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Vyce · **09-21-2015, 10:41 AM**

(09-21-2015, 10:27 AM)Warren Castille Wrote: It only sounds like an issue if you're in it to win instead of telling an interesting story. The whole concept of trying to write someone into a corner with a "tactical checkmate" reeks of AOL speed-posting bullshit from 1997.

I've always felt someone should give as good as they get. If you randomly get into a fight with a stranger and they're completely no-selling reasonable attack posts because they're just that good, they're not trying to have a dramatic scene, they're trying to measure their dick in public.

My memories of that era are not fond.

Actually warren, Ig explained exactly what the grammatical issues are. A lot of people take grammar in RP as rule.

I personally don't like that sentence because it is two actions in one. My character could have long since moved away between the drawing of the swordÂ and the swing toward the neck, but I feel forced to ignore the space and emote a response as if it is one action. If you try to take advantage of the present tense lock, people start getting upset.

If he draws the sword and swings it at my neck, but I moved as he was drawing his sword, what is he swinging at? Is he slow?

Of course you could add some description like, he draws his sword fast as a whip and in one motion slashes at my neck. Then there is fluidity.

Warren Castille · **09-21-2015, 10:41 AM**

(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.

Warren Castille · **09-21-2015, 10:45 AM**

(09-21-2015, 10:39 AM)Ignacius Wrote: I'm sure the former roleplaying userbase of Yahoo IM's roleplaying forums appreciate your generalization based on the manner they mutually and often respectably handled combat with strangers with no dice pools present or mutual backstory.

A happy community of people who agree to exist defined by specific rules can still be assholes. I'm glad it worked out for them.

Gegenji · **09-21-2015, 10:48 AM**

(09-21-2015, 10:31 AM)Ignacius Wrote:
(09-21-2015, 10:26 AM)Gegenji Wrote:
(09-21-2015, 10:18 AM)Ignacius Wrote: In the case of eating a bagel, it likely doesn't make a difference. Â Most of this doesn't until a certain kind of context.

Understandable, but Kage made a point to mention that this was a curiosity on people using future tense and indefinite statements outside of a combat situation. Such as Doug and his bagel.

Obviously, if it's a combat or any manner of conflict situation, it's "better" for someone to leave an action open-ended to allow the other person or persons involved to react or even interrupt what is being done. Using a future tense - or a present/past tense that does not implicitly imply success - is recommended and even encouraged in these sorts of situations.

The matter at hand is when people are using it for mundane things. Again, such as Doug and his bagel. And, since it's such a small thing that will likely have little to no impact on whatever RP may or may not come from it... I would say that the tense used with Doug and his bagel is irrelevant in the grand scheme as things. Just as long as the message that Doug has a bagel and his current goal of eating it is understood.

Which is fine, but Kage's original post example is not eating a bagel. Â His example is correct in use for contested combat. Â I figured that's why he was asking. Â I highly doubt he's having lunch interrupted so often that he needs to make his bagel consumption subject to tactical checkmating.

Yeah, that's why I made my original post about using it in combat as well, leading to Kage going back and clarifying with an example being the "would head to the store" situation. Obviously in a situation of conflicted interest - where combat is the main situation of it - leaving what you are doing open is a best practice to follow.

However, it is all still rather circumstantial. While it's good to be open-ended, as long as someone isn't using their tense to "godmode" as situation ("I said I cut off your head, so it happened"), I think even combat could be written in any tense and the implications could still be understood. Grammatically janky perhaps, but if both sides understand what happened and are happy with the results... then it ultimately doesn't matter, as you eloquently mentioned earlier.

In the end, the usage of tense only matters as much as those participating feel it needs to be.

Kage · **09-21-2015, 10:51 AM**

(09-21-2015, 10:41 AM)Vyce Wrote: Actually warren, Ig explained exactly what the grammatical issues are. A lot of people take grammar in RP as rule.

I personally don't like that sentence because it is two actions in one. My character could have long since moved away between the drawing of the swordÂ and the swing toward the neck, but I feel forced to ignore the space and emote a response as if it is one action. If you try to take advantage of the present tense lock, people start getting upset.

If he draws the sword and swings it at my neck, but I moved as he was drawing his sword, what is he swinging at? Is he slow?

Of course you could add some description like, he draws his sword fast as a whip and in one motion slashes at my neck. Then there is fluidity.

