Rule Proposal for Combat Related Actions

[philbertman42]

When performing an action on a combat roll, you should need to specify how your character is interacting with the other player's, as well as specifying who they are engaging. Too often do I run into players who don't put a bare minimum amount of detail in their actions, and instead have broken down combat encounters to a boring, unengaging repetition of "/me punches head" until the opponent loses four rolls. The purpose of this rule is to eliminate this, as well as clearing up any confusion that is happening during combat roleplay due to a lack of specification.

For example, instead of doing..


... you would have to detail your action, such as doing


You wouldn't necessarily need to get fancy with it, simply specify the way your character is interacting with the other player's. This is especially important during combat roleplay, yet I seldom see players detailing out the basic information necessary to knowing and properly understanding what is happening during a fight. How did you grab this character? Where in the head did you punch them? How did you break free from their grasp? How are you running away?

Spoiler: More Examples

- attempts to grab (name) by the shoulders.
- thrusts their palm against (name)'s chest, attempting to shove them out of the room.
- lowered their stance and attempted to tackle (name) at the waist.
- swung their leg out under (name), attempting to trip them up.
- kicked (name) against the front of the head, slamming a foot square into their jaw.
- lunges forward, attempting to drive a knife deep into (name)'s chest.

Your actions would not need to be paragraphs long essays, just a sentence that describes what your character is actually doing.

For the sake of minimizing redundancy, the rule of specifying a character would only apply at the beginning of an encounter between two people (as after that point they both know who they are fighting), or in fights which involve more than 2 people (as then it would be important to specify who is fighting who).

This would..
- Prevent people from abusing key binds such as "/me grabs" or "/me runs."
- Promote players to roleplay using full sentences instead of single words.
- Create a more interesting dynamic between players fighting, as there could be strategy in building off of and working around what your opponent is doing.
- Clear up confusion over how something is happening or who it is happening to.

 

[Yonio]

NEUTRAL
I get where you're coming from; GangRP (and pretty much anyone who's involved in dynamic CombatRP, excluding P2L) requires you to be a fast typer to succeed in a combat situation. Therefore, most people resort to keybinds, even if they are discouraged by the server rules themselves.

I can understand your point, and in fact, there are rules set in place to force players to specify their character's actions, such as PainRP guidelines, or rules in regards to assisting an action. However, I don't think that forcing everyone to put detail into their actions will solve much, considering people will still use keybinds, which, by the way, are sort of necessary if you wish to grab someone mid-chase

I like the idea, but the methods presented aren't really going to fix much, other than occasionally clearing out who the action is directed to

 

[BearDucky]

+1/-1

 

[Lizalopod]

+10000

I was actually going to suggest this change and I am glad that someone else shares this view honestly.

By forcing people to actually specify their targets, the minimum that will happen is make combat situations easier to understand.

Watch this get down voted by every gangrper who religiously spams /grab tho ;-;

 

[hebwig]

I get where you're coming from; GangRP (and pretty much anyone who's involved in dynamic CombatRP, excluding P2L) requires you to be a fast typer to succeed in a combat situation. Therefore, most people resort to keybinds, even if they are discouraged by the server rules themselves.

hello my dearest yonio the nacho, this is where you'd look at rolling for initiative

it was created so that we don't have to worry as much of "who can type the fastest" because that's not how combat nor is it how roleplay should be. roleplay is not about winning & rolling for initiative is a very traditional system used in several other roleplaying communities / RPG / D&D. this isn't everyone's favorite rule but i think a lot of people overlook how helpful it actually is, in both P2L & rolling (because you don't have to do a /roll fight in order to roll for initiative as rolling for initiative is just figuring out who does an action and when)

if you check out this section of the rules as well & view it in detail, there are also other rules that help maintain the element of surprise & where all actions must become P2L/honor because of party-based circumstances. i like OP's suggestion....it's a pretty easy rule to implement & doesn't overcomplicate anything....& maybe it will become more difficult to grab someone while they're running, which just means you have to find another way of catching up with them. we didn't have keybinds in the past & it still worked out for people.......but i guess this entire thing just ties hand-in-hand with making the server more writing-based

we could just drop another rule about specifying here / simplify what we currently have

this is a good suggestion though. i think it should be added. just my opinion

 

[Latte]

Not being threatened by gemi, again. . . Anyways! +111111 up voting the f out of this suggestion

 

[Emiyo | Layla]

-1
this would be super annoying as most people don't really know how to get out of stuff like this, and its just super unneeded, but good luck!

