's always someone bigger. But for him, the thrill of the battle is what's most important; win or lose, he loves to fight. That's not to say he won't use every dirty magical trick or combination in the book to whip that ass, yet at the same time he's not invincible either. S'vanoh on the other hand, is more tricky than powerful, so naturally when faced with overwhelming power, he could also run away. He is a ninja after all. The other thing I've also noticed is that a lot of people don't throw themselves into fighting. Okay, fair enough, it's not exactly everyone's thing. But also, in a world in constant conflict, expect some people to want to start shit IC because some characters are like that. And there are far too many who cop out with 'oh, it's not worth my time' or 'oh, if they don't do it the way I want, then they're obviously godmodders/metagamers/etc'. I find that elitism and dismissal from a lot of people who fancy themselves too good to fight just because they assume someone is going to shrug hits or no-sell their attacks just because they don't want to play the same way they do is as irritating as people who refuse to take their hits in the first place.
Equally irritating are players who present their characters as strong, or seasoned, and then when confronted with a potential fight refuse to because they don't RP fight, or have such a strict way to do so, it essentially makes their IC posturing utterly pointless. I think if someone is going to play a character that talks of their combat prowess, they should be willing to back it up. I get everyone has their own realistic or fantasy style view of what a fight should be or shouldn't be. In terms of the poll..mmm..honestly, I'd take the fights as they came. I prefer freeform fights over rolls. Rolls are too random. In a scripted event, I can see where rolls have their point, but as a writer who puts a great deal of effort into his writing, I find having to depend on a random dice roller to represent my character's skills, honed or amateur they may be depending on the character, to be insulting both to my character's effort that's been given and to my own creativity and skill as a writer. I prefer to leave the dice to a game fully dependent on stats like Pathfinder. If this rustles some jimmies, my apologies. I simply suppose that I won't be engaging in combat with those people's characters. I've taken my lumps before and I'd certainly do so now.
Till we meet in the field of battle..or not! Game on and have fun.
![[Image: ihatehim2.jpg]](http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc129/Inverse_Entropy/ihatehim2.jpg)