The way I see this. If your character moves as he drew the sword, would the other character not be tracking movements as well and still be aiming to swing at his neck? So the idea is still the same, the character drew the sword and his aim is to swing at the neck. You see what he's typed, your character moved as he was drawing and now it's his turn to act.

Everyone I have roleplayed with, the tense does not matter as much as the intent is clear. I have had at most two cases where meta'ing or godmoding happened but not in combat player character to player character. We adjust from past to present or vice versa depending on the players we are roleplaying with.

Ignacius · **09-21-2015, 10:51 AM**

(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.

Warren Castille · **09-21-2015, 10:55 AM**

Different strokes for different folks, I suppose. Doesn't sound like fun to me.

Ignacius · **09-21-2015, 10:58 AM**

(09-21-2015, 10:51 AM)Kage Wrote:
(09-21-2015, 10:41 AM)Vyce Wrote: Actually warren, Ig explained exactly what the grammatical issues are. A lot of people take grammar in RP as rule.

I personally don't like that sentence because it is two actions in one. My character could have long since moved away between the drawing of the swordÂ and the swing toward the neck, but I feel forced to ignore the space and emote a response as if it is one action. If you try to take advantage of the present tense lock, people start getting upset.

If he draws the sword and swings it at my neck, but I moved as he was drawing his sword, what is he swinging at? Is he slow?

Of course you could add some description like, he draws his sword fast as a whip and in one motion slashes at my neck. Then there is fluidity.
The way I see this. If your character moves as he drew the sword, would the other character not be tracking movements as well and still be aiming to swing at his neck? So the idea is still the same, the character drew the sword and his aim is to swing at the neck. You see what he's typed, your character moved as he was drawing and now it's his turn to act.

Everyone I have roleplayed with, the tense does not matter as much as the intent is clear. I have had at most two cases where meta'ing or godmoding happened but not in combat player character to player character. We adjust from past to present or vice versa depending on the players we are roleplaying with.

Like I'm saying, Kage, I could feasibly type "i eat gud" and my intention was to say I'd cooked the foie gras to perfection. Â Intention is fine when you're with people you know and you can have long, drawn out OOC discussions to talk about how you handle things (or even if you handle things).

That's just not the case with complete strangers you meet in random RP. Â If Ignacius says something someone else doesn't like, and we come to blows, this is how it works.

The problem with the example you're not reading is the reaction. Â Yes, according to the sentence you're interpreting, Ignacius is still swinging at Ziggy's neck. Â However, Ziggy's neck didn't just move, Ziggy could be moving to cut off Ignacius's arm, and continuing to swing at Ziggy's neck would be stupid.

Yet, according to the sentence, Ignacius only tried to swing at Ziggy's neck; that example leaves no room to not continue doing it. Â That may sound petty to you, someone may say "you know what I meant", but the other person only has to say, "But you didn't write what you mean, then." Â And this is a stranger who, one would think, thinks he has as much right to cut off Ignacius's arm as he does to lose his head. Â In the end, only the wording matters.

I mean, you're perfectly welcome to think of Ziggy what you want for taking the sentence literally as it was written, but truthfully Ziggy has no reason not to and isn't necessarily a bad person for doing so. Â It would be my own fault for writing it so that Ignacius wasn't wary enough to stop swinging at Ziggy's neck when Ziggy's sword came out.

Ignacius · **09-21-2015, 11:01 AM**

(09-21-2015, 10:55 AM)Warren Castille Wrote: Different strokes for different folks, I suppose. Doesn't sound like fun to me.

You survive with the times. Â I've been doing this a long time and in all manner of different settings. Â Tabletop, LARP, forums, IMs, games, I've written well in all of them and had to defend myself from other players in all of them. Â You learn to adapt.

If you're worried about format, it's in your best interest to simply not get into any combat with any stranger no matter what. Â I always thought that limited my character interaction (some of my best friends I met while trying to decapitate them), but I understand the sentiment.

