So, I've never tried Area rp before but I've always wanted to. But I don't really know the 'rules' of it. The do's and don't's. I need a teacher.

As such, the rp will probably be me playing a character who is a pupil of yours. Art imitating life. Who's interested?

@Silver Carrot If you’re looking to learn the basics of combat roleplay in a narrative format, I would be happy to oblige you. For anything beyond the basics I would advise starting up a conversation with @Doc Doctor who is our resident artisan of bloodletting, and one of the most consistently imaginative and professionally developing combat roleplayers around. Not to speak for Doc, but I’m probably more willing to roleplay out art imitating life in this case if you want to learn the basics in a narrative rather than just throwing yourself into a thread which is probably what he’d suggest. Do you have an idea for a character/setting/power level or do you want to start from literal ground zero and build up a sheet as we go? I could work with whatever, even a meta “Lillya’s Avatar teaching Silver Carrot’s Avatar,” or disembodied voices flicking in and out of combat drills piloting faceless humanoid mannequins of flesh and bone in a constant state of block, hit, bleed or hit kind of thing.

My only real idea is that we're not op. We're not expert martial artists unless it's like anime 'martial arts', as I don't know much about real martial arts.

So, I've never tried Area rp before but I've always wanted to. But I don't really know the 'rules' of it. The do's and don't's. I need a teacher.

As such, the rp will probably be me playing a character who is a pupil of yours. Art imitating life. Who's interested?

You should look at my primer on textual combat so you have a basic grasp of the flow of textual combat. It is my signature. While fighting is what you need to develop your comprehension of what is happening, the primer gives you the basic structure to build upon.

@Skallagrim

I'll try and make my issue clearer. In combat in casual RPs where we're either fighting an enemy boss, or it's a fight between two users where the outcome is predetermined. I don't doubt my ability to write combat in this situations.

It's just the prospect of trying to out-combat rp another user is an idea I need to get my head around, and I learn best with practice.

Fine by me. Most characters in the arena aren't particularly martial arts oriented in the sense you're thinking of, but I'll throw a thought out there before the narrative. In the arena reality based (as opposed to anime/The Matrix/whatever) martial artists tend towards being the least, "OP," of the different broad categories of relative power levels. It's usually ranked up from realistic hand-to-hand fighters, then medieval types with blades and armor but no unrealistic or fantasy abilities, then modern gun weapons and super powered hand-to-hand or medieval types who can handle through super-speed/magic/whatever bullets well, so if you want to avoid martial arts in general it would be easiest to play a more, relatively speaking, "OP," character, be that because they are a modern gun wielder or because they have fantasy abilities/magic. If you don't mind I would propose a compromise and start with reality based medieval weapons type combat. It's less, "martial arts," then complex grappling maneuvers or video game style hit chains, but isn't quite at the point of, "take cover or get your brains blown out," and doesn't include anything anyone would look at as OP. If you want to move forward after that it would be easy to transition up to guns/fantastical abilities or down to hand-to-hand. I'm happy playing this out as our avatars if you don't have a character in mind, or posting one of my characters who could fit the bill if you want something to build off of, but it's your request so let me know if this all sounds good or what you'd rather see happen and I'll make a thread or continue the dialogue here. Most important thing is you having a good time of it, so let me know your thoughts on what you expect out of this rp and arena in general and anything you do want to see specifically. Mostly setting and power level doesn't matter for the basic rules which is what I plan on covering, it's just to have an idea of what your looking to see and play once you get into arena roleplay in general.

EDIT:

@Silver Carrot I didn't see your post before posting, I'll revise.

Revision: I can work that as well, but you're getting closer to asking for a lesson on fight theory as opposed to the basics of arena roleplay. I will still do this narrative with you if you want, but at this point if you know the basics I would recommend jumping into the arena and starting a fight. As you say, you learn best with practice, and if you want to learn to outmaneuver an opponent the best way to do it is by getting into fights, making mistakes, and learning from them.

