Thoughts on rolls in emote fighting

All right! After last night's Steel Boot tournament, I've been thinking about combat in RP, and I hope my musings will be of some interest for discussion for the community.

So many of us (myself included) tend to complain about emote fights. They're long, they're cumbersome, and no one really wants to let their character lose unless it's obvious that they should.

Many of us (myself included) also complain about fight systems that involve rolls. After all, using them, a fluffy little gnome girl could beat a strapping draenei paladin - seems all wrong, doesn't it?

It's clear that no method will ever be perfect or matching real life situations, but as I've been playing different games and reading different things, it's occurred to me how much luck actually can play a role in fights. Naturally, players should keep in mind certain sensible boundaries - if I'm a gnome and you're a draenei, well, I would do everything I could not to have to fight you. But in a system such as the Steel Boot tourneys have been using, I believe there's actually something to be said for it other than 'well it's the lesser of two evils.'

For example. My rogue Annie won the tournament. This was unlikely, considering she was facing a handsomely geared hunter, an elegant druid, and a fire mage. Yet the rolls forced the combatants to find a reason why each person should do better or worse than the other -- and, being forced into a form, sometimes our RP was the better for it. I mean, when else when you actually want your character to win would you think to have a sudden cut one of your arteries? Or allow yourself to be bashed in the temple and knocked out?

Perhaps, a system of rolling while emoting can actually add that element of surprise to both combatants - whether in an organised event or a random encounter in a street brawl - that might force them to shift their wishes and to be surprised by how creative they can be, whether their character is winning or losing at that moment.

Now, I'm not saying that everybody has to go out there and use rolls every time your character wants to punch someone, but I see rolls as actually being - rather than cumbersome and annoying as I'd previously thought - an opportunity for people to be more objective about their characters' weaknesses, and more creative about their strengths.

Thoughts welcome!

I'd still say rolling for emote fights is the lesser of two evils, unless you want to go through the hassle of trying to arrange before-hand who would win/loose a fight.

It simple involves the element of chance, which I would still say has quite a lot of weight to do with fighting, As you example states, even if it is a strapping draenei paladin, a little fluffy gnome still has a chance, albeit its quite small.

In my case, I just prefer the use of rolls during RP fights, simply because there isn't really another alternative (That I've seen to work) that can simply work as fast as rolling can, If there is any alternative out there, however, I would be happy to try it.

I'd preffer the old Ways from vanilla, settle it with a real duel >_o sadly the Ethos that those who actually bother to work for pvp gear (and hence should have the better battle prowess) should win, is gone. But thatsaid it didnt take into account other character attributes and so forth...

...i loathe roll emote fights, becuase they leave far too much up to chance and leave out other factors as well.

So yeah, i preffer people to use their witts and common sense when doing a normal emote fight, its not too much to ask. or is it? = /

I flat out refuse to participate in RP fights if they are settled with rolls. Either duel or improv emotes are fine (duel is the ONLY WAY in large scale fights though) as long as the partner isn't a selfish retard. But no, rolls are too lame imo.

I do rolls when fighting with complete strangers, and normal emote fights with friends who I know won't be stupid about it. Duels are okay too, but they can be kind of limited when you want to do something that isn't possible with game mechanics (e.g. trying to overpower someone's mind with shadow magic).

Seiken wrote:I'd preffer the old Ways from vanilla, settle it with a real duel >_o sadly the Ethos that those who actually bother to work for pvp gear (and hence should have the better battle prowess) should win, is gone. But thatsaid it didnt take into account other character attributes and so forth...

...i loathe roll emote fights, becuase they leave far too much up to chance and leave out other factors as well.

Well your opinion has certainly changed a lot

I'll only ever support rolling for emote fights if there was a ballanced rulesystem behind it for skills and what ever. So you could have a clear show of how good the person was in a fight.
But, that makes the whole system to much of a hasle to have in an MMO.
So when it comes to emotefights I'll just ask people to nicely step away from the thought that they are superspecialsnowflakes and be reasonable. Or take a duel.

Jezvina wrote:I do rolls when fighting with complete strangers, and normal emote fights with friends who I know won't be stupid about it. Duels are okay too, but they can be kind of limited when you want to do something that isn't possible with game mechanics (e.g. trying to overpower someone's mind with shadow magic).

Seiken wrote:I'd preffer the old Ways from vanilla, settle it with a real duel >_o sadly the Ethos that those who actually bother to work for pvp gear (and hence should have the better battle prowess) should win, is gone. But thatsaid it didnt take into account other character attributes and so forth...

