RP Combat: A How-To Guide

[Malles]

Due to a disagreement I had on Tattooine this morning, I thought I would go over some simple methods for staging an in-character roleplaying fight. I have found that this can apply to choreographed or spontaneous fights, be they turn-based or made by utilizing the /roll command.

 

Please understand that this is by no means a "DO AS I DO OR SUCK IT" thread. This is more advising than any attempt at regulating, to help quell any future issues.

 

Also, do your best to ignore any typos. It's late, I'm tired, and I don't proofread very well.

 

First, some background.

 

Malles in my main character, a Lvl 50 Advanced Prototype Powertech. In character, Jem'alle'saiya is a former Csilla citizen who was born into an upper-class family and groomed into the family's main enforcer, serving as their head of security until he was exiled for assassinating the matriarch and all the sons of one of the Ruling Families. After his exile he took up bounty hunting and was eventually accepted into the Mandalorians, though he has yet to align himself with any of the clans.

 

From this description, I establish that my character is a trained and experienced combatant, without going into what i call uber-speak. Which is, telling of dreamed-up exploits and generally trying to make him sound as awesome as he can be. Something I have noticed is predominate among Force users, troopers, and bounty hunters. In most circles, that's considered a rookie mistake, if not god-modding. Speaking as a professional soldier, you should always operate under the assumption that someone somewhere is better than you are at everything you do. In roleplay, it's simple bowing to more experience players. In character, you can consider it a "stay alert, stay alive" mentality.

 

More background. We got over Malles' abilities and methods.

 

Malles maintains a complete suit of armor, made of a custom blend of cortosis and durasteel. Though heavy, Malles keeps his body in peak condition, making it easier for himself to maneuver in his armor. On his back is a jet pack and two small fuel tanks; one provides power for the jet pack, the other for the flame thrower on his left wrist. On his right wrist, his firing arm, there is a set of wrist bayonets, made from the same materials as his armor and houses in self-sharpening sheathes. Holstered on the same side is a custom-built blaster pistol that can be set between single-round semi-auto fire or to slower, three-round bursts of energy. In his helmet is a state-of-the art UI that provides him with status checks of his suit and jet pack, a heads-up display of everything within a 30-meter radius of the antennae located in his helmet, and a visor that can swap to thermal imaging if need be. The control system for the flame thrower and jet pack is set to a control system built into his left gauntlet. But above all, Malles believes a sound mind is superior to a sound body, and relys more on his ability to think on his feet than any piece of equipment he has.

 

This just goes over what Malles can do.and how he fights. Long story short: he has toys and knows how and when to use them. Notice I did not list any weaknesses. This is not because he has none, it is because I believe any who wish to start a fight with him should figure them out for themselves, as I would do with any character I decide to pit Malles against. Moving on.

 

As for an actual fight, this is an example of how I would roleplay an attack. What I and others I have met believe is the proper way to do so:

 

"Malles engages his jetpack and propels himself at you, directing an armor knee at your gut as his wrist blades draw back to strike at your face."

 

From this, we can determine several things. Malles is moving into melee range with you, at a high speed thanks to the jet pack. The distance he starts from depends on your reaction time. We'll say he stared from 25-meters away, which is about the distance the average person can throw a baseball. Which means his knee is coming for your stomach at an easy 55 mph, followed up by a wickedly sharp set of blades. If either of those make contact, you'll feel it.

 

At first glance, this can be intimidating. However, there was ways to counter this.

 

"Bakk reacts quickly and sends a Force Push directly at Malles."

 

Notice that during Malles' attack, I never stated any of those blows landed. I merely said they were coming, and gave my opponent a chance to decide if they hit or not. Bakk, in this case, is a Sith Warrior, which thanks to his Force sensitivity and Sith training enables him to efficiently counter this attack. In this case, a way Malles the simple bounty hunter cannot counter.

