Random Confrontation and You

[K'nahli]

I initially had this written out another way with a hypothetical but I think I'll just come at it straight.

 

How do/would you react to someone who wants to believe that their character is stronger than you/most other people - and your character was heavily testing their patience?

 

 

1) Would you override their belief with anything along the lines of "My character is strong too!" ?

 

3) Would you insist that your character puts up a decent fight regardless, but will still ultimately lose?

 

3) Would you take your lumps and let the experience unfold in your own character's disfavour?

 

4) Other?

 

 

Imagine that the person is OOCly being reasonable and not harbouring any sense of an attitude akin to:

- "I can and will beat up anyone else's character because I can"

 

 

In addition, does anyone have a particularly strong character(s) that normally come out on top but would still happily see them taken by surprise or even beaten unexpectedly by someone of a similar or perhaps even lesser level of skill level/strength?

[Steel Wolf]

EDIT TO REFLECT A REFLECTED SPECIFIED ATTITUDE I'M SORRY I'M TERRIBLE AT LIFE/READING

 

In the situation you've described, I'd at least mention any outliers that perhaps aren't very obvious to someone approaching your character which would turn or at least balance the tide. If the person arrives for a fight with your character, mutual consent could probably be reached if said person was reasonable.

 

As far as Steel is concerned, she almost always gets her ass kicked as I play her like a plain Jane axe wielder, without any extensive aetheric power or anything beyond the benefits of her musculature. With one or two exceptions, she's gotten roflstomp'd in every engagement.

 

Once she becomes a Dark Knight...that might change slightly owing to aetheric power married to her physical power...but we'll see I suppose.

[K'nahli]

And when I say "take the lump", I mean really sarcastically take it. Swoon as dramatically as possible, fall over, then teleport somewhere else right as you blist.

 

Hahahahaha! That was a fun thing to picture.

 

 

Most of my characters I like to consider somewhere above average, though in the case of my miqo'te that extremely restricted to hunting creatures and being in a desert environment. Having said that, I'd be more than happy to lose out to anyone whom was supposedly, significantly stronger.

 

Excluding my Au Ra, I have one character that I consider rather impressive when it comes to his abilities so more often than not I'd reallllly want to see him hold his own at least for a while, but I wouldn't entirely rule out the possibility of him getting completely beat... so I stuck with just the one answer.

[SessionZero]

If I'm going to be fighting with someone who I am not familiar with on an OOC level, I insist on using rolls to determine the outcome. If the other person cannot agree to such, I do not engage them IC. I either find a way to avoid the confrontation, or I just excuse myself abruptly from the RP.

[Aaron]

When Aaron is confronted, 9/10 he doesn't even fight the person. He'll just say he's not interested and walk away. 

 

Then again, for SOME reason most people that want to fight Aaron are Roegadyn or Buff ass Highlander.

 

So as you can see, he wants to avoid any injury. 

 

However should he fight, he never finishes the fight. He'll get a blow in that'll probably bleed a lot, then he'll just leave the fight. 

 

Hes one of those he'll injure you bad as a warning but if you keep pressing the fight he'll eventually just satisfy with what injury he gave you and willingly quit.

[Nero]

Assuming that I know that the person is reasonable OOCly then losing or being wounded is perfectly valid, although of course this depends on context. If the other player's character is, for example, a well-known and successful street brawler, my character wouldn't begin antagonizing him without an established upper hand to start with. 

 

That being said, in Nero's case specifically, I have him written to be combat-able enough to win in fights against NPCs, but not trained or experienced enough to win against battle tested player characters. Part of this is because combat RP is an extremely slippery slope, especially with someone you don't know, and bruising somebody's ego because they feel that their character should easily win is a pain that I'm not very inclined to deal with, so I try to avoid combat RP whenever possible because I find it to be horrendously self-indulgent at its worst.

[Flashhelix]

I've yet to find anyone that OOCly refused to do rolls, and if somebody's that dead-set on NO HOW WOULD MY CHARACTER NOT BEAT YOURS then I'm not terribly eager to do any RP with them. Oskwell's a hard character to provoke into a fight to begin with.