...i loathe roll emote fights, becuase they leave far too much up to chance and leave out other factors as well.

Well your opinion has certainly changed a lot

We learn new tricks and also stick to old habits, we're all creatures of evolution baby!

Celistra arranged us a training event a while ago, and I found the rolling system used in it quite balanced.
Each participant started with 7hp. You emoted an attack and rolled how efficient it would be, and depending on the number your opponent would either avoid the attack completely, get hit and lose 1hp, get hit good and lose 2hp or if you rolled 100, they would get critically hit and lose 3 hp. The other participant would then have to emote his reaction to your attack(according to the rolls) and make a counter attack.

I reckon that particular system is mostly viable for trainings and tournaments though, as you rarely have time to discuss rolls and stuff when someone attacks your character out of the blue.

Whenever I get in a fight ICly (usually not planned) I emote the fight rather than rolling. Rolls are good, but annoying.
If you've just launched an epic attack (that would have little chance of missing) and you use the roll, you get in awkward situations.

I also don't go through complicated rolling tables/preset rules to rolling as it spoils the fun. You spend half of your time rolling, and only the other half with the actual thing you enjoy: RP.

Still, its a issue and everyone has their own way of dealing with it.

I actually found back the fun in emote fights with Celistra's rolling system. Not because my character won (it was very close) but because this way you can avoid going on endlessly, especially when the character you fight against is a masked god-emoter who always magically escapes everyting. I still generally dislike emote fighting but the rolling system got me to yell 'Booyah!' and other silly things. ^^

How to solve the problem: Only emote fight with people that you know wont act like I R SPESHUL SNOWFLAKEZ.

I like rolling personally they're more fun

Like you said there's a sort of exciting suspense before each roll while waiting for the outcome and then you get to be imaginative when trying to explain why you missed I really like rolling although it can get frustrating sometimes, like when Larem KEPT winning every single roll (over like 20 rolls I think) over the space of a couple of hours one night in feathermoon hahahaha x) was lots of fun anyways though!

ah personaly I do enjoy rolls in fights the element of supprise that people have had when my week little chareshia beat the armour clad warrior of the seal was awsome people kept calling him a girl for months as my chareshia had no combat experiance at the time and simply got lucky lol

as far as general thow.. rolls help in a lot of situations.. without them you wouldnt be ablet to have dungeons and dragon style evenfs where there are horde around you without you beong there like lets say your on one boat.. the hord are on another and there shhip engages battle.. rolls are the only way to rp that out otherwise most people would pwn the hord with no risk to themselfs as nobody wants to loose by nature

and if you dont like rolls try not get into fights thow i do admit a pure ic fight without rolls can be awsome.. just a dambed shame there are so many trololol i dodge your shotz bitch!!

I hate emote rolls and tend to decline them unless a roll might actually make sense. I'm also with Antle on this one. Well...with that I mean is that the player should simply make sense. If your enemy makes no sense...tough luck, but now you know what to expect from that player.

Like you said it yourself, your little criminal(?) rogue smacked a druid, fire mage and fancy geared hunter.

If I play a weak character I don't want to win emote battles. If I play a strong character I'm simply very careful about picking my fights (in most cases I avoid emote fights, unless self-defense or indeed when I know who the other roleplayer is.)

All in all....I really, really do not see the sense in rolls when it comes to emote battles, with some exceptions.

I feel like the greatest problem is that we want to incorperate features of our characters and roleplay that are unsupported by game mechanics. (spells that are not supported by in game mechanics, like the shadow mind invasion mentioned earlier is an example). Because of the free and imaginative spirit of these meta-game like abilities (metagame in the sense that they stem from sources out of the game i.e imagination of players) it is impossible to enforce any one golden ruleset on them. When we allow characters such things as shadow mind invasion, we will have to come to terms with the fact that we alllow the excistance of metagame phenomena that are unregulatable. The only way we try to regulate these metgame component is by appeals to common decency and a sort of shared implicit roleplay etiquette, expressed most commonly by the verb "Godmoting".