@Liliya

Hmmm. You may have a point there. But I'll still have an arena rp here because in every even slightly new thing I learn, I baffle people with the embarrassing "Oh my god, Silver. Do you not know how to think about things?" mistakes I make. Literally every slightly new thing.

So I'd rather make a good few of those mistakes here.

@Silver Carrot Well I'm still very happy to have the narrative with you. First things first, though, if you have the basics down and have roleplay experience I'll point out that having a character sheet is absolutely necessary if anyone is going to be willing to challenge you in the future. I however am very flexible and am totally willing to start with something as easy as disembodied voices operating unthinking mannequins or our avatars and through this experience build it into a character sheet proper if you'd like. Just a time saving thing if you don't want to have to write up a character beforehand, though I'm perfectly willing to play opposite whatever you might want to post if you'd rather do it that way. I could even post one of my characters and you could make something to play opposite the character if that's better for you, doesn't matter to me. Arena Roleplay operates in a multiverse format so the backgrounds/settings really don't have to share common ground or be related to one another in any way so there's no reason any one of our characters from any previous roleplay can't just be in the arena against anyone else's character at any given time. Second if you don't mind we should probably move the narrative proper from this post either to PM, the 1x1 section or the Arena Roleplay section proper so that in the future we aren't blocking out everyone's Interest Checks from the main forum.

@Liliya

Yeah, I wan't planning to have the actual roleplay be in this thread.

If you post a cs of any one of your characters, I will make one of my own, with the same CS format. Medieval sword swinging sounds good for a type of combat as it doesn't require any background knowledge (as opposed to, like, playing as a martial artist while knowing nothing about said martial art).

Basic Information
Name: Aibhilin of Bhilinai’s Tear (Ah-ve-linn; Ve-linn-ah’s).
Alias: The Lady in Blue.
Title: Doctora of the Australos Fight Camp.
Sex: Female.
Age: Thirty.
Class: Post-Apocalyptic Pit Fighter/Gladiatorial Drill Sergeant.
Alignment: Lawful Evil.

Brief Description
Height: Five Foot Ten.
Weight: One Hundred Fifty Four Pounds.
Measurements: 34-24-34.
Build: Athletic, Muscled.
Skin Tone: Fair, Pale.
Eye Color: Steely Blue.
Hair Color: Rich Auburn.

Narrative Description
Aibhilin escaped the worst of the ravages the Wastes inflict upon those who call them home, though as compared to a person from the old world she would still be visibly too pale from a combination of naturally fair skin and the absence of the sun from the new world. This is not quite the reticulant green-grey pallor of the less well-nourished wastelanders, however, and in her time and place she is possessed of a skin tone which would be viewed as quite healthy as compared to the average considering the circumstances. Most visibly obvious of course is her prodigious height and size as compared to the starving masses of the world post Sky is Over. Standing at five foot ten and weighing one hundred fifty four pounds of toned muscle and potential energy she is more cave lion than human, something out of place and out of time in this place of death and desiccation in the lonesome sand, and even in the old world she would have been like someone out of a fitness infomercial than a regular human being, full figured and fit to a degree most humans never reach even with the advantages of a healthy diet and proper training regimen.

She would have been beautiful were it not for the way she has lived her life and the traumas she has almost entirely willingly subjected herself to, and even underneath it all she still strikes quite the figure. Powerful, with a musculature that lends itself to a professional athlete more than a model, perhaps stronger in jaw than would be found to be conventionally attractive but otherwise gleaming eyed and aesthetically appealing, though a veneer of scars and poorly attended to wounds and breaks is the most immediately noticeable aspect of her outward appearance. Cosmetically she would be more likely to be found in the paints and dyes of clay and blue-blooded reptiles than the charcoals and chemical pigments favored by ladies of the Empire lending heavily to the fight name given her by the overly appearance concerned fight promoters of the Crimson Throne, and when in battle a mask of blue dyed clay and paint covering her jaw, mouth and cheeks is almost guaranteed to be all the accouterments she allows herself save her battle garb, itself left largely unadorned or made up beyond that which is mechanically necessary for its function, and if she has ever worn decorative jewelry none would attest to it.