LiadansWhisper · **09-21-2015, 11:03 AM**

(09-21-2015, 10:39 AM)Ignacius Wrote:
(09-21-2015, 10:32 AM)Warren Castille Wrote:
(09-21-2015, 10:29 AM)Ignacius Wrote:
(09-21-2015, 10:21 AM)Warren Castille Wrote: Are you looking at the roleplay as a completed log and story? Or is each post technically it's own mini scene in the scheme of telling a narrative? There's nothing at all wrong with "Ignacius drew his sword and tried to cut off Ziggy's head" because until we see what Ziggy does (until we come back from commercial break, or turn the page, or whatever device of conveying drama you choose to reference) we as readers don't know what's going to happen.

Maybe so, but the problem is that I'm not writing Ziggy's character. Â And Ziggy's player can take my sentence and say, "You're swinging at Ziggy's head, you can't back out now."

And, technically speaking, he'd be absolutely correct. Â I did not say Ignacius would try to swing at Ziggy's head in that example ("would" being a conditional word that assumes his head is readily available for separation) I said he tried to swing at Ziggy's head.

While we might all know what I intended, that hardly would be an issue to the head's owner. Â What's at issue is that Ignacius was locked into an action, despite the reaction.

And in the past, if Ignacius drew his sword and tried to cut off Ziggy's head, in your example, Ziggy has already not had his head cut off. Â Otherwise, that wouldn't make much sense. Â It's essentially the difference between writing a short story by yourself (where action is all predetermined) and RP (which is, technically speaking, happening in the present with conditions abounding).

Of course, with your friends or relatively apologetic and forgiving company, intent is fine. Â Then all this is meaningless, literally everything. Â You could write everything in the future tense with mispelled words and completely not get your point across until you throw in a lot of OOC explanation. Â If people are inclined to just let it all roll, there's nothing to worry about.

Open RP is just not a place where you're going to run into universally agreeable company. Â Ziggy's certainly going to argue with his potential decapitation.

The people you RP with sound like grognard assholes.

I'm sure the former roleplaying userbase of Yahoo IM's roleplaying forums appreciate your generalization based on the manner they mutually and often respectably handled combat with strangers with no dice pools present or mutual backstory.

As a former Yahoo RPer Â (hello Ayenee!), we were assholes .

However, Â I don't remember ever rping in future tense with "woulds." Â And I am an old school rper.

LiadansWhisper · **09-21-2015, 11:04 AM**

(09-21-2015, 10:45 AM)Warren Castille Wrote:
(09-21-2015, 10:39 AM)Ignacius Wrote: I'm sure the former roleplaying userbase of Yahoo IM's roleplaying forums appreciate your generalization based on the manner they mutually and often respectably handled combat with strangers with no dice pools present or mutual backstory.

A happy community of people who agree to exist defined by specific rules can still be assholes. I'm glad it worked out for them.

The drama was incredible and it eventually faded into obscurity as people moved on the better venues.

Warren Castille · **09-21-2015, 11:05 AM**

(09-21-2015, 10:58 AM)Ignacius Wrote: Yet, according to the sentence, Ignacius only tried to swing at Ziggy's neck; that example leaves no room to not continue doing it. Â That may sound petty to you, someone may say "you know what I meant", but the other person only has to say, "But you didn't write what you mean, then." Â And this is a stranger who, one would think, thinks he has as much right to cut off Ignacius's arm as he does to lose his head. Â In the end, only the wording matters.

I mean, you're perfectly welcome to think of Ziggy what you want for taking the sentence literally as it was written, but truthfully Ziggy has no reason not to and isn't necessarily a bad person for doing so. Â It would be my own fault for writing it so that Ignacius wasn't wary enough to stop swinging at Ziggy's neck when Ziggy's sword came out.

Ziggy sounds like a dick. Anyone looking to hamstring you on your choice of tense or phrasing isn't trying to roleplay with you, they're masturbating over their English textbooks. It's poor etiquette to hold a character accountable for a writer's technical abilities.

Ignacius · **09-21-2015, 11:09 AM**

(09-21-2015, 11:03 AM)LiadansWhisper Wrote:
(09-21-2015, 10:39 AM)Ignacius Wrote:
(09-21-2015, 10:32 AM)Warren Castille Wrote:
(09-21-2015, 10:29 AM)Ignacius Wrote:
(09-21-2015, 10:21 AM)Warren Castille Wrote: Are you looking at the roleplay as a completed log and story? Or is each post technically it's own mini scene in the scheme of telling a narrative? There's nothing at all wrong with "Ignacius drew his sword and tried to cut off Ziggy's head" because until we see what Ziggy does (until we come back from commercial break, or turn the page, or whatever device of conveying drama you choose to reference) we as readers don't know what's going to happen.

