[OOC] Arena Chat Thread

[Fallenreaper]

Then that's my cue to exit this conversation. Can someone let me know when it is over please? I don't have much ground or experience in this discussion to hold up anything, let alone my own opinions, so it might be best if I take my leave. I wish you two luck and hope you can find some middle ground in this conversation. Thank you for not chewing me out at least and I honestly appreciate it.

[Fallenreaper]

@FallenreaperHEY, HEY, HEY!

First up, I'm obviously the prettiest.

Secondly, I agree with everything else you said. I wasn't really arguing the absolute frailty of humans, I was just stating the obvious possibility of their sweet sweet demise. (And the fact they can't dodge bullets.) Feel free to step in and continue debating on my behalf, though! I mean that's how most arguments start, right? By asking angry people to stop arguing!

@Dazsos

Only in your dreams, big boy. :p *points to least post statement* That's my answer to this. XD

[LeeRoy]

@Fallenreaper
It's not that I'm trying to argue with any one person here, it's a convention that I'm trying to break apart with actual realism rather than determined realism. Y'know?

I'm tired of seeing an entire lack of Spaghetti Western duels because they think they'll just be over in a single shot. Or organized soldiers in an obscure Middle Eastern city running and gunning against eachother.

It's this lack of an entire section of roleplaying that people don't get to experience because of a convention that is simply WRONG because people don't go about it the RIGHT way.

Edit: Also gun-fu is the tightest shit in the history of shit and the fact that it is literally non-existent in the Arena is the most disappointing thing I've ever seen.

[Maquina]

...so that went places I didn't expect it to.

To make it clear: I wasn't taking grievance with the man disbarring firearms from his own fight. It's his thread, that's his decision to make. I simply have been fighting an uphill battle for most of my time as a player to get the majority of my opponents in combat scenarios to accept firearms as being so much as even just valid. Mostly because of the perpetuated pseudo-reasons already discussed - "they're cheap", "they're boring", "any noob can win with a gun", "nobody can dodge bullets".

Guns aren't any cheaper than anything else that can cause a great deal of damage if it hits.
Guns aren't any more or less boring than anything else - read/watch Trigun, get proof.
A noob with a gun is still a noob. If you can't deal with the weapon, it's probably not the noob's fault.
If you're trying to dodge the shot after it's fired, you've already made errors. Even then, yes - a lot of folks can indeed dodge bullets.

I get the argument against firearms in Street Fighter-level lowbie fights - there's a reason no serious military force makes use of non-firearm infantry weapons in a primary capacity anymore. A man with a rifle is going to be in a better spot to win a fight than a man with anything introduced before rifles existed. I totally understand wanting to avoid the headache of dealing with guns in a dispowered/low-power setting, and in fact generally agree with the logic as proper firearms use is a game-winner at those levels.

What I cannot accept is the tendency across most everywhere I've been to consider firearms cheap/dirty/"no-skill nub gear" at all levels of competition, without exception. Swordsmen? Awesome, everybody loves them. Punchers? Bring it on, everybody loves blood on their knuckles. Wizards? Fabulous, let's see some fireworks. Angels, demons, oni/youkai, vampires, werewolves, all that other supernatural-creature stuff? Do it up - nothing quite like fighting a monster to get the blood pumping.

Gunslingers? The nigh-universal response, no matter how competently executed the gunslinger or how interesting/colorful the character behind the sights, is "Get that cheesy bullshit outta here, nub. GTFO, come back with a real character."

...no. I like guns. I love bigass revolvers, the flexibility and sheer style of a giant six-shooter packed with selectable loads. I love rifles - nobody, nobody, nobody in this game realizes just how incredibly versatile and dangerous a bayonetted hunting-style long rifle is. It's a high-powered cannon, a spear, and a maul all in one! I can shoot you, stab you, or crush your skull - whatever suits the mood! I love gun mages - my main character Cee fights as a gun mage with nigh-limitless ability to tailor her loads to the situation. Take the best parts of being a wizard and combine it with the intuitive point-and-click interface and sweet stylin's of a badass gunslinger. I like snipers - the "oh, shit" reaction even experienced players often fall into when they realize there's a klick and a half of trapped, mined Gauntlet to run between them and their target is glorious.

