Situations like these are usually rooted in a lack of communication, and with one of the players garnering a 'fight or flight' response, immediately blocking any further communication. Without an actual fighting system both agree to use above, there's no way to just 'text it out' without probably breaking one anothers concepts/perception of their own characters. As sold as one person might be in the strength and proficiency of his own character, or the effectiveness of his political pull / wealth, so may the other character be, and you may end up in an endless 'arm-race' cycle drawing to out-argue or ICly out-arm eachother. The only way to avoid that is to either talk things through beforehand, or to have a Dungeon Master above to call the shots. As the latter doesn't exist in an Open-RP environment, OOC communication is a must.
So the answer to that would be ; Make sure to talk things through before conflict even takes place.
As for the point of Otto 'sicking his hounds' on somebody. The moment you make use of NPC's like that, you stop responding as a singular character and begin acting like a faction. You're basically playing 'Otto's Mafia', and not 'Otto'. The same way you could perhaps suddenly introduce your 'henchmen' to send after, the opposing player may recruit his own NPC's from his own background, such as 'close friend/family/brother in arms'.
The problem with power, or powerful characters in whatever shape or form is that, in an open-rp environment, players sometimes end up believing they can actually use said power to full effect, while other players must take it. That is simply not the case. Unless all involved players adhere to the same storyline/rules/guidelines and narrative in which there's an overarching Dungeon Master/Story-Admin w/e present to call the shots in regards to NPC response / effectiveness, You'll be simply entering an argument about your effectiveness versus the other players, and those usually end badly.
So to summarize it..
If you're playing in an Open RP environment ; Talk Oocly beforehand, always.
If you're playing in a seperate, controlled narrative ; You can ommit the OOC talk part, if there's someone present to call the shots fairly.
So the answer to that would be ; Make sure to talk things through before conflict even takes place.
As for the point of Otto 'sicking his hounds' on somebody. The moment you make use of NPC's like that, you stop responding as a singular character and begin acting like a faction. You're basically playing 'Otto's Mafia', and not 'Otto'. The same way you could perhaps suddenly introduce your 'henchmen' to send after, the opposing player may recruit his own NPC's from his own background, such as 'close friend/family/brother in arms'.
The problem with power, or powerful characters in whatever shape or form is that, in an open-rp environment, players sometimes end up believing they can actually use said power to full effect, while other players must take it. That is simply not the case. Unless all involved players adhere to the same storyline/rules/guidelines and narrative in which there's an overarching Dungeon Master/Story-Admin w/e present to call the shots in regards to NPC response / effectiveness, You'll be simply entering an argument about your effectiveness versus the other players, and those usually end badly.
So to summarize it..
If you're playing in an Open RP environment ; Talk Oocly beforehand, always.
If you're playing in a seperate, controlled narrative ; You can ommit the OOC talk part, if there's someone present to call the shots fairly.
![[Image: afvXOt2.png]](http://i.imgur.com/afvXOt2.png)