Personality
Aibhilin was raised to savage purpose, and in this she excelled where most fell short. It came naturally and easily to her to understand that life was primarily a quest for meat. Those strong enough to take it from the weak did so and thrived further at their expense, and those who were weak attempted to catch so many snakes and rats as they could in the ever dark below the surface of the planet to feed themselves without being seen or noticed by those stronger than themselves. She spent the majority of her life excelling at this practice, and only as the years went on and she grew stronger did she begin to understand the thrill of the fight. This was far different than the experience of the hunt, a true competitor who could give her a run for her leather and bronze, and she loved the experience. It would never again be satisfying to live as a casual hunter of the weak, not anymore, and so she trained. She fought. She chose to make the sacrifices, the payment in flesh and bone that it required to feel the satisfaction of a true opponent left bleeding and broken at her heel, to see the light fade from their eyes inches from her own gleaming orbs.

More cave-lion than human the Bhilinai are said to be, and though they are without question human their culture lends much to the story. They have a complicated and often obfuscated religion which demands the hunt, and more specifically demands the hunt of the lesser and the promotion of the stronger. You don’t get ahead where they’re from by being pretty, by being good with numbers or by being an excellent tailor or smith. They excel only by force of will and skill at arms, the inheritance from parent to heirs going only to the one who has proven themselves the most prolific hunter of humanity, and the spiritual protections of the elders from the outsiders they say lurk just beyond the veil and occasionally come out seeking to bring death to the living are not given to the meek but to the strong. She has adapted this philosophy first from its roots as a hunter of the week to a combatant facing the strong and on into her current life as a Doctora, she who molds the clay of inexperienced aspirants seeking championship into the death dealing potential energy of the warrior. Hard, stern, detached from her pupils, but dedicated to their success with the fervent passion shared by all those who wish to see their own glory days relived through the bloodletting of the new champions.

Narrative Description of Equipment
Though Aibhilin has acquired a significant amount of arms and armor over her several years of professional fighting and paid training of potential new champions of the arenas of the Wastes, her most prolific and common garb will be described here for convenience.

Though her people are known for several aesthetic choices in arms and armor only three of these traditions have stayed with Aibhilin into the modern day. First and foremost the use of a snakeskin leather jerkin which leaves the shoulders, neck and clavicles exposed and is fastened in the front by snakeskin laces, in her case being plated in horizontal steel lamellar plates over which a separate pixane of thick snakeskin plated in bronze and faced in ratskin with the hair left on is worn. Second, the inclusion of a hollow ring parallel to the guard of her sidearm on its pommel, whose significance to the religious beliefs of the Bhilinai is ambiguous but considered by them to be very important, in this case forged of steel and placed on an arming sword of similar construct. Third, the wearing of a riding skirt, usually constructed of snakeskin patches faced with ratskin with the hair left on though in her case worn in a manner similar to cuises at the hips and thighs, and layered with bronze plates in that fashion while left otherwise unchanged. This is in her case worn over regular chauses plated in bronze lamellar scales in the Imperial fashion.

At the arms she is generally not wearing any armor, or even thick cloth or leather, choosing to favor an easier time at handling polearms in the ring, though she does own armor which could be used for this purpose. It is important to note that the leather and cloth worn as an armor platform for the arms is considerably more thick than a simple leather jacket, more comparable to wearing four at once, and that several late 15th century halberdiers and doppelsoldners in brigandine, as well as Conquistadors and the Swiss in Munition Armor made the same choice. Her polearm of choice is a bronze hafted halberd wrapped in leather at several points to be more easily handled, with a steel axe-type head opposite a steel spike and topped with a spear point around eight feet long from butt end to spike tip, and besides her arming sword she carries a bronze dagger in the seax subtype and a punch dagger on her right hip. She wears snakeskin boots and has a coat of bronze scales floating from her shin to their arming points across the sides of the heel of her boots for added protection, meager as it is when compared to plated sabbatons, for strikes at her feet from above.