I. Like. Guns. And I ain't gonna put up with any nonsense about how they're cheap, cheesy, or lacking in skill.

.
..
...
...anyways. Sorry - just wanted to get that off my chest, I suppose. Back to your regularly scheduled challenge-arranging.

[LeeRoy]

@DLL SOMEONE GETS IT, OH MY GOD SOMEONE GETS IT

[Fallenreaper]

@LeeRoy

That's why I made my statement. Honestly I've heard and seen people survive some fucked up shit, but at the same time they can die from the most oddest of things. In my opinion, I don't think realism really matters much in writing because fun should be the focus of every fight. Not realism. I mean if you look back on history, most shootouts weren't as surreal or amazing as some I've seen written in the arena or in a paperback novel you find on a dime store bookshelf. That's part of why I developed Jacer (bullets casting spells and bruising damage rather than heavy damage) like I did was because I didn't want the player I was fighting thinking every time I shot and hit them, the fight was over. In some instances it's much easier with melee than bullets because of the mentality we have in RL over them. At least that's what I think.

[Dazsos]

@Fallenreaper
I'm a daydreamer, I'm always dreaming. I guess that means I'm always the prettiest.

Check mate! Bingo! 21!

But yeah, I'mma just go back to debating with LeeRoy cause I have nothing better to do. Notice I say debate, that's cause I do respect his opinions, it's a friendly spar of words, after all, in the most suitable place for it!

@LeeRoy
If people don't want to roleplay a certain way, they shouldn't have to. You're getting worked up over my comment, but it's a personal opinion, it's not wrong or right at all, I just have a preference for magic and medieval fairy tales. Most of my characters are squishy, to compensate for how many spells I give them... and most of their spells aren't as strong as your average AK-47, so obviously I don't want to throw them in to modern Syria right now, they'll get destroyed.

[LeeRoy]

@Gun Sorry for falling into the throes of argument and ignoring your comment. Back to my point.

Yeah, I think I saw you mention that. And I kinda started to think afterwards, it's really a culmination of a lot of people's comments on how numbers are the worst thing to happen to the Arena. And so I decided I'm no longer going to use them, it may seem unfair at the start. But once people start actually trusting their opponents and using their own sheets that don't rely on numbers, the whole thing comes back around and becomes more fair and more fun in the long run.

I'm hoping @DLL is comfortable with being my guinea pig for this first test. Btw, I'm about 45 minutes from done.

[LeeRoy]

@Dazsos Again, it's not your comment alone. It's the entire "Guns r 4 cunts" logic that has been around since before I came to the Arena. Neither is the argument solely directed at you. It's just that I've finally gotten tired of a lot of conventions that limit people, and I figured if nobody else is going to be vocal about it. Then why not the guy whose known for being a loud asshole? Good old Me?

[Divinity]

Spell-blasters are some of the funnest things I've used to shishkabob opponents, personally. As a thorough battle-mage archetype, I still have never had an issue with an enemy using guns of all kinds from particle cannons to railguns, and it surely hasn't stopped me from using them.

[Darth]

@LeeRoy

1: Impossible to dodge? Yes.

Everything after this is immaterial to my point, honestly. Whether or not you can survive it doesn't matter. I'm not talking about whether or not someone can survive a gunshot. I'm not talking about whether or not someone can hide behind cover and avoid being shot. Not really - these are factors, but they aren't the core of the argument. I'm talking about whether or not the weapon is fair at a specific level of character power, and the answer is no. The fact that, again, we have outliers of survival, or scenarios where we avoid being shot don't alter the argument at all. It doesn't change the fact that a firearm is a) more or less impossible to react to without prior notice, b) has no drawbacks and c) is capable of enormous damage at tremendous range. By addressing each of these things singly, you effectively ignore the entire reason why guns are an issue: because they represent a multi-layered problem that most mild powered characters cannot reasonably fight against. "Surviving" and "fighting against" are not the same thing.

The issue isn't solely that "guns kill people." Swords kill people. Knives kill people. Fire kills people. Nearly everything you find in mild powers can kill someone.

The issue is that guns are capable of doing so with enough efficiency, with enough damage, and at a significant enough range to tip the scales significantly in favor of the person who's using the gun, and with no draw-backs for them. That's the reason they're a problem. Again: it's not a question of survival. It's a question of "Can someone reasonably defend against this?" It's a question of "How much of an advantage does this give me in a fight?"

