PVP styles

[Prreta]

Forgive me if this topic has already been massively overworked; I'm relatively new to PS and its style of RP and may have not seen prior discussions. If that's the case, mark this thread as 'read' and move on.

This may seem obvious to you. if so, mark this thred as 'read' and move on.

I've come to believe there are three very distinct levels of PVP play :
- Detailed : describe exact placement of body parts, angles of joints and orientation of extremities.
     - RL knowledge of fighting is critical.
     - Very good English skills are critical.
     - Can take a lot of time and good visualization.

- Light : generalized 'Comic book' styled fighting
     - Requires no RL knowledge of fighting.
     - Moderate English skills are quite sufficient.
     - Faster paced.

- Avoidant : dislike or completely unwilling to engage in physical conflict RP.

I am PVP-Light.
I would assert that by definition 'Role Play' allows us to be good (or bad) at something that in RL we are not. From this point of view Detailed-PVP is more like a text-based fight club than Role Play in that it would be almost impossible for a player with no fighting knowledge and a super-skilled character to defeat a player with knowledge but a low skill character. It is also a lot of work, that I simply don't enjoy. When my 'Light' descriptions do not seem to be as effective as a detailed description of the same move would be, I feel that the encounter is --let's call it frustrating. Furthermore I have no interest in spending my limited free time learning the details of something I don't really care about when I could be having fun in PS.

I *imagine* that from the PVP-Detailed point of view the player with RL knowledge would probably gag at having to swallow some of the cartoonish moves pulled by the PVP-Light player who has no RL knowledge. They would simply find it egregious.

Who's right?
PlaneShift seems to intend to support a wide range of styles, for example it accomodates FPS gamers, Levelers, Questers and pure RPers. From that perspective -although it sounds like a cop-out-  no one is right...or wrong.

What do I propose?
It's no sceret that there is a HUGE amount of friction between the three styles with 'god-modding' and 'hand-waving' being common (printable) terms brandished at each other. As a comunity we can do better. By having a simple level-setting OOC at the beginning of any conflict, and I do mean simple, we can provide more enjoyable RP for everyone :

player a : "I'm PVP-Light, you?"
player b : "PVP-Detailed"
player a : "Do you want to do Light, or avoid the conflict?"

Perhaps the avoidance approach is a little OOC but it's almost certain to be more enjoyable for both parties than a mismatched PVP.

I would assert one more thing : more enjoyable RP for everyone means that more people will hang around, so we'll ALL have more opportunities for RP. It's self supporting.

OK, I'm done. Let the inevitable flamage begin....

-P

[Rigwyn]

First one to flame!



Seriously though, you are absolutely right when it comes to identifying different playing styles whether this applies to mechanics-pvp, rp-pvp, rp, non-confrontational rp, story based rp, quest-ilke rp or whatever. It's kind of hard sometimes to mesh up with people who have very different ideas about what is enjoyable and what is not.

What to do about it?

Well, with such a small community, flexibility and adaptability do help, but the game experience needs to be fun otherwise all the bending and leaping through hoops is for nothing. Using the ooc tab to indicate your preferences might be one way to go... ?

[Aramara Meibi]

no matter your preferred level of detail, the key to successfully rping a fight is to keep in mind that you can only dictate your characters actions, and not the result of those actions. a method of determining those results should be agreed upon by all parties involved.

[Kaerli_Stronwylle]

My apologies for the mild necro here; I was going to post earlier, but the forums ate my post...so here's a few tips I have if you ever get puzzled by PvP-Detailed RP:

1) An old tip that Farren passed on to me when I was first learning RPed combat was to pantomime /act moves out if you are not sure how to visualize them.  Even sitting there and running through the arm/hand motions of an attack can help keep you from being tied in knots!
2) Another good rule (I came up with this one to make sure that I can come up with a sensible response to moves other folks write) is the STA rule: every attack attempt must provide a Side (left vs right, this avoids mirror image issues), the Type of attack (slash, punch, kick, thrust, stab, knee, elbow, headbutt, pommel strike, et cetera), and the Aimpoint the attack is intended to strike (say a stab at a kidney, or a punch at someone's head), as these are the minimum pieces needed to keep a PvP-Detailed RPer such as me from getting tangled into the veritable Twister game that some RP duels turn into.  Of course, you can always add more detail atop these basic facts!
3) Most PvP-Detailed RPers I've run into are more than happy to clarify a move, or to accept clarification if such a thing is needed, so don't be afraid to speak up if you are PvP-Light and need a bit of extra guidance on the details.

[Prreta]

Good tips. I wonder if 'Side' could be generalized to 'Stance'...and applied to grappling, which is perhaps the most confusing possible pvp-detailed action ?

[Caraick]

My turn to flame!