[Darien Cadell]

I'm generally happy to have my character lose to stroke someone else's ego. It doesn't cost me anything and makes them happy? It's not like I'm going to kill and delete my character. But an abrupt and random confrontation with the presumption of outcome probably isn't something I'd pursue further.

[Knight Kat]

To me, it's all about -respecting- my character's concept because that is what I do for others. If someone wants to compare their character's capabilities and power to my character, I'm willing if it's an actual discussion, and not just a game of "no, mine is better than yours!".

 

In other words, if I were to free-form combat against any player-character, I would want them to know about and accept what my character can do, but also learn about what their character can do. This usually requires having spent time RPing with this other player-character though.

 

In the scenario you present, most of the time I would call for rolling if they wanted to fight. If they don't want to roll because they believe that, no matter what, their character is stronger? I do not see that as reasonable, and would just end the scene.

 

Some of the best bad-ass characters are those that can portray their character as a bad-ass without needing to disregard the power of others. People should put their characters on whatever pedestal they want as long as they don't try to kick the pedestals out from under other characters.

 

Then again, I've heard the story of a chef with a skillet who beat a Lancer due to rolling. That sounded more like a comedy routine than a duel. Even choosing to roll can be unfair, so the trick is to -always- respect the concept behind peoples' characters.

 

Sorry if that didn't directly answer the question, but I see too many variables even in such a specific scenario.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

Ultimately, it comes down to the other person.

 

Do I trust them?

Do they trust me?

Did we agree to some outcome beforehand?

Are they willing to get hit hard back?

Are we somewhere public where I have to deal with other people watching?

 

While I don't play out Franz as acting like he's exceptionally strong, I do have everything set up for him to be. What I mean is that his is an overpowered (and lore-bent) character, but as a character, he doesn't go flaunting that around. In fact, it's more of an issue to him than if he would sustain injuries. It causes internal conflict.

 

But sure, no crowds and the other person knows what to expect? I hope they like one -really- pissed of Garlelan experiment who's going to pull out all the stops. They better be prepared that their character could have a few bones broken, get a severe amount of aether drained, or perhaps just get exhausted from hitting a guy who won't go down easily.

 

Will they 'win'? Yeah, sure. Depends on the rules. Franz doesn't have an amazing offense. What he does have is fairly good defense and survivability. A broken hand won't keep him from using it. A couple broken ribs are manageable. Break his leg and his shift more of his weight to the other in a last-ditch attempt. Or maybe he'll pull out his arcanists' tome and fight with that.

 

But to answer the situation of "some random person I don't know who stated they're OOCly super strong and amazing wants to fight you", I'm gonna likely pass. Or I'm going to demand rolls. Freeform just needs too much coordination for me to want to handle it in public with random people. In my opinion, freeform combat needs a winner decided before it begins, else people will just keep trying to one up each other and the attacks will get bigger without anything of value really happening.

[K'nahli]

It's definitely not a question you can give a one-fits-all answer to be sure. There are honestly, far too many things that require considering *nods*

[DoomsdayClock]

It is a tricky situation...

I'd echo the use of rolls for most random encounter fighters that can spring up, just because it takes the power and decision out of both of our hands and we can run with whatever the outcome might be..

Though I've had instances were suddenly the other player is rolling twice, for two weapons and lumping me up pretty fiercely too.

In the end it comes down to how much further I plan to engage with the other person post that situation. If it's just preposterous and I can see it becoming a thing, then I'd probably steer clear of fighting anymore after taking whatever beating I probably have to. As someone who has played just about every race and character type, I can say that when you play the most giant Roegadyn's, most Miqo snark off intimidation and act like they could destroy me, lol. You just run with things I guess, and let the more ridiculous go, because it's not worth the effort.

Other than that, the Grindstone is a prime learning spot for how to get beat up by people your character concept should be able to crush! A lot of what I do is fumble and fail as I get rekt. I've been playing a Roe there for weeks now, and despite his concept being this gladiator with a history, I've been beaten in the face with a stone carrot by a lalafel, and last night utterly destroyed by a Miqo who finished me with a low blow. In those cases, I just credit my loss to being overconfident or caught completely off guard.