 

[Yonio]

hello my dearest yonio the nacho, this is where you'd look at rolling for initiative

it was created so that we don't have to worry as much of "who can type the fastest" because that's not how combat nor is it how roleplay should be. roleplay is not about winning & rolling for initiative is a very traditional system used in several other roleplaying communities / RPG / D&D. this isn't everyone's favorite rule but i think a lot of people overlook how helpful it actually is, in both P2L & rolling (because you don't have to do a /roll fight in order to roll for initiative as rolling for initiative is just figuring out who does an action and when)

if you check out this section of the rules as well & view it in detail, there are also other rules that help maintain the element of surprise & where all actions must become P2L/honor because of party-based circumstances. i like OP's suggestion....it's a pretty easy rule to implement & doesn't overcomplicate anything....& maybe it will become more difficult to grab someone while they're running, which just means you have to find another way of catching up with them. we didn't have keybinds in the past & it still worked out for people.......but i guess this entire thing just ties hand-in-hand with making the server more writing-based

we could just drop another rule about specifying here / simplify what we currently have

this is a good suggestion though. i think it should be added. just my opinion

Yeah, that rule was put in place, but I was specifically speaking about grabs, which can only be efficiently done if you have a keybind. We could possibly have something like a shift + right click or some other server-wide combination that allows players to actually grab each other without having to resort to keybinds

 

[Kana]

+1

This doesn't mean that an unnecessary amount of detail should be required though, nobody needs to know how your toes move as you kick someone or the fact that the person you're fighting is 'the female'. Actions should be readable and easy to understand, not a text wall, so I hope this doesn't encourage that sort of thing.

 

[Latte]

shift + right click or some other server-wide combination that allows players to actually grab each other without having to resort to keybinds

You just gave me an idea YonioLeNacho

 

[pashy]

-1 I really want some improvement in CombatRP but, making something like this mandatory isn't the best idea. It will only add complications and CombatRPers will struggle to cope and get used to this for a long while before anyone actually starts following it.. I don't see someone grabbing me and me doing /looc Specify how.. It probably is just going to create arguments

Including that people will also use it to stall especially against KPD because KPD, from my experience, get alot of metagame.. Sometimes quicker action is better.. It's hard to explain but during the time, in-action, with the nerve going, you don't want the situation to take long to keep going..

 

[Arocatula]

-1

 

[philbertman42]

This doesn't mean that an unnecessary amount of detail should be required though, nobody needs to know how your toes move as you kick someone or the fact that the person you're fighting is 'the female'. Actions should be readable and easy to understand, not a text wall, so I hope this doesn't encourage that sort of thing.

100% agreed, there isn't any reason to detail actions out to any extreme degree, especially in a setting which is typically a faster pace than normal everyday roleplay. It's a waste of time for both parties, especially since wordier actions are typically harder to understand anyway (which defeats the whole purpose of this suggestion).

I don't see someone grabbing me and me doing /looc Specify how.. It probably is just going to create arguments

That's the exact issue I'm getting at, nobody seems to care about how people are interacting with each other, and instead play out fights as though they're a turn based strategy game.

I definitely see the complications in adding this rule as many players would likely disagree with one another on whether certain actions would be realistic (such as a specific way to grab somebody given specific context), though staff could always step in to give the final say on an action as they're only a command away. And yes, many Combat Roleplayers would likely be tilted over a change this significant, but that's always going to happen as a result of any rule changes; it may take a long while, though the community would undoubtedly get used to it as it inevitably always does.

Including that people will also use it to stall especially against KPD because KPD, from my experience, get alot of metagame.. Sometimes quicker action is better.

This is a solid argument which I completely agree with; it's an unfortunate aspect of minecraft as a medium for roleplay, since we can't realistically slow down how quickly somebody can get to a situation to match the speed that roleplay is actually happening. If you've witnessed fights IRL before you'd know they typically don't last much longer than a minute, yet on SchoolRP they can last much longer for various (mostly uncontrollable) reasons.