My two cents? 95% of all successful RP fights are done using your RP "Light" style, Prreta.  The other 5% is done between two people who might really enjoy actually getting into the details of a fight, which makes for a fun scene if that's your thing, but it's not always practical.  That being said, Rigywn's point on flexibility is a good one. Especially with such a small community, where most folk know each other, or know 'of' each other.

But, really, it's all summed up right here:

no matter your preferred level of detail, the key to successfully rping a fight is to keep in mind that you can only dictate your characters actions, and not the result of those actions. a method of determining those results should be agreed upon by all parties involved.

You the man, Aramara.

[Volki]

"Light" fights make me want to puke. If you aren't going to consider learning about something in order to roleplay it, just don't do it at all...

Caraick, what do you consider a successful fight? And where did you find those statistics?

[Caraick]

"Light" fights make me want to puke.

Perhaps I'm not clarifying my interpretation of the "Light" style.  What I mean by that is a writer's level of understanding about medieval/magic fighting.  And since none of us were wizards at one point, and most of us don't have experience in medieval combat, I tend to assume that's the majority of PS's playerbase's starting point.  What we have is a working knowledge of how to use the weaponry and magic in-game, and that's what we're going off of.

That doesn't mean we're giving a pose like "Leeroy hits Jane with an axe, aiming for her head."  That's unspecific, and is a very weak way of expressing what could be written much more detailed, even without having been an axe fighter yourself, IRL. 


But this:

If you aren't going to consider learning about something in order to roleplay it, just don't do it at all...

Is just ignorant. That's like saying I need to have an M.D. to play my healer, or an M.S. in Chemistry to play an alchemist.  Yes, I'm going to know the general idea of what a doctor does, and yes, I'm going to know the sort of techniques that they have in the PS setting, but that doesn't mean I'm going to be a medical dictionary. 

As to this:
 

Caraick, what do you consider a successful fight?

I'll just use Aramara's answer, since it hits it so well:

no matter your preferred level of detail, the key to successfully rping a fight is to keep in mind that you can only dictate your characters actions, and not the result of those actions.

Bottom line? Both people leave the scene having enjoyed themselves, whether it's a win or a loss.  This is a game. You're supposed to have fun.

[Volki]

Aramara's answer is irrelevant. It's a rule. Everyone follows it.

If you aren't going to consider learning about something in order to roleplay it, just don't do it at all...

Is just ignorant. That's like saying I need to have an M.D. to play my healer, or an M.S. in Chemistry to play an alchemist.  Yes, I'm going to know the general idea of what a doctor does, and yes, I'm going to know the sort of techniques that they have in the PS setting, but that doesn't mean I'm going to be a medical dictionary. 

It's not at all like saying any of those things. Writers do not write about things they know nothing about. They must research what they write or the reader won't enjoy it. Same goes for roleplaying. In all my time roleplaying, I have tried to study or at least use common sense so that I can fully or at least partially understand what my characters do.

If you're going to interact with other players you must be able to understand each other. That only works if you and other players have a similar understanding of how everything works. When you are not willing to learn a bit about real combat but get your character into fights, you are ruining the experience of other players who can see through your mistakes.

Say that I have another character pinned to the ground in a stable hold. I know there are only a few ways to escape the hold in reality. Consider that my character is meant to be an experienced fighter, and this other character has just begun training. The pinned character does something ridiculous like twirling his legs around and trying to kick my character off, like something out of a really bad ninja movie. In my head, I'm seeing someone on the floor flailing his feet around. My character doesn't budge because I assume that the pinned character doesn't know a thing about ground fighting. The pinned character's player then tells me to let his character go.

Why should I? If the other player initiated the combat, am I really obligated to just let his player go after he allowed me to pin his character? Why would he waste my time? Why would he throw himself into something like this and think he could simply opt out later on without repercussion?

Those are the thoughts I have when I encounter players who don't bother to learn a little about combat before starting a fight. In other communities, people avoid these types of players. A few years ago, I remember many players like these being ignored in this game. Somehow the view has shifted, to where ignorance is accepted and knowledge is deemed "not fun".

The reason we learn what we wish to roleplay is to avoid conflict. I've never seen two players who each understand combat enter an argument, but I have seen many, many light-style fighters enter into many arguments. It is very clear to me why this is, but it seems others have forgotten.

[MishkaL1138]

* MishkaL1138 puts on her special typing gloves and wiggles her fingers

My turn!

I have roleplayed many, many fights. Surely, the first ones were dumb and I tried to wiggle my way out of it. But the latest ones were real fun, lemme tell ya. I don't think there's a "Light" or "Detailed" way to roleplay a fight, you just go in there, and play. I think classifying stuff into categories is silly (with due respect), and it all depends on the overall RP capacity of the players, and their mood.

