A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.
Youâre a big guyâŚ
Which is a bit of a shame because (Unless itâs caused by â((We /roll for this k?))â which sucks for reasons Iâve gone over before) getting your butt kicked can be fun, and serve as a good source of development.
Dariâs powerful but far from unbeatable, this -is- Warcraft. Unless youâre wielding the Ashbringer or something thereâs always going to be someone stronger than you. And personally I find that you learn more by losing than winning. Losing motivates Dari to train harder and spar more often. It urges him to go on âquestsâ to acquire new skills and equipment. If he won every fight easily Iâd just get bored and heâd have no reason to start venturing out across the world at large.
1 Like
For experienced combatant characters Iâve always found it an elegant solution to hit but not wound, on a failed roll. Perhaps the opponent is well-armoured, has a thick hide or parries your attack. You donât need to trip over your own feet / stab yourself in the throat / get disarmed when you roll low in such events.
2 Likes
Definitely. The outcome of a failed roll seems to be intended to be âattempted to wound opponent, failed for any reasonâ, and within those parameters you can get creative.
Thatâs exactly how we handle our aerial combat against Aerial NPCâs, the roll is specifically to âinjureâ not to âhitâ. A low roll doesnât make you look like a rank amateur, it just means that you didnât strike a telling blow. You could hit but their armour takes it, they could be a tough -whatever- and shrug it off, they can have dodged unexpectedly an otherwise textbook attack, sun got in your eyes, they returned fire which you had to dodge, throwing your aim off, or just bad luck on your part and good luck on their part⌠Its all up to the person making the roll what happens, rolls should never be seen as a straitjacket confining you to look crap. Even Gods blink, no one is infallible.
Unless itâs a 1. In that case, you should make things as god-awful as humanly possible for either maximum dramatic or comedic effect.
I suspect having the right connections (friends/guildmates/etc) helps a lot with it.
7 Likes
Of course, the problem with this is that everyone decides that their character skill and ability is greater than everyone elseâs, or refuses to respect the other characters. Works both ways, you get just as many morons insisting that wearing plate armour makes you immune to harm as mages who claim to snap their fingers and invalidate everything else. Lots of people just have the idea that their character or class is unbeatable and everything else is worthless compared to it, and that just isnât on.
It comes down to respect, and that people need to respect each other and one anotherâs characters, especially as thereâs an argument to be made that weâre all heroic characters in most situations with different skillsets - and itâs also why I donât do any RPed âPVPâ combat without an OOC discussion beforehand to agree on an outcome that best suits the story. In a freeform environment with no rules, itâs the only way, in my opinion.
2 Likes
Always preferred to whisper the player first whether we do a high power level, or lower power level fight, who wins, and then preferably setting up the other to win until last minute stuff. No point in fighting if it doesnât at the very least make the involved characters look great.
Go full Dragonball Z or go home.
I wish more people did this to be honest, it is probably the most cooperative and effective way to do an emote battle. For it forces you to look at your character objectively and consider their various strengths and weaknesses fairly, while simultaneously comparing them to your roleplaying partner.
This solution has worked for me in the past, and it always produces good results from my personal experience and both people walk away from it feeling like their partner respected their characters abilities, which in turn leads to an increased likelihood of them roleplaying again in the future.
4 Likes
But I thought itâs not about winning?
Eitherway, I strongly disagree with this.
Letâs use an example. RP is meant to be organic and IC , without OOC bias (ideally).
Letâs assume Boush plays on an alt that he is known to use (I am using Boush as an example because he is well known, I hope thatâs fine. I am also going to assume that you trust him with emote-battles, for the sake of this example.).
In this case, you would emote battle with him. But because you know it is him.
The IC result may vary if he was using a character you did not know was his alt and you force a /duel to 99% smash him with gear, no questions asked.
I think thatâs against the spirit of RP.
I challenge these people, such as Yue or Boush to play alts without -anyone- of their trusted friends being aware.
Do this and report back how the attitude of people and RP outcomes change (or perhaps they wonât?).
I suggest this because I suspect that because you know so many people and have such an easy time getting good RP , you might not be aware how it is for the âuninitiatedâ , those who are not âtrustedâ etc.
You might not even be noticed or recognized at all, but then, try to hint or show who you are OOC and see if that suddenly changes the attitude.
Very curious if this confirms or denies my theory.
5 Likes
It all just comes back down to investment.
The reason you see those people praise each otherâs characters IC, spread rumours about their badassness (or indeed any rumours at all) is because they are played by trusted friends. Thus, it is done to ârewardâ and further a character they are already invested in, advancing a plot they can be certain they will like and take part in.
In contrast, consider the random warlords popping up in Orgrimmar each time you turn your back. I am loath to invest very much in this kind of character, because in my experience they usually hide some skeletons in their closet - even if it is nothing dramatic like being an ERPer, the day 1 warlords are still often just powergrabbers who arenât interested in investing in anyone else who doesnât praise them a lot first, and playing along with their epeen stroking rarely ends in anything worthwhile.