You can't win all the time. The better goal should be to make both players look good, even in defeat.

[Sounsyy]

Fortunately, the Grindstone has provided Sounsyy with an IC testament to her combat prowess in front of several large audiences. So I'm spared testifying OOCly that my character is a pretty seasoned fighter. That said, Sounsyy loses, she's really written to lose a lot even if she doesn't always, so I don't mind taking a loss if someone is legitimately stronger than my character or it makes sense with the scene/story for her to lose. It doesn't always make sense for a character to win.

 

But if the person wanting to fight is being reasonable about free-form combat RP, I think it's fair that both players share what makes their character formidable and then decide from there who should win - that is, if you want a predetermined outcome at all. Otherwise, I just /random. It's the easiest way for two strangers to have a fight without it hurting anyone's ego. Sometimes you're lucky, sometimes you're not.

[DoomsdayClock]

Fortunately, the Grindstone has provided Sounsyy with an IC testament to her combat prowess in front of several large audiences. So I'm spared testifying OOCly that my character is a pretty seasoned fighter. That said, Sounsyy loses, she's really written to lose a lot even if she doesn't always, so I don't mind taking a loss if someone is legitimately stronger than my character or it makes sense with the scene/story for her to lose. It doesn't always make sense for a character to win.

 

But if the person wanting to fight is being reasonable about free-form combat RP, I think it's fair that both players share what makes their character formidable and then decide from there who should win - that is, if you want a predetermined outcome at all. Otherwise, I just /random. It's the easiest way for two strangers to have a fight without it hurting anyone's ego. Sometimes you're lucky, sometimes you're not.

 

We should fight more. I haven't had my brains scrambled by a shield in awhile.

[Chris Ganale]

Having spent the first ten or so years of my RP career around exactly those kind of people, my automatic response is to throw the heavy end of the hammer and every single trick I know of at them.

 

That said, if I can give a glance to a character bio or have a reasonable suspicion that I can't actually legitimately beat their character, well, as they say, discretion is the better part of valor.

[ArmachiA]

I think the only thing that really bugs me is the assumed "My character will be better than yours." How exactly do you know that? Do you know if/when my character has been training? Do you know her complete background to make that judgement call? There is no possible way for a another character who doesn't know mine to know how strong she is or isn't. Anyone who walks into a fight oocly (ICly cockiness is a thing) with the attitude that their character is stronger than anyone's is being highly HIGHLY presumptuous.

 

Now, Armi would probably lose, true, but I know plenty of RP characters who are completely combat capable and to assume they wouldn't give your character a challenge is amazingly naive.

[Maril]

I've always worked from the belief that the person that knows the most about a character is the player who plays it, and that you should never ever ever assume anything about anyone elses character. This includes thinking your character is stronger than anyone elses, actually I'd say that it's more "healthy" to assume the opposite because it gears you up mentally for having to look at more opportunities in fights and think outside of the box. Even the strongest of characters can be beaten with simple tricks, especially because they tend to be oh so strong and mighty that they forget the basics. 

But by this logic as well, I never straight up assume that a character is OP until severely proven otherwise. I've played alongside people that has had really strong characters, but the characters have still been in balance because they have a straight up achillies heel - but something they quite naturally didn't want to reveal what was oocly, because you can bet your butt it'd be a piece of information that would be abused. They faced a lot of "Omg your character is too strong" grief because they didn't want to reveal what the weakness was, people never straight up took their word for it to proceed to try and figure it out icly by applying different strategies. 

 

If someone is straight up playing an OP demigod that can't be beaten, literally never takes any hits and generally speaking is the reason why freeform emotefights have a bad reputation, I'll likely abort the roleplay and pretend it never happened. I don't see much point in trying to rationalize and reason with the player at that point. But again, it needs to be thoroughly proven before I get to that conclusion.

[Branson Thorne]

/em let's out a fierce yell and without a second notice, whips out his sword and slices their head clean off. Slowly uses his shirt to wipe away the blood, giving the lifeless corpse now before him a satisfied smirk, he exits the area

 

And then I let them figure out how to Rp with that. Problem solved.