 

"Malles flies right into the Force Push and is diverted off course, flying directly past Bakk to his left and futiley swiping at Bakk's head. He adjusts his flight path and attempts to swing around back towards Bakk."

 

Since Bakk initated an attack I cannot counter, it can be considered god-modding. But it should not be. Bakk saw what he though was a way to thwart the attack and it just happened be the one Malles had no defense against. If Bakk had, said, chosen this route:

 

"Bakk levels his lightsabre in front of him in a way that Malles will hit it on his current path."

 

Malles would have died. Period. But, that lightsabre does nothing to block the laws of physics.

 

"Malles' arm swings into Bakk's head blades-first."

 

The lightsabre blocked the body. Not everything that was attached to it. Bakk is dead, or at the very least severerly injured. At 55 mph, Malles could not have stopped even if he wanted to, for there was no time to divert course and momentum would have carried him even if he shut down the jet pack. That is assuming, of course, the lightsabre was able to get through the cortosis in the armor.

 

Contrary to what SWTOR would imply, cortosis is not a very hard metal. In fact, it's only claim to fame is resisting lightsabre attacks. The metal was first introduced in an EU novel (proving LucasArts is full of hypocrites) and was quickly dispatched with explosives once the Jedi encountering it watched the metal comepletely short out their lightsabres. Anything else (explosives, blaster fire, a rather hard kick) will damage the metal easily. Durasteel is what they build starships out of, so it is extremely durable. The cortosis woven into Malles' durasteel armor allows him to survive and even block lightsabre attacks if need be, but gives up considerably resistance to blaster fire. Likewise, the durasteel weakens the cortosis' resistance to lightsabres. Malles went out of his way to balance his armor, but wound up weakening it a bit. Hence, after three hits are made with any weapon in roleplay I decide it has become broken an unusable, at least where it got hit.

 

EDIT 1: A friend pointed me toward the Wookiepedia page for cortosis, where it says the metal was used to strengthen starship hulls. The same properties that make cortosis resistant to lightsabres makes them able to deflect blaster shots as well. However, the Wookiepedia pages also says cortosis is a very brittle metal, so I suspect it would not stand up to blunt trauma very well. Like, say, repeated hammering with a lightsaber or vibroblade, a flying shipping container, or sustained blaster fire. Key word there is "suspect". Just food for thought.

 

So, let's say that Bakk's trick with his lightsabre was hit number one.

 

"Malles flies right into the blade, but the armor holds. His momentum pushes the blade and his body towards Bakk."

 

Now Bakk has to deal with the wrist blades, the knee, and surprisingly, his own lightsabre. But, fortunately for him, this can again be solved with a simple Force Push. Only, in this case, Malles would still be in his line of sight, so he could follow up that Force Push with a lightsabre throw. If he did that, Malles would find himself flying out of control through the air with a mind-directed lightsabre flying through the air after him. Flying away only gives the weapon something to follow, while Bakk can easily direct it away from Malles' weapon fire. How does Malles get around that?

 

"Malles levels his pistol at Bakk and fires a three-round burst."

 

Malles was hoping that Bakk would pull the lightsabre back to deflect the shots, which worst-case scenario would leave Malles with blaster bolts to dodge. However, Bakk can decide to dodge those same bolts. Which, in this case, makes Malles use up the one try he had to get rid of the lightsabre and fail at it. So Bakk scores another hit.

 

What I wanted to demonstrate here is, the difference between good RP and god-modding. God-modding would look like this:

 

"Bakk reaches out and grips Malles with the Force. Bakk directs Malles to fly straight towards him and impales Malles on his blade. He laughs in Malles' face and flings the bouny hunter off a cliff, watching as Malles crashes into the rocks below."

 

God-modding is when one player takes control over another player's toon for whatever reason to make the story progress in a direction the player wants it to go. There is a huge difference between "sends wrist blades at your head" and "impales you on his blade". The former implies you can avoid it. The latter says it's a done deal and there is nothing you can do about it.

