RP Fighting

[Head Administrator]

So You Think You Can Fight?: A Beginners Guide To RP Fighting.

Hello class, please take a seat anywhere you’d like, and welcome to Rp Fighting 101, brought to you by Rory Ashe (as well as excerpts from Rory Ashe’s trainers; Jolly Rensha, Goldeneyes, Mereldyn, Geco, and Saoirse). For convenience purpose, medical personal will be standing by throughout the class. So let’s begin!

Battle is something that few truly understand in real life, and even fewer understand in an Rp. Unlike real fighting though, Rp fighting is based largely on logic with a flair of imagination thrown in, and just like fighting; everyone has their own style. So this guide will be a bare bones basic overview of how to conduct yourself in an Rp fight, some basic rules that everyone should follow, and some tips and tricks to help you all become a better fighter. The best way to start this out would be to examine the very logic of how an attack from an opponent should be approached.

If you have seen DragonBall or DB:Z or DB:GT, you'll get what I'm going to say next. In almost every episode in the anime, at some point a large fight would take place between “Person A” and “Person B”. At some point during the fight, Person A would charge up a huge ball of energy and fire a blast at Person B… Anyone ever wonder why they never just sidestepped the blasts instead of try and run from them or block them? Sometimes the most simple move can be the most intelligent and effect. Yes, it looked cool in the anime to simply take the attack head on, but in any other fight doing that is incredibly stupid. So don't do it. Sidestep it instead. Let it blast into something else, who the hell cares what it hits as long as it isn't vital to the character… Like a wall…. Or another person… Or your neighbors cat.

The very same principle applies with a fist, or a leg. Rarely (VERY rarely) will you see an experienced fighter block a hit by taking it directly. What you'll usually see is deflection (which is taught in the most basic styles of fighting, including “Ye Olde Bar Fights”) or redirection (Which is usually only done by fairly experienced fighters. What do I mean by all of this? Let us observe:

Joe threw a powerful right hook at Bob’s face, leaning his whole body into the blow. Bob immediately moved his right foot forward, spun on the ball of his left foot, and leaned ever so slightly back to try and avoid the punch (This is that side-stepping thing I referred to earlier, make note though that he wasn’t able to completely lean out of the way because no one can move that fast). Bob then angled his left elbow upward with his forearm up in the air, pushing it against the right forearm of Joe (This is the deflection, he didn’t take the hit full force, he deflected it away from him.). Bob then threw his right elbow up with the momentum of his forward movement and spin, and accentuated the strength with a quick upward motion for Joe’s jaw (and here’s the counterattack, and very nicely placed by Bob if I must say so myself. Take note that Bob DID NOT say that his counterattack hit, he simply made it impossible for Joe to evade. Everybody give a hand for Bob *canned applause* and… somebody get some ice for Joe’s jaw…)

The movement of the Bob’s left elbow upward with the forearm would make certain that the right hook would slide behind and above Bob’s head without entangling Bob’s arm; a successful parry and attack by Bob. If Joe wanted to counterattack, I highly doubt he could. All Joe’s weight is forward and he'd have to bear the hit. Sorry, but it’s going to happen, everybody gets hit and eventually everybody loses; which takes me to the point of accepting damage.

I can't tell you the countless times I've pinned someone like Joe in the example, where there is no move that someone could make without getting injured (or the countless times that I MYSELF have been pinned in that unfortunate and painful position). That is the beauty of Player versus Player (PVP) combat, it's chess between two people. As long as you know how the body moves, take into account your weight shifts, the position your body is in, and the position your enemy's is in, it is an enjoyable thing and incredibly fun to RP. However, when someone keeps being cornered like Joe just was in the example and miraculously 'throw's head back' or 'whips head back and stumbles backward without getting hit' it wears quickly on the patience of the other fighter. NOBODY can avoid every hit, so a common rule of thumb is that if you are in doubt of whether or not your character could dodge the attack; be a man and just take the hit. As for a few tips and rules for PVP fighting, they are very simple and not that much different from regular Rping. They are as follows.

1) Courtesy
2) Think
3) Research
4) Mind your environment
5) Mind your weapon
6) Mind your opponent
7) DESCRIPTION!!! (This one is just a tiny bit important if you couldn’t tell)

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1) Courtesy - Know when you're down. When you lose the fight, or even get put into a position that you should get hit, and there is an unlikely exit, or impossible exit, just concede that you are hit, or defeated. DO NOT EVER POWERPLAY OR GODPLAY TO COP OUT, nobody ever likes this. Powerplaying is when you say that an attack hits without asking the players permission, generally you leave the attack open for a response like Bob did. Godplaying, is when your character dodges every move as if they knew it was coming all along, another big no no. Also, as opponents, don't do something that is fatal to the enemy when he is down, or in a weak position. In other words, don't mortally wound your fellow player, you could ruin a plot or kill his character, and without his consent that is a huge no-no. If its okay with him, then by all means do it… After all, everybody loves to kick a guy while they’re down right? These are just some common courtesy rules and since they also apply to general Rping probably aren’t that big of a problem for most people.

