Basics of /roll battles

Subject: Basics of /roll battles Mon Aug 04, 2008 8:23 pm

I thought I'd post the basics of doing an rp battle with /rolls [Since dueling only works with like leveled characters] Since alot, if not most, of us try to do rp battles this way, I thought I'd post it here in the charter. Nate can always move this elsewhere of course

So! You wanna rumble eh? Great! But not all role play conflicts can be resolved by /duel. You're character's level doesn't have to reflect the ability of your character in role play. Sooo. What do you do then? Why you fellowship and do /roll!

Resoning
There are many reasons for doing a fight in this way. First is that it adds a randomness to a battle that otherwise is totally determined by the players. Rarely does a person want to lose an ear, or other appendage in a fight, and many role players will stubbornly god mod their way out of those situations just so they don't have to change their character.

However, rolling adds an element of uncertain finality. If you lose a roll to save your ear, then you've lost it and you have to live with the consequences. This reflects real life. If you get in a car accident and lose your ear, you can't pause life and ask Fate to make you not get harmed. Not all players like rolls because they want full control over their characters and what happens to them, but how often can you control your fate outside of RP?

So, what other reasons are there? Well rolls can work for more than fights. Perhaps your character is female, and you want to roll on whether she has become pregnant or not. Or the gender of the baby, or if it'll be twins. Or maybe you're riding around and a mob pulls you off your horse while you're out questing, you could roll to see if ICly you get a broken bone or injured. The possibilities are endless to what you can roll on.

Also,for more experienced role players, rolling gives a very good challenge. You have to react to not only the other person's post, but the outcome of your own roll. If you win a roll initiated by your foe, you get to decide the outcome. For some players that means they'll accept the foe's attack, while others can decide to deflect it, or block it. Rolling provides you with more options than you might normally have otherwise.

You're undoubtedly saying by now, "That's all fine and good Telk, but how the heck does it work?!" Well, let me delay no longer!

Basics
1. /invite
2. /roll
3. bask in glory.

In a nutshell, that's all you need to know! But let's break it down a bit. When you sense that your rp is quickly coming to a battle, it's polite to /tell the person and ask them if they'd prefer to do a roll battle. If they say yes then by all means, /invite your foe to a group.

Now, before the battle commences there's a few things you have to take into account. How many people are involved? What exactly are you going to roll on? Will you get so in depth that every small attack and defense will get a roll?

Well, I'll get into the finer points later, for this though, we'll assume there are 2 people fighting. Let's hijack Jack and Camus for this. We know they'd probably never fight, but I'm writing this and I want to see a father son duel! So.

Let's say Camus is very upset that Jack doesn't want to follow the family trade in collecting moth balls. He accuses Jack of holding him back and smothering him! Jack yells that he only wants what's best for his son! But lo! Camus knows what's best for himself and soon their arguing has drawn blades!

Camus draws his blade to attack Jack. So Camus would /tell Jack [or ask in kin chat in this case] if the fight can be /roll in agreement to this, Camus invites Jack to his fellowship. So then, Camus is the attack whilst Jack is the defender. The attack gets the first post, and it'd be something like this.

Camus lunges his sword at Jack's shoulder, intent on harming him, not killing him.

Then they both will do /roll, and for this example I'm going to be in game and actually do /roll. I will be wanting Jack to win this battle, but we'll see how the rolls change my outcome.

Camus rolls 5
Jack rolls 20

So, Jack won the roll, meaning he can now choose the outcome. Had he lost the roll, he'd have to accept his shoulder getting stabbed and rp that out. Let's see what he does.

Jack growls at his son, as the blade breaks into his shoulder, but in his anger, he thrusts his dagger at Camus' side

Ah! Well played Jack. Pain is all in the mind! Let's see what the rolls say.

Jack rolls a 45
Camus rolls a 50

Oh dear! Apparently youth counts for something! Camus, as his father before him, can now choose to take the dagger or creatively think up a way to dodge it. This is where the creative part of rolling comes in. How could one dodge a dagger so close up? Let's find out!

Camus grunts with a sudden pressure in his side. He looks down to his side to find Jack's dagger pressing hard, but as happenstance would have it, the dagger had stuck into Camus' belt, which had been rather thick. Camus pushed Jack away the dagger doing no real harm.