I honestly think it's just a "hey you got the skills to PVP? / Nah but we can RP / Oh okay care to tell me more?" and then discuss advantages of both players.

Or maybe this was just an excuse to show my mad Photoshop skills.

[Prreta]

On the topic of PvP style :

I find that my own suggestion of an OOC level-set works, but leaves me feeling unsatisfied from an IC perspective as it feels like it breaks the flow.

The two extremes would be to simply allow yourself to be run over, or to become untouchable. While this second meets the minimum rule of determining the effects of a proposed action on your character, I don't expect it's what Aramara had in mind. Neither of these incorporates the flexibility Rigwyn mentions nor seems likely to result in a satisfying encounter for either party.

What IC mechanisms have you all used to graciously recognize the other player's desire to enter an RP while avoiding a mismatched PvP which may seem to be called for in the situation? And if an encounter cannot graciously be turned to a non-PvP, then what approaches have you used to graciously avoid the encounter?



On the topic of RLvRP knowledge :

As Caraick hinted, if RL knowledge is required then none of us should play magic, since there is no such thing in RL. No magic = no fantasy setting.

Furthermore I doubt newbies to RP such as myself arrive with a full set of knowledge about any relevant skills, so that suggestion would prevent the community from ever growing. I mean seriously, who wants to play a nobody for the years that it would take to gain such knowledge in RL? No newbies = stagnation and eventual extinction.



On PvP methods :

Kaerli, the more I think about your STA rule the moe sense it makes - even for purely pvp-light settings. Thanks for that.

[Lumi]

Oh that's an hard topic ! 

I don't RP-pvp since a very long time but actually, from my little experience i tend to agree 100% with Mishka.

1 - I am a current PS player, i know the races and their flaws/bonuses, the habits of the community. Therefor i have a character that fit in the lore (or tries to).
In that case i  just put my char in any situation and RP him/her accordingly to the way he behave, make it a casual talk in a smith area or a fight. A small chat with the opponent in the beginning, giving some info eventually ("OK no magic", "no armor". and so on).

2 - I am a complet new comer and then i don't know anything about PS, the community habits and even maybe nothing about how to RP. In that case i just ask around because i am clueless anyways.

In my opinion, it all depend of the personn you will RP with and that concern all type of RP.
Relying on REAL is not useless because YES in real if someone stab me i will suffer and try to slap his face! If i actually throw flying rock at you, you can IMAGINE what that could give (toward your char way to be ofc ! )
I don't think the point is there. Making RULES could work if they are very basical else it will be a mess to make everyone agree upon them.

I just think we shouldn't be so ""seriously detailed"" about the mechanism behind an RP... and just start it.
You arrive in a situation where you might come up to a good RP-pvp with someone ? Well just go for it and act like your char WOULD and that's about it ?
If someone godmodd you then just /tell and here we come maybe.

[bilbous]

Role playing anything that has been implemented in the game mechanics is an insult to the developers who bestowed them to the community


Just kidding, sorta, kinda, not really, but nobody said you had to listen to me.
 

[cdmoreland]

Role playing anything that has been implemented in the game mechanics is an insult to the developers who bestowed them to the community


Just kidding, sorta, kinda, not really, but nobody said you had to listen to me.

I love the mechanics of the game and have only rp'ed a fight a couple of times and that was against an opponent I knew well, so he kicked my butt. I'm a dwarf that is as strong as the strongest Ynnwn in half the package and hunt maulbers and Lavvar for the fun of it. If you want to rp a fight with me, fight an Onyx Dagger and know that I will kill you 4 times faster than he kills you. But I hunt animals and not people.

[Timil Deeps]

Hmm, come to think of it, my chars haven't done a LOT of PVP combat compared to some player chars I know, but what PVP I have done has been almost entirely RP. I think my style varies between detailed and lite, depending on who I'm playing with, and how it best enhances the narrative of the RP story (realizing, of course, that my concept of 'best' is entirely subjective).

I agree with Caraick and Aramara and Rigwyn's posts above. I also agree with Volki inasmuch to say that it's good to gain more knowledge and bring it into RP when possible, because RL knowledge is useful to enhance RP, but *not* that it is a requirement.

In any case, I think Prreta made the strongest point by highlighting the word GRACE.

Whatever style or method of PVP is to be used, the participants ought to be graceful toward each other OOCly.

If someone godmods, then why not graciously and gently either (ooc) whisper to them, so that the action can be retconned or otherwise agreeably addressed, or just let the matter go and see where the RP goes from there?

Or if someone happens to be a newbie at descriptions, and doesn't RP much detail, why not graciously look on it as a teaching/learning opportunity? OR (for just this once) try graciously humoring them and then have an OOC discussion about it afterwords?

Anyhoo, I realize this is somewhat idealized, but I hope it is taken in the spirit which it was meant.

~Timil~