Drifting Pollen

Arena Chat Thread

Well, looks like the gun debate has ceased and I don't need te additional points I was going to make. XD

It could be funny in a dark humor way if I come in with a high powered character who gets one shot by a pistol.

@ImportantNobody

"Nooooo! My only weakness, bullets! How did you know?"

Arena Chat Thread

Just going to drop in a comment here.

I've fought with and against guns and gun-like weapons, both on the low and high ends of the power scale, and it is possible to deal with them in all circumstances, provided you and your opponent can be reasonable about things.

One way is to have some means of blocking them. Making a character immune to bullets or fast enough to dodge them would be too strong for mild-powers fights, but there can be stuff that defends against them. An enchanted shield, for instance, could work to deflect them, while not providing an absolute defense. I had one character who was essentially a big strong lizard-man, who relied on his scaly skin for protection... his scales weren't tough enough to take bullets in most areas, but the ones on his back were far tougher and had bony plates similar to a crocodilian, and so when he went down on all fours and kept his head low, most bullets would simply ricochet off his back.

The other way of handling things is by considering aim. I actually got involved in a a fight recently between two unpowered humans dueling with guns in an obstacle-laden warehouse. You'd think this would be over in an instant, since whichever character caught the other out of cover first would immediately win- but my opponent and I agreed that we'd take aim into consideration: a sudden shot at long range would not hit any vital organs, and would have a chance of missing entirely. To land a lethal shot, we needed to either ambush the enemy and fire from up close, or figure out their location and line up a shot, while somehow ensuring the enemy didn't know they were being targeted.

So IMO anything can work really, so long as both players willing to bend the rules a little if necessary.

Arena Chat Thread

@DLL I have like 40 usable sheets, another 30 or so that need rewriting, and somewhere around 240 other character sheets that don't even exist but are memorized in my brain.

@LeeRoy

That's enough characters to fill an anime series...

Running and Gunning - Higan Vs. The Magna Pater

@Drifting Pollen

Can you drop by now and then to keep us on the straight and narrow? As you can probably tell, Melon and I make for a combustive mix.

@Doc Doctor

Honestly, from what I've seen, Melon and anyone makes for a combustive mix :P Nothing wrong with that, a few quibbles aren't that big of a deal, so long as things don't get as messy as they did in the Majesty Tournament.

Regardless, I've been reading this fight for fun anyways, so I'll be keeping up with things :) If you two want my humble opinions on anything else, I'll do my best to oblige, so long as I have the time and/or willpower!

Running and Gunning - Higan Vs. The Magna Pater

All right, here's the long and short of it:

Melon's right about the lens. Most large cameras will in fact have layers of glass in front of the lens, and while these would almost certainly have been broken, destroying them would not impact the functioning of the cameras themselves. The vital parts tend to be buried pretty deep inside... and while blunt force trauma might be enough to severely damage them, these ones are covered in armor, and likely toughened up, given they're part of a freaking battle mech. Indeed, a smart engineer would have made sure that the essential components were thoroughly insulated against large 'smashing' attacks from the outside. Though we can't necessarily say that this is the case here, I'd say that the main lens surviving is more likely. The right side getting taken out is clearly based on the character sheet, so any arguments about that being 'too convenient' are pretty much unfounded.

Doctor's right about the initial grab not working. He'd already established the speed of his character, as well as its flexibility and readiness for a counterattack. So it would get away in time to make its attempt at squeezing under the arm- leading to Melon's latest post. However, it's now Doc's turn, and he has a chance to respond to that.

As for most of the other stuff... there have been multiple accusations of metagaming and whatnot, as unofficial judge I recommend taking them all and throwing them in the big fat garbage can of forgiveness. Yes, there were arguably minor problems on both sides, but none of them stopped the fight from going on or being fun up to this point. Going through them impartially would take forever, likely ruin what was honestly a pretty cool fight so far, and would probably reveal about an equal amount of mistakes from both sides.

And yes, the current fight is technically rather lopsided. If both contestants want to re-balance things to even them out or whatever, then do as you like, so long as the two of you get along. For the purposes of the main points being disputed, however (the grab and the cameras), see what I wrote above.

Hope that helps. Are there any particular points you two feel I still need to address, or does this cover things?

Running and Gunning - Higan Vs. The Magna Pater

@Drifting Pollen

Can you give a judgement on the fight? We need an unbiased, absolute solution to this standstill based upon posts presented both IC'ly and OOC'ly.

@Doc Doctor

I'm charmed that you trust me so :)

Give me some time, need to review all those walls of text you guys wrote.

MT-R2: Divinity Vs DLL

@Divinity

If you had called them lances instead of javelins the issue would still be very much the same.

@Starfall

Not necessarily. I was able to tell they were coming from the ground based on just reading the post, but on the other hand I can see how someone would get a different mental image from it... still, a slight change in the wording might have helped clarify enough to prevent confusion.

We can't really know, though, since everyone is used to different styles and thus may read the same words and interpret them differently. This is why I'm recommending more communication, because I really enjoy reading these things and would like to see them go cleanly if possible.

MT-R2: Divinity Vs DLL

Whoo boy, this got crazy fast.

Just popping in to say this seems more like a misunderstanding to me. Technically, Corban was very vague about where the 'javelins' came from, but that wouldn't have been a problem if DLL had asked for clarification before making his own post. On the other hand, it's possible that the wording itself (specifically 'javelins,' which were throwing weapons and therefore technically a projectile) made him think Corban meant one thing when in fact he meant another...

From my experience, it's generally considered the best form to make things as clear as possible to one's opponents. However, everyone has a right to write how they want... perhaps it would be best for Corban to add a brief, italicized summary of what is actually happening beneath each post? Shouldn't take too much effort, and it would help resolve inconsistencies in the future.

Arena Chat Thread

If you consider others from sites not here unworthy, your community will slowly die. I learned this lesson a long time ago, people tend to hop around. People however do tend to stick with groups, be it a site or a group of friends, and when you get a group that travels around from place to place(usually all at once) its not a bad thing.

@Enki

Considering the anemic condition of the fighting community on RPGuild, an infusion of fresh faces is probably warranted. You can only fight the same people so many times; without new players, things will stagnate. A group of ten or twenty people isn't especially sustainable in this particular context.

@Darth

Perhaps I need to make this clear: I have nothing against people coming here from other sites, and I agree that new players are vital for any community. What I was saying was that I was unlikely to bring along a posse of allies myself, since the structure and rules of the other sites I tend to fight on would make this difficult.

Hope that clears things up.

Arena Chat Thread

@Drifting Pollen If you have allies, bring allies. The Arena needs more people.
Especially since some of the best are either leaving and or indisposed. Humble compliment @Skallagrim, @MelonHead, and @Rilla.
Bring as many people from other sites as you can, my dudes and dudettes.

@LeeRoy

I'll see what I can do. Unfortunately, the other arenas I frequent are also lacking in participants... but perhaps I can find someone bloodthirsty enough to spread their duels across multiple sites.