BonesOfTheEarth

What are the thoughts of an RP-Combat style less oriented on exact descriptions of each motion and more general descriptions of intent? I’ll elaborate – Currently on lotc, a set of RP combat emotes might run something like this:

Player 1 | Jason sends himself quickly jerking forward, bringing his sword skyward before letting it come sailing into a downwards strike towards Harold’s head.

Player 2 | Harold jerks back, leaning away slightly as the end of the sword narrowly avoids cleaving his skull – instead leaving a cut in its place, below his cheek. He follows by regaining his stance and position, waiting for the next blow.

Roleplay is writing a story, collaboratively. It’s a personal viewpoint of mine that roleplay to the degree written above drives us away from that point. But it’s all we know. However, should you pick up a book with fighting as a part of it, a scene might play out differently, like this(Of course made to fit what would be two individuals instead of 1 author writing):

Player 1 | Jason readies himself, sword leveled to Harold. A mere moment of stillness came to pass before he was sent hurtling forward, an onslaught of swings and blows levied at Harold, each one meant to kill.

Player 2 | Harold was not prepared for the swift and ferocious attacks, sent stumbling back and narrowly avoiding the first wave of blows before meeting them with his own – sword flashing through the air to parry and strike back, and regain his lost ground.

I imagine if two people consent, changing a style of RP fighting to this would be very allowed and viable. It flows with the general idea that emote times are not consistent between one and the other, and may still be “good” roleplay and portray a fight to watchers in a less boring way then waiting 20 minutes for a single sword swing from @Heero(Hey Mr. Thesaurus). Though bringing a style of combat fitting this viewpoint into someone unaware/unsuspecting would come across as.. Wrong, given that one emote might describe a myriad of actions in a simple way; “double emoting” only when brought to the first style of RP combat exampled, and yet perfectly valid otherwise. In short, the two styles of RP proposed here would be unable to mix.

As written, I would say that there’s no majorly different chances for people to powergame in either form of description. The Merit to the latter over the former lays in what I believe is a lack of argument over small, specific actions that could instead be glossed over as unnecessary and irrelevant; and maybe not taking 5 hours to do a fight because of it.

I don’t really have a big plan with this, I was just thinking about it and wonder if anyone has any interesting thoughts on the matter ! I didn’t even begin to touch on how magic would interact with it, but I have my ideas.