Unlikely but the roll gave Camus power over that post and that's what happened. Now, since they've effectively gone back to their corners, it would usually be Jack's turn to attack or say something. So let's see what he does.

"Son...I only wish for your happiness...please, don't do this! I'm too old to fight!" Smelling of mothballs and prune juice, Jack backed himself to a wall. Hoping his plead would be accepted.

Things look grim for Jack. He decided to appeal to Camus, this does not need a roll unless Camus' player wished to let fate decide his choice. In things like that, you could ask someone to roll against you, or you could roll yourself and decide if it's over 50 then Camus will regret what he's done, below 50 and he strikes his father down. Most of us, I think aren't that much into rolls, but that's an example of what a player can do. Let's see what happens next!

Camus stares at his father, hatred filling his soul. The darkness taking him. "This is my freedom!" He stabs forward again, this time his blade aimed for his father's heart.

And of course, you know what comes next.

Camus rolls 98
Jack rolls 2

Ah damn. Try as I might to have Jack save his son, the rolls just wouldn't see that fate come to pass. It's not what I wanted, but that's how it happened. That's the way rp with rolls work. Let's see how this ends.

Jack's eyes grow wide as the blade pierces his chest and into his heart, he felt his life slip away instantly and his eyes went blank.

Camus looks at the dead carcass of his father and let out a wicked laugh. Emperor Palpatine chuckled in the background and said menacingly. "Good...goood..."

Well, I certainly didn't see that coming! Obviously this fight was very short just to show an example of how a roll battle works. There's much more to these types of battles, like what to do when there's more than one person fighting, or someone playing an NPC like a dragon against a group of people. I'll go more into that later, for now, if anyone has any questions or thoughts to add, please do so! And even if someone would like to duel in game just to practice feel free to ask!

So, questions? Comments? Angry mob to burn me at the stake?

Posts : 2 Join date : 2008-08-06

Telkun has asked me to share a couple of my ideas for /roll encounters.

As he's explained in his post, a /roll doesn't necessarily dictate the exact outcome of a conflict, but rather which of the conflicting characters gains the advantage. The exact outcome is left most often to RP. If someone stabs at your heart, and you lose the /roll, you don't have to die, you just have to roleplay out that your character is in the disadvantageous position during that part of the struggle. Perhaps you attempted to dodge the blow, but you weren't completely successful, and you took a blow across the ribs and now you've fallen. Obviously, knowing the other members of this kin, this most likely won't be abused.

It's best to think of /roll as a contest between characters (whether it's a martial conflict, test of skill, or what have you) with each /roll being almost a sort of "turn" to see who gets to RP out having the upper hand for that action or at that moment of the story.

To accurately simulate a conflict involving multiple characters you need to take into consideration the odds and difficulty of being out-numbered. If the two groups involved are evenly matched in numbers, nothing extra needs to be done to have everyone pair off and /roll against whomever they're going against, but if one side has the advantage of superior numbers, it's easy to accurately simulate that. In a given "turn" everyone participating or attempting to perform an action, or defend against an action gets one /roll.

If you're outnumbered, your one /roll will most likely only be effectively targeted against one of your opponents (although I'm sure there could be exceptions in unusual circumstances). If you win the /roll you get the "advantage" in describing your action against that opponent, just as normal. However in the turn in which the others are acting against you, they each get their individual /rolls to act against you, while you only get one /roll which is compared to each of their individual rolls. This means that a single amazing roll on the defense can still save you against multiple foes, but that the odds of one or more of them getting past your defenses is increased when you're outnumbered.

As an example, let's say Telkun is ambushed by four monkeys, intent on knocking him out so they can invade and occupy his pants:

