Combat RP: How do I git gud?

[Domri Blackblade]

I feel that if both parties can agree to just let it be chosen by /random, it can be arranged as such.

 

Say Chubby McFats goes against say... Th'Nakluk the God Slayer. Chubby would indisputably get his ass torn into a singularity through common sense. But if you really wanna have some fun with it (which I stress you consult your partner for a mutual agreement), let Chubby have a slim chance at it. Which I kinda wish there were number modifiers to allow a handicap. But you gotta work with what you got. 

 

And to be more clear I mean fundamentals more as a "let's all have fun here" quality assurance. I think my choice of words were kinda shitty. I do that a lot. My bad.

 

If people want to leave it 100% up to chance, that's their prerogative. I still see it as a crutch (not in a bad way).

 

You lose the need for modifiers when you are actively roleplaying them out in a fight where both parties sort of understand body anatomy, handicaps, and the like. Everyone has a chance in fights, skill levels aside.

 

My second sensei was around 5th dan? He should know how to block his face? One of my students, 2nd kyu brown belt, fakes him out and nails him in the eye with a very well placed side kick. Even though there are different levels of skill, doesn't mean lower tier has to lose. Things don't have to be predetermined to lose rolls, but that's just me and my experiences.

 

Rolls for me take away the fun, personally. But then again, I don't RP characters who are meant to be gods of combat just so the duels can be fun. I actually avoid them with random people because I find my head spins when it's left up to rolls and things that shouldn't be possible are happening in emotes.

[ChewableMorphine]

wewlad

 

If people want to leave it 100% up to chance, that's their prerogative. I still see it as a crutch (not in a bad way).

 

You lose the need for modifiers when you are actively roleplaying them out in a fight where both parties sort of understand body anatomy, handicaps, and the like. Everyone has a chance in fights, skill levels aside.

 

My second sensei was around 5th dan? He should know how to block his face? One of my students, 2nd kyu brown belt, fakes him out and nails him in the eye with a very well placed side kick. Even though there are different levels of skill, doesn't mean lower tier has to lose. Things don't have to be predetermined to lose rolls, but that's just me and my experiences.

 

Rolls for me take away the fun, personally. But then again, I don't RP characters who are meant to be gods of combat just so the duels can be fun. I actually avoid them with random people because I find my head spins when it's left up to rolls and things that shouldn't be possible are happening in emotes.

 

I can totally get with you on that, I like the RNG, you like the probability (correct me if I goofed the word I was thinking of). So really the key to git gud at RP combat is to have fun.

 

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[Val]

I could use some good combat RP. It's been forever since I had a nice, fun fight. I'd be up for it on most of my characters, honestly =) The only one I'd be uncomfortable doing combat on is Melfice.

 

That out of the way, there's a lot of ways you can practice combat RP! My greatest tip is to make sure that you are as clear in your attacks as you can possibly be. If you're a physical fighter, make sure to denote limb position, stance, speed of the attack, proposed strength behind it, angle, etc. For ranged casters, really just try to describe the spell as well as you can, and the same for ranged shooting arrows and the like.

 

One way, when I first started combat RP a long time ago, that we practiced was a minigame sort of thing. One person would post, then the other person would have to try to make a post longer than the previous, and then they'd respond and it had to be longer than that. It went on until the person couldn't best the other in the length of their post. It was meant to help us be more descriptive in our fights, and just all-around fun!

[Edvyn]

the best textfights i've seen/been in have been worked out by rule of "common sense", or targeted towards furthering a story. sometimes even preplanned/choreographed. that being said, not all fights take place in specific events where all participants know/like each other, so for the most part i'm happy to make do with rollfights - even if i think the random element isn't really necessary in a freeform system.

 

 

"surely", i think to myself, "surely these people can solve disputes about their imaginary guys having imaginary punch-ups"

 

but people cant! i used to think this was because most roleplayers were big babies who looked for things to get personally upset about in their pretendy funtimes, and while i pretty much still think that, i've realized - perhaps wrongly - that that's not necessarily the case. we are dealing with the combination of text, imagination and assumption. if people don't know each other and they're pitting their characters against one another, there are all kinds of crazy shit prone to pop into their (the players) heads!

 

if the characters don't get along, this could lead the players to resent one another, a lack of OOC communication/understanding between the two (or more) players turning into bitter and rather pointless resentment. this resentment, then, pressures the players to compete with one another. in combat rp, this can make people do incredibly stupid things that they themselves hate, justifying such things with "well they might do it to me" or "my character is too POWERFUL to be taken down by this dweeb". if they weren't powergamey godmodey fucks before, this desire to beat the other person and their player can easily make them that way, if only temporarily.

 

if they don't resort to powergaming, they may instead find other ways to one-up their opponent, all motivated by some strange idea that this other person behind the screen hates them and is worth hating back. constant smirking, eyerolling, chuckling and other kinds of condescending emotes could be a sign of this, especially if the character doing it isn't/wasn't written to be such an insufferable, smug, anime prick.

 

in summary, RP is all about interpretation and when you've got people interpreting but not communicating - often the case in combat rp - it can get real ugly.

 

rambling about easily-fixed problems aside, here's my own advice on how to structure/write the combat itself:

 

i believe that realism is needed to some degree, especially in fantasy settings. this might seem a bit weird, but let me explain why: if things get too unreasonable, suspension of disbelief is often lost. in some (read: many) cases, interest is lost as well. because fantasy worlds are already a little hard to believe, ignoring things that should be important or things happening in a way that doesn't make logical/physical sense will break immersion. as previously mentioned in this thread, armour should be important/taken into account and dodging certain things (like a fireball in a tight spot) is just silly.

 

to make a fight interesting, i try to incorporate some kind of symbolism/imagery where i can to provide a definite tone to it. the right kind of description can make the same fight/actions range from goofy to emotional to terrifying. know what you want your fight to make people think and feel, and adjust your writing accordingly. it's not at all hard to do - think of it like movie genres or something. you have different kinds of fights. comedy fights, drama fights, horror fights, all with different approaches to what could be the exact same scenario.

 

i typically play magic-users or other kinds of brainiacs, so i rarely come across the problems of "what can pierce this armour?" and "can that weapon REALLY do that?". this allows me to focus instead on the style of my actions over their substance. im a big fan of stylized combat - sin city, kill bill, dark city and the matrix rate among my favourite movies - so i try to make combat rp resemble those kind of artsy, visceral duels. whether i succeed or not is up to debate, but i do try. that being said, spinning and jumping and flailing around (like in the star wars prequels) for the sake of it doesn't constitute artsy or visceral. if you're dressing up your fights, make sure you know why you're doing it and what you want to creatively achieve with the end result.

 

good luck with the fighting thing, you'll figure it all out at some point 8-)