Narrative Description of Combat Abilities
Though hardly a super human, and less capable now with collected age and injury than she was several years ago Aibhilin is still one of the most dangerous women alive in the Wastes as of 100SIO. A prolific duelist with a history of sixteen confirmed kills in the arenas of the Empire of the Crimson Throne and a well-documented training regimen that would kill lesser beings, to challenge her without forethought would be unlikely to go in your favor. The sheer value of her armament collected piece by piece from those laid low by her blade and the number of scars and missing bits and pieces across her body tells a story of someone who has taken, lost, been knocked down and gotten back up to put the offending party in their graves more times than she has remaining fingers. More hard knock than properly educated fencer, she learned to parry a low horizontal slash that suddenly cut high and diagonal across her breast with a flick of the wrist and a pivot of a foot from an opposing duelist by having been taken advantage of with just that strike, costing her a pinky, most of a ring finger and a very visible scar from her xiphoid to her right shoulder.

She learned to sprawl from an opponent who used the same tactic against her and landed a blow with a dagger to her back that left her coughing up blood for three months and near dead for the first two weeks of that time, having only learned to take an opponent’s legs in a grapple by having been taken down in just that way in response to a high horizontal slash of her own having been countered as such from an earlier opponent, that experience costing her a vicious beating at the hands of an opponent who managed to pin her arms with his knees while raining death down onto her from above with his fists. Had she not put a punch dagger worn at her hip into the back of his groin in the process she would have died that day, the same punch dagger which had once buried itself into her left shoulder, having been aimed for her heart and narrowly avoided by quick footwork and quicker thinking by an opponent whose left arm and back she had taken in a knife fight without having given enough thought to what might be on her right hip or how fast she might be able to pull down and away with her left, pivoting with her right hip while bending towards her with her right knee and launching a blow at near zero distance.

Backstory
The Wastes are not kind to most who inhabit it’s alien landscapes of harsh desert sands, unforgiving expanses of barren rocky peaks and eternally ashen sky. Above ground there isn’t a drop of liquid water to be found in a thousand square miles, and below the surface of their dead world nothing subsists save the rats, the snakes, the crawling things of the world that once was, along with those desperate few who have managed to meek out a living amongst the dying world’s forgotten places. Bhilinai’s Tear is no exception to the rule of the new world, and Sky is Over crippled her once thriving society just as it sent the rest of the world descending into a cacophony of madness, constant near starvation and crippling depression brought on from the new life spent underground, in the darkness. The culture survived, and like the others who did so adapted. Their new normal became more primal, increasingly savage and bloodthirsty as the years passed and no salvation arose to greet them from the ever expanding sands. No doubt it would be the end of life as a whole, but not before breeding a new kind of savagery into those poor beings still clinging to life among the world-wide necropolis.

Aibhilin was born into this underworld of death and starvation, and in it thrived. None do this entirely of their own power to be sure, this is not the kind of world that one emerges into at birth and becomes instantly successful. She was born of prolific hunters of humanity, and from this beginning grew strong while those around her grew weak. Where the others starved and fought for scraps of snake and rat she learned early on that the more efficient way to eat is to take by force those choice catches, for whatever that term is worth in this dead world, that she could from those around her too weak to keep her from her taking from them. It’s what her parents did, what their parents did, and to all outward appearances this is how it had always been here. The elders spoke of a time when this was not the case, in the before time, when the world was green and the sky blue. She didn’t much care. This old world wasn’t hers, had never been, her’s was a legacy of death and meat, and into this she devoted the majority of her years on the dying planet.

As she grew she inherited an increasing responsibility to fend for herself, and watched as her parents and siblings grew older and died or became stronger, all the while training, fighting, becoming what she was destined to be. She was a warrior, and a good one. It wasn’t long before she had grown into her full height and size, several inches taller than the average in this world of malnourished and starving scavengers that deigned to call themselves humanity, and possessed of far greater size and physical strength than any woman, and most men, in her Freehold. Humans do not grow especially large when deprived of a healthy and consistent diet, nor do they stave off sickness, defect of body nor deficit in mental faculty when fighting day by day to get the handful of morsels necessary to simply be able to get up and do it all over again in the morning. She belonged to the caste of takers of life, hunters of meat, and since the rise of humanity from the primordial forest never had the stark contrast between the powerful and the weak been more visibly apparent. She and her kind were as Gods in comparison to these reticulant, dessicated non-entities, and if they went hungry so that she might eat twice her share it was of no concern to her.