Either you drop and and all metagaming components from your roleplay, leading to grave impovrishment of roleplay, or you allow it, and open roleplay of the reaity of the imagination of many players, resulting in a unregulated mess. I for one support the second option and very often make an appeal to roleplaying etiquette mentioned earlier to try and at least bring some logic and regulation to it. I have found rolling to be one of the best possible ways. By taking away even a tiny parcel of control over this metagame component from the players you will increase the objectivity, making it more fair, exciting, and suspenseful. I do not believe in any one system of rolling, but rather a smart usage of rolling by players who in the end are responsible for making their own ruleset that ensures the most fun and exciting roleplay possible. There is no one golden ruleset or way to determine which is the best way to have your characters fight. Rather, there is a certain skill or sensetivity to protocol and etiqutte you are asked to develop as a player. This goes for other types of roleplay in which you interact with other characters in a meaningful way trough different means also. A good example is medical roleplay, which very much like an emote fight is a dance between the medic and the patient. I always leave the decision whether a procedure actually works, and to what extent it works, to my patients.

As for emote fighting in general, I think the most important golden rule of roleplaying etiquette is that you should not take control over another person's character (again, expressed by the Godmoding concern). That's why when I have my character interact with another character in a way that would influence that other character in a significant way, I leave the decision whether my characters is succesful at that to them. I do this by phrasing by emote in such a way that allows the other player to react to it. For example:

Thelos attempts to punch Delidah in the face

This puts the "opposing" player in control; it leaves the decision whether they want to be punched or not completely up to them.
This way emote fighting becomes like fakefighting in theatre: most of the work is being done by the guy that is getting punched, rather than the guy doing the punching; he is the one reacting, moaning, and falling on the ground, while the other just makes the first move. Often times though, when I know a player well, they will contact me with the desire to add a little spice to the situation. Then we will make a party and just roll against eacother to see if my attempt would be succesful. Extra points for adjusting the resulting emotes that describe the effects to the outcome of the rolls. Such a flexible and loose system also allows the players to take into account the difference in strength and skill of their characters. Again, there is no one golden ruleset to fall back and depend upon. Rather, being sensible in roleplaying fights is more akin to a virtue or a skill, based heavily on an invisible and implicit etiquette.

'Working to earn PvP gear' doesn't really cover it with me. I find better gear gives a good edge, and I know a lot of people who are simply boosted through it to get the gear. My gear on Morinth is actually the epics from beginning Cata, 359 iLvl or whatever. I stopped caring when you get an ICly useless person who wouldn't stand a chance of winning ICly beating you on superior gear.

I'll roll with strangers on emotes, as I don't trust them not to be 'invincible' as I've had a lot of people do. My character's lost so many simple fights due to the opponent being some sort of God. >.>

I trust my friends, we'll either duel or emote out a fight without rolls, depending on if we prefer an actual pvp tussle, or are simple being lazy and want to emote it out. XD I know they won't fuck me over by turning into a dragon and eating me.

Allowing rolls to play a part in emote fighting inside something like the steel boot competitions is fine if you ask me. But those events are fun for the sake of fun. People will go and enjoy them for the atmosphere and the amusement, not for a serious attempt at proving your characters metal.

You can't do that with rolls, because, as you said, a gnome could flatten a draenei with little effort if the rolls went his way.

If it's an actual RP situation where it matters, or your character's life is seriously on the line, then I don't believe rolls have the slightest place in that. As annoying as emote fighting can be, I think a simple discussion through whispers as it's going on completely suffices. Even the two most idiotic people can come to an agreement that suits both parties, even if it takes ages.

My solution to all of this is to not emotefight at all. Its no fun since it happends 5 times a day to any character even if you rp a character selling kittens.

My solution is to avoid emotefights completely, there is plenty of aggresive rp going on already. And when you do get into an emote fight go down with the first punch and stay KO till the scene is over.

There is a class vs class thing with role combat over just emoting. We RP in the shroud that we have trouble vs Faith based enemies. The only fair way of rolling that is to arrange some kind of handycap on our roles. However lightlies go from Tirion level down to old hermits so if a handycap is used then it would need to be tailored to each enemy.

Further more if this was arranged and Lex "/etries to hit the pala whilst he is on the floor" it should offer him a better than normal chance of a hit. So For all these things i think good old emoting is better provided you fight a good RPer.

Finally the suggestion popped up in our /g to develop a system where you emote and /roll for wounds. Will let you all know what we come up with.

Quin wrote:My solution to all of this is to not emotefight at all. Its no fun since it happends 5 times a day to any character even if you rp a character selling kittens.

My solution is to avoid emotefights completely, there is plenty of aggresive rp going on already. And when you do get into an emote fight go down with the first punch and stay KO till the scene is over.

/e suddenly upturns her box of kittens! They stand on their hind legs and lunge towards *targetname*, trying to gnaw his feet off, while *playername* tries to smash the box over *targetname*'s head!

