Lesson #3: Combat

[Guido Carosella]

This subject had a lot of great discussion, so I'll just post everyone's responses instead of trying to recap the whole thing.

[Guido Carosella]

Christine MacTaggart sez:
as battles/fight scenes are not my strong point, can you give a few tips?

Guido sez:

The first thing I would suggest is be familiar with the fighting ability/style of your character, and their strengths and weaknesses. Guido is easy: he's a straight puncher with no ranged attack, so all he has to do is wade into the thick of things and start swinging. The downside to that is, an opponent could use a ranged attack against him to keep out of reach.

A shooter like Cyclops would do just that: support his teammates with long-range fire and avoid getting up close and personal if he can help it.

A support-type character may not really have any offensive capabilities, but may have other abilities that could be useful in a fight. Such as force fields, psionic ability, teleportation, etc.

Again, fighting depends on the character. The best way (on a board such as this) to handle a fight is to meet with your opponent via PM or email, and choreograph the fight beforehand. That way, the actual posts are easy for everyone else to follow.

Desperado sez:
In a fight scene, how do you know when to stop a post? For example, say Guido is facing someone with enhanced speed, strength, and agility, like...Beast. Say Beast wants to run at Guido, leap over his head and attack Guido from behind. Do you say all of that in one post, or do you put it in three separate posts, or what?

Guido sez:

That's kinda hard to say, seeing as we've only had one big battle on the site since it began.

As I said before, i's best to plot the fight out with your opponent beforehand via PM or email, that way the posts flow better.

Now, to the meat of the matter. It's usually better to give yourself one action per post in a fight scene. And don't post the result of your action unless your opponent already approves. Using the above example of Beast attacking Guido (which could happen ) there are a few things Guido could do:

Guido whirled as he heard Beast's snarl of rage. He turned to see a blue, furry blur launch itself at him, teeth and claws bared. Reflexively, he lashed out with a backhand, intending to knock Beast senseless to the ground.

OR:

There was no chance for Guido to respond to Beast's attack, the other mutant was simply too fast. He dropped to one knee and crossed his arms in front of his face, bracing himself.

OR:

Guido turned and ran screaming like a little girl towards the mansion.

One thing to remember, though. Nobody likes to play with someone who doesn't take a hit once in a while. Or who pulls new powers and abilities out of their behinds in the middle of a fight, that were not even close to being mentioned in their character descriptions (It has happened). Your character is gonna take a few lumps, it's all part of the game. Nobody likes someone that has to "win" all the time. The point of an RPG is not to win, it's to develop a character. Losses add to a character just as much as a victory does.

Heidi Smith sez:

Just a comment on Guido's last post. Some characters simply do better being the little kid who has to be told how to do everything. Example PINC in the sent. battles. He didn't really do any of the few things he could right, and even ended up burning his whole front side! (Quite painfull, especially for that furry tailed guy.)

There is a point where one starts beating themselves up, so try not to do that unless it truely fits your character, like that case.

Larza sez:

I have a probblem with making my chars seem too weak.

I tihnk that's 'cause I'm trying not to let them win too much, and mthen making them lose more often. Like, again as an example, in the Sent battle.

So..any tip on that li'll aspect? Heh...

Guido sez:

That's what my dear old dad used to call "falling overboard the other way."

It's great if you make your character vulnerable and not all-powerful. It's more than can be said for a lot of others. But there's no reason they can't have their time in the spotlight, too. Don't turn them into a punching bag (unless you REALLY want to, I suppose) just because some mutations and abilities are more glamorous than others (Toad, anyone?).

Let's use Larza as an example. She's an assassin. Her powers and abilities favor stealth and agility, so she's more suited to silenty stalk an opponent and take them out quickly and quietly. She's not suited for a toe-to-toe slugfest, so she avoids them if possible. Playing within the scope of your character has its own rewards in an RPG (in my ever so humble opinion). Having a character get in over their head and learn better the hard way would be a good RPG experience. On the other hand, there's no reason to drop them in the meat grinder time after time, just for the sake of making them vulnerable. My advice would be give a little, and take a little. Some days you're the dog, other days you're the fire hydrant.

[Guido Carosella]

Beast sez:

For the sake of example, argument, and discussion:

Quote:
Guido whirled as he heard Beast's snarl of rage. He turned to see a blue, furry blur launch itself at him, teeth and claws bared. Reflexively, he lashed out with a backhand, intending to knock Beast senseless to the ground.