It was at this time that she knew she would go on to be more even than an honored warrior of the Bhilinai. There was much bronze and leather to be had by testing one’s mettle in the forge of the Arenas of the Empire of the Crimson Throne, and though they were less inclined to favor her as a warrior woman, for their’s was a fickle culture focused on superficial notions unrelated to ones valor as a taker of life, it was all the same to them in the end. The show was all that mattered once the blood started flowing. She traveled further across the Wastes than any in her tribe had ever gone so far as she was aware and threw herself into the fray as soon as she was able to get a camp to take her seriously, accomplished by running a blade through one of their premier pit fighters after an extended bout that cost her two fingers on her left hand and a long scar across her right clavicle. She excelled at this, too, reveled in the competition of meeting a fellow warrior across the sand and delivering them to their final end to the roar of the crowd.

She had taken sixteen pairs of ears in the ring and received a commission from an Imperial owned fighting camp to operate as one of the very few Doctoras in the Empire by the time she was ready to retire. The wounds accrued in her bouts had taken their toll by the time she was twenty six, the lifespan of professional killers in the arena being one of the shortest of all professions, and she would be remembered as the Lady in Blue by the Arena viewing public for an age. Her’s was a mask of clay died in the off color blue blood of under dweller reptilians, and a mantle of steel plates scarlet not from rust but from intentionally poorly polished human blood, no longer would she need to prove herself to anyone, and the second phase of her life began. As her parents had done for her and her siblings all those years ago she now shaped the new generation of killers, blood-letters, pit fighters and fortune seekers who risked the blood and sand for a chance at greatness and a coat of plated bronze and steel, and in this task her next chance at greatness presented itself. To train a champion was to live vicariously as a champion once more through her pupil.

@Silver Carrot This work for you? I wrote her up just now in connection to another project I'm working on, but I would't worry about the setting too much unless you really want to. Arena is a multiverse, so it doesn't matter if the characters make sense in relation to one another. If setting is important I can post the link to Sky is Over, the failed interest check whose setting she belongs to.

@Liliya

Yeah, I wan't planning to have the actual roleplay be in this thread.

If you post a cs of any one of your characters, I will make one of my own, with the same CS format. Medieval sword swinging sounds good for a type of combat as it doesn't require any background knowledge (as opposed to, like, playing as a martial artist while knowing nothing about said martial art).

I might as well offer a few good tips whilst you prepare for your fight with Lili. First off is commitment to an action. If I should write something along the lines of, "Bob cocked back his fist in preparation to throw a punch", that's not committing. Should I say, "Bob threw a punch", that would be committing to an action. You should only commit if you feel confident that your move won't be punished, or if you think you can predict and counter your opponent when they try to punish you. If you prepare an attack but don't commit, you're typically telegraphing the move, letting your opponent know it's coming, but it's safer because you can still alter the action based on circumstance.
Opening with a telegraph is a good way to measure an opponent without undue risk, so long as you're in a position to do so. There are always exceptions, but for the sake of simplicity we'll not fret over every little thing.

Should you open with a committed action against an opponent you haven't measured, you're asking to get creamed. Here are several universal truths to successful fighting in roleplay. I'll list them in no particular order.

1. An opponent is at their most vulnerable when they attack.

2. Have an endgame envisioned, and a purpose set to each attack.

3. To end a fight, you must manipulate your opponent into a position where they can't dodge or withstand a mortal blow.

4. Ways of putting an opponent into this position include attacking their balance (leg attacks, shoving, stunning), taking their means of defense or offense (damaging their arms), removing their means of reacting to your moves (blinding them or otherwise obscuring their vision, using untelegraphed attacks within their reach, attacking them in the middle of an action that required heavy commitment), and mindgaming them into hastily reacting to moves they think you'll perform.

