(09-21-2015, 03:53 PM)Berrod Armstrong Wrote:(09-21-2015, 03:33 PM)Ignacius Wrote:On the note of seeming unprofessional...I can't really be bothered with anything close to the pretense of being professional when I'm sitting in my boxers** playing pretend on the internet. I do agree that the last part of my statement -is- a bit harsh, because I too, have met a few strangers and bounced off good fight scenes with them without OOC communication. I attribute that, however, to how open I tend to be regarding the other player's writing, and my love for rolling with the punches (and getting my character bloodied).Â(09-21-2015, 03:23 PM)Berrod Armstrong Wrote:(09-21-2015, 03:13 PM)FreelanceWizard Wrote:THIS. THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS. It is possible to talk to strangers OOCly and come to an agreement/compromise instead of doing tense gymnastics. Whether John Doe stabbed Berrod in the heart ten years ago or if he's woulding into the sun, a quick discussion between John and Berrod's players can make things flow well with each one sticking to their style/tense. If John and Berrod don't want to communicate, then...then they're not going to gain much by roleplaying with each other.(09-21-2015, 03:07 PM)Ignacius Wrote: Or, you know, don't pick fights with strangers.
That's just generally good advice.
If you do, though, talking about it OOC is probably a good idea.
That seems a bit harsh. Â I get along fine with plenty of people who started out trying to kill a character of mine for some reason, mostly without asking. Â I always found it somewhat... I don't know, unprofessional I guess is a good word, to seem to drop character as soon as conflict reared up and start making some kind of OOC script. Â I certainly didn't need it to get into trouble.
I mean, if my character, Heaven forbid, calls someone a rank amateur in the course of a conversation, and that character decides to take a swing at him, I'd feel it a bit rich at that point to then pause the whole scene to OOC out with the character how we were going to handle it. Â I prefer OOC to be the last refuge when things aren't working.
I'm more than willing to talk it out if someone really wants to, but I'd never assume I need to start making demands on how this combat should go or end up, especially since I might just as easily not end up in combat. Â Or that we'd end up in combat with something else. Â RP can go a million different ways, and I'd rather keep my options open on that front than to start locking up mechanics.
That may be different for other players, but I try to be flexible to keep the RP going as best I can so that we don't get bogged down in OOC. Â Again, that's a personal preference rather than a piece of practical advice; you all should know what you're capable of performing ICly as far as how to manipulate a scene. Â Still, I don't think it's good policy to say that people can't hash out combat ICly without predetermining it OOC without having anything to RP about.
The richness of your RP proliferates by the amount of people you can effectively RP with, I find.
Regarding 'pausing a scene ooc' -- it's not a movie, it's not running and then STOP. There's always a pause between posts, and if part of that pause involves me whispering the other guy to ask if his punch is coming faster than my character's position affords him to block, then so be it! It can only help the scene for me, not harm it. If the other person reacts unfavorably to this, then I know that this is someone I don't want to invest any time in.Â
I don't make demands on how the combat should go. I don't script anything (most times...! Sometimes there's an idea another roleplayer and I are bursting to deal with and we plan and play). I simply clarify things that may or may not happen, sometimes ask what the other player would like to see, and at times ask their permission to allow this to happen. I have done roleplay combat with a few of people on here, they know how it goes, and I would like to think that it's a very comfortable process (when undertaken) that only results in a clearer, more enjoyable depiction of conflict/combat. Nothing's locked up. Everything is open. Communication is not a sudden lockdown onto one path. It's just...communication! It can serve many purposes.
I do not think it's mandatory at all for people to have to work things out OOC rather than hash it out IC. I do that, a lot! However, I believe if someone is -incapable- of or unwilling to do so when the need arises, then there's a problem.Â
If the richness of my RP proliferates by the amount of people I can effectively RP with, I think that what I've been saying and doing has some definite merit!