The momentum of his own enraged charge worked against him as it carried Beast into the brunt of the larger mutant's startled response. The force of Guido's blow rattled teeth and put a quick end to the Beast's forward movement. Visibly shaken and dripping blood from his lips, Beast managed to catch hold of his opponent's tree-like arm as it sent him hurtling earthward. Faster than the eye could follow, and with an agility unmatched by virtually anyone alive, the blue-furred mutant hit the ground feet first and heaved the captured arm downward and away from him with all his considerable strength. Beast ducked as the move sent Guido hurtling through the air above him.

Quote:
There was no chance for Guido to respond to Beast's attack, the other mutant was simply too fast. He dropped to one knee and crossed his arms in front of his face, bracing himself.

With a roar as the two collided, Beast's assault sent the pair of mutants over the edge of the building's side.

Quote:
Guido turned and ran screaming like a little girl towards the mansion.

Landing nimbly, Beast couldn't help but double over with laughter. "Four times today! Geeze, I crack myself up", he said.

Christine MacTaggart sez:

A simple note about fight scenes:
X-Men! We have something called the DANGER ROOM - just because Logan's *not* here doesn't mean you're allowed to skip training. We have many wonderful sims where you can practice fighting. Ask a staff member to start it up for you - and you can only customize your fighting/training sim with special premission from an adult member and whoever is our computer ace

Acolytes, you have the same thing: it's called the TRAINING ROOM. Use it if you want to practice your fighting and make sure you're up to speed.

Beast sez:

Rahne did a *spectacular* example of Danger Room posting shortly after her arrival. xevolved.proboards35.com/index.cgi?board=library&action=display&thread=1087571010

Ali Blaire sez:

Well, profs, since we're on fight scenes, I've got something to address: Battles against NPCs.

In fight scenes, it might be anyone doing a solo scene taking on Thugs #1-5. While this can be well used, it is a fight scene only written by the rper. I can see issues in these fight scenes, because with the NPCs, the rper is fighting themselves. There is no surprise and no plotting with the other fighter. Often, the NPCs can end up unreasonably weak for convenience. Any tips on this use of NPCs as fighters?

Gambit sez:

Hey, I actually did a scene like this! Funny you should choose the numbers 1-5, as there were 5 thugs... unless you're tryin' to tell me someting... *eyes Ali*

Anyways, I'm not sure about pointers, as the main reason for Gambit's run in with the thugs was for him to get the snot beat out of him so he could flip out and blow them all up (his powers were at full potential at the time). All I can say is know your character's strengths and weaknesses, and play that out. If the thugs have no weapons, and your character is super strong, chances are it'll be a quick fight with little damage to your characters. If weapons are involved, or the thugs get the drop on ya, ya might take a beatin', or might even wanna tag someone in to save your butt, just to make it more interestin'.

Just a few suggestions. And now I hand the question on over to the real experts... or at least the guy that created this thing. Guido?

Guido sez:

Fights against NPCs, that's an interesting twist, and something I haven't personally done before. It's easy to adjust the difficulty of NPC battles, since there's only one player controlling all the participants. Like Gambit said, be aware of your character's strengths and weaknesses. If you want a quick scrap that your character can easily win, have your opponents be just a bunch of petty thugs. If you want your character to take a beating and barely escape with his life, up the difficulty of your opponents accordingly, such as SHIELD Agents in Mandroid armor.

Wolverine sez:

Right. The key with writing a fight scene with NPC's is knowing what the purpose is for a scene. In some scenes you wanna have your character take a severe beating because you are developing a story, other scenes you might win easily, or you might barely escape alive.Just keep a purpose in mind when doing those and you should be ok.

[Guido Carosella]

Beast sez:

I'm not one of the Profs or an expert (I never really wrote or RPed until I started here last October), but I'd really like to take a shot at answering Ali's very *good* question.

Like Guido, I've never written a scene like it - I think partly because of the nature of my character and partly because I'd tend to try to recruit some of the Acolytes to play opposite me as opposed to loading up with Non-Players. That said, I think it's an interesting challenge.

I agree with Logan's comment: "The key with writing a fight scene with NPC's is knowing what the purpose is for a scene." If it's simply a matter of saying "my character took down 5 thugs" then just do that.

The simplest way would probably be something like:

Quote:
There were five thugs guarding the entrance. Beast took them down easily.