[Edvyn]

i come across this kind of situation a lot thanks to the kind of character i play - when this happens, the "you are trying my character's patience" and desire to fight tends to also be coupled with the desire to fight outside. they don't want to battle and cause a mess in the middle of the quicksand!

 

so, like any reasonable and mature adult, i say "sure thing, you first". then i leave them outside. then i go back inside, proclaiming i won. 8-)

[Val]

I initially had this written out another way with a hypothetical but I think I'll just come at it straight.

 

How do/would you react to someone who wants to believe that their character is stronger than you/most other people - and your character was heavily testing their patience?

 

 

1) Would you override their belief with anything along the lines of "My character is strong too!" ?

 

3) Would you insist that your character puts up a decent fight regardless, but will still ultimately lose?

 

3) Would you take your lumps and let the experience unfold in your own character's disfavour?

 

4) Other?

 

 

Imagine that the person is OOCly being reasonable and not harbouring any sense of an attitude akin to:

- "I can and will beat up anyone else's character because I can"

 

 

In addition, does anyone have a particularly strong character(s) that normally come out on top but would still happily see them taken by surprise or even beaten unexpectedly by someone of a similar or perhaps even lesser level of skill level/strength?

 

If they can thoroughly justify being stronger than my character without breaking lore, then sure. I don't mind. But as you pointed out at the bottom of your post, strength does not necessarily denote a victory.

 

1.) Nah. My characters are how they are. If someone manages to beat them, they get beaten!

 

2.) I'd say it would depend on the situation and what they're going against. There are times where my characters just get the crap beaten out of them, and there are others where they can put up decent fights.

 

3.) Certainly! I've done it before, too! Someone managed to thoroughly outsmart Val and knocked him out cold--a guy that he considered to be vastly inferior to himself. He learned something that day. It's welcomed character development.

 

Honestly, as long as people are reasonable OOC and willing to discuss things, I'm game with most scenarios. When preparing for IC combat that isn't scripted (which I prefer anyway), I almost always ask the individual (unless it's someone that I know/am comfortable with) to simply let me know if they have any issues or inquiries about my character's attacks. I'm a firm believer that communication can go a long way to prevent arguments and problems and, should they not agree to something a character of mine has done, I will either try to back up why they did it or agree to their point and change it

[Paradox]

Something I inherently noticed is a lot of people immediately don't want to get into any kind of emote fight because they don't know or don't trust the person. In retrospect, how will you get to know or trust someone if you don't give them an honest chance? Admittedly, some will be asinine, but you won't know till you try. In response to those that say 'I'll only do it with rolls', that is indeed your option. However, win or lose, I prefer not to use rolls for most combat, and this is the reason why. Even if your character is seasoned, a roll can basically make you look like an idiot. Your skill, creativity, and representation of your character is immediately boiled down into totally random chance. To me, not only is that an unrealistic interpretation of not only my character's skill, but your character's as well, I find it breaks the immersion and capability of both the writer and the aspect that is presented. I understand a lot of people are afraid of emote/freeform fighting because there are asshats out there. The thing is, not everyone is such an asshat, and displaying cynicism by believing the worst of someone trying to fight you before even giving them a chance kind of tells me the reason why nobody likes to fight in the community that I've seen so far except in announced or pre-sanctioned events like grindstone or existing stories. And in a way this makes me sad.

 

I love fighting. Combat roleplay is one of my favorite types because I'll be blunt: I enjoy conflict. Real conflict. I've never been one for romance drama or any of that, it bores me. No offense to those who enjoy that sort of thing of course. But, then again, I cut my roleplay teeth in a place where no one needed permission to kill or attack you. It was a kill or be killed, real time environment. The HTML-style chat rooms of the early to late 90's and on in to the early 2000's were the place I was. In the vampire clans and similar rooms, everyone was at constant war, and you could expect to be ambushed on the streets of whatever room you were in a lot, especially if you were even halfway good. Characters died a lot if you weren't on top of your game. It wasn't an every day thing, but people took their combat seriously, and in the early days, we had no such dice rollers, so we all had to freeform. Not all of us knew each other, either. Sure, we had godmodders and jackasses, but anyone who wants to not be ostracized plays at least somewhat fair. And I say that's the way to do it. Reputation and the grapevine will weed out the bads. The big problem is, a lot of people's playstyles don't interact well with one another, and therein lies the major problem. In this community from what I've seen, most people go by the 'permission to kill' rules. That being the case, a fight could at best, result in your defeat and humiliation, no death incurred unless you allow it. With this measure of control over character death, I genuinely see no reason not to fight at least some of the time.