5. Avoid falling into a position where you must play pure defense, lest your opponent lock you down. Learn to identify openings and exploit them, take the offensive whenever possible. After all, would you consider a turtle hiding in its shell more formidable than an angry viper?

6. There's such a thing as a poker face in fight writing. You can identify what an opponent wants you to do or how they are feeling at the moment just by reading their work. Know this and be tricky with your own poker face. Use the power of description to get inside your opponent's head. Keep in mind the saying, "An average player plays the game. A good player plays his character. A great player plays his opponent's character."

7. A good fight reads like a good book, not an IKEA manual. Don't get too hung up on little details, such as describing the concise angles and degrees of a character's continuous limb rotation, pivot range, and exact footwork to the point of ad nauseam. If the details can be fairly implicated and proven through the core action, you don't need to confuse people with unnecessary crap. That being said, don't assume what isn't outright stated. If what you have in mind requires details that aren't there, just ask for 'em. DO feel free to charge your writing with prose and creativity, and DO always mention your lefts and rights, such as which foot is forward and which hand you're attacking with.

8. Consider creating a 'flo-chart'. A flo-chart is a mental or written list of action trees which consider every possible response to an opponent's move in any given situation. It may take a long time to create and memorize a personal 'flo-chart', especially when you have multiple characters with different fighting styles. Free stylin' it works well, but already knowing what to do far ahead of time never hurts.

9. The most obvious tip; Have fun!

@Liliya

Wow! That's a big CS. Can I have a casual-length CS (I'm a Casual rper who's never been able to successfully transition to Advanced) or does it need to be that detailed?

@Doc Doctor

That's a lot of tips. Hopefully it's not expected that a newb follows half of them in their first few fights. I'm a fast learner but I always seem to start several rungs behind the "basic common sense" start line.

@Silver Carrot You have whatever length cs you want! There's no need for it to be any set length, it could be a hundred words and as long as that contains name, equipment and abilities it's gold by me. I don't think most experienced combat roleplayers follow half of those tips consistently, but they're why Doc's the one who knocks around here.

@Doc Doctor You really have flo-charts for your characters reactions? I'm absolutely copying that.

Basic Information
Name: 'Rags', of the Western Valleys
Aliases: scarecrow, devil child, the cannibal.
Sex: Female
Age: Fifteen
Class: Scavenger

Brief Description
Height And Build: Small, hunched stature. Lean and wiry.
Skin Tone: Tanned and burned from sun overexposure, and eternally bruised. Marred with dirt that no cleaning could ever wash off.
Eye Color: Brown
Hair Color: Black

Equipment

Rags wears nothing but a very immodest yet warm pelt made from the hide of mountain goats and one mountain lion, which was her 'coming of age' kill. In terms of weapons, she has a stone dagger with a handle made smooth by repeated use, as well as a tapered-edged stone bludgeoning tool halfway between a club and an axe.

Though she will be given her own small sword to train with.

Combat Abilities

People may say that her teacher fights "like a feral cave-lion" as a compliment until they see Rags fight and realize that fighting like a wild, untrained animal might not be the best thing, because Rags' combat style is halfway between 'wolf' and 'bull ape wildly swinging a stick'. Though she is strong, savage, and if she actually manages to pin you, might do something very regrettable to anything within range of her teeth, even a desert-dweller with a basic grasp of swordplay can best her with ease in her current state. That said she is an intelligent girl and a very quick learner.

Backstory

In this cruel world, the strong took from the weak, and this often had bad outcomes for the weak. But those who didn't die fled to anywhere with less competition. Knowing that society, hierarchy and even too many humans in the same spot would cause history to repeat, the strong to rise up and the weak to be oppressed again, the People of the Mountains and Valleys stuck together in small groups no greater than six, and only one man was permitted per group. They hunted with their intelligence, and passed down the techniques of traps, snares, and primitive stone weapons to their offspring, but with less education, the intelligence diminished until the People of the Mountains died out from dehydration and the People of the Valleys were nothing but small tribes of hunter-gatherers, receded to cavemen, albeit cavemen with language, wells and technology, and the tales passed down on rules to survive, to repeat the sins of the past.

