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Understanding RPG Fights (Archive Repost)

Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 9:28 am
by OokeStoneskull
Sorry guy but I have questions now that my group is in an RPG fight and rather then fill the post with question I'll asked them here.
For example:

Location: Since one isn't well described it's hard to say were everyone is and what's around to use.

Player Knowledge: How can you tell who can and can not see the beast. Does it blend well in to the surroundings

Who gets first crack: Although it my attack someone will the idea that elves react faster then humans, human over dwarf... and so on.

Damage Dealt: Can anyone just randomly do damage? who gets the killing blow.

The Monster: Does everyone control how it reacts?? or just attack and wait for monster feed back??

I don't mean to offend anyone but I'm curious, I understand that in my RPG some of this is stated but overall I just want to have something to refer too.

A suggestion, is to maybe have someone login as the monster or NPC, and run them, a non partisan person I would hope. This way the beast could choose who to attack and how to react. setting a chart for how many hit it can take and dodge, or what weapons do more damage to it and so on would be helpful. Just a thought.

Re: Understanding RPG Fights (Archive Repost)

Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 9:29 am
by Mana Link
Okay, though I'm not sure myself, I think the initiative goes in order of the agility of the characters. But that is all I can comment on...

Re: Understanding RPG Fights (Archive Repost)

Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 9:29 am
by Z
Since this is a game focused on writing, we don't do much with stats, or how much damage is dealt. For large numbers of enemies, usually the person who brought them in will state how many there are and let players handle so many on their own. With the mantises, I'll allow people to fight them on their own.

When there is an NPC or some special situation, it'll be handled as an NPC by the player who brought it in, and they'll decide what hits land. In this situation, you can post an attack, but don't say that it hits and leave that to the NPC's player.

You should look to the moderator in the thread (myself under any of my IDs, Sephtur, Wes, Wolf, or Zatch) for instructions on how to handle it.

It's not the best system, but we really don't want to get too technical so we stay true to the written style.

Re: Understanding RPG Fights (Archive Repost)

Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 9:51 am
by OokeStoneskull
I understand, I just didn't see this information anywhere...you should post it under the Information thread as it's own topic or in Role-Play suggestions for future ref.

Re: Understanding RPG Fights (Archive Repost)

Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 9:51 am
by Z
Good idea. I had something written up for that from the last game, but I don't know what I did with it....

Re: Understanding RPG Fights (Archive Repost)

Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 9:51 am
by Luria
This is how I normally handle things in a free-form RPG. When I'm attacked, I describe the damage to begin with. I don't like to cheaply deflect an attack too many times, but to get injured at every turn is really bad too. If you do that then when you get to the climax well... you get injured again, big deal. So I usually take some light damage, then describe whatever stance my character is taking, if they're attacking back or whatever.

For example, I wrote that Toan got knocked off the horse which, I understand, hurts a LOT, but won't totally take him out of the fight. Now Mr. Mantis has the upper hand since Toan can't attack back immidiately. Unless somebody helps the poor boy out, he'll be in a bad situation on the next turn. That kind of leaves an opening for another character to help out, and build some trust there between the characters.

A bad thing to do would be to say he pulled out his sword, totally deflected the attack, and then leapt off the horse and attacked the mantis. The other side of that coin is just as bad, if I started taking way too much damage and Toan got seriously injured on the first post, that would be a burden on story development for quite a while. But, if nobody came to his aide and the mantis attacked again and then] I took major damage, it would actually make the story more interesting since Toan would have to wonder why the hell nobody attacked the mantis while he was down XD

I probably overexplained this, oh well. That's just my view on it and how I conduct my own RPGs elsewhere. The little details aren't really as important in this type of game, you can just use your suspension of disbelief.

Re: Understanding RPG Fights (Archive Repost)

Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 9:52 am
by OokeStoneskull
Intresting, but after reading that post, I noticed your horse isn't in a good place...that's not good.

Re: Understanding RPG Fights (Archive Repost)

Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 9:52 am
by Luria
Yeah, heh... its kind of up to the GM in that case whether the mantis goes for Toan or for the horse, or if its is stopped by another character. But even if it dies, everybody can bark at Toan afterwards for being a goof and causing them to lose a horse and that could be kinda funny.

*edit*

Now this is interesting, hehe. We each get our own mantis and horse to play with ^^

Re: Understanding RPG Fights (Archive Repost)

Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 9:55 am
by Z
If anyone has questions about fights in the game, feel free to inquire on this thread, but the above conversation is a couple years old.