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K'nahli · **04-26-2015, 10:35 AM**

I initially had this written out another way with a hypothetical but I think I'll just come at it straight.

How do/would you react to someone who wants to believe that their character is stronger than you/most other people - and your character was heavily testing their patience?

1) Would you override their belief with anything along the lines of "My character is strong too!" ?

3) Would you insist that your character puts up a decent fight regardless, but will still ultimately lose?

3) Would you take your lumps and let the experience unfold in your own character's disfavour?

4) Other?

Imagine that the person is OOCly being reasonable and not harbouring any sense of an attitude akin to:
- "I can and will beat up anyone else's character because I can"

In addition, does anyone have a particularly strong character(s) that normally come out on top but would still happily see them taken by surprise or even beaten unexpectedly by someone of a similar or perhaps even lesser level of skill level/strength?

Steel Wolf · **04-26-2015, 10:49 AM**

EDIT TO REFLECT A REFLECTED SPECIFIED ATTITUDE I'M SORRY I'M TERRIBLE AT LIFE/READING

In the situation you've described, I'd at least mention any outliers that perhaps aren't very obvious to someone approaching your character which would turn or at least balance the tide. If the person arrives for a fight with your character, mutual consent could probably be reached if said person was reasonable.

As far as Steel is concerned, she almost always gets her ass kicked as I play her like a plain Jane axe wielder, without any extensive aetheric power or anything beyond the benefits of her musculature. With one or two exceptions, she's gotten roflstomp'd in every engagement.

Once she becomes a Dark Knight...that might change slightly owing to aetheric power married to her physical power...but we'll see I suppose.

K'nahli · **04-26-2015, 10:58 AM**

(04-26-2015, 10:49 AM)Steel Wolf Wrote: And when I say "take the lump", I mean really sarcastically take it. Swoon as dramatically as possible, fall over, then teleport somewhere else right as you blist.

Hahahahaha! That was a fun thing to picture.

Most of my characters I like to consider somewhere above average, though in the case of my miqo'te that extremely restricted to hunting creatures and being in a desert environment. Having said that, I'd be more than happy to lose out to anyone whom was supposedly, significantly stronger.

Excluding my Au Ra, I have one character that I consider rather impressive when it comes to his abilities so more often than not I'd reallllly want to see him hold his own at least for a while, but I wouldn't entirely rule out the possibility of him getting completely beat... so I stuck with just the one answer.

SessionZero · **04-26-2015, 11:05 AM**

If I'm going to be fighting with someone who I am not familiar with on an OOC level, I insist on using rolls to determine the outcome. If the other person cannot agree to such, I do not engage them IC. I either find a way to avoid the confrontation, or I just excuse myself abruptly from the RP.

Aaron · **04-26-2015, 11:08 AM**

When Aaron is confronted, 9/10 he doesn't even fight the person. He'll just say he's not interested and walk away.Â

Then again, for SOME reason most people that want to fight Aaron are Roegadyn or Buff ass Highlander.

So as you can see, he wants to avoid any injury.Â

However should he fight, he never finishes the fight. He'll get a blow in that'll probably bleed a lot, then he'll just leave the fight.Â

Hes one of those he'll injure you bad as a warning but if you keep pressing the fight he'll eventually just satisfy with what injury he gave you and willingly quit.

***Nero*** · **04-26-2015, 11:09 AM**

Assuming that I know that the person is reasonable OOCly then losing or being wounded is perfectly valid, although of course this depends on context. If the other player's character is, for example, a well-known and successful street brawler, my character wouldn't begin antagonizing him without an established upper hand to start with.Â

That being said, in Nero's case specifically, I have him written to be combat-able enough to win in fights against NPCs, but not trained or experienced enough to win against battle tested player characters. Part of this is because combat RP is an extremely slippery slope, especially with someone you don't know, and bruising somebody's ego because they feel that their character should easily win is a pain that I'm not very inclined to deal with, so I try to avoid combat RP whenever possible because I find it to be horrendously self-indulgent at its worst.

Flashhelix · **04-26-2015, 11:20 AM**

I've yet to find anyone that OOCly refused to do rolls, and if somebody's that dead-set on NO HOW WOULD MY CHARACTER NOT BEAT YOURS then I'm not terribly eager to do any RP with them. Oskwell's a hard character to provoke into a fight to begin with.

Qhora Bajihri · **04-26-2015, 11:30 AM**

I'm generally happy to have my character lose to stroke someone else's ego. It doesn't cost me anything and makes them happy? It's not like I'm going to kill and delete my character. But an abrupt and random confrontation with the presumption of outcome probably isn't something I'd pursue further.

Knight Kat · **04-26-2015, 11:33 AM**

To me, it's all about -respecting- my character's concept because that is what I do for others. If someone wants to compare their character's capabilities and power to my character, I'm willing if it's an actual discussion, and not just a game of "no, mine is better than yours!".

In other words, if I were to free-form combat against any player-character, I would want them to know about and accept what my character can do, but also learn about what their character can do. This usually requires having spent time RPing with this other player-character though.

In the scenario you present, most of the time I would call for rolling if they wanted to fight. If they don't want to roll because they believe that, no matter what, their character is stronger? I do not see that as reasonable, and would just end the scene.

Some of the best bad-ass characters are those that can portray their character as a bad-ass without needing to disregard the power of others. People should put their characters on whatever pedestal they want as long as they don't try to kick the pedestals out from under other characters.

Then again, I've heard the story of a chef with a skillet who beat a Lancer due to rolling. That sounded more like a comedy routine than a duel. Even choosing to roll can be unfair, so the trick is to -always- respect the concept behind peoples' characters.