The entire reason we have tiers of character power is to avoid a situation where one character has too much of an advantage. So, by an extension of that, if a gun gives a character such a significant advantage in mild powers, the conclusion would be that it isn't fair. We allow and disallow certain supernatural powers and certain weapons based on whether or not they give an undue advantage, that's how we define the differences between one tier of power or another.

That's it. I'm just outlining why guns are so potent weapons in the context of mild powers, and it's that potency that sees them disbarred so often. It's because they're powerful enough to make the fight one-sided, and that, again, runs contrary to the entire notion of having tiers of power.

You acknowledged every point I made in my post: impossible to dodge, easy to use, no drawbacks, and capable of enormous damage from afar. All of those things combined are simply too much of an advantage in mild powers. That's why they're disbarred. It's not a survival issue. It's a balance/fairness issue. Always has been. I'm not going to argue that people can survive gunshot wounds, because that really doesn't have much of anything to do with the point I'm making.

EDIT:: Again, we're talking purely LOW/MILD POWERED. As DLL referenced, guns are completely and totally fine at higher levels of power where a character can reasonably account for them. That's what balance comes down to -- can a character reasonably account for it? At the lower scales of power, the answer is really no. Not inasmuch as a fight is concerned.

[Dazsos]

@LeeRoyI'm not sure that's suddenly going to make the hippies start loving guns. Personal preferences are nearly never swayed, and I doubt they'll take the time to look back on this whole debate. I know some people who hate magic just because 'it takes too much imagination,' and, 'nothing is logical about magic!'

I'm a cunt. I am what I eat! There's nothing wrong with being a cunt.

[Fallenreaper]

@Darth

I sort of disagree with the drawback a bit, depending on how realistically you play it. Jacer uses ammo amounts which means he has to be careful how many times he fires or he runs out of fire power. Not everyone does that really and so you get 'unlimited' ammo scenarios. Sadly that is only one drawback I can think of and one usually ignored, but it should still count as most mages, metahumans, etc don't have x amount shots they are able to use before the gun becomes nothing more than a decoration.

[Divinity]

Very, very good points! I may have some thinking to do later.

[LeeRoy]

@Darth This kind of logic is exactly why this god damned pillar of "guns r bad" has remained standing for so long.

A human being with a gun on a shooting range? Is deadlier than any living being that we know of.

A human being with a gun in a real place, aiming at something that is avoiding being shot, and can survive being shot?

Is not as powerful as a mage who can weave flames that can wrap around a human being like a hand.

That convention is fucking stupid. A human with a gun is not equivalent to a mild-powered character, they may have a similar damage potential. But the scope and room for error isn't the same.

At this point I see you won't move on your stance, because you're too ingrained in this belief. So I'm backing off at this point so I can get back to writing my character sheet.

Edit: No, I have been talking HUMAN TIER this entire time.

Double Edit: What I just described in scenario 1 is a perfect scenario in the absolute favor of the gunman. Literally no other scenario is as favorable.

[Darth]

@Fallenreaper While that's true, the difference between a mage and someone with a Glock 17c is that the mage probably has to wait on preps/cooldowns between their spells, but the person with the Glock can fire their gun for seventeen posts in a row if they only fire one round per post. No cooldown, no wait, no preps.

That's what I mean by no drawbacks. My character can't punch you in the face with lightning for seventeen posts in a row, but someone with a pistol and an extended mag can spend every post slinging lead if they want, and the pistol's like to do way more damage at a much greater distance. That's where the disparity comes in (for mild powers).

That's also why I like magitech/future-tech weapons for mild powers. You can have a laser gun that is reasonably balanced, or a spell-gun ala Outlaw Star. You still get the same aesthetic, but none of the issues.

[Dazsos]

I suddenly had an idea...

Why don't people just fight based on technology tiers as well? Some of my magic users are dulled down in order to not be so overpowered when fighting a swordsman... which is really saying something.

A wizard who can only shoot fireballs will easily be gunned down by someone with an AK. Know why? Because back in the medieval ages, wizards were just scientists with extremely primitive guns! A hollow metal stick (wizardy staff) with saltpeter (wizardy magic powder) shooting a flaming rock. (wizardy fireball) Magic, back then, was primitive compared to modern day weaponry. This is why some of us wizardly types prefer to avoid being shot at. Also we didn't invest much of our stat points in constitution.

