Section 1, Logic Behind RP Fighting, and Thinking Out Your Actions
So, are you bored of how things are going lately? Do you just not feel that role-playing is that entertaining? Do you say “meh†when people ask you to RP?
Same here. But most of the time, that's due to a wide-spread factor. And that's lack of entertainment. Now you may be wondering why I take the time to actually write things out when RP fighting, since the norm seems to be to roll the dice and just go with it, no matter what happens.
Well, here's my reasoning. What sort of fun is just rolling dice constantly? It's not Yhatzee. If I wanted to roll dice, I'd play Yhatzee. And I hate Yhatzee. So when it comes to role-play, and dice rolls, I take the time to actually type things out for not only my own entertainment, but for those around me who may be watching the fight.
If you find yourself in a roll fight, you may wish to adopt some of the methods I'm going to share with you, as it not only increases your own enjoyment, and character development, but fosters a creative and nurturing habitat for your fellow role-players.
Now, to the meat of this post. Thinking out your actions is absolutely –pivotal- to a RP fight. Rather than just typing a bunch of bullshit and crossing your fingers hoping it sounds good, there isn't anything wrong with taking some time to think how this is going to pan out.
Normally in a fight, you start out emoting your defense against a person's last attack, and then elaborate with your own attack. It could pan out something like this.
“Tony rushes to the side, the sword swiping barely past his head. He takes the time to draw his own daggers, and grits his teeth as he spins them in the palm of his hand. With one deft thrust, he slams the right hand dagger into the man's gut, with the intention of spilling his bowels.â€Â
Now, let's dissect this emote. In the first part, you have a logical dodge, without ever even using the darn word “dodgeâ€Â. Too often, you see someone say “I dodge the swordâ€Â. That's fine and all, but –how-? The point of an emote is to describe how you do something, the fact that you rolled a hundred to the guy's two already dictates you dodge or aren't attacked.
Next, you have the attack. I'm a firm believer of the two/three second rule, which states that most actions should take a little around that time to be completed in a fight. If you have the time to have a conversation with the person (Something even I do yes), while over-prettying up your attack, then you –should- be open for the person to probably do three attacks on you while you're bullshitting. That's only logical, right? The second part about attacks, and this is hashed over on CoTH multiple times, is that I don't assume that it's going to hit. But, I also state my intentions behind the blow, to make my action pretty darn clear.
The last part is pretty simple. I pretty it up by using grammar, and a wide variety of words. I honestly hate it when I accidently use the same word over and over again in an emote, and I sometimes don't notice when I do, but I try my hardest to avoid doing this.
Alright. Now for a bad example.
“Curly goes to the side, and throws a fireball.â€Â
Okay. I've seen this a lot around here. Let's start with what I'm assuming is the dodge. Which side does Curly go to? What exactly is he avoiding? Is the weapon/magic/farm animal close, or did he dodge it pretty swiftly? This sort of thing leaves the person you're fighting on a cliffhanger, and they have to fill in your blanks in order to make sense of it. I hate that, because it makes it appear that the other emoter is dominating the fight, when they very well could be losing.
The second half, “and throws a fireballâ€Â. Again, where is this action aimed at, and how was the fireball produced? You're giving the other person creative dominance over your emote, and they could very well be as cynical as I am, and respond with “The fireball Curly launched flies behind them, as Brutus laughs lightly, quickly saying ‘You need to practice your aim'.â€Â
It's best practice to elaborate folks, otherwise you're opening yourself to something that may really piss you off. Now let's fix that emote, shall we?
“Curley runs to the right, dodging Brutus' large sword, watching it slam into the ground. Curley raises his hand, chanting lightly as a single flame flickers, and grows in his palm. He lets out a growl as he tosses the ball of molten fire to the warrior's face.â€Â
Now that we've seen what happens when people aren't hit, let's take a look at something for when someone is hit. I'll give the bad example first, like last time.
“Albert is hit, and starts to bleed.â€Â
Hit where? In the ass? Is his ass bleeding? I don't think I need to elaborate much on this, seeing as how it's like the past examples. But you can see where I'm going.
“Albert is struck across his chest, a large and deep gash starts to flow with his crimson blood from beneath his now torn shirt. He howls in pain as soon as the weapon penetrates his flesh.â€Â
Anski Wrote:The way I remember it is to think about your body. Not just your head, hands, soft parts. Think of your anatomy as a whole. Each part has to be moved and put into thought if you're fighting. Saying 'Durr I punch you in face' when you're five feet from each other isn't fun to watch nor to fight against. To really put that last bit of shazaam into your emotes, try to remember to type out what the rest of your body is doing, such as fists up, legs pushing against the ground to vault forward the elbow cocks back and flies right to Rofupi to knock him out of his armor and out of the arena, landing in a rooftop in Ratchet down below.
This wonderful quote from Anski describes something that I think is a -must- when RPing a more physical fight, and can help with the detail involved to make something sound better. In real life combat, especially something like Judo, you need to know what to have each single muscle do in order to achieve the results you are looking for. Sometimes, one mistake could lead to... injury. I'll give you and example of a good fighting emote that'd utilize this. I think this is fitting for one of my actual characters, too.
"Rensin, beaten and bloody, faces his oponent with his fists up, and his feet bouncing from side to side. He rushes foward, breathing heavy as he comes around the back of his openent, wrapping his right arm around their respective shoulder, and his left arm around their neck. His forearm tenses around their throat, and his back muscles tense as he attempts to pull the man off his feet by his neck."
Disecting this, I briefly go over my characters current condition, and then I go into great detail about a pretty simple attack, and all I had to do was cite my character's arm placements, and what muscles were working were. Could I have added in other things? Certainly, in this sort of move you have your legs carrying the weight, and his abs doing most of the lifting, but I felt it only needed to state the more visable areas for people to "see".
Now that I think I've covered most of that, let's go further into the guide.