However, this feels like a lack of discipline in the community rather than an issue with the proposed rule. If people are metagaming combat situations, report them to staff. Stalling is something that you can do already since there isn't any official "time limit" before your turn in combat is over, and players already have the ability to use "typing" as an excuse. There isn't much that can be done about it, other than having it be publicly frowned upon.

 

[maraa]

plus one from me, I agree with what gemi said

 

[pashy]

though staff could always step in to give the final say on an action

We dislike having staff involved because it ruins up our reputation and restricts future chances for applications.. They also are not free 24/7 to keep receiving questions about whether does this action seem convinient enough or not or someone arguing about specifying another one's action..

Doesn't seem like a smart thing to make it mandatory overall.. You ignored the rest of things I said and replied to one part

 

[pashy]

hello my dearest yonio the nacho, this is where you'd look at rolling for initiative

it was created so that we don't have to worry as much of "who can type the fastest" because that's not how combat nor is it how roleplay should be.

I think there are other unspoken reasons why a situation going faster is better. It wouldn't benefit one's self, but it's better. I don't know if I can explain it properly but really I notice in-action sometimes that taking long to detailrp isn't the best choice for certain situations.

Anyways. If this rule gets added it would be a great chance for me to metagame on KPD and take my time so I shouldn't complain.

 

[Ruin]

-1 i do gangrp for fun not to get better at writing or get confused, in my view gangrp is a thing you'd do with friends and enjoy spending time with them, if i were to forced into putting unnecessary detail just to grab someone running, id drop gangrping at that point, i want to enjoy classic gangrp most of the time and im slowly trying out p2l, adding more rules is just gonna make less people gangrp since its supposed to be doing something freely without caring if its illegal or not, if you put so many rules then ppl just wont gangrp

This wouldnt clear any confusion since your saying we should put detail on how we're grabbing the person, basically i use my arms but if any1 using their legs to grab sm1 sure this rule would come in handy

sorry if some things ive said dont make sense, its nighttime

 

[Minobu]

While detail is a great thing, all this would do is cause lengthier messages being spammed during chases from copy & pastes and more than likely disturb people passing. This would also just push a narrative and force people to make them use more copy & pastes; which in my opinion isn’t a great thing for improving RP per say.

Staff should look for qualities to improve peoples roleplay, not control how they roleplay (given its appropriate) or how detailed one’s writing capabilities may be. The moment you begin to enforce rules that rely on staff controlling detail is when you lose freedom of expressing your character in brief notations.

 

[Ruin]

i agree with minobu

 

[philbertman42]

if i were to forced into putting unnecessary detail just to grab someone running, id drop gangrping at that point

Staff should look for qualities to improve peoples roleplay, not control how they roleplay (given its appropriate) or how detailed one’s writing capabilities may be.

I'm not suggesting for long and detailed actions to be mandatory, and in fact disagree with anybody that says they should be. The point of this rule is to have people SPECIFY what their character is doing, not write a novel for every single action. I don't think this is too much to ask, especially on a server where writing is (basically) the only objective.

To more accurately display what I mean, here are a few examples of easily written actions for fast-paced combat situations which would follow this rule:

- attempts to grab (name) by the shoulders.
- thrusts their palm against (name)'s chest, attempting to shove them out of the room.
- lowered their stance and attempted to tackle (name) at the waist.
- swung their leg out under (name), attempting to trip them up.
- kicked (name) against the front of the head, slamming a foot square into their jaw.
- lunges forward, attempting to drive a knife deep into (name)'s chest.

These are a sentence each, don't feature any excessive detail, and describe what the character is doing ICly in compliance with my proposal. Most players should be able to write similar actions in less than 15 seconds without much of an issue.

all this would do is cause lengthier messages being spammed during chases from copy & pastes and more than likely disturb people passing. This would also just push a narrative and force people to make them use more copy & pastes

I could definitely see more people using copy pasted messages as a result of this addition. There isn't much which could be done about that, as we couldn't (and definitely shouldn't) restrict people's usage of copy pasting.

Personally, I'm not torn over the idea of players pasting pre-written actions if they want to as even then they would still be specifying what their character is doing. As long as they are following the rules, there really isn't an issue (outside of potentially ruining their own fun, but it would be their own fault at that point).