Combat tournaments are pretty awesome, but I might be coming at it from a biased perspective!
There actually is an established, canon setting for Gladiators get their glads on: The Coliseum! There's obvious troubles with that, though: We can't actually access the Bloodsands for starters, and two, we don't really know how the inner workings, well, work. There's a peek at a special event in the Dragon's Neck encounter but I'm fairly sure they go on about it being out of the norm. So, what's a gladiator to do?
...it really depends on the person! I think one of the bigger challenges people playing veterans of the Bloodsands get is the recognition that would come from it: The Coliseum pre-Calamity was out-and-out bloodsport, and the Gladiator storyline had you actually fighting in front of crowds in 1.0. The lore states that, since then, the Bloodsands have fallen out of favor and instead now appear to be an exhibition-style kind of environment: Dragon's Neck again comes to mind, and the tournament leading up to it. (It's also one more example of the power curve that changed with ARR: 1.0 Coliseum was grittier combat in comparison to the super wind blade techniques demonstrated, which no one bats an eye at).
It's a comfortable grey area for gladiators to come from the pre-Calamity setting: It was actually a different kind of combat and since it's no longer in the game, it makes sense that no one would really become famous or anything if they don't participate anymore. Modern day gladiators appear to be advertised heavily, and that can get sticky for roleplayers.
I think that's part of why the "outside" events work as well as they do: Since no -Stone event has official backing by any nation and things like Spellguard and Aethersteel and Fight Club and Tournament of Champions and Lucha Eorzea are all technically "indie" or FC-sponsored affairs, there's no worry about becoming a huge star or there being a backlash of what would be a giant nation-wide spectacle not registering on the radar of Jeaux Averageux the Roleplayer.
There's easily ways around this, though. If you're using Gladiator without meaning Coliseum-based-capital-G-Gladiator then we can safely ignore all of this. Not everyone who fights in the Coliseum is locked to only fighting there! You can easily just frame it as looking for those who like fighting to come and take part in a tournament with a very-different format from the current variety. I think the only "problem" would come from attempting to attach actual canon sanction to whatever happens, but you're obviously free to do that as well!
If you did mean Sword-and-board-Gladiator you also run into the classic event problem: If you're looking for a very specific type of character you run the risk of excluding people who would be interested unintentionally! Again, this is pretty easily handled if you're not meaning "Literally of the Gladiator Class" when you say "gladiator." Halatali HM gives us a pretty good glimpse at what we could probably expect from the Coliseum now: You fight a number of fighters with varying weapons in the dungeon, including spellcasters. It's safe to say that "Gladiator-the-class" isn't actually a prerequisite for being a "Gladiator-who-fights."
I think the idea's got legs. It offers a different take on one of the RP community's seemingly-favorite pastimes and I think you'll find more than a few who are willing to get their hands dirty.
There actually is an established, canon setting for Gladiators get their glads on: The Coliseum! There's obvious troubles with that, though: We can't actually access the Bloodsands for starters, and two, we don't really know how the inner workings, well, work. There's a peek at a special event in the Dragon's Neck encounter but I'm fairly sure they go on about it being out of the norm. So, what's a gladiator to do?
...it really depends on the person! I think one of the bigger challenges people playing veterans of the Bloodsands get is the recognition that would come from it: The Coliseum pre-Calamity was out-and-out bloodsport, and the Gladiator storyline had you actually fighting in front of crowds in 1.0. The lore states that, since then, the Bloodsands have fallen out of favor and instead now appear to be an exhibition-style kind of environment: Dragon's Neck again comes to mind, and the tournament leading up to it. (It's also one more example of the power curve that changed with ARR: 1.0 Coliseum was grittier combat in comparison to the super wind blade techniques demonstrated, which no one bats an eye at).
It's a comfortable grey area for gladiators to come from the pre-Calamity setting: It was actually a different kind of combat and since it's no longer in the game, it makes sense that no one would really become famous or anything if they don't participate anymore. Modern day gladiators appear to be advertised heavily, and that can get sticky for roleplayers.
I think that's part of why the "outside" events work as well as they do: Since no -Stone event has official backing by any nation and things like Spellguard and Aethersteel and Fight Club and Tournament of Champions and Lucha Eorzea are all technically "indie" or FC-sponsored affairs, there's no worry about becoming a huge star or there being a backlash of what would be a giant nation-wide spectacle not registering on the radar of Jeaux Averageux the Roleplayer.
There's easily ways around this, though. If you're using Gladiator without meaning Coliseum-based-capital-G-Gladiator then we can safely ignore all of this. Not everyone who fights in the Coliseum is locked to only fighting there! You can easily just frame it as looking for those who like fighting to come and take part in a tournament with a very-different format from the current variety. I think the only "problem" would come from attempting to attach actual canon sanction to whatever happens, but you're obviously free to do that as well!
If you did mean Sword-and-board-Gladiator you also run into the classic event problem: If you're looking for a very specific type of character you run the risk of excluding people who would be interested unintentionally! Again, this is pretty easily handled if you're not meaning "Literally of the Gladiator Class" when you say "gladiator." Halatali HM gives us a pretty good glimpse at what we could probably expect from the Coliseum now: You fight a number of fighters with varying weapons in the dungeon, including spellcasters. It's safe to say that "Gladiator-the-class" isn't actually a prerequisite for being a "Gladiator-who-fights."
I think the idea's got legs. It offers a different take on one of the RP community's seemingly-favorite pastimes and I think you'll find more than a few who are willing to get their hands dirty.
![[Image: yEROfKO.png]](http://i.imgur.com/yEROfKO.png)