2) Think - If you don't think, you'll quickly be overcome, or be wounded severely. Battle is a thinking man's game, and takes people lifetimes to master in the real world. We don't have that luxury typically. So before you post, just take a moment to take everything in your opponents post into consideration. No doubt they left a viable weakness open, try to find it, or better yet, simply make sure that your character leaves no weakness in his post.

3) Research - Watch martial arts movies like Jackie Chan, he doesn't use wires all too often. Jet Li can be good. Read books on weapons, they give hints to how they were used. If you want to get hardcore, get a fencing book. A sword play book, something along those lines. I used to have a book for fencing, I don't know where it is now, that showed positions, beginning and ending, with description of the motion. What it all boils down to is observation, and taking into account how the mechanics of fighting go. Learn how the body can move, and every twist and turn of it (no, that is not an innuendo…. But it should be.)

4) Mind Your Environment - Your fighting style will change dramatically if you are fighting in/on a volcano, field, or stone wall of a castle. You can use objects around you, though don't just invent them out of thin air, or features of the landscape. For instance, in one thread, my character ran up a hill at full speed, jumped from the apex of the hill and somersaulted over them with guns blazing. Granted, he was an enhanced life form with exceptional speed and strength, so was the case with the thread though. But take your setting into account, three hundred Spartans and a thousand other Greeks were able to hold off several HUNDRED THOUSANDS of Persians simply because they minded their environment…

5)Mind your Weapon - Or lack thereof. Use it effectively, and pick one that you know you can handle. Don't pick something you don't know how to use in real life, if you don’t know how to fight with a sword, don’t have it as your characters main weapon, even if that means simply the body of your character. If you don’t know how to fight that well, don’t choose a master martial artist for you character. This requires point three, research. Also mind the weapon of your opponent.

6) Mind your Opponent - If the Player's character is supposed to be a master swordsman, and you're a farmer who just picked up a sword, don't expect the farmer to be a genius savant who magically is a great swordsman. ALWAYS SEPARATE WHAT YOU KNOW AND WHAT YOUR CHARACTER KNOWS. Example? Chronicles of Narnia, great series, but shoddily explained movies. One of the characters was a fool who was given a sword by none other than Santa Clause and then after he killed a wolf with difficulty and was named Sir Jack-off-a-lot the Wolfsbane was able to slay Minotaur, Orc, wolf, tiger, polar bear, and at least hold his own against a sword master witch with no problem.

Don't follow Sir Jack-off-a-lot... It pisses people off. Take the skill level of your character, NOT YOURSELF, and go with it. Along with that, don't pick a warrior with great skill if you suck at player to player battle. As your own skill increases, increase the skill of your character. My first character that I ever used for a PVP RP was a simple blacksmith’s son, who knew absolutely nothing about fighting (as I didn’t either.) Through the course of the RP, the boy steadily learned how to fight (and so did I) so that by the end of it, he was a skilled swordsman and I was a skilled PVPer. Don’t ever be afraid to let your character fail at something, it is only through failure that we learn how to succeed, your characters are the same way. (Besides, once you realize how fun it is to brutally and violently hurt your character, you’ll never want to stop!)

7) DESCRIPTION!!! - Write your moves descriptively, down to how your weight is shifted, the position of your feet, or if you're in the air from a jump, the position of your body. The position of your arms, your torso, and your head. If you are squatting, ducking, weaving, juking, etc. Put if it is a weak blow, or a powerful one.

If it is powerful blow, you wind back further and present a weakness, it’s just nature. Then again if the hit lands, it does a lot of damage. If it is a weak blow, it's quick and not as dangerous, but allows you to move back into a defensive position more quickly or rebound for another attack. Therefore, timing is also involved. Rping fights isn't instant action scenario and shouldn't be treated as such. Accuracy of a hit is something that is hard to accomplish for a novice, so don't expect a farmer who just picked up adventuring to be able to throw a punch directly to someone's liver at will (which is considered a “kill shot” in boxing).

I will say this personally, when a person is incredibly descriptive in their post during a fight, it makes it INCREDIBLY hard for me to beat them. If a person isn’t descriptive, I can tear them apart like a rabid dog (always wanted to say that hehe).


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Well students that’s all for this particular session, if you are interested in more advanced fighting styles, come to my next class. Otherwise, remember, Rping a fight is just like Rping, it’s all for fun so don’t get upset over what happens in a fight and try not to take it too seriously. It may seem difficult at first, but the rules that apply to an Rp fight as the same that apply to an Rp, and once you do it a little it becomes natural and just as fun as any other type of Rping. Don’t ever be nervous about asking a question either, if you don’t know something ask! There are plenty of people who would love to help. Now that’s it, get out of my class or DIE!!... I mean… Have a nice day children.