Sorry if that didn't directly answer the question, but I see too many variables even in such a specific scenario.

**Unnamed Mercenary** · **04-26-2015, 11:44 AM**

Ultimately, it comes down to the other person.

Do I trust them?
Do they trust me?
Did we agree to some outcome beforehand?
Are they willing to get hit hard back?
Are we somewhere public where I have to deal with other people watching?

While I don't play out Franz as acting like he's exceptionally strong, I do have everything set up for him to be. What I mean is that his is an overpowered (and lore-bent) character, but as a character, he doesn't go flaunting that around. In fact, it's more of an issue to him than if he would sustain injuries. It causes internal conflict.

But sure, no crowds and the other person knows what to expect? I hope they like one -really- pissed of Garlelan experiment who's going to pull out all the stops. They better be prepared that their character could have a few bones broken, get a severe amount of aether drained, or perhaps just get exhausted from hitting a guy who won't go down easily.

Will they 'win'? Yeah, sure. Depends on the rules. Franz doesn't have an amazing offense. What he does have is fairly good defense and survivability. A broken hand won't keep him from using it. A couple broken ribs are manageable. Break his leg and his shift more of his weight to the other in a last-ditch attempt. Or maybe he'll pull out his arcanists' tome and fight with that.

But to answer the situation of "some random person I don't know who stated they're OOCly super strong and amazing wants to fight you", I'm gonna likely pass. Or I'm going to demand rolls. Freeform just needs too much coordination for me to want to handle it in public with random people. In my opinion, freeform combat needs a winner decided before it begins, else people will just keep trying to one up each other and the attacks will get bigger without anything of value really happening.

K'nahli · **04-26-2015, 11:47 AM**

It's definitely not a question you can give a one-fits-all answer to be sure. There are honestly, far too many things that require considering *nods*

DoomsdayClock · **04-26-2015, 12:07 PM**

It is a tricky situation...
I'd echo the use of rolls for most random encounter fighters that can spring up, just because it takes the power and decision out of both of our hands and we can run with whatever the outcome might be..
Though I've had instances were suddenly the other player is rolling twice, for two weapons and lumping me up pretty fiercely too.
In the end it comes down to how much further I plan to engage with the other person post that situation. If it's just preposterous and I can see it becoming a thing, then I'd probably steer clear of fighting anymore after taking whatever beating I probably have to. As someone who has played just about every race and character type, I can say that when you play the most giant Roegadyn's, most Miqo snark off intimidation and act like they could destroy me, lol. You just run with things I guess, and let the more ridiculous go, because it's not worth the effort.
Other than that, the Grindstone is a prime learning spot for how to get beat up by people your character concept should be able to crush! A lot of what I do is fumble and fail as I get rekt. I've been playing a Roe there for weeks now, and despite his concept being this gladiator with a history, I've been beaten in the face with a stone carrot by a lalafel, and last night utterly destroyed by a Miqo who finished me with a low blow. In those cases, I just credit my loss to being overconfident or caught completely off guard.
You can't win all the time. The better goal should be to make both players look good, even in defeat.

Sounsyy · **04-26-2015, 12:19 PM**

Fortunately, the Grindstone has provided Sounsyy with an IC testament to her combat prowess in front of several large audiences. So I'm spared testifying OOCly that my character is a pretty seasoned fighter. That said, Sounsyy loses, she's really written to lose a lot even if she doesn't always, so I don't mind taking a loss if someone is legitimately stronger than my character or it makes sense with the scene/story for her to lose. It doesn't always make sense for a character to win.

But if the person wanting to fight is being reasonable about free-form combat RP, I think it's fair that both players share what makes their character formidable and then decide from there who should win - that is, if you want a predetermined outcome at all. Otherwise, I just /random. It's the easiest way for two strangers to have a fight without it hurting anyone's ego. Sometimes you're lucky, sometimes you're not.

DoomsdayClock · **04-26-2015, 12:45 PM**

(04-26-2015, 12:19 PM)Sounsyy Wrote: Fortunately, the Grindstone has provided Sounsyy with an IC testament to her combat prowess in front of several large audiences. So I'm spared testifying OOCly that my character is a pretty seasoned fighter. That said, Sounsyy loses, she's really written to lose a lot even if she doesn't always, so I don't mind taking a loss if someone is legitimately stronger than my character or it makes sense with the scene/story for her to lose. It doesn't always make sense for a character to win.

But if the person wanting to fight is being reasonable about free-form combat RP, I think it's fair that both players share what makes their character formidable and then decide from there who should win - that is, if you want a predetermined outcome at all. Otherwise, I just /random. It's the easiest way for two strangers to have a fight without it hurting anyone's ego. Sometimes you're lucky, sometimes you're not.

We should fight more. I haven't had my brains scrambled by a shield in awhile.

Chris Ganale · **04-26-2015, 03:10 PM**

Having spent the first ten or so years of my RP career around exactly those kind of people, my automatic response is to throw the heavy end of the hammer and every single trick I know of at them.

That said, if I can give a glance to a character bio or have a reasonable suspicion that I can't actually legitimately beat their character, well, as they say, discretion is the better part of valor.

Poll: How would you handle an OOCly, self-proclaimed powerful opponent? You do not have permission to vote in this poll.
Largely dismiss the opposition's singular opinion of strength against your own character's abilities	18.60%	8	18.60%
'Always' expect to get your hits in regardless of the end result	6.98%	3	6.98%
Allow your character to "lose" as a result of being weaker	25.58%	11	25.58%
Other	48.84%	21	48.84%
Total		43 vote(s)	100%

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