My problem with rolls is that the 50/50 shot of /roll 100 is too based on luck if anything. It does not take into consideration the size difference between the gnome and the draenei, the fact that the gnome is a mage, and the draenei is a paladin, how much faster and nimble the gnome is, etc. To truly take all those modifiers into consideration you'd need a rulebook worth of rules. And by that point you're gameceptioning already, so what's the point.
A simple /roll is lackluster, and a rulebook's a tactical overkill.

I would suggest only emote fighting people you know and regularly RP with. Those you can be sure won't mind losing to you/will be reasonable/you'll feel more comfortable in whispering them anything relating to the fight.

Also, I don't find duelling any good, or even practical solution to it. RP is for everyone, not just level 85s, and no one should have to grind PvP gear just to be able to settle fights of a RP nature.
That's like stopping the RP, raiding Onyxia, and determining through what she drops, whether or not you remembered to bring the Merlot with you to the picnic.

Rentarn wrote:
That's like stopping the RP, raiding Onyxia, and determining through what she drops, whether or not you remembered to bring the Merlot with you to the picnic.

Could Roll for it?

To some extent I'm wondering if anyone read my post, but ah well xD

I'm not saying 'hey we should all use rolls.' I understand that emote fighting is a contentious subject and a great matter of personal preference. That's good. It's not like there's a 'right way' and as Thelos said, it's all about respect and good sense anyway.

But I just wanted to raise the possibility that luck plays a bigger factor in fights than we usually care to admit. We think 'hm well my character is about x strong/good/fast and your character is y' and then go from there. Yet, within reason, a weaker opponent can beat a stronger opponent by luck and circumstance.

How many of us think (or are willing) to have our characters make bad mistakes in a fight, or allow the other person to get a lucky opening?

It's just something I believe is greatly worth thinking about.

Oh and because I must defend Annie!

Spoiler:

There are so many other things I would love to see changed in Emote fighting too.

Firstly... /e Swings his sword downwards trying to strike your head.

Now I got to black belt in Karate. The first three things you learn is to punch, to downward block to protect your joy dept and an upwards one to protect your head. It is fair to assume thet WoW warriors/soldiers/DKs/Palas/Sell swords not only learn how to deal with this attack on day one but they continue to practice and ultimately learn how to block it instinctively. Sadly most of the out of guild emotes you see are lazy variations on this emote above. My point is that barring injury or tiredness that emote would never be enough to break the guard of a reasonably prepared, reasonably skilled opponant.

/e Quickly Swings his sword downwards trying to strike your head, hopefully to strike before you are ready to defend yourself.

This is a better emote, more detail giving the opponant more to work with. There is one flaw however, the bits in Italic seem to be Role play speak for guarenteed hit/critical hit. It is like /e punches in the back of the head to KO, if you emote back that you block the first emote or you are struck but are not Ko'd by the second it is quite often 5 secs from a whisper asking WTF.

Tiredness. One advantage a DK has is that we do not get tired. However in emoteing it is valueless as no one gets tired. I suggest to everyone to stand up, hop on the balls of there feet and throw meaningful punches and kicks for three minutes. This will give you an idea of how tiring fighting is. Now concider putting on armour and swinging a few pounds of steel about too. Granted your char will be conditioned to this some what however bear in mind it takes months to get a boxer into condition to fight twelve 3 minute rounds. If your char is that fit he should be Jogging around SW and spending hours a day in Old town gym with Cartel 'roids. If the emote duel lasts a long time it should begin to advantage the Leather wearing rogue chars more than the tin heads.

Finally the emotesthat make me sad when i see them.

/e tries to shield bashes you So Cliche
/e Takes their gun/bow/crossbow and shoots you in the knee Before Skyrim this little gem was in azeroth. Knees rairly stay still in fights, it would make more sense to shoot them in the bum.
Guns/bows/crossbows that are loaded at all times and do not missfire when they are pulled. (Best thing if you RP with a rifle is to do as Dreth did, carry an unloaded rifle unless otherwise emoted and point an unloaded rifle at people if needed. IC they dont know it isnt loaded)
Knockout gas/poisoned/light blessed/demon blades.

Perhaps the best way to do these things is WWE style and between the two fighters decide the winner, his method of victory and then put on a show for those who watch.

Quin wrote:My solution to all of this is to not emotefight at all. Its no fun since it happends 5 times a day to any character even if you rp a character selling kittens.

My solution is to avoid emotefights completely, there is plenty of aggresive rp going on already. And when you do get into an emote fight go down with the first punch and stay KO till the scene is over.

"It is best to win without fighting" (Sun Tzu)