 

Now, I get that some of you have your own ways. But it also depends entirely on the approach in question. Ark for example, is an arrogant bastard. And he's quite strong, yes. But he already knows there's always someone bigger. But for him, the thrill of the battle is what's most important; win or lose, he loves to fight. That's not to say he won't use every dirty magical trick or combination in the book to whip that ass, yet at the same time he's not invincible either. S'vanoh on the other hand, is more tricky than powerful, so naturally when faced with overwhelming power, he could also run away. He is a ninja after all. The other thing I've also noticed is that a lot of people don't throw themselves into fighting. Okay, fair enough, it's not exactly everyone's thing. But also, in a world in constant conflict, expect some people to want to start shit IC because some characters are like that. And there are far too many who cop out with 'oh, it's not worth my time' or 'oh, if they don't do it the way I want, then they're obviously godmodders/metagamers/etc'. I find that elitism and dismissal from a lot of people who fancy themselves too good to fight just because they assume someone is going to shrug hits or no-sell their attacks just because they don't want to play the same way they do is as irritating as people who refuse to take their hits in the first place.

 

Equally irritating are players who present their characters as strong, or seasoned, and then when confronted with a potential fight refuse to because they don't RP fight, or have such a strict way to do so, it essentially makes their IC posturing utterly pointless. I think if someone is going to play a character that talks of their combat prowess, they should be willing to back it up. I get everyone has their own realistic or fantasy style view of what a fight should be or shouldn't be. In terms of the poll..mmm..honestly, I'd take the fights as they came. I prefer freeform fights over rolls. Rolls are too random. In a scripted event, I can see where rolls have their point, but as a writer who puts a great deal of effort into his writing, I find having to depend on a random dice roller to represent my character's skills, honed or amateur they may be depending on the character, to be insulting both to my character's effort that's been given and to my own creativity and skill as a writer. I prefer to leave the dice to a game fully dependent on stats like Pathfinder. If this rustles some jimmies, my apologies. I simply suppose that I won't be engaging in combat with those people's characters. I've taken my lumps before and I'd certainly do so now.

 

Till we meet in the field of battle..or not! Game on and have fun.

[ArmachiA]

When there's no GM to make sure both parties aren't "playing fair", coupled with the fact every single MMO roleplayer has been burned by random combat encounters with people who like to God Mod, you can understand why the player would be twitchy about it.

[Dis]

A character wants to fight one of mine?  Cool.  I'm game.  If the play doesn't run the way I want it to (fairly and with lumps taken where appropriate), then I'll be happy to simply avoid conflict with that individual in the future, or play, if I find them to be unwilling to give and take equally (again, where appropriate).  The responses of my characters are a little different, however, but I, as a player, am usually pretty eager to RP fight, as I find repeated slice of life RP to not be my cup of tea.

 

Glioca's a tough individual to beat because she has a lot of magic to draw on, coupled with her very insane physical strength.  She doesn't believe in a lot of technique because her raw power is so high, and she prefers to punch someone into a building/structure/out a door/window/etc to end a fight.  In the case of someone riling her repeatedly, she usually shoots for intimidation first (breaking something not a person), before she resorts to violence actively against someone else.  

 

Aelden is a scrapper and would give it his best shot, but he's good at taking his licks and stores the fight away for a later date, usually to revisit the issue later with a second instance of combat.  And probably again and again, until he eventually beats them.  My Ninja wouldn't care much to get into a fight unless it's something that she's been specifically tasked with doing.  She's a big believer in taking a deep breath, counting, and walking away from impending conflict because it serves no purpose for her.  She will flee if a fight becomes more than she can handle.  

