What are some great ways to making RP combat more engaging in a fair way? I think using neutral arbiters is an excellent avenue to attempt.
Usually people tend to /roll and take the highest number if a given action succeeds or not. This gives an element of fairness to the fight as it’s almost entirely luck-based. However, it’s a very bare-bones way to play that may not reflect a character’s given ability.
In my old guild when we mostly kept to ourselves, we experimented with addons to give a very crude DnD character sheet of abilities and effects to make the fightings led by our DM more interesting.
This may not be feasible for people outside a given community unless using character sheets from the Warcraft RPG or whatnot became normalized across the RP community. For inter-player duels, I believe grabbing a third party to behave as a DM for a given fight is an excellent, if crude, way to spice up a duel.
Here is an example of what I mean:
A Death Knight meets a Scarlet RPer in the Stormwind Graveyard. They begin to duel but before they do, they enlist a third person to be agreed upon as the DM for that fight.
From there, these two otherwise strangers can emote abilities and attempts and the DM can make judgements on each players abilities and how to roll–perhaps giving buffs as they interpret.
The benefit to a system like this is that it removes it from being a purely luck-based encounter with the flaw that it’s going to be determined by a DM’s subjective interpretation of ability due to lack of stat sheets. I think by virtue of both parties agreeing to who will be the ultimate arbiter means that bias can be minimized.
What are your thoughts and what are ideas you guys have?
I don’t hate this system either and have used it. It’s just that it rewards people who’ve put extra time into the game over roleplayers at-large that might not have.
That’s what we call the “Stormwind Fallacy”. Just because someone has taken the effort to master the game does not make them inherently lesser as a roleplayer. Part of roleplaying a character is making the effort to make that character stronger in it’s chosen path.
In my opinion fighting has always mucked up roleplaying if the outcome wasn’t determined between the parties beforehand. Especially in MMOs when we dont have character sheets with all our stats and bonuses and dice and radda radda.
Way back when on the White Wolf forums this came up often. There was a solution of having a third person be the arbiter like you mentioned, OP. This arbiter did all the rolling (using an at the time off-site dice roller, no need for that here in WoW) as well as roleplaying out the outcome of the rolls. That way the person doing the dicerolling gets to join in on the RP instead of just being the dice counter.
I personally would rather take time to discuss the capabilities of the characters involved, perhaps also some minor parameters such as those pertaining to injuries or death, and from there just operate on a mutual understanding of logic. Communicate ooc on matters where prudent and if conflict stems from that try to keep a level head about it and work it out civilly. For the record I don’t care for the idea of deciding the outcome beforehand, primarily because I feel part of the rp, at least outside of events, is how things organically develop; having a predetermined outcome taints that to me.
Admitted I suppose this method is only engaging if you have the patience to wait for the posts. It also hinges on both parties actually seeking a fair and well written scene, rather than something to reaffirm their oc’s prowess.
To be honest I don’t think there is a way to guarantee rp fights that are fair balanced and interesting at once; not within the context of relative strangers in a spontaneous conflict, anyway. There is simply too much variation in the views and desires of community at large to agree on anything more complexed than text rolls or duels.
Even if WoW’s dueling/world pvp wasn’t utterly broken as it is right now, it still wouldn’t be balanced from an RP perspective. Dueling, when it was actually somewhat fair, always favored the more skilled player and don’t get me wrong, that’s good. I used to love dueling, especially on twinks. But having skill in playing your class is entirely separate from having skill in writing and storytelling, which is most of what RP is.
WoW’s lore is about power fantasy, plain and simple. That’s also why I tend to stray away from doing DnD or /roll style combat in WoW RP. The races and classes aren’t balanced and pretending as if they are for the purpose of fairness compromises the RP experience for me. Even just comparing people in lore of different classes but of relatively equal power level, like Thrall and Garrosh. Garrosh was handing Thrall’s butt to him in a physical fight then Thrall sprouted a massive stone hand from the ground, grabbed Garrosh with it and one hit him with lightning. That’s just one example of many even just in the cinematics. All of that being said though, I do understand going with a somewhat diluted form of the DnD combat system for a guild as there really isn’t any great way of fairly RPing out fight scenes, especially between characters that can be perceived as being rather equal in skill and/or natural ability.
At the end of the day, RP is about fun and no one who spent a super long time developing a sort of pacifist character or maybe just a character who isn’t super skilled in combat wants to have that character get killed in one hit by something like a DK’s strangulate. I’ve thought about it a lot and I really don’t know if there is a satisfying solution to this problem but those are my thoughts.
Then you bloody well don’t get into fights. You don’t piss off the people who can kill with a dirty look. Or hide behind someone who does. I don’t get it. People say they want to RP but they also want total protection from the consequences of their roleplay. If you want to play a total pacifist, then you better build relationships with people that have a vested interest in protecting you.
As far as that second bit, it really depends what type of RP you’re doing. The looming threat that your character could die at any moment isn’t a given and I’m certainly not going to force that on anyone. As I said though, if you opt into that type of RP, you should be prepared for the repercussions of expecting everyone to play fair.
I am 110% in the PvP/Duel solution to most major fights. Even as a quick way to finish a bar brawl or something if you want to be “lazy” about it. However, there is a point where a full on duel isnt really worth it and seems like a cop out. Still, to me a PvP solution/duel is far more fair than a roll. It is a better representation of time spent on a character rather than just sheer luck, especially without an extensive roll combat structure in place.
That said in a duel the better geared/skilled player typically comes out on top, as they should. Especially if they RP something more combat oriented, those who are likely to get in fights. Even with meta imbalances, that doesn’t typically change what a player RP. Even being from ED, we have never gone that far. I’ve known plenty of players, 2k rated and above, who RP more pacifist and fun characters because they don’t want to fight. They want to RP.