So therefore you donât indulge them. If Krakazz Blackhammer the magma-dripping Blackrock general strides into the inn and starts throwing his weight around, it is generally met with scepticism at best. Even if this could be a legit, proven character who has been around for a while, itâs just not feasible to give him the benefit of the doubt. The odds are too stacked against him. If you do act realistically to the situation (omg! A warlord is here? Get up and salute, boys!) youâll feel like the whole interaction was wasted when Krakazzâs player tires of it and deletes his character one day later.
RP combat is no different. People arenât really that attached to their victories, in terms of plot. Itâs another win for their badass characters! They wonât mind going with that even if the opponentâs character will be exposed as a loller and ignored by almost everyone a day later. Itâs still another score on their board, another notch on their belt, another step on the road to fame.
Defeats, though, they are a bigger deal for people. When they do come, people want them to come for a reason, with plot involved - perhaps a way to overcome that foe later, or learn/change from the event. Which, against an untrustworthy player, is something people are just not willing to do. It means you invest in your opponentâs character, which they might regret if it later turns out said character is incompatible with the lore/played by a douche etc. Which is kind of understandable actually, or even justifiable, even if it is regrettable.
3 Likes
Before I respond to the rest of your post, this is where I think it starts to go wrong right off the bat. Fundamentally yes, RP is supposed to be organic and without OOC bias- Except that itâs really an impossible thing to reach. Weâre all biased one way or another, even in RP, in the level of how much time & effort we put into our RP around certain people, how much we care for other roleplayers enjoyment, or how positive are we to engage with them in unusual plots (aka getting out of your comfort zone).
If I was acting IC like an idiot trying to powergrap people into respecting me on my leveling greens and/or non rbg high warlords gear in an inn while mass recruiting people for an umbrella guild with no depth to it and big bossing around other guilds, I sure as hell hope someone like Yue or anybody else would just choke me up by taking the duel outside of Orgrimmar.
But alas, you will say (and probably meant) that what if a completely ordinary person does that, one thatâs RP seems decent, what would I do then?
Probably duel anyway. Key word being âtrustâ here. I donât know them. They donât got my trust. If that ends up being the deal breaker for them, fine by me, they probably werenât worth the effort anyway and/or Iâll simply stick to doing random RP with them. Or we just go separate ways- Dime a dozen encounters, doesnât matter.
I donât see how this is a problem. Everybody has had to pierce that veil by themselves, one way or another. Myself included! You build a name for yourself first through random encounters, then maybe through a guild, then guild interactions, then campaigns, and voila, you got a recognized character!
If you think you should just be treated the same as the established folk straight away then thatâs just bonkers. People discriminate based on competence and familiarity all the time, even in IRL. You are more likely to buy your items from a store/chain you have good experiences with than those you donât, unless their offer is particularly lucrative. This is whatâs called customer retention- Or in RPâs case, RP retention.
If you are a good roleplayer, youâll get noticed in no-time and after a bit of time you can bowl out with the âbig boysâ (tfw you are called well known by some1). But asking everybody to just treat everybody equally on this server when it comes to RP when itâs something you 100% voluntarily do and aim to enjoy yourself, is just plain ridiculous.
IDK, half of the Horde doesnât personally know Pascoe (to my knowledge), but he is still(Was?) recognized as essentially the Simo Häyhä of the Alliance, except with daggers. No matter the campaign, he and his rogue squad would be picking off people that were by themselves or caught soloing, and taking them out. Thatâs what got him famous, not a group of friends circlejerking or boosting him forward.
Again, competence is what drives recognition and interest. If you are competent in any way in this community, be it through creating RP, as a guild leader, random roleplayer or whatever else that makes people enjoy your presence or shenanigans, people will know you. Being connected certainly helps with it, but thatâs not really the main thing.
You could have all your guild and circle of friends supporting you and trying to make you relevant but if you are just incompetent and really bad, you wonât really merit to much.
1 Like
Canât comment on that since I have never heard of him before, sorry.
1 Like
on phone rn so I canât do a bigboy mega reply, but here we go.
@vilesun itâs basically a case of me actually caring about my personal enjoyment; if some gamer is going to walk up to me and try to slap his throbbing meat stick in my face, claiming he could smash my char easily and tries to e-battle to me Iâll just slam the duel flag no bother. As Chieun said thereâs no investment there.
re: making an alt itâd be no different for me - I donât play megapowerful dudes who go out of their way to fight ppl down, u can usually tell a trustworthy guy within a few seconds of RPing with them, honestly.
3 Likes
Now that is interesting, I donât know how to figure out how to tell a trustworthy guy, except maybe by their IC attitude or hints in their profile.
They usually wear nice fedoras
Me vs a non DK in an /e fight.
3 Likes