 

Liviana would flail a lot and ask what she did wrong because she didn't /think/ she was doing anything wrong and please don't make the injury too severe because she can't afford a good healer.  She's stubborn, and would keep trying, but would get whupped all over the field.  Dark doesn't like to fight at all, and generally avoids it as much as possible, but if pressed, she can and does know how to defend herself quite well.

 

That said, even Glioca, strong as she is, can and has technically lost fights, though they normally end in a double k.o., as it were, with both opponents knocked flat on their backsides, or unable to continue fighting because they've been too depleted, worn down, etc.  Even my strongest (Glioca) would applaud someone who got one over on her, because she likes to see that ingenuity from others.  She's very arrogant about her own strength, but I recognize that she's got limitations, and so does she, and if people are willing to find those limitations without a large degree of hand-holding, then that makes me happy as a RPer.

  

As far as RPing combat, I'm happy to do so with free-form (with OOC communication if any issue arises), and like A'rk, I really don't like dice rollers.  I've used them in the past, but my issue with dice is that sometimes they favor a weaker combatant more heavily.  Glioca once got almost KO'd by an NPC with almost no combat skill because my dice hated me that day.  And that is honestly ridiculous.  It's more akin to watching an experienced fighter take on a kid flailing their arms at them, and watching the kid win.  There's so minuscule a chance of that, it'd be unrealistic to watch, much less play.

[Paradox]

When there's no GM to make sure both parties aren't "playing fair", coupled with the fact every single MMO roleplayer has been burned by random combat encounters with people who like to God Mod, you can understand why the player would be twitchy about it.

 

I've been burned by many an encounter. However, I don't allow that to force me to assume everyone's going to do that. If it does happen, I blist or ignore them, no harm no foul. Or in some cases, if they're willing to communicate, if they're inexperienced as a roleplayer and just flush with the idea of power, I try to help them refine their style. If they don't act like a jerk, then I've just made a new roleplay partner. Win/win. And all I've lost was a little personal time if they turn out to be a problem. It's not like someone actually kicked my dog. It could just be that I'm not easily frustrated by people's actions because I've seen so many different types, I just prefer to roll with the punches. I understand why some might be twitchy, but at the same time, it's equally ignorant to let one's personal experience at the hand of asshats allow one to assume that everyone will be an asshat and behave as such. I've encountered quite a few dismissive or derisive attitudes at Ark's willingness to fight, just because of such assumptions, without ever giving it a chance.

[Aaron]

To be honest! As an add on to my earlier post.

 

I generally give everyone the benefit of the doubt when it comes to free form random fights! In fact, when Aaron fights someone new he almost always deliberately gives up (not without giving a scar of course) or stalemates, hell rarely ever win a outright fight because honestly, winning is "way too much effort and injury" to him.

 

But, I'd also like to bite off Sounsyys post as well, a lot of people IC know Aaron, though quiet and reserved, is a very capable fighter. Therefore OOC I have no need to play the nu uh Aarons too strong for you! Card lol, because people already know Aaron is someone most would rather not cross blades with. Win or lose.

 

Besides the point,  I generally love a good fight rp and if possible I always try to throw Aaron into one. (Reason being Aaron is subconsciously attracted to fighting as he gets a thrill out of it, but he won't accept it.) But there are many times where Aaron will just not fight to the point of him getting assaulted and not even attempting to defend himself. If that counts as a random fight! Then i I'll go that route with anyone.

 

Now with the real concept of do I trust the person OOC or not? I generally discover how that works in their first few rp posts in the fight. I'll emote something that just for the life of you cannot be dodged. (Ex, Aaron has a blade right by your neck as a product of a grapple and he goes to cut you) and if they dodge it (it probably can be dodged honestly, but that's highly unlikely given how close they'd be) then I'd make Aaron give up. No one rages, the other person gets their IC ego boost, and Aaron doesn't suffer a godmode beat down loss.

 

But tbh I doubt there's more godmoders than real rpers. Fights are about the story, not the power.