I do understand the quoted view on things (and can relate to it on some level), but as it works one way, so does it work the other. It's always good to be open to the idea of having to communicate with a stranger instead of wrestling with prose. Your characters may be fighting, but as writers you're supposed to be working together to build a scene that is enjoyable for you both. Sometimes that may involve working with each other's odd tense preferences!Â
Sometimes. In the end, to each his own, always.
**Berrod's player usually sits in a towel because he is lazy trash who doesn't like to get dressed when he's at home
Certainly that, and a lot of what I'm saying comes from two very distinct points:
1. Â I'm a relatively old and involved active-format RPer. Â This stuff was ground into my head at 13 in a Dragonstrike chronicle being played on a BBS (which dates me).
2. Â Also at a young age, I started running the RP. Â My personal style doing this is to run it from a character, adding outbound elements from the perspective of within the group. Â I ran my YIM thread probably between 15 and 16, and that's colored a lot of my perception.
I was counted on, pretty early, to be the guy that made sure everyone had fun. Â So I've got a pretty wide breadth of RP styles in my background at the same time I've also had to be able to adapt to new players and make them feel welcome.
At the same time, whenever I had to go OOC to explain something, the flow of RP would simply crash. Â Things can't move forward when you're working things out. Â So it's always behooved me to be descriptive and outline future consequences for actions even in cases where others might not warrant it. Â For me, it was a way to also provide description. Â Swinging a sword with the intent to cut off someone's head is a lot different than swinging a sword at shoulder height, of course. Â So for me, it's been so deeply ingrained in my style and is so natural for what I do that it feels strange not to do it.
In Kage's original example, in my personal opinion, the form is good. Â You'd want to dive at someone as if you intend to tackle them, because although you might not actually tackle them, that denotes a very particular and descriptive action as opposed to just diving at someone's legs. Â I mean, you can infer that it's in a tackling motion, but you may want to dive between them, come up like a football player and aim for the chin, roll through and try to end up on the other side. Â That's endemic to the form, but I also find that it's good for the way I write. Â It saves you from having to OOC out what will happen or even what it will look like. Â People get a very distinct picture.
And I know professionalism isn't the best word for it, but it's the best I can come up with. Â I pride myself on the RP experiences people who play with me get and, for better or worse, I take it very seriously. Â On the plus side, it's meant I've got a lot of experience working things out in-character that even ten years ago I'd have worked out OOC. Â I can provide people ways out, talk them out of combat, give them ways to stop injured and not kill them, made them feel camaraderie, all without stopping the RP flow. Â I mean, I might be on my computer in my pajamas, but it's kind of the same feeling you get when you're tanking a primal and everyone in the party points out how good you did.
Of course, you'll get more props as a good RPer than a good party tank...
I always prefer the method that causes the least stops. Â I can ask or tell the other character what I need to, or I can include that in the original post, and I tend to opt for the latter. Â Given my background, that works well for me and seems to elicit the most enjoyment from whoever I'm playing with. Â I feel like if you're OOC bouncing ideas off each other and executing them, that's RP for the benefit mostly of everyone else. Â If I give the person enough to work with on my end that he has fun, that's also RP for the benefit of him.
It's personal opinion at this point, of course, but I've always used the format because I think it's more fun for the other player to bounce things off of without having to plan.
I wouldn't recommend the format for that reason, though. Â You have to manage a lot of scenes to camouflage DMing like that without godmodding. Â I like the effect, though. Â It feels more like giving the other person things to do and getting them back rather than doing a lot of interior planning.
I've done both, and I feel like that the IC method can make one of the most tense and sometimes un-enjoyable parts of random RP, character-on-character combat, feel fun, free-flowing, and satisfying for the actual participants. Â I dislike how most character combat turns into a knot-in-the-pit-of-your-stomach confrontations, especially when you're starting to talk to someone OOC (even if it's entirely cordial).
I mean, that's my personal take on it.  Otherwise, the format I think is highly useful in combat, but it's an older formality.  If you know how to apply it, though, it can be an exceptionally useful story driving tool.
