(09-21-2015, 10:41 AM)Warren Castille Wrote:(09-21-2015, 10:37 AM)Ignacius Wrote: Well, I've RPed effectively across all those eras. Â And yes, we had open RP and, yes, that meant combat with strangers. Â We can debate "interesting stories" all we'd like, but a stranger in combat, whether for narrative purposes or not, is a part of any RP where I'm carrying a sword. Â You may not be fond of the era, but I both RPed effectively and told interesting stories as I went.
I'm simply relating where the format came from and why it exists as per Kage's request. Â I'm not passing judgement on you for disliking it or attempting to stir up your unpleasant memories.
However, despite where you were and how you RPed, I can say that quite a few bits of narrative combat arose during RP sessions and we effectively handled it via tactical checkmating. Â And, should an altercation arise where grammatical tense is suddenly important, you can't always pull the narrative to a screeching halt to negotiate a neutral party and dice rules. Â Tactical checkmating still exists whenever a stranger has a reason to not like you.
And, in the end, that's where the live RP format comes from. Â We didn't often write in a past-tense narrative format and that was the reason.
You're fine. I'm just remarking that it still sounds like trying to win via outwriting your opponent. "You dedicated an attack at my head, so you're forced to do it, so now I'm going to outsmart you" etcetera. It might be the most "fair" way of settling things without dice to some people, but it's still dickwaving at how capable of a writer you are. Powerlevel shouldn't be dictated by dictionary. As long as the intent is delivered (A swing aimed at your head) there shouldn't be a need to outlaw action or restrict a change in that.
I think you're mistaking how this generally gets handled and why it arose. Â Dickwaving didn't happen via tactical checkmating, though my writing on that was in passing. Â Quicktyping was generally how that happened, and when your options were to quicktype combat or to use tactical checkmating, I highly recommend tactical checkmating. Â In all honesty, few people were showing up in the local bar thread to start off a multi-para checkmating battle. Â That just didn't happen. Â Your shill walking around picking fights for the sake of it was generally asking to, "come t9 me mf"
Tactical checkmating tended to be a somewhat more flourished affair. Â It wasn't really outwriting someone; you had to somehow get the essence of your character across in it. Â Otherwise it turned into a game of well-written twister.
However, it would happen that fights would break out. Â And even in WoW, even at max level and gear, I tended to favor tactical checkmating over kicking off game mechanic duels. Â It's just a better way to write combat, and you tend to get favorable outcomes. Â In that case, I may have tried to kill Ziggy, but just as likely Ziggy and Ignacius would fight for a while (generally talking the whole way through), but fizzle out. Â Like a lot of fights in bars that happen for no reason. Â A duel might take ten seconds, but you could easily be dropping combat paragraphs for an hour.
However, in case one's going the whole length (and I've had to hold my own checkmating a lot in my RP career, especially in WoW), the best defense is to remember that anything you say you do can be used against you in another post.