Dramatically, you could go the quick route a little differently by letting us in the character's head a little bit:

Quote:
Beast scanned the scene. Hmm, he thought to himself. Five guards. But none of them look like a match for the bouncing baby Beast.
He was right. None of them were.


I think if I were going to do this, though, I'd try to play up what the character sees. Five thugs, yes, but they're individuals. Tell us something about them that makes them something other than a thug and sets them apart. I always love to play into what my character doesn't know - which is a little tough with Beast because he's the kind of character who tends to have to know everything. I think I'd play it something like this:

Quote:
Beast scanned the scene. One entrance. Five members of the gang on guard. So far, they hadn't seen him approach, so he had the advantage of surprise. Their numbers shouldn't mean much to his agility...as long as none of them were carrying guns.

He was running out of time. The little girl they were holding for ransom needed her medicine soon. The quicker he could get this over with, the better. It was too dark to really tell what he was getting into. The drainage tunnel where they held the girl was going to be even worse. Rather than go for the chaos of an ambush, Beast decided to try to keep the scene controlled by getting them to reveal any weapons first.

He stepped out into the light. "Pardon me, gentlemen, but I seem to have lost my niece. Have you seen her anywhere? Small child? Fortunately for her, she looks much more like my sister...."

His brazen approach startled them. He saw at least two go for what looked like handguns. One of them, a "'do rag" bandana-wearing gold-toothed gangster who quickly recoverd from his surprise began to move toward him. Gold Tooth was obviously their leader.

"Looky here, bras", Gold Tooth said in thick Hispanic accent. He stepped toward Beast with arms outstretched at his sides, the polished metal of his Colt 45 gleaming under the streetlight. "It's lookin' like it's open season on mutie freaks. We could use a new t'row rug."

The gangster's bravado seemed to bolster his companions. A mixture of grim laughter met Beast's highly sensitive ears. One of the thugs - a thin and wiry pimply-faced kid who needed to shave the hideous goat-like thing from his face almost as much as he needed to pull up the pants that showed his unclean Boxer shorts - rapped a lead pipe against his open palm with a metallic thud. Another, mostly hidden in shadows, pulled back the hammer of his own unseen handgun with a loud and distinct click-clack.

"It's Thanksgivin', Juni", said Gold Tooth with a sideways glance at the shadowy gunman. "Take this turkey down."

As the gun fired, Beast was airborne. The incredible strength of his legs carrying him well away from the spot where the gangster had aimed. He did a double flip in mid-air, caught the pole of the streetlight and swung around it gaining momentum that he delivered into Juni's midsection with his enormous clawed feet. Juni fell back into the shadowy tunnel with a shriek, the gun skidding off across the pavement. Gold Tooth moved to take his own shot, and Beast leapt straight for the gangster's legs. Executing a tackle that would have made his high school football coach shout with delight, Beast put Gold Tooth down and out. Two of the other thugs ran off into the night.Beast paused and looked around. He had lost track of Lead Pipe. As he scanned the shadowy shapes, Lead Pipe found him instead. Beast's head exploded suddenly with pain. "Nuts", he mumbled to himself. "Spider-Man gets to stick to walls and get a nifty early-warning system. I gotta look like an angry Cookie Monster. It just isn't FAIR."

Yellow stars raced around his vision to a crazy rendition of Twinkle Twinkle as he flung his hands protectively over his head. He turned and tried to focus on his attacker, but instead of one - there were three doing a crazy out-of-focus chasing dance with the yellow stars. All of them needed a shave and all of them needed to pull their pants up.

It struck Henry to do what his old drunk Uncle Clarence would say when people asked him how he found his way to the right house every night. "Aim for the middle one."

Beast lashed out at the middle one, grabbing the pipe in one hand and driving a fist into the punk's stomach. All three of them crumpled face-first to the pavement with a whimper. Henry's vision began to clear and he stood and looked at the fallen thug. "Aw geeze", Henry said with a grimace. Though it was a dark and the sky was cloudy, Henry was greeted by a half-moon from the ground. "Pull your pants up!", he said with a sick and disgusted look.

Resisting the humor of the devilish urge to return Lead Pipe's weapon to him like some proctological Sword in the Stone - "I give thee, Excalibur!" - Henry bent the pipe into a donut shape and threw it as far as he could.

Rubbing his sore head, he turned and went to find the missing girl.