To the mountainous range to the West of the known world, food was growing scarce, and the People of the Western Valley developed cannibalistic tendencies, and fought with and ate their rival tribes of six or less. They had rediscovered war. And as such, learned that besides hunting, they needed to teach themselves how to fight fellow humans, developing their own unique and feral brand of combat. 'Rags' was born into this era, a girl trained to speak and hunt and fight and to not repeat the sins of the past, and that was all she knew.

But these skills didn't serve them well when her tribe ventured too far into the desert planes at the wrong time, and encountered a group of real fighters, with real combat training and real, metal weapons. The rest of Rags' tripe was wiped out but she was captured. They could use her. They could train her to fight in their style, and when she was old enough, this tanned, unusual girl would be coveted for her uniqueness, and men would fight over the right to marry her. Of course, she was too naive to realize what an honor it was to be chosen, to be taught by the woman who was to be her teacher...

@Silver Carrot Perfect, I love the character. Might have to do a time jump after the narrative to make her reasonably old enough to actually fight in the arena (I know that in real life people had to fight regardless of age if they wanted to stay alive and put food on the table, but a fifteen year old is probably not a worthwhile opponent in any kind of professional bout) but we could put together a real lasting narrative between the two of them if you wanted to. I'll get the thread up later this evening, call it within five hours, and we can go from there if that sounds good to you?

@Liliya

Sure!

That'd also mean that in the time since, Rags has at least been taught which end of a sword is which.

I'll just chime in with some useful pieces of advice first some fundamentals

• Forum roleplaying is typically turn based
• You and your opponent has a turn to make actions. Actions in roleplaying combat is extremely important.
• In each turn you may attack, defend, or evade attacks your opponent proposes and your opponent is rewarded the same
• A hit can only be confirmed when an attack cannot be blocked, evaded, or mitigated in any legitimate way (depending on the rules of the fight)
• You cannot say an attack of yours hit your opponent. That constitutes as an autohit

It is hard for the final one to be determine between both players when throwing attacks at each other. The only method is usually crafting attacks to maximize the chance of such a hit to occur but even then your opponent can block/dodge still (even if it's incredibly unlikely at times). Essentially you want to optimize the ease of use between actions you make versus what is required of your opponent and hopefully get them "out of position" where they have an extreme chance of taking a hit or no other choice but to take one.

To get into any arena combat you must know the rules of the game. Each arena has their own share of rules and playstyle so usually lurking about a bit and seeing how things work usually helps. Most players suggest getting into combat at lower power levels aka Low Tier or Realistic Melee. Honestly if you don't have any actual real life experience in fighting you should avoid RM or Realistic Melee and go straight for low tier or even Middle. There's no established upper limit for each power level so don't expect any established metric that makes any sense. You're better off thinking like this

"can my attack blow up the planet?"
No
"blow up a continent?"
No
"A country?"
No
"A city?"
No
"A neighborhood?"
Maybe with enough collateral
"A building?"
How tall?

This is usually a good way of rounding out exactly how strong your attack output is for a single attack (let alone ability). There's a slew of ways to bypass this with simple powers (Phasing like turning to mist or teleporting). You can imagine and even couple together your own way of estimating where your character fits but really just have fun with it. The rest is acknowledging the don'ts.

Autohitting -
You can't say your attack hits. I fire a ball of energy at you. I cannot say it hits in no turn during or after. The best one can do is try by attacking while your back is turned, laying down, distracted, off guard, you name it.

Godmodding -
I cannot change the properties of my opponent's actions especially without just cause. You throw a fireball at me I cannot instantly go "it's fire became cure magic because I say so" or control it "I took your fireball and threw it to the floor. No sir". You cannot assume or command your opponent's character either. That's usually a NO-NO in a lot of places.