 

I happen to be fond of challenging roleplay fights. I look at them as a competition, where it's my mind against someone else's. And, like any competition, I play to win. But please, to any future people who wish to have a RP fight with any of my toons, understand that I would not put you into a situation I would have a problem being put into. To me, losing a RP fight is no worse than losing a chess game.

Edited March 28, 2015 by Malles

[Bodaciousbaconn]

Bravo, good sir.

 

 

By any chance, are you on Shien server?

[Malles]

I am not.. Ebon Hawk, Empire and Republic.

[Bodaciousbaconn]

Ah, that's too bad. Good post, nonetheless.

[kreite]

Thank you for this guide sir, it was informative and I shall take it's lessons to heart.

[Guildrum]

This is a pretty good guide. I agree with pretty much everything here, someone should legitimately decide, "Can I realistically counter this attack?". Once someone breaks the (Star Wars) laws of physics or bends lore even to dodge/defend an attack, it ain't realistic, it's just better to "roll with the punches" in such case.

[Malles]

This is a pretty good guide. I agree with pretty much everything here, someone should legitimately decide, "Can I realistically counter this attack?". Once someone breaks the (Star Wars) laws of physics or bends lore even to dodge/defend an attack, it ain't realistic, it's just better to "roll with the punches" in such case.

 

I think the confusion comes in where we have regular people up against telekinetic powers. Force users have superhuman abilities, so newbie roleplayers and even some of the more experienced ones think they should be able to faceroll normal humanoids. And to be quite honest, they make a good point. A Jedi or Sith could kill someone within seconds just be reaching out with their minds and snapping a neck. A plot device concerning Jedi works around that (Jedi are taught to show extreme restraint in their abilities), but Sith are encouraged and even trained to do whatever they want.

 

But until now, the only Jedi we've really had to work with were from the ABY era, after Palpatine and the Empire had wiped them out and all traces of their existence. Jedi and Sith became mere legends until Luke Skywalker restarted the order, so there were very few people outside of elite Imperial troops that knew how to handle Jedi. In this era, we're in a galaxy that not only has Force users operating on the open, but just got done having a war with each other. Those normal people learned by necessity how to attack, subdue, and even kill Force users. And then they taught the tricks to others.

[internaty]

An interesting and well informing guide just one question:

Why shoudnt i use god modding in rp battle's?

I mean i like winning.

 

EDIT:

I mean if we follow your guide(and i mean no disrespect)

 

It would probley go something like this.

Bounty hunter attacks a jedi consular with rockets(death from above skill) jedi consular uses the force to send the rockets back,

the bounty hunter drops from the sky causes the missle's to miss as he fire's his double guns at the jedi consular

the jedi consular blocks with his lightsaber then uses the force to push the bounty hunter who then jumps aside and the jedi the force pushes the bounty hunter into the ground but not befor the jedi bounty hunter sends a missle to the jedi......

 

We can go on like this forever and in the end the loser is the one who give up out of boredom.

 

While is i use god mode:

bounty hunter uses death from above the jedi sage sheilds himself and focus the force into overheating the fual inside the bounty hunters jet pack causing it to exloded as the bounty hunter fall to the ground the jedi sage traps him inside a force stasis field ready for transport.

 

Game set and match:D

Edited April 18, 2012 by internaty

[Malles]

An interesting and well informing guide just one question:

Why shoudnt i use god modding in rp battle's?

I mean i like winning.

 

EDIT:

I mean if we follow your guide(and i mean no disrespect)

 

It would probley go something like this.

Bounty hunter attacks a jedi consular with rockets(death from above skill) jedi consular uses the force to send the rockets back,

the bounty hunter drops from the sky causes the missle's to miss as he fire's his double guns at the jedi consular

the jedi consular blocks with his lightsaber then uses the force to push the bounty hunter who then jumps aside and the jedi the force pushes the bounty hunter into the ground but not befor the jedi bounty hunter sends a missle to the jedi......

