[@MelonHead]

[quote=MelonHead]
I should point out, I at no point said I was an advocate for stats or number systems in Arena. I only said that using dice rolls to determine the success of an action (which arguably replicates real life factors, such as people not being able to perform physical moves to the optimum level all of the time, particularly in marksmanship) would still allow the participants to write in a creative manner. When the success of your attack is determined by your opponent, things sometimes get bogged down with revisionist posts and meta-snark, no one can particularly complain about a dice roll. 
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Oh, don't worry, I'm aware you weren't advocating them; it's simply part of my nature to bring the other side of any debate onto the table in order to create objectivity. I even frequently play "Devil's Advocate" to my own beliefs in order to show that my views are not biased and when I am debating against an idea I'm doing so fully understanding the other side even if I don't agree with it. This is why I appreciate the additional discussion.

As you said, they arguably replicate real life factors; [i]arguably[/i] being the most appropriate word because in my own experiences and contemplations I personally believe the number of realistic implementations that can be created by dice are significantly outweighed by the factors of realism and strategy that they sabotage. This is all a matter of opinion, and I like to give my own input on matters. I never implied you were advocating; I simply had a different opinion about what you said and felt like being honest about it.

The only time I could ever generally accept dice being used to settle a debate in a free-form role-play would be if a mutual agreement is completely incapable of being met (a rare occurrence with people who possess good collaborating and sportsmanship), and it can be objectively stated that both characters' strategies, wills, skills, intelligence levels, and power levels, are all on an equal footing. Only in this situation do I personally consider relying on luck to be acceptable. Even then, only if an impartial party can't draw a conclusion. Also, using dice to determine things like marksmanship becomes unrealistic once factors like superhuman skill/intelligence/senses/etc are on the table.

[quote=MelonHead]
Oh, by the way, the ranking system is completely manual. Marking the fight as ranked only means you want it to be judged as such, but only Rilla can actually carry out that judgement and adjust win - losses. If you just mention him and say 'don't count this as ranked' provided he ever shows up it won't be added to your win / loss.
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Good to know. Cheers for the information.