[quote=BrokenPromise]
I don't believe  ELGainsborough thought a dice system would remove the competitive aspect of the fights. He did say that he felt if people were less competitive and focused on writing a good story that all of the problems we mentioned would go away. I think we all know the desire to win is too great for most people to pass up, which is why [b]both[/b] rule based and free-form RP arena battles suffer.

Just to play Devil's advocate, the point of using a dice system or anything gamey is to set up a set of rules. In chess, a knight cannot charge across the battlefield and take out swaths of foes. Instead, they move in a very awkward L shape and crush whatever's beneath them at the end of their turn. It's not realalistic, but it makes for a fun game between two players. By simply having a small list of special maneuvers that actually do work in game, we can simply deny bonuses to leaping attacks or other attempts at power playing. That, or we set up rules so that the players involved can prepare for moves like this and execute/deny them with the right setups.[/quote] 
Part of the post before my previous one was emphasizing that lacking the competitive desire to win actually can cause a battle-orientated role-play to [i]suffer[/i] just as much as possessing that desire. In fact, while good collaboration and groundwork (some of the foundations of a good role-player) can actually remove the issues created by possessing the desire to win they cannot remove the issues created by not having this desire.

In order to write a character's perspective in battle in a way that is convincing you actually need to [i]want[/i] to win just like the character does (in the same way that a role-player who lacks a certain mental disorder will never be able to write it as well as a person who actually [i]does[/i] suffer from it). Without this, small holes in the person's writing are actually visible to me and I don't even believe the role-play I'm reading. My attention to detail in most matters is very acute and I'm not able to shut it off while reading a role-play or piece of writing (there's a reason suspension of disbelief is so common with tropes); in fact I can often work out how a person's mind works just by reading their IC/OOC posts. Battle-orientated role-plays are a psychological concept and reading people is one of my specialties.

As for what was contributed involving chess; I'm a chess player myself so I can actually appreciate the sentiment brought to the table here greatly. This is [i]precisely[/i] one of the reasons why I believe that integrating RPG mechanics into a battle-orientated role-play actually hinders its depth and complexity (read: quality of writing). It's very similar to comparing checkers to chess; if you're a solid chess player and you try to play checkers you immediately feel like you're being forced to [i]dumb yourself down[/i] because checkers has far less tools and options available to it than chess, which is why a lot of people who are good at checkers are shit at chess but most people tend to be more or less equal at checkers.

The exact same comparison exists between role-playing a battle-orientated piece of writing in a free-form style when compared to RPG mechanics; free-form role-play is the chess in comparison to its checkers. This is why the more of these mechanics you implement the more dumbed down (read: unrealistic) a fight becomes; neither chess nor checkers actually offer a perfect representation of true combat or strategy and one of them is simply a bit deeper than the other one. Chess only goes so far as a simulation of warfare, and when you take unpredictability and supernatural powers into the equation it becomes even less able to keep up.

No respectable writer is going to write a fight scene in their latest novel while using dice, and I should make a point that when I write or role-play two characters who are fighting each other I always get into the mind state of [i]both[/i] of them; I'm capable of writing a role-play fight against myself while actually still making it look convincing.

This all being said; since this role-play is using D&D as its setting the decision to simplify it like this makes sense. I don't actually mean to keep turning this into a debate, [@ELGainsborough], but I have a personal hatred for things lacking objectivity (though I consider subjectivity just as important and those who lack it piss me off just as much; one cannot understand the whole picture without both). I can only assume this is why you consider my input helpful. It's simply in my nature to be blunt and forthright.