 

We can go on like this forever and in the end the loser is the one who give up out of boredom.

 

While is i use god mode:

bounty hunter uses death from above the jedi sage sheilds himself and focus the force into overheating the fual inside the bounty hunters jet pack causing it to exloded as the bounty hunter fall to the ground the jedi sage traps him inside a force stasis field ready for transport.

 

Game set and match:D

 

Yes and no. That's not entirely god-modding.

 

As I said in the guide, not every move you make is set in stone. For instance, a Force Stasis Field would require a great deal of concentration. Holding that would be difficult, no matter how powerful your Jedi is. If you disagree, and believe a Jedi could maintain their abilities indefinitely, try this little experiment. Take a pen or twig or even a pine needle of any weight and hold it straight out in front of you with both hands, and see how long you can keep your arms straight. You'll find it can eventually become quite the workout Good roleplayers would factor in exhaustion, mental or otherwise. My own bounty hunter would react in the following.

 

"Malles drops his pistol and powers down his weapons, 'surrendering' and preferring to wait for a chance to strike at the Jedi."

 

If the fight is drawn out, so be it. Nothing wrong with fighting each other down to the breaking point. If that's not your preference, you and your opponent could have an OOC discussion about it.

 

I used to roleplay an undead warrior. In the world we were playing in, zombies were held together by magic, so they had no use for muscles or organs and never felt fatigue. It became the subject of debate between me and a few friends, since they all roleplayed characters with flesh and blood. As a compromise my warrior's main weakness became his temper, which would often overcome him and he would grow sloppy and careless. This allowed the enemy to move in close and incapacitate him somehow, usually by removing an arm or a leg. Then, to explain why he wasn't missing everything, I made it so that, thanks to a necromancer's enchantment, his wounds would heal within minutes or hours, depending on the injury. Burning or freezing the wound would greatly slow the healing process.

 

Wasn't that hard to adjust to either. I fight like that in real life.

Edited April 18, 2012 by Malles

[Kelzack]

Nice post.

 

But for the problem of "Going on and on and on and on and on..." I just /duel.

 

My logic is, if people spend enough time investing in a good character, why aren't you spending time investing in backing up all the BS they throw out in RP?

[SelinaH]

An interesting and well informing guide just one question:

Why shoudnt i use god modding in rp battle's?

I mean i like winning.

 

So do other people. If you're allowed to powerpose, so is everyone else, and you might find your character lying dead in a ditch.

 

I try to follow two rules when roleplaying combat, or conflict that might lead to combat:

 

1. Leave actions open-ended, so the other person has a chance to react.

2. If there is disagreement about who should "win," the player who initiated conflict should be the first to give ground.

 

While sometimes "narrow escapes" are highly improbable and unrealistic, I've seen way too many aggressive characters who pick a fight and expect to simply win because the avatar is a level 50 Sith with Force Choke.

Edited April 18, 2012 by SelinaH

[Malles]

Nice post.

 

But for the problem of "Going on and on and on and on and on..." I just /duel.

 

My logic is, if people spend enough time investing in a good character, why aren't you spending time investing in backing up all the BS they throw out in RP?

 

Level difference, more imagination, dramatization, lack of skill or confidence....take your pick.

 

I love PvP. People I RP with do not, for various reasons. So, we compromise. Most of the time to make it fair we say what we're doing, then the participants do a /roll. If the attacker has the highest number, the action worked. If not, the defender can counter attack.

[Kelzack]

Level difference, more imagination, dramatization, lack of skill or confidence....take your pick.

 

I love PvP. People I RP with do not, for various reasons. So, we compromise. Most of the time to make it fair we say what we're doing, then the participants do a /roll. If the attacker has the highest number, the action worked. If not, the defender can counter attack.

 

Level Difference: You shouldn't talk all that crap if you know you can't back it up.

 

More imagination: It does take more imagination to say I dodge you in 50 different ways, I'll give you that.

