I recently had the good fortune and wonderful experience of participating in large-scale in-game freeform RP combat that has gone on to inform the "What You Are in the Dark" thread (a big thank you to Roen and to fellow participants), so I'll do my best to answer these questions as they pertain to that experience. Every other RP combat scene on this scale that I've participated in has generally been governed by dice.
In all cases, large-scale RP combat took hours to complete.
Posting speed / timestamps usually determine what happens first and in what order. There's some level of unspoken mutual agreement that taking action, whether offensively or defensively, implicitly means you're going to await at least one other person's reaction and interaction to and with your action before taking action again. How many "steps" or "levels" or "number of actions" there are to your single emote generally matters less than being brief and concise (as opposed to verbose para rp). For this reason, we experienced a lot of "one defensive action, one movement, and one offensive action" emotes. It was really comparable in many ways to how Tactics games like FFTA work.
This really depends. In our case, numbers were skewed to favor one side, but that side also had a few unnamed "redshirt" "mook" NPC players that were played out as dispensable. As a result, those larger numbers dropped as a few combatants were culled, which led to more even footing.
No handicaps were given, save perhaps the element of surprise and the resulting shock value. Larger group would have pressed the weight of numbers had they the chance, but terrain and speed didnt allow for it.
This one's tricky. I think going in there was, again, an unspoken mutual agreement regarding where on the low fantasy vs high fantasy scale this scene was to take place, and so we knew the range in which to play in. Not too mundane, but not too over the top, either.
The usual one on one guidelines of intending damage, dealing damage, taking damage, and selling damage still applied. Intent-to-hit was a big thing, with occasional Effect-of-hit thrown in by an attacker who REALLY wanted something to pan out a certain way (shooting someone at point blank range, say). In either case, it was again understood that it was up to the recipient of damage to determine what degree of damage they found acceptable for their character to take.
One advantage of freeform combat RP in an MMO setting is that you have avatars you can position relative to other players. Think tabletop, or arranging action figures. If your character was capable of spotting a foe, and then reaching them somehow, be it by movement or ranged weapon, then the foe was considered fair game.
Of course, in the chat spam, many such strikes were completely missed by their intended recipients, in which case folks shrugged it off and moved on as if said blow missed. I can think of at least one axe swing and one sword swing that got lost in the chat spam.
All this said, our characters more or less picked their targets and struck out at those they could when they could.
We had at least one flaming arrow strike its friendly. That was played off for laughs. We also had one serious case of someone inadvertently stumbling and tripping over someone else which resulted in unanticipated damage (which the tripped-over player chose out of the blue to take based on RP'd actions and relative positioning). Accidents in freeform are more a case of someone choosing, for the sake of flavor, to take damage that no one intentionally dealt.
There was a lot of trust involved, and a lot of unspoken concessions made by all sides. The nature of the scene required that it be played hard and fast, which led to said concessions. That can be a turn-off for those who might not be willing to see their characters downplayed or trumped up to degrees they might not be comfortable with.
In all cases, large-scale RP combat took hours to complete.
(04-21-2015, 08:06 PM)Verad Wrote: 1. How do you address posting order and initiative in freeform mass combat? Who goes first, and how often can they attack?
Posting speed / timestamps usually determine what happens first and in what order. There's some level of unspoken mutual agreement that taking action, whether offensively or defensively, implicitly means you're going to await at least one other person's reaction and interaction to and with your action before taking action again. How many "steps" or "levels" or "number of actions" there are to your single emote generally matters less than being brief and concise (as opposed to verbose para rp). For this reason, we experienced a lot of "one defensive action, one movement, and one offensive action" emotes. It was really comparable in many ways to how Tactics games like FFTA work.
(04-21-2015, 08:06 PM)Verad Wrote: 2. In situations where one group is outnumbered, does the other group allow them to have an edge in terms of how often they can attack and defend themselves for fairness' sake, or does the larger group press the weight of numbers?
This really depends. In our case, numbers were skewed to favor one side, but that side also had a few unnamed "redshirt" "mook" NPC players that were played out as dispensable. As a result, those larger numbers dropped as a few combatants were culled, which led to more even footing.
No handicaps were given, save perhaps the element of surprise and the resulting shock value. Larger group would have pressed the weight of numbers had they the chance, but terrain and speed didnt allow for it.
(04-21-2015, 08:06 PM)Verad Wrote: 3. How do you handle disparities in character strength? The Powerlevel thread shows that some characters consider themselves strong enough to take on much larger groups. Do you take these disparities into account when trying to resolve a mass combat?
This one's tricky. I think going in there was, again, an unspoken mutual agreement regarding where on the low fantasy vs high fantasy scale this scene was to take place, and so we knew the range in which to play in. Not too mundane, but not too over the top, either.
The usual one on one guidelines of intending damage, dealing damage, taking damage, and selling damage still applied. Intent-to-hit was a big thing, with occasional Effect-of-hit thrown in by an attacker who REALLY wanted something to pan out a certain way (shooting someone at point blank range, say). In either case, it was again understood that it was up to the recipient of damage to determine what degree of damage they found acceptable for their character to take.
(04-21-2015, 08:06 PM)Verad Wrote: 4. Do you assign individuals to specific targets to the best of your ability, or do you prefer a more chaotic melee in which it's possible for everyone to strike everyone else?
One advantage of freeform combat RP in an MMO setting is that you have avatars you can position relative to other players. Think tabletop, or arranging action figures. If your character was capable of spotting a foe, and then reaching them somehow, be it by movement or ranged weapon, then the foe was considered fair game.
Of course, in the chat spam, many such strikes were completely missed by their intended recipients, in which case folks shrugged it off and moved on as if said blow missed. I can think of at least one axe swing and one sword swing that got lost in the chat spam.
All this said, our characters more or less picked their targets and struck out at those they could when they could.
(04-21-2015, 08:06 PM)Verad Wrote: 5. Friendly fire: It happens, and it's unfortunate, but how do you involve accidental strikes on someone friendly when there are very few accidents in freeform?
We had at least one flaming arrow strike its friendly. That was played off for laughs. We also had one serious case of someone inadvertently stumbling and tripping over someone else which resulted in unanticipated damage (which the tripped-over player chose out of the blue to take based on RP'd actions and relative positioning). Accidents in freeform are more a case of someone choosing, for the sake of flavor, to take damage that no one intentionally dealt.
(04-21-2015, 08:06 PM)Verad Wrote: 6. Do you feel some of the difficulties in addressing the above have a cooling effect on this kind of combat RP? If so, how can they be corrected?
There was a lot of trust involved, and a lot of unspoken concessions made by all sides. The nature of the scene required that it be played hard and fast, which led to said concessions. That can be a turn-off for those who might not be willing to see their characters downplayed or trumped up to degrees they might not be comfortable with.
![[Image: 1qVSsTp.png]](http://i.imgur.com/1qVSsTp.png)
