[OOC] Arena Chat Thread

[ImportantNobody]

<Snipped quote by Skallagrim>

I started with that. Lol

@Skallagrim

I thought you meant the rules at stated followed common sense so that's why common sense applied, not that common sense is used as a separate entity to morph the rules. But the misunderstanding was likely my fault.

[Skallagrim]

No IN, the misunderstanding is mine. I simply assume, and I should not, that everyone has been exposed to, knows and understands T1.

[MelonHead]

Logic dicates, if you cannot logically do something you cannot do it. If you are trying to grapple a robot who is stronger, no matter how eloqently you write, you are not winning that particular part of the conflict.

It really is not as difficult as you are making it.

You do understand T1 is build on common sense so you aren't breaking any "rules"

@Skallagrim

This is where my issue with T1 came in, and why I made such a fuss over Vordak's character in the tournament. In terms of pure physical strength and durability his character couldn't be injured by any other from a logical perspective. That might have been balanced out if every character was reliant on magical means of assault instead, but if LeeRoy's character was matched against him for example with only physicality to fall back on he had -literally no physical way at all- of damaging that character. Meanwhile the character's strength allowed it to -logically- break half the bones in Metz or Shin's body with a flick of its wrist. T1 seems at least to put emphasis on the range of actions a character can carry out and how the opponent should react to those, while also seeking to balance the more devastating effects of magic by requiring them to set up a preparation time. Due to this forums preferred character tier being somewhere in the middle ground immense physical characteristics are abound, and a lot of T1 as I've always understood it grows more irrelevant as people shoot bullets round corners and throw cars at each other while blasting magic out their eyeballs.

Ultimately the main issue is fairly obvious, there's a huge range of characters from different universes trying to be meshed together in Arena, and it doesn't provide a good fit, not even T1 does a great job of patching the seams when it comes to a Naruto character a Superhero and a Soldier having a fight, because those characters aren't designed in a world where they would be facing characters from different universes. How do you balance Magic Vs Gun Vs Superhuman Abilities? Not easily, because there's not much of an existing template to consult, those universes are kept separate in most fiction for good reason.

Also, having two reviewers for future tournaments would be a good idea, it's the established norm in academia in regards to essays and other marked work. However, the significant issue is that subjectivity is abound in power scaling, as Skallagrim mentioned, so both reviewers would need to first come to an arrangement on the system by which they plan to judge.

[Skallagrim]

Well no system is perfect, T1 has been around since 1999, so clearly for 16 years it has been acceptable with minor tweaks for each site. But the core rule set hasn't changed. As for tournaments, it is up to the host, not the partcipants. But we shall see how the next host does it.

[yoshua171]

A friend of mine got this up on the forum so I thought I'd share it here due to relevance.

T1

[Skallagrim]

Ummm. . . Ok.

[MelonHead]

A friend of mine got this up on the forum so I thought I'd share it here due to relevance.

T1

@yoshua171

Already read it, claims to be the original, though I don't like it for a large number of reasons namely the restriction on tense, it's an ugly way to write. It also fails to cover anything other than the basics which are already established and pretty much agreed upon.

[Skallagrim]

Dionysus is very old school and an archivist of sorts for T1. I can post two separate versions of T1 that cover much of the same thing.

[MelonHead]

You'll also notice that the match-up is between two mundane weapon wielding humans in the example, which is pretty much the antithesis of our problem. Still it's probably good for new people to get the jist of how the turn based system works, loosely at any rate.

[Skallagrim]

I just posted Eden era and a more comprehensive version circa 2009

[yoshua171]

Link? Also, I merely thought it could be a helpful starting point for conversation, not a be all, end all.

[yoshua171]

Also, I do love it when I mention the tiers being broken, vague, and unreliable at best and no one takes that point in stride. I also quite enjoy the fact that instead of offering better solutions, all my ideas and points have been met with resistance.

[MelonHead]

Also, I do love it when I mention the tiers being broken, vague, and unreliable at best and no one takes that point in stride. I also quite enjoy the fact that instead of offering better solutions, all my ideas and points have been met with resistance.

@yoshua171

What.

[Vordak]

<Snipped quote by yoshua171>

What.

@MelonHead

exactly my thoughts

[Skallagrim]

Also, I do love it when I mention the tiers being broken, vague, and unreliable at best and no one takes that point in stride. I also quite enjoy the fact that instead of offering better solutions, all my ideas and points have been met with resistance.

@yoshua171

What are you going on about? Everyone agrees tiers are broken. What ideas are you specifically saying have been resisted? The multiple reviewers for a character? I already said it is a subjective issue regarding what is/is not balanced. Unless someone comes up with a system everyone agrees upon, it will always be a judgement call.