 

Dramatization: I give you this one too. There's a lot of that going on after the "I win because of X" and "No I did because of Y"

 

Lack of Skill or Confidence: Again if you want to invest in your character do it all around not just the talk. Walk that walk.

Edited April 18, 2012 by Kelzack

[Malles]

So do other people. If you're allowed to powerpose, so is everyone else, and you might find your character lying dead in a ditch.

 

I try to follow two rules when roleplaying combat, or conflict that might lead to combat:

 

1. Leave actions open-ended, so the other person has a chance to react.

2. If there is disagreement about who should "win," the player who initiated conflict should be the first to give ground.

 

While sometimes "narrow escapes" are highly improbable and unrealistic, I've seen way too many aggressive characters who pick a fight and expect to simply win because the avatar is a level 50 Sith with Force Choke.

 

The disagreement I had that prompted this thread ended with the Sith laying on the ground covered in burns and groaning as Malles rocketed away to the nearest settlement missing a chunk of meat from his thigh and with a broken arm and four cracked ribs. The Sith had grabbed Malles with the Force and slammed him into a rock before running over and ripping out the flamethrower's fuel cell. He took the cell as a trophy and left Malles for dead, but Malles turned around and shot the cell with his pistol. My buddy was annoyed because he said the fall should have crippled Malles, until I pointed out that Malles has two arms and only landed on one, and that the fuel cell's small size combined with the Sith's own armor would make it so the Sith was only knocked down for a bit, with sever bruising at the worse.

 

Narrow escapes are doable, just gotta do them right. My Sith friend won because all I managed to do to his toon was make him mad and ugly.

Edited April 18, 2012 by Malles

[Bodaciousbaconn]

Not to be snide, but why would anyone want to God-mod? Sure, you can like winning, but if you're already RPing a fight, be creative enough to out-wit your opponent instead of "LOLOLOL I FURCE PAUNCH YOU IN THE FACE AND BREAK ALL YOUR BONES"-ing your opponent. Creativity is the key. If you can dodge my attacks in 50, no 30, different ways, I'll let you win.

[Guildrum]

Nice post.

 

But for the problem of "Going on and on and on and on and on..." I just /duel.

 

My logic is, if people spend enough time investing in a good character, why aren't you spending time investing in backing up all the BS they throw out in RP?

 

Or, you could simply whisper them out of character before the /em duel and come to a conclusion over who wins and how easily they win, in essence.

[internaty]

Yes and no. That's not entirely god-modding.

 

As I said in the guide, not every move you make is set in stone. For instance, a Force Stasis Field would require a great deal of concentration. Holding that would be difficult, no matter how powerful your Jedi is. If you disagree, and believe a Jedi could maintain their abilities indefinitely, try this little experiment. Take a pen or twig or even a pine needle of any weight and hold it straight out in front of you with both hands, and see how long you can keep your arms straight. You'll find it can eventually become quite the workout Good roleplayers would factor in exhaustion, mental or otherwise. My own bounty hunter would react in the following.

 

"Malles drops his pistol and powers down his weapons, 'surrendering' and preferring to wait for a chance to strike at the Jedi."

 

If the fight is drawn out, so be it. Nothing wrong with fighting each other down to the breaking point. If that's not your preference, you and your opponent could have an OOC discussion about it.

 

I used to roleplay an undead warrior. In the world we were playing in, zombies were held together by magic, so they had no use for muscles or organs and never felt fatigue. It became the subject of debate between me and a few friends, since they all roleplayed characters with flesh and blood. As a compromise my warrior's main weakness became his temper, which would often overcome him and he would grow sloppy and careless. This allowed the enemy to move in close and incapacitate him somehow, usually by removing an arm or a leg. Then, to explain why he wasn't missing everything, I made it so that, thanks to a necromancer's enchantment, his wounds would heal within minutes or hours, depending on the injury. Burning or freezing the wound would greatly slow the healing process.

