Hello there. I herd u liek RP combat...
I love RP combat and hence, I started the Grindstone over on Balmung. The last week or so not-withstanding, it's been a pretty successful venture. More or less, your concept sounds exactly the same! Except that we're not really running an arena and our purpose is purely neutral-good aligned in nature.Â
If it helps you out at all, please feel free to look over our directory page. I keep most everything regarding our tournaments there, including our really simplistic roll system.
Step 1. Opponents roll; the person with the winning roll attacks first.
Step 2. The winner attacks; both competitors roll. If the attacker wins, the blow is successful. If the defender wins, the attack is evaded/countered.
Step 3. The defender either takes the hit and launches a counter attack or evades the blow and counterstrikes. Both opponents roll to see if the counter lands or is evaded/countered.
Step 4. Repeat this process until one attacker lands a set number of blows.
We use http://rolz.org/group to do our rolls. You don't have to worry about the honor system because your referees can be in the same room as the fighters each time and make sure whatever rules you come up with are followed. Also it saves the rolls from before an individual enters the room so long as there are people in said room.
Two things I want to point out to you in your planning:
1. Keep stress to a minimum: I try to keep the roll system super, super simple. The reason for this is to reduce stress. RP combat is one of the most disliked or at least stress-inducing aspects of roleplay from what I've seen and many, many people try to avoid it at all costs. The ones that don't commonly get into fights over outcomes or end up in super-long and complicated ordeals and eventually just get bored and quit.Â
You don't want to have a bunch of spectators sitting through a fight where the people involved are going to take several hours per fight because that makes the fighters feel awkward, hence why with our official tournaments we keep it to a three-strike win. I let my people make little variations here and there on how they'd like to handle things such as tie-rolls but for the most part we just can't do free form with strangers in the tournament. It's led to bad things in the past.
2. Try to keep posts relatively short for an event: Really descriptive RPers have a tendency to roll in a four paragraph post that takes maybe ten or fifteen minutes to write up which isn't really viable in a live event where several people will be around. Our tournaments can have up to sixteen people and take several hours to complete. Each fight can take from five to twenty minutes or more. One issue is people going AFK for emergencies, but that's relatively small. Sometimes we have people confused as to what should happen with a roll, but that's also relatively small. Usually it's someone who is writing a super huge post that's filled with superfluous details which is doubly problematic because their opponent has to read over the entire thing and then respond to it as realistically as possible. Then there's the potential issue of god-modding in a post that's too long because people begin to assume what their opponent is going to do. I like our fighters to keep tourney attacks to a two or three paragraph maximum instead of, say, six.
So those are the main two things. The last thing I can think of is making sure that opponents are partied together, in a chat room with a roll system together, and have someone watching over all the posts. You want to have to retcon as -little- as humanly possible but if you intend to be open to any walk-up fighters like the Grindstone is, then you run the risk of people not fighting the way that others are used to; which shouldn't be bad but it can create conflicts. So make sure all your rules and bases are covered.
Also: We have had issues before where individuals felt their character was 'too strong' for losing or at least losing to their opponent. Honestly, this is very hard for an outsider to discuss with people who aren't simply open-minded. For the most part, I've found a ton of people willing to play at a novice level and work their way up by fighting over and over and over again. I think some people assume Siobhain should be an exceedingly skilled fighter-- but the fact is that she's lost more fights than she's won and more often than not, that's -my- choice.
I've heard it said that roll-based RP isn't 'skill-based' enough for their liking because luck takes 'skill' out of the equation. Likewise, many of those same people share that exact feeling for PVP-based duels. I believe it helps to stress that people should be accepting of other styles and open-minded. You might want to do what I never did and screen your fighters before they get to participate in a tournament to prevent anyone who has RP combat misgivings from raging about how they wouldn't have lost if-- Well honestly, people rage over everything. From 'Well if we weren't rolling...' to 'This guy's grammar alone should make him lose' and so on. RP combat makes for lots of stress. I don't think your system is overly complicated but remember if you intend to let plenty of people participate, 'screening' them and teaching them your system before hand would likely remove a lot of the confusion and the delay in getting whatever events you have started.
On a side note your system looks really good and I think it would work out well-- you'd be avoiding any issues with retconning by having each post sent to the 'Battlemaster'. As long as everyone's posting and working and ciphering and such as quickly as possible, it shouldn't tack too much extra time onto the whole thing. I still think it would probably help a lot to have people learn the rules before participating in any events-- I know some of our people had issues with our super simplified system and remembering what they should do.
Good luck.
