Ye Olde Board of Tips and Tricks for the Arena

The Writing Side

1. Accuracy, thoroughness and coherency are your greatest weapons in the Arena, prettying these concepts up is difficult and comes with time. Try and ensure you’ve been accurate in your description of the scene, haven’t forgot to mention any important details, and most importantly read it through from your opponent’s point of view and made sure they can understand it.

2. KISS – The beauty of the T1 system is you don’t have to try and predict any number of an opponent’s moves and write out what if clauses for every eventuality. (Though you may want to pre-empt one or two moves to worry them.) Simply ensure that your character can logically pull out of a manoeuvre with a single statement of their actions if the unexpected ensues. For example, ‘John was ready to abandon his strike at his prone opponent if he instead made any sudden movements.’ Remember though, you only have so much time to work with, if you’re mid-swing it may already be too late.

The follow up to this is that in combat, the more moves you string together the greater the opportunity you're granting your opponent to interrupt and strike you at your most vulnerable. Try not to overcomplicate your post both for ease of reading, and also to keep your cards hidden and your character safe.

3. The CS is key, remember that what you throw into that CS and post in the introduction of a fight is all your character alone has to work with. If circumstances allow, you may be able to pick up one or two advantages from the scenery, but so can your opponent, so ensure your character is thoughtfully constructed and stick to that character throughout. Magic and abilities will be a major point of contention, so remember tip 1 in the construction and you’ll be alright, though a more complex CS construction walkthrough may appear in the future.

The Combat Side

At the risk of sounding condescending, these are some tips for actual combat I’ve picked up in my lengthy years (lol, 3) fighting in post-by-post. Many of these will be contentious, and yes, there’s probably a number of exceptions to every rule.

1. Match your character carefully, this means you should be aiming to fight opponents with a character roughly within your character’s limits. Remember, this is a beginner’s guide, and ensuring you get a beneficial match-up isn’t going to be possible in a tournament setting. Ultimately, avoid bringing a grounded melee character up against someone who can fly or attack effectively from range, because the experience will likely be frustrating and un-rewarding. Some may argue that this is a learning experience, but from what I’ve seen personally it always ends with an unsatisfactory fight.

2. Don’t Jump. No, literally, probably the most common mistake on which I’ve been fortunate enough to capitalise on a number of times (and seen capitalised on, I might add.) is people considering diving into the air (usually anime style) an effective move in combat. Unless your character can control themselves in the air (and change direction) this will probably end incredibly badly, and should be avoided at all costs. Keep both feet on the ground, you can move your body freely and dodge better. Ironically acrobatic ‘speedsters’ should particularly look to avoid jumping in the air, as they tend to be at their most vulnerable.

3. Be careful with melee combat, melee combat is by far the most difficult skill to master in writing combat, especially if you’re like me with scant access to swords and spears and people who know how to use them. Read up on some of the basics of real combat before trying to use a sword, it helps a lot. Fighting hand to hand is somewhat easier, but try to dissuade yourself from flashy movie style martial arts.

4. Don’t spin around. I’ve only ever made this mistake once and it caused me more heart ache than a sick puppy (and I actually had my character spinning to generate centrifugal force). Your opponent will capitalise on it, and without the power of meta-gaming at your fingertips most characters are going to be shit outta luck.

5. Treat the Arena and its combat like an even bigger Arena. No, seriously, this is a contentious point but I would generally recommend imagining every battle like a gladiatorial contest. You’re attempting to make real gritty combat entertaining, you know what Gladiators seldom did? Tried to stab their opponent in the face the moment the battle started. If you try for deadly attacks early into a fight your opponent is –highly- likely to find any excuse to avoid it. Honestly, as the fight tends to work on an honour system of give and take you should try and wear an opponent down before going for any killing blows.

OOC Shiz

1. First rule, be respectful to your opponents, and I mean this in IC as well. For some strange reason (and I’m sure I’ve been guilty of this in the past, though I’ve been working on it.) Arena denizens have a bad habit of insulting the person behind the character in fights. They know exactly what they’re doing, no one is fooled, if you find yourself typing ‘Couldn’t quite believe the stupidity of blocking that move with’ you’re probably not in character anymore. This is a fine line to tread, and may seem trivial, but I’ve seen some Arena fighters who other people (not me, I have authority issues) have called respected and experienced essentially come to verbal blows over this shit. Not even joking.

2. Arguments will happen. If it’s an unranked fight, try and look past the conflict and compromise for the greater good of both of your entertainment and enjoyment. If it’s ranked, seek a judge as soon as possible, an unbiased reading is the fairest and most effective way to clear up any issues. I’ve argued until my fingers have metaphorically bled, and honestly I have no idea why, this is the freaking internet. No one is likely to admit their wrong doing in a ranked Arena battle, so have a judge mediate.