 

Wasn't that hard to adjust to either. I fight like that in real life.

 

True statis field requirs enormis concetration.

And i geus god modding doesnt make it a victory but a lazy mans way out.

 

About your undead he if is held togather by magic there is a very exploitable weakness called disspell.

No magic means no you:D

 

Also if it works like i think it works undead are corpses where the soul has bin replace by necromancer energie so blocking/removing the would kill you...again.

Edited April 19, 2012 by internaty

[Malles]

Or, you could simply whisper them out of character before the /em duel and come to a conclusion over who wins and how easily they win, in essence.

 

A friend of mine from WoW did that with me. We would up staging the fight on the server forums and beat the living and unliving crap out of each other. It was great. We took, erm, liberties with each other's toons to keep the story moving along at a reasonable pace, but it turned out pretty well. I saved the thread.

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2592856835?page=1

[Malles]

True statis field requirs enormis concetration.

And i geus god modding doesnt make it a victory but a lazy mans way out.

 

About your undead he if is held togather by magic there is a very exploitable weakness called disspell.

No magic means no you:D

 

Also if it works like i think it works undead are corpses where the soul has bin replace by necromancer energie so blocking/removing the would kill you...again.

 

My undead died after his troll buddy put him out of his misery by sneaking up behind him and ripping out the heart that powered his body.

 

Which was kind of a punk way to go, but eh.

[internaty]

My Sith friend won because all I managed to do to his toon was make him mad and ugly.

 

Arent sith mad and ugly by defualt?

Edited April 19, 2012 by internaty

[Renarkis]

Level Difference: You shouldn't talk all that crap if you know you can't back it up.

 

More imagination: It does take more imagination to say I dodge you in 50 different ways, I'll give you that.

 

Dramatization: I give you this one too. There's a lot of that going on after the "I win because of X" and "No I did because of Y"

 

Lack of Skill or Confidence: Again if you want to invest in your character do it all around not just the talk. Walk that walk.

 

I understand your point, but this is an incredible oversimplification. If I'm playing an operative and for the sake of my friends or my guild I have to spec heals, I shouldn't be penalised if I want to roleplay an assassin. Nor should I have to compromise my character's skill if I'm personally not very good or not very interested in PvP. The narrative draw of RP is very different to the skill-centric draw of PvP and disparaging someone for not wanting to get involved in both seems like too much.

 

Godmoding or people getting into *****fests about who killed who because of what unblockable attack is a problem, but I don't think the solution is "Duel or Piss off".

[CanisAquilus]

I don't think the solution is "Duel or Piss off".

 

Works for me.

 

I had some level 36 marauder come up to Jice acting all tough and so on. I told him what was up.

 

There's just too many stupid godmodders out there. Some are even in this thread. If you pick a fight, you ought to be prepared to duel in my opinion.

Edited May 20, 2012 by LexiCazam
Inappropriate content - old post

[Trols]

I absolutely agree that there have always been -way- too many characters so sure of their own abilities that they don't even think for a second, before they start talking smack to others. It's a bane of RP and its the direct result of people wanting to play super awesome characters to bolster their own egos off screen.

 

Sadly, your solution of /duel is not particularly functionel in rp, and worse yet, it doesnt in any way prevent the above situations. Why?

 

1. While the people who suck at PvP would learn to keep their mouths shut, or have their behinds handed to them, every RP-PvPer with skill could practically go around acting like the king of everything, beating up others without consequence. It might help a little, but just replace one kind of jerks with another I think.

 

2. Duel is based on levels. In order to have any chance in roleplay, you also have to invest a lot of time in leveling characters to 50, and then make sure to get all your RP gear modded for pvp. It severely limits your freedom as a roleplayer, and worse yet, all that time you could have spent roleplaying.