I love RP combat and hence, I started the Grindstone over on Balmung. The last week or so not-withstanding, it's been a pretty successful venture. More or less, your concept sounds exactly the same! Except that we're not really running an arena and our purpose is purely neutral-good aligned in nature.Â
If it helps you out at all, please feel free to look over our directory page. I keep most everything regarding our tournaments there, including our really simplistic roll system.
Step 1. Opponents roll; the person with the winning roll attacks first.
Step 2. The winner attacks; both competitors roll. If the attacker wins, the blow is successful. If the defender wins, the attack is evaded/countered.
Step 3. The defender either takes the hit and launches a counter attack or evades the blow and counterstrikes. Both opponents roll to see if the counter lands or is evaded/countered.
Step 4. Repeat this process until one attacker lands a set number of blows.
We use http://rolz.org/group to do our rolls. You don't have to worry about the honor system because your referees can be in the same room as the fighters each time and make sure whatever rules you come up with are followed. Also it saves the rolls from before an individual enters the room so long as there are people in said room.
Two things I want to point out to you in your planning:
1. Keep stress to a minimum: I try to keep the roll system super, super simple. The reason for this is to reduce stress. RP combat is one of the most disliked or at least stress-inducing aspects of roleplay from what I've seen and many, many people try to avoid it at all costs. The ones that don't commonly get into fights over outcomes or end up in super-long and complicated ordeals and eventually just get bored and quit.Â
You don't want to have a bunch of spectators sitting through a fight where the people involved are going to take several hours per fight because that makes the fighters feel awkward, hence why with our official tournaments we keep it to a three-strike win. I let my people make little variations here and there on how they'd like to handle things such as tie-rolls but for the most part we just can't do free form with strangers in the tournament. It's led to bad things in the past.
2. Try to keep posts relatively short for an event: Really descriptive RPers have a tendency to roll in a four paragraph post that takes maybe ten or fifteen minutes to write up which isn't really viable in a live event where several people will be around. Our tournaments can have up to sixteen people and take several hours to complete. Each fight can take from five to twenty minutes or more. One issue is people going AFK for emergencies, but that's relatively small. Sometimes we have people confused as to what should happen with a roll, but that's also relatively small. Usually it's someone who is writing a super huge post that's filled with superfluous details which is doubly problematic because their opponent has to read over the entire thing and then respond to it as realistically as possible. Then there's the potential issue of god-modding in a post that's too long because people begin to assume what their opponent is going to do. I like our fighters to keep tourney attacks to a two or three paragraph maximum instead of, say, six.
So those are the main two things. The last thing I can think of is making sure that opponents are partied together, in a chat room with a roll system together, and have someone watching over all the posts. You want to have to retcon as -little- as humanly possible but if you intend to be open to any walk-up fighters like the Grindstone is, then you run the risk of people not fighting the way that others are used to; which shouldn't be bad but it can create conflicts. So make sure all your rules and bases are covered.
Also: We have had issues before where individuals felt their character was 'too strong' for losing or at least losing to their opponent. Honestly, this is very hard for an outsider to discuss with people who aren't simply open-minded. For the most part, I've found a ton of people willing to play at a novice level and work their way up by fighting over and over and over again. I think some people assume Siobhain should be an exceedingly skilled fighter-- but the fact is that she's lost more fights than she's won and more often than not, that's -my- choice.
I've heard it said that roll-based RP isn't 'skill-based' enough for their liking because luck takes 'skill' out of the equation. Likewise, many of those same people share that exact feeling for PVP-based duels. I believe it helps to stress that people should be accepting of other styles and open-minded. You might want to do what I never did and screen your fighters before they get to participate in a tournament to prevent anyone who has RP combat misgivings from raging about how they wouldn't have lost if-- Well honestly, people rage over everything. From 'Well if we weren't rolling...' to 'This guy's grammar alone should make him lose' and so on. RP combat makes for lots of stress. I don't think your system is overly complicated but remember if you intend to let plenty of people participate, 'screening' them and teaching them your system before hand would likely remove a lot of the confusion and the delay in getting whatever events you have started.
On a side note your system looks really good and I think it would work out well-- you'd be avoiding any issues with retconning by having each post sent to the 'Battlemaster'. As long as everyone's posting and working and ciphering and such as quickly as possible, it shouldn't tack too much extra time onto the whole thing. I still think it would probably help a lot to have people learn the rules before participating in any events-- I know some of our people had issues with our super simplified system and remembering what they should do.
Good luck.
![[Image: ohkg_zpsca8eb911.png]](http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y159/lunar_kitsune/ohkg_zpsca8eb911.png)
 (Click images for link the Grindstone Page.)