[Vordak]

@yoshua171

You weren't the first one to raise this point, and currently, the whole 'tier' situation has come to a halt. Whether that is good or bad is up to debate, but the fact itself that our current tier system is vague to the point of nigh-uselessness, is a known and even accepted fact. That is why your point was simply ignored - everybody already knows about it, and just can't be assed to start debating it again. Personally, i think that having no tier system at all is marvelous.

As for meeting resistance to your proposition of f different tournament GMing method, that was only natural. It is such a topic that everybody will have their own view upon, since you can't really say that one solution is better than another - the whole topic, in fact, does not have any definitive solution, as one's handling of it is largely dependent on the specifics of the situation at hand, plus, their own personal experience. Hence all the arguing - Rilla and Skallagrim represented their own opinions on this topic, with arguments none less valid than your own. I recall seeing that you even agreed with them at some point.

EDIT: what Skalla said XD

[yoshua171]

See I had no real way of knowing that. As I said, my presence in the arena has been spotty till recently.

Insofar as I can see, the problem is everyone talks about change, expresses their opinions, argues, and then no one actually tries any of it out. This is not to say that changes have never been made and it is not to say that experimentation hasn't happened. It is to say that it hasn't been done enough or people wouldn't complain so often. I'm also not saying "decide on an imaginary perfect system," I'm saying "try some of the suggestions or compile the good aspects of various ideas into a single system and test that out." That's what I did for the last few RPs I've run and now I have a successful RP built on the systems I developed over time.

Even more so, the first in those chain of three RPs (the third being the successful one) was _literally_ an interest check, which asked people "what is your ideal "X type," of RP." I got a whole community of people who wanted to participate in the creation of the ideal X RP. It ended up failing, but then I knew what had gone wrong and I knew what people wanted.

The second RP I altered things to compensate for the mistakes and flaws of the last iteration. It almost worked, but just fell short.

I tried again and edited things to compensate for my mistakes once more. I invited as many people as I could think of who might be interested and BAM that iteration still lives and is quite healthy. I've improved it during its running once more.

There are about as many people in the arena (maybe a bit more) as there were in the first iteration of that RP. The arena however, won't die from experimentation. It will die from stagnation and continued arguments and inability to attempt new ideas because less and less people will want to join the community because they'll test it out, have a negative experience or four, and then leave with only bad things to say to those they know who might want to participate.

I know more than one person who, just based on things they've seen lately, have come to the very conclusion that it's not worth joining. That's not a great sign.

I know other people who have left because of the lack of problems being fixed.

I would call them opinions except, the amount of people who have these opinions and the fact that these people think very differently from one another tells me that it goes across the board and isn't an isolated issue.

---

I apologize for the edged nature of my last response by the way. I tend not to enjoy being irrational or poking at people in that manner, but sometimes, like any human, I get irritated and it gets past my filter. From here on out I will stick to rationale and if that doesn't work or make anyone rethink their stand point, then I will withdraw my hand in this discussion as it will mean that I am wasting everyone's time and energy, especially my own and thus am not wanted.

[Skallagrim]

Everyone is allowed their opinion. Hell that is what happens in the Arena more so than anywhere else. The arena is small, it always has been so and it hardly every grows, and not just here, on any RP site the arena community is small. The arena is not for everyone, just as high-school werewolf/vampire romances, sci-fi or fantasy role-plays are suited for different people.

The arena above all is competitive, that alone reduces the number of people expressing interest. Depending on the site, the rules are draconian and the fighters extremely elitiest. Here the fighters are not so, and they don't specialize in any particular form of T- combat, although T1 is the favored one for the flexibility it offers. I do say that with hesitation since some members are not aware of the exact nature of how T1 works.

If you have ideas, explain them, lay them out. If they won't work for what ever reason you will be informed. You also have to remember applying standard role-play ideas to the arena doens't work without modification. You cannot fit a square peg into a round hole.

*** I have also posted five different version of T1.

[Rilla]

We will never have a fully functioning system that is just the epitome of perfection.

To me, T1 is simple. It balances magic out(assuming the sheets don't point out massive differences in skill in magic), as well as physical attributes(again, plays into what's listed on the sheet). If no power level is stated, all is assumed equal. If I prep once for an attack, and Melon preps once in defense, they'll cancel each other out. Not to mention dodging and stuff.

If people want a different set of rules, why not make them - as Skally said above. Just saying 'it doesn't work', doesn't help out at all. For example, we'd still probably be using the shoddy tier system, because it was more 'bickerbicker' until someone(I think Darth) dropped off a better system for us to use.

Perhaps I, and SKally(and I think DJ) understand it better because not only have we fought here, but we've fought on Gateway(where it's used), presumably one of them fought on Animeleague, and Skallagrim, I know, fought in the Grand Tournament. In other words, we have more experience with it than just fighting in a relatively small circle.

[Skallagrim]

@Rilla Hey Yo, go sticky my 5 versions of T1