 

3. Our avatars are not our characters, just a representation of the characters made by game mechanics - unless you choose to RP as "the one" character you play during your class quest perhaps. And I think most would say that won't really work. This is possibly the best reason why your /duel idea doesnt work, so I will explain it further via two character examples from my own Roleplay: The doctor and the Slave.

The Doc: the avatar is a Bounty Hunter, but in truth, he's more like a doctor turned medical drug-smuggler. His favorite weapon is an old-fashioned slugthrower - which he mainly uses for showing off - and he'd never use a flamethrower - thats just an evil weapon. How would you have me fight in /duel.

 

The Slave: He was a twi'lek boy sold into slavery to pay off his fathers debt to a Hutt. He had known nothing else his entire life. To him, loyalty was the most important thing in the world. However, one day, his master was attacked by another Sith while unable to defend himself. The Slave react to protect his master, and jumps at the Sith, knowing well he would die from it. After several attempts at hitting the Sith with bare fists, the Slave is finally subdued and killed. Some very good RP from all sides - we all acted IC and accepted the consequences of our IC actions.

The problem is, the avatar I used to play the twi'lek Slave was in fact a lvl 50 Inquisitor - at the time, it was our only choice as twi'leks. Now, had I used /duel, this Slave would suddenly have been able to throw lightning around, knock his opponent off his feet with shockwaves, inflict corruption in his body, and so on.

 

In other words, using /duel as a means to settle RP disputes will be the same as saying that game mechanics properly represent our roleplay. And thus force people to be breaking character if they ever want the slightest chance at winning a RP fight. Unwilling to do this, the only ones with a chance in these situations are exactly those who choose to RP as the super-class-archetypes.

I actually see /duel as more of a power-emote than most other reactions.

 

4. Creativity. Roleplay are, as I see it, mainly about using your imagination to tell a story together with other players. /duel however, is not about imagination, it is ultimately about numbers and controlled by game mechanics. The roleplay would be superficial to say the least. Simplified. Boring.

Edited April 21, 2012 by Trols

[Malles]

1. While the people who suck at PvP would learn to keep their mouths shut, or have their behinds handed to them, every RP-PvPer with skill could practically go around acting like the king of everything, beating up others without consequence. It might help a little, but just replace one kind of jerks with another I think.

 

This right here is where RP combat becomes less turned-based improvisation and more like two kids in the backyard arguing over who gets to be the White Ranger and who has to be Rita Repulsa.

 

I've roleplayed good guys and bad guys, but more often than not, people want the good guy to win. Personally, I need more of a reason for my awesome bad guy getting beaten than, "Because that's the way it is." It's also why I laugh when people tell me RPers have a better community than PvEers or PvPers. You get elitists in every crowd, trust me.

 

And to be quite honest, the only time people are allowed to smack talk is in PvP.

 

Off topic: If you don't know who Rita Repulsa is you have had a crap childhood.

Edited April 21, 2012 by Malles

[Selvec]

I'm not sure I agree with the idea of "RPing Fighting". It may have its place in fisticuffs, or other scenario's, but we have a very good combat engine as it is. Why not use it? My experience of 5+ years as a player on NWN RP servers, and a recent DM on one of the busiest RP servers on NWN, is that What you see is what you get, often works best for conflict RP.

 

As for the "I want to RP something I'm not" mentality. Then your not RPing. If you choose your characters spec's based on something other then what you wanted your character to be, you are not RPing or engaging in character development. Not every package is everything, and half of what makes RP great is displaying your characters faults in great detail, as much as displaying how awesome they are.

 

Remember that your character is your class to a certain degree, and the choices you make along the road for that character as you RP them is character development. This means that a gunslinger with accuracy spec's may go around claiming they are the fastest draw in the galaxy, but when encountering a bomb, they likely will admit not knowing much more then how to throw a thermal. Where as a saboteur will know how to disable that bomb, but he's probably not going to out draw an accuracy based slinger.

 

The secret I've found is to not put a line between "This is mechanic, this is RP". Weave them into one.

Edited April 24, 2012 by Selvec