Telkun wanders through the South Bree Fields, completely lost and scared even though he's about a thirty second walk from Bree.
Mischievous Monkey A threatens to attack!
Mischievous Monkey B threatens to attack!
Mischievous Monkey C threatens to attack!
Mischievous Monkey D threatens to attack!
Telkun says, "Oh woe is me, for I am but a squishie, and surely these monkeys, who are stronger, more intelligent, and smell better than I shall be my doom!"
Telkun screams like a little girl at Mischievous Monkey C, using that as his attack, because he's a Minstrel, and doesn't know how to handle a sword properly.
Telkun rolls a 73, and Mischievous Monkey C rolls a 38.
Mischievous Monkey C faints dead away, clutching it's ears, and writhing in pain at the sound of Telkun's voice.
Since Telkun gained advantage on his attack, Mischievous Monkey C chose to RP being knocked out by the attack. However, now it is the Mischievous Monkeys turn to attack, and remember Telkun gets one /roll that counts as his defenses against all of their attacks.
Telkun rolls a 29, Mischievous Monkey A rolls a 12, Mischievous Monkey B rolls a 42, Mischievous Monkey D also rolls a 42.
Mischievous Monkey A attempts to get tangled in Telkun's legs and keep him unbalanced.
Telkun dances nimbly away from Mischievous Monkey A, crying in terror and stammering incoherently.
Mischievous Monkey B attempts to get tangled in Telkun's legs and keep him unbalanced.
Telkun is not fast enough to avoid Mischievous Monkey B, and the monkey gets underfoot, causing Telkun to wobble precariously.
Mischievous Monkey D leaps through the air at Telkun, aiming to ram him headfirst in the chest.
Telkun takes the full force of Mischievous Monkey D's bum rushing attack, getting the wind knocked out of him and pushing him backwards, he stumbles and trips over the Mischievous Monkey B, which was tangled at his feet and falls to the ground, hitting his soft squishy head against a large hard rock, and losing consciousness.
The Mischievous Monkeys squeal in victorious delight and quickly go about setting up a home in Telkun's pants. The end.

There you go Telkun, I hope that was helpful, and not too hard to follow.

Subject: Re: Basics of /roll battles Wed Aug 06, 2008 2:06 pm

While not necessarily accurate as to my bravery outside of Bree and in the face of simian assailants... The way Jack has described doing a Roll battle against more than one enemy is actually a lot like many web-based text games that are online nowadays. At first glance it seems like the single person fighting against multiple is severely disadvantaged, but in truth s/he isn't.

While certainly you may find yourself against 3 opponents and in a turn where each of their attacks him you in some way, but as Jack pointed out, in a battle of that size, it's good to not have killing blows be all three of those turns. A bash to the head that connects doesn't have to be deadly, nor does it have to knock you out. Your helmet could take most of the blow and be flung from your head.

On the flip side of course, you have to remember if your a single person against many, you're not King Monkeypants of Simian World [unless of course you're in a Monkey MMO]. You're rolls may strike true against your many foes, but you can't expect them to lay down and die easily.

It should be said, these battles will take a VERY long time, and I'm sure a lot of role players would rather spend that time elsewhere than spending 3 or 4 hours doing one battle. So keep that in mind as well before picking a fight with someone you know will want to use rolls.

I'd like to point out, also, that what Jack and I both have posted is only a -guide- and in no way a -rule- these are just basic ideas and formats we can try to generally stick too. Each battle you find yourself in will be different. /roll may not work for a particular battle or fight. Or the basics we've described here may not work at all.

The Key is to find a good medium between the players involved. Like, I know Jack isn't too fond of the whole /roll idea of doing battle. So once I log in and go to stab him in the face for blaspheming simian kind, I'll probably just go *Stabs in the face* Communication between players is key and the secret behind having a battle that afterward you actually enjoyed, opposed to having suffered through as a player. Don't be afraid to ask the player behind your newest foe if he or she could do a roll battle, or if you don't prefer roll battles, ask them if you can do something else instead. Being polite, kind and understand go a long way outside of an RP battle.

I know some may look at these guides and feel that all this work OOC will ruin their immersion in their RP, and in truth it may very well do that, but keep in mind, someone running up and stabbing you in the face with a sword and saying your dead is a lot more hassling then missing out on a bit of immersion. Battles and conflicts are very complicated things in real life and in games and neither should be treated too lightly.

That's all I have for now, I'll post my idea/guide on how to do big NPC type battles with one or two players playing NPC characters after a bit more thinking on it. [Though most likely it'll be no different than what we've already talked about]

Oh! One more thing. Don't feel like you have to use rolls for every choice your character faces. Rolling is to add randomness and fate to your role play, not so much to have your character decide what to do or have for breakfast. Rolls are more for things outside of the player and character's control, and while certainly if you want to roll for everything, go for it! But be aware that may get annoying to those you're in the group with. I believe there are many dice rolling programs on the internet, just for this sort of thing, and there's flipping a coin, or rolling a dice at your computer.

So that's it for now, folks. If you'll excuse me, I have an old man to pelt with mothballs. *Wanders off to find Jack*