Those that really want to fight, that demand a duel, are those who are out to prove something and really should be held with a grain of salt.
Time spent on a character playing the game for the MMO aspects is entirely separate from time spent on a character roleplaying and developing them as an RP character. What you said assumes that everyone that’s roleplaying seriously is also on the level of a normal/heroic or even mythic raider gear/skill wise when, in reality, that’s just not the case most of the time. Most of the serious RPers I recognize these days don’t even bother to gear up past what you can get from emissaries and the stuff out of Darkshore.
I guess I can understand if the person roleplays more casually and interprets their gear and skill in actual pvp as the skill of their character in RP but I feel like these are fringe cases. Generally, the experiences a character garners through RP represents their skill and I feel like that’s fair.
Though, I can definitely also see how just going with dueling can entirely eliminate the stress of having to deal with any of this. Get mythic gear and beat everyone who isn’t also mythic geared. Can’t really argue with that.
What I am suggesting is that everyone who role plays seriously should be aware, as was said earlier, that actions have consequences. If someone’s preferred way to resolving conflict is PvP you better be prepared for that and are able to roll with the outcome.
It isn’t terribly difficult now to get a 385/390 item level. You’ll be able to hold your own even against mythic players. Its the gladiators you gotta watch out for. They’ll take a 370 character and play it like a 410il raider. It goes into those who fight for fun, generally, don’t want to fight in RP.
Even Mythic and heroic players are, usually, really chill people who don’t want to stomp others. They just don’t see the usefulness in a roll system for unstructured RP. It’s those LFR heroes and BG babies in a strong meta who think they’re, for lack of better terms, hot shït, and go out of their way to force a fight.
It isn’t fair if a level 10 [Removed by Forum Moderator for toxicity.] uses that system to beat a level 120 Warrior. If you don’t want to roleplay IN THE GAME, using the game environment, then you just just keep your role play to posting on the forums.
And dueling is more fair? If some one boosts a character without putting the work into it and uses that to beat someone who has gone through RP to show an actual progression of their character?
The stupid thing about RP in MMO’s is level. Because unlike games like D&D, level was never put into thought when it came to RP. Just basic progression. Level doesn’t mean squat, considering that at level 60 we were fighting the same basic threats that we were at level 85 and 90. Hell, even 100. At least to me. But I’m also of the mind that if winning and protecting your precious warrior just because they have 120 beside their name are all that matter to you? Maybe you shouldn’t go into conflicts RP-wise.
Playing in the game you are by no means obligated to take level into consideration, with how often people just get gibbed by stupid crap.
If I were to fight George Foreman or Chyna in the real world, either one of them would clean my clock. And that would be totally fair, because they put in the time and training I did not for physical combat.
So yes that is utterly fair… the same way it would be fair if it was run using tabletop rules. The level, or skill, or power of the character is part of world the character exists in. It may not be fair to the weaker character, but it’s true to the meta story of the world itself.
Because here are your choices. You can either use the game system which takes into account what your character IS in the game world. You can go the completely and arbitrarily roll dice method which completely ignores that “reality”, or you have a dicsussion before hand out of character and decide who wins in advance.
Thats pretty much the breakdown of the choices you have. My contention however is that if you’re going to ignore the game world in terms of RP, why aren’t you just doing your roleplay right here?
In the game world, I am a night elf demon hunter. However, in RP, I am a Felblood (mutated into a demon) Warlock, who has dabbled in the martial arts of a Monk. The Game World is severely limited in what it can portray.
According to the Game World, all warriors are capable of Hulk-jumping even further than any race’s natural musculature should allow. All warriors are capable of shouting so loud it kills people.
And I can expand this to other things. Warlocks SHOULD be able to use some spells from the Mage spellbook, as most Warlocks actually started out as mages frustrated with their lack of progress, or simply tempted by the power of fel.
Which I’m sure you’ll counter with “well if you wanted to be a warlock, then just roll another race and be a warlock.” Or “well if you wanted to be a night elf, don’t say you’re a Felblood.”
Except, here’s the kicker: this character started out as a gnome, and gradually developed into what they are now.
I won’t counter squat, I’ve laid out the three choices that how rp combat can be boiled down to., and the relative merits of each. I have no stake in the matter in how people decide what to use. But the arguments for fairness presented in the /roll dice method I find lacking.
Fair argument for real life, not so much for playing pretend.
How do you gauge who put in the most time to their character and whose time has been most valuable? If someone doesn’t like PvPing and is only interested in the RP? The /duel penalizes them for not liking PvP. Obviously they shouldn’t pick that route then… but there are a lot of individuals that have their characters being SUPER confrontational and put in “Only resolves conflicts through duels.”
No one’s really going to find a truly “fair” method outside of talking to someone OOC and coming to an arrangement.
Do I think /roll is a good method? lolno. Because, same with dueling, it’d let someone who is 120 that’s RPing a farmer that’s never picked up a weapon in their life just straight up dominate some First, Second, and Third War veteran in full plate… But I’d at least contend that it was more balanced because the veteran’s got just as equal of a shot… because it doesn’t rely on the player’s skill, connection, framerate, or gear. But a completely random series of numbers.
/roll systems only really work properly when there is an actual SYSTEM behind them. But it’s at least fair in the sense that everyone’s got a 50/50 chance of being screwed… but it’s preferable, to me at least, because it does ignore level and numbers on gear that make no sense.
If it were up to me, it’d be handled like wrestling. “Okay, so you get a scheduled win here and there, but your opponent is going to come back and beat you in the final match as an underdog story.”