[@MelonHead]
Think of this more as observation from my own experience; by no means am I looking for an argument, and you're not obligated to read any of this either. I'm simply putting it down for those who want to read my own thoughts on the matter.

[quote=MelonHead]
There is, to my mind, no loss of creativity in describing the effect of a success or a failure based off dice rolls.

What you are right about is that dice rolls do significantly reduce individual agency, and therefore the competitive nature, in the game. They put the game entirely in the hands of luck, which is fickle at best, and hardly indicative of which character has really employed the most successful strategy. In real life, it is better to be lucky than skilled, but in a fantasy world, I think I'd rather see the latter.
[/quote]
The combination of these two statements is part of where a lot of my perspective with free-form role-playing against D&D mechanics stems from. For me, personally, putting things in the hands of luck doesn't just stifle competition, but storytelling and creativity as well. Like I've said a few times to people, I prefer the storyline and characterization to direct the combat, not for the combat (mechanics) to direct the story and characterization.

There are many strategies and powers that simply cannot be realistically illustrated in writing that is being dictated by RPG mechanics, and this absence of the realistic portrayal of strategy is why I consider the writing and creativity itself to be stifled, not just the competition, by using these mechanics such as dice and stats. I don't think combat should be portrayed through writing if it's done in a way where strategy isn't portrayed realistically and in-depth, which is why I believe these systems actually ruin creativity, especially with more complex and intricate tactics. I don't believe good writing is limited to simply writing reactions to dice; the competitive strategy is where a large part of the good writing is born in a battle-focused role-play.

[quote=MelonHead]
As for preventing the negative problems of free-form play, I have yet to see any one successful method employed between two genuinely competitive individuals. If two people want to win, there will be a point of contention at some point in the fight. The best thing to do is just to employ an impartial judge to mediate on these points of contention, but they will never be eliminated entirely aside from in circumstances where one or both players are not competitive or particularly assertive.

Albeit, this is anecdotal evidence, but it's based off extensive experience on this forum, and experience on others as well. 
[/quote]
I've admittedly utilized battle moderators to work as impartial judges in the past; the fact that most of my best role-plays have also happened in my main story project's setting also allows me to work as the ideal moderator and judge for this sort of thing because I know every rule of my world in perfect detail; I'm able to confirm whether something would work because I created the setting.

Another crucial factor is groundwork, a concept I frequently comment on but apparently people don't know what I'm referring to; essentially it has to do with having all of the character's abilities (whether they by the mental, physical, supernatural, and so forth) established from the beginning, and the setting as well. When I accept character profiles I also accept each ability or skill individually, that way no one is pulling some new out of character power out of nowhere in order to win; I believe successful free-form duelling is more about "who uses their abilities more strategically and creatively", not "who is more powerful". On the other hand, even if both people want to win, so long as they're able to debate like adults (that's what free-form role-play is; a debate) there should be no problem; sportsmanship and collaboration is essential. Having good debating skills is part of the groundwork.

However, one of the most important details (that for some reason everyone seems to be missing and not realizing I'm saying) I've been saying to a lot of people I've been having this discussion with is that, in my own experience, I've actually seen more people who are bad sports on a competitive level, and people who focus entirely on power gaming instead of on writing a good battle narrative, in communities that use dice and stats. The number of people I've seen who focus on using gameplay mechanics as a way of power gaming instead of as a way of telling a good story far outstrips the number of people I've encountered who focus on power gaming over writing in a free-form role-playing situation.

Many of them like exploiting the RPG mechanics competitively to compensate for their own lack of actual strategic narrative skills and debating skills. This is very similar to people who are terrible at chess trying to force their chess playing friends to play checkers with them because checkers is a very dumbed down version of chess that can essentially be won by anyone. So in my eyes, this whole logic that "free-form = competitive, RPG mechanics = writing" is entirely subjective, and I happen to be the opposite side of those experiences. I'm more interested in which tells a more convincing story.

[quote=MelonHead]
Anyway, I'll be interested to see how this goes. I'm only interested in potentially joining this fight to experience the dice rolls, I have fought more than enough times in free-form (and am still fighting) for that to not be a significant enough draw alone.
[/quote]
I'm mostly here to get a little bit of exercise, since it's been over five years since I role-played [i]on a forum[/i]; I've been mostly doing it with my circle who use my story's setting, primarily over IM. I really only joined this site because a lot of those people have disappeared and because IM programs are becoming obsolete.