(08-05-2017, 03:27 PM)Firefly Wrote:(08-05-2017, 03:01 PM)Verad Wrote:(08-05-2017, 12:11 PM)Firefly Wrote: Finally, one thing to consider is that if you try to RP fight without doing any meaningful research, you make your fights look less like this, and more like this.
I mean that's all well and good if you're the sort of person who values realism in combat, but it doesn't mean much for somebody who's trying to emulate 1938 Robin Hood, most of Kung Fu Hustle, or large portions of Final Fantasy cutscene fights. You can see why the latter in particular might be a desired end-goal in this game for some of the playerbase, right?
Yeah, I do! The cutscene fights are great, because they're an absolute spectacle; which is the point of those gifs.
If you look at those two gifs, you see the first being a very clinical, very direct approach that appeals to one type of audience, and in the second, you see a very flashy, spectacle-oriented approach.
My point is that when you go blow-by-blow/hyper-detail-oriented/omg-logic-wars, a lot of the personality of your character comes from their approach and their actions.
When you're RPing in a Highest-Roll = win scenario, the characterisation comes from the spectacle and the outcome of the fight itself. It's no longer about how the characters fight, but who wins. If you use a blow-by-blow approach in that scenario, the dice will sometimes (as they aren't influenced by anything) create a situation where both fighters are flailing around with no real gameplan or objective, which can be distracting. EDIT: I guess the best way I can fumble with this is that after the dice have been cast, the suspense is gone, if that makes sense?
I admit, it was all wrapped in a cheeky jab, but I just wanted an excuse to use that Anakin vs Obi-Wan gif.
Your example is interesting to me because I've watched the fight scenes in, say, A Phantom Menace, with some of my sword nerd friends, and they've talked at length about how great and realistic the fight choreography was.
But, that's trivial and distracting from your point.
You seem to be conflating two things: 1) What you define as realism in fight RP, and 2) The freeform fighting RP style you prefer. And this is set opposed to another conflation: A) Fight RP that you see as more spectacle and less realism, and B) Settling the outcome of an RP fight with rolls.
You've defined these conflations based on what you perceive as their like purpose. For the first, the purpose is to go into a hyper-detailed play by play and lose yourself in the detailed mechanics of the fight. The second, enjoying a bombastic display where you roll, handwave things, and don't care about the nitty gritty.
But these things don't necessarily have to be combined.
Back in my ye olde freeform fighting RP days, I got into ridiculous logic battles in which we dodged for days and used tactics not true to anatomy or fighting form at all. But we did them anyway because they'd logic us to victory! Realism was not the point, it was trying to win.
Today, I focus on realism more. But, I haven't engaged in freeform fighting RP in over a decade. Truth be told, I don't enjoy drawn out fighting RP anymore. I used to do it a whole lot and nowadays I'm bored of it. If a roll helps adjudicate the result and speeds thing along (instead of letting things progress into a half-hour long dodge fest like the last freeform fighting RP I watched), then frankly I'm all for it.
It's still very possible to favor realism with rolls, and sometimes it can be a fun narrative challenge to figure out how to explain things from a given random result. It may not be super detailed, but a realistic fight can still be achieved.
I think of it in a similar way to a R-rated sex scene versus an explicit one. The sex can still be interesting and realistic even if you don't get down to the nitty gritty detail. (And in fact, depending on your preferences and narrative purposes, you might not want to do the explicit scene at all.)
One notable thing about how you described fighting RP: I've seen people who prefer RPing out sex scenes in detail make the same argument- through RPing it out in detail you see more about the characters and how they interact with each other than you might otherwise.
I think that's a fine notion, and I've observed similar, but that doesn't make one method better or more realistic than the other. Having a preference- whatever you may prefer- is fine.
Characters:Â Ojene Suinuet, Jophoix Suinuet