[Fallenreaper]

@Fallenreaper While that's true, the difference between a mage and someone with a Glock 17c is that the mage probably has to wait on preps/cooldowns between their spells, but the person with the Glock can fire their gun for seventeen posts in a row if they only fire one round per post. No cooldown, no wait, no preps.

That's what I mean by no drawbacks. My character can't punch you in the face with lightning for seventeen posts in a row, but someone with a pistol and an extended mag can spend every post slinging lead if they want, and the pistol's like to do way more damage at a much greater distance. That's where the disparity comes in (for mild powers).

That's also why I like magitech/future-tech weapons for mild powers. You can have a laser gun that is reasonably balanced, or a spell-gun ala Outlaw Star. You still get the same aesthetic, but none of the issues.

@Darth

I don't know, depends on how you do the character. My PC Trixi can pulse electricity through her hand continually, but it does need to build up and at the level I have her, will only reach so much amps (basically taser amp). However, she could keep it up indefinitely until she was ko-ed or killed since her biology is designed to both generator it in massive amount (it's only how much she can churn out and only in her hands that's limited, not the amount total) and prevent her muscles, tissues, etc from frying while allowing the energy to pulse through it. Granted, there's additional limits to it and such I've not mentioned but that's one example I can think of to put against that. Granted it's not a great one.

[Dazsos]

@DivinityHey dude! Sorry I got so caught up in that whole 'don't give guns to your kids' debate.

I've been unable to find where Corban's profile is... could you help me? If you're still interested in that arrangement of a duel.

[Darth]

@Darth This kind of logic is exactly why this god damned pillar of "guns r bad" has remained standing for so long.

@LeeRoy

I never made that argument. I have literally never once said that guns are bad. I said that guns are unbalanced in mild powers. My logic has nothing to do with why people think "guns are bad." My logic has to do with why guns aren't used in mild powers, but are considered completely acceptable at any power level beyond that.

hat convention is fucking stupid.

It's not stupid, you've just decided that somehow I hate guns and that's a carte blanche to ignore the entire premise of my argument, which is entirely based on whether or not something is fair and balanced for play in mild powers.

A human with a gun is not equivalent to a mild-powered character, they may have a similar damage potential.

You're right, they're not an equivalent: they're more powerful, and they have a great deal more damage potential. Any character that can potentially kill you from 500 feet in a single post without a single prep or cooldown being activated isn't in mild powers. That's more powerful than what mild powers allows, which is why the convention exists. In mild powers, you're not going to have a character that can potentially kill someone at long range on post two because that plainly supersedes the limits of the tier. As a general rule, things that go above and beyond a tier of power usually aren't allowed in that tier. That's rather the point of the whole notion.

At this point I see you won't move on your stance, because you're too ingrained in this belief.

I don't have any reason to change my belief, you've provided zero evidence or reasoning to explain how guns are balanced and fair to fight against in mild powers, whereas I defined what I considered to be "mild powers" several pages ago and have since explained exactly why they're not balanced OR fair -- and you even agreed! That's what's funny: I give three reasons for why a gun is unbalanced in this context and you agree that all three are true, but then you proceed to ignore the information as if it has no bearing on the situation.

And no, I'm not "ingrained" in the belief. I've been fighting almost exclusively at mild powers for my entire time as roleplayer, from 2007 to now. If I really thought guns were capable of being fair and balanced, I would have discovered it at some point in nine years of fighting across a half-dozen different communities. I've run tournaments that have quadruple the number of people in them as the entire ranking board of Arena. Do you really think that, in a nine year run as both a fighter and an administrator, that I've never examined the issue, or that I've never developed any kind of first-hand experience in play-testing the idea?

I mean, give us some credit: I didn't spend all nine years making "super tite" jokes and posting Trailer Park Boys gifs.

Only most of those nine years were spent making those jokes and I didn't watch Trailer Park Boys until 2010.

EDIT::

I get the argument against firearms in Street Fighter-level lowbie fights - there's a reason no serious military force makes use of non-firearm infantry weapons in a primary capacity anymore. A man with a rifle is going to be in a better spot to win a fight than a man with anything introduced before rifles existed. I totally understand wanting to avoid the headache of dealing with guns in a dispowered/low-power setting, and in fact generally agree with the logic as proper firearms use is a game-winner at those levels.

@DLL

The last line is what I've been saying the entire time. We're using different terminology, but it's essentially the same claim.