Once you have these two in your mind the rest is easy. Usually the ruleset in each setting is interchangeable but fall back on those two above either in name or function. They are the CORE rules of the game so players don't just disrespect each other. The third rule is

Don't Metagame -
Your character shouldn't know about my character and what they do without just cause. Meaning if our characters are meeting the first time then it's literally a mystery to both characters who and what they are. It's easy to metagame because you are reading everything as the player so roleplaying, in essence, is PRETENDING to be the character instead. Your character's senses is important for extrapolating information your character wouldn't otherwise be aware of if the right conditions are matched.

So now you know this. Here's some general tips that may or may not help you

- Hearing, Seeing, Smelling, Tasting, and Feeling isn't just essential in real life. These are the absolute most important abilities a character can have. If they can perceive it then they can do something about it. Real simple: Slow attacks can be read. A slow build up to an attack can be read (someone lifting up a shovel to hit you with it or raising their arm to shoot you). These are we what call "telegraphs" as many put it. Your character can see things and if they are fast enough and you are prepared enough you may be able to avoid one more turn from getting hit yourself. Use this to your advantage

- Telegraphs are IMPORTANT to read. Many actions in roleplay has some physical tell (unless they don't). You want justification to evade that sword or dodge that water balloon. Always have your character observe and never turn your back on your opponent. You will also come across actions that have little telegraphs or none. You can't avoid everything.

- Positioning is important. Positioning is determined by leverage you have in a situation vs your opponent. So if you have some barrier up that blocks things and your wand has energy to attack but your opponent ran at you with a dagger and NOTHING ELSE that can be seen by your character then you are in an advantageous position. You are in a position to attack with little foreseeable penalty vs your opponent who is "OUT OF POSITION" basically not where they ought to be. Do not be fooled by this lingo; however, you can be out of position at any time even standing still or moving. Play safe.

- Detail is important. @Doc Doctor put it best that you don't need to BLOAT actions with unnecessary detail, but detail becomes necessary when it can determine the outcome of a fight or at least change its flow. Too much detail can bog you down though and turn this game into a chore so.. do this at your discretion, but you'll appreciate a little thoroughness from your and your opponent. There's nothing wrong with being fastidious but keep in mind it may not be wholly necessary and fun.

- Don't be afraid to taking a hit either. Sometimes you are in a situation that's just.. not nice. You don't have to take a hit if you don't legitimately have to, but in a situation where your character is literally trapped then sell it. Sell the move. A punch to the chin may not KO you, but it'd rattle you (especially to the tip that shit doesn't feel good). Do not shrug off attacks or in the term of wrestling "no sell" because NO one likes that. An attack hurts will hurt. If it's justified you got hit then take it and sell it. Reward your opponent for getting passed your tricks and ideas for defense. Just keep in mind you don't have to take a hit for the sake of fairness "I took a hit so you take a hit" because that's not how fighting works. A hit only happens because you cannot reasonably mitigate it. This is the hard part really so.. you may have to communicate with your opponent often which segways into my final point

- READ. THEIR. POSTS. Do NOT deviate from whatever detail you read in your fight. Only stick to what's written in your match. Do not make up any detail that isn't there. Do not fall for any detail that isn't there. This goes for profile sheets, fights, and actions. Read the post in the thread. That's what's happening. Think of it like a star map.

From here on just have fun. Make a main character or several of them, but love your character(s). Always use every opportunity to improve yourself and your game even if it's just your writing. Always find a creative way to do something. Just chill and play and love what you do. Eventually it'd come to you as you play so don't rush in trying to soak all of our knowledge in one sitting to try and win a single match. Just throw yourself in with someone and have a nice clean match. Get to understand the game a bit. Don't even think about being competitive until you at least have a basic understanding of it first. You roleplayed outside of the arena so it's the same engine just.. against someone else.

Edit: Also TIME is the absolute factor of anything in roleplaying. It's the key component of every part of pvp so keep in mind time doesn't freeze for you or anyone else's character in game. So be very careful about Commitment. @Doc Doctor touched on this in a previous post so you'd be wise to read it.