Maybe so, but the problem is that I'm not writing Ziggy's character. Â And Ziggy's player can take my sentence and say, "You're swinging at Ziggy's head, you can't back out now."

And, technically speaking, he'd be absolutely correct. Â I did not say Ignacius would try to swing at Ziggy's head in that example ("would" being a conditional word that assumes his head is readily available for separation) I said he tried to swing at Ziggy's head.

While we might all know what I intended, that hardly would be an issue to the head's owner. Â What's at issue is that Ignacius was locked into an action, despite the reaction.

And in the past, if Ignacius drew his sword and tried to cut off Ziggy's head, in your example, Ziggy has already not had his head cut off. Â Otherwise, that wouldn't make much sense. Â It's essentially the difference between writing a short story by yourself (where action is all predetermined) and RP (which is, technically speaking, happening in the present with conditions abounding).

Of course, with your friends or relatively apologetic and forgiving company, intent is fine. Â Then all this is meaningless, literally everything. Â You could write everything in the future tense with mispelled words and completely not get your point across until you throw in a lot of OOC explanation. Â If people are inclined to just let it all roll, there's nothing to worry about.

Open RP is just not a place where you're going to run into universally agreeable company. Â Ziggy's certainly going to argue with his potential decapitation.

The people you RP with sound like grognard assholes.

I'm sure the former roleplaying userbase of Yahoo IM's roleplaying forums appreciate your generalization based on the manner they mutually and often respectably handled combat with strangers with no dice pools present or mutual backstory.

As a former Yahoo RPer Â (hello Ayenee!), we were assholes .

However, Â I don't remember ever rping in future tense with "woulds." Â And I am an old school rper.

That's probably why you thought everyone were assholes (Lex Tangent, Red Roman, Donovan Clay, Bruce de Coyne, Alexander Eis, Vic Giovanni, Constance Anavictor, et al). Â If all you were running into in combat was a lot of frustration, but you do things that keep landing you in combat, and you don't know how to write your way through it, you probably didn't know what was going on.

Believe me, you learn early to say what you "would" do rather than what you "are" doing. Â After ignoring the t9ers, I never had a problem with anything else. Â You learn or you don't; it's the same with any medium.

Vyce · **09-21-2015, 11:10 AM**

"Otherwise it turned into a game of well-written twister."

Excuse me while I make this my forum sig.

Ignacius · **09-21-2015, 11:13 AM**

(09-21-2015, 11:05 AM)Warren Castille Wrote:
(09-21-2015, 10:58 AM)Ignacius Wrote: Yet, according to the sentence, Ignacius only tried to swing at Ziggy's neck; that example leaves no room to not continue doing it. Â That may sound petty to you, someone may say "you know what I meant", but the other person only has to say, "But you didn't write what you mean, then." Â And this is a stranger who, one would think, thinks he has as much right to cut off Ignacius's arm as he does to lose his head. Â In the end, only the wording matters.

I mean, you're perfectly welcome to think of Ziggy what you want for taking the sentence literally as it was written, but truthfully Ziggy has no reason not to and isn't necessarily a bad person for doing so. Â It would be my own fault for writing it so that Ignacius wasn't wary enough to stop swinging at Ziggy's neck when Ziggy's sword came out.

Ziggy sounds like a dick. Anyone looking to hamstring you on your choice of tense or phrasing isn't trying to roleplay with you, they're masturbating over their English textbooks. It's poor etiquette to hold a character accountable for a writer's technical abilities.

I mean, I don't know what to tell you. Â Poor me? Â How do you know Ziggy is a dick? Â For all intents and purposes Ignacius started the fight and with a total stranger. Â He's not a dick for defending himself. Â It's not endemic on him to just say, "Oh, you didn't mean what you typed. Â That's okay. Â I'll let you parry, whoever you are, and you can try to kill me on your next action."

It's not about masturbating over grammer, trying to cut someone's head off is functionally different than swinging at someone with the intent to cut there head off if it's available. Â It implies Ignacius wasn't wary of quick reflexes and reactions. Â It's not Ziggy's job to write Ignacius for me.

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The Usage of Future Tense

RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes