Green

Multiversal Coliseum

@TomeBinder

The 10-tier system that has been the standard go-to in previous incarnations of various persistent arena rps is a very solid choice if you're going for a wide selection of diverse characters of varying power levels. However, in my experience, it quickly becomes very difficult to arrange fights between characters when the gap between characters fluctuate a lot, which is common.

I couldn't find a written example of the 10-tier system, but here's the jist of it; the power level of a character decides which tier he's in. An average human with little to no combat abilities would be tier 1 (or 0, depending on who you ask), and an all-powerful god(mod) would be 10. If I remember correctly, Superman and Goku sits at a strong 8, Batman (comic version) at a 4, and everything else is in-between. Most fights tends to happen around tier 4-6. There's some more details around it, but at the end of the day, the tier system is only there to categorize power levels. The upside of using it as a categorizing utility, is that most people on this site is at least slightly familiar with the different tiers, and will very easily adjust according to your wishes based on it.

If you end up going for it, I suggest sticking to one or two tiers to avoid power gaps, unless you want that. Tier 3 to 5 tends to have the largest diversity of characters.

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I just realized I've been spurting out a lot of trivia and opinions in the past few posts. Apologies if it seems a bit much. Been around to see the coming and going of a few of these, so I figured I'd share some observations.

Multiversal Coliseum

<Snipped quote by Green>

Many thanks for your feedback, and i'm glad to see that despite my inexperience, my own theoretical pros and cons of my proposed system marry with yours perfectly.

I was drawn to Arena after hearing of its plight, and studied some of the threads. First thing I noticed was how long winded it all was; kinda reminded me of my younger years, sat in front of the tv and agonizing over whether or not Goku would finally launch his attack, or whether I'd have to go through another week of school for it, haha. Screw that nonsense!

At the moment, i'm considering my options. Having some kind of democratic body established to make a ruling, when my own has been cast into question, was my first port of call. Not sure how efficient it would be though. But yeah, i'll give it some thought and see what I come up with.

Thanks again!

@TomeBinder

I'm sure the most effective way to do the ruling, as of now, would be just the way you've already proposed to do it. Being open to tweaks as you go along is nice, of course.

In the previous persistent arena RP that went on, there was, due to the original gm disappearing for a while, a selected trio of people who would make judgement if issues arose. Having something like that in this would be problematic at first, but if you get a solid player-base, it would be something to consider for moments of potential conflict. That is to say, under normal circumstances, your own ruling should be enough, but if a conflict does arise around it, it could be good to have at least two individuals (known to your players) to consult to reach perceived "fair" judgement, even if it turns out to be identical to the original ruling. Not that you'd have to worry about that -now-, but it's always nice to be aware of your options.

Multiversal Coliseum

<Snipped quote by Green>

Admittedly I have zero experience with arena matches, and the system is untested.

A great curriculum vitae, no?

Haha, but take heart, for I have decided the outcome of many battles over a wide selection of roleplays. I've merely applied my logic used for those fights to the arena.

I can't see it failing. People underestimate a GM's roll in an Rp, and too few can be bothered to administrate things effectively. You see, to many, being a GM means creating a story and then playing in that story.

To me, being a GM means creating a story, and enabling it to grow on its own accord, under my direct supervision. With me refereeing the battles, I can see no issues arising.

But come, I assume you to be experienced in Arena. What problems do you foresee? Or is it just "fear" of the unknown, so to speak?

@TomeBinder

I can see both pros and cons to your approach on the genre, both widely hypothetical of course. I can't imagine it would work for just about anyone, but if you have the drive necessary to pull it through, it could work out really well.

So here's what imagine some of the ups and downs could turn out to be.

Pros:
- Looking at the combat example you provided, it's possible that you're able to avoid long and unnecessary drawn-out battles, which tends to happen in the standard format (I'm assuming you're at least slightly familiar with how battles usually go down around here, if not, I'm happy to elaborate) - Which is definitely a good thing. This could be nullified if the gm (you in this case) is slow to respond on the in-betweens, but that shouldn't be much of an issue.
- At first sight, the system you propose seems to be more unforgiving and "lethal" than the standard format. More-so because there's a third party that decides the effect of every "round", rather than the two fighters going back and forth until one of them gets locked into an inescapable position (which is why those fights often gets dragged out, you gotta check-mate to win) - I would consider this a good thing, but that's more of a personal taste.

Cons:
- The fact that there's a third party deciding the effects/results of every attack/defense, players are likely to feel that third party's judgement might be biased/incorrect. This really only becomes a problem based on your own ability to inspire your players to trust your judgement, and how you deal with players who feel like the situation would play out differently than you ruled. The latter is easily solved by stressing a requirement of detail in an attack/defense. If they think their character was supposed to foresee the counter-attack coming from an odd angle, and dodge accordingly, they will have to mention that (in their attack post) before the counter-attack is thrown at them, and not afterwards. Kind of basic, but it's one of those kind of things that are best to mention, underline, repeat, and really nail down. Arguments could very easily break out if there's confusion on either side, because of the third-party-decides-the-outcome rule.

TL:DR; Your way of doing it could be a refreshing take on the arena-combat genre, and is mostly at risk due to the possibility of the ruling third-party's judgement to be incorrect/biased/not respected. At least that's what I think, in theory.

Multiversal Coliseum

Interesting fight format. I'm on the fence whether that's a good or a bad thing. Will be keeping my eye on this.

Have you got any experience with other fights done in such a format? Somewhere I could take a look at the system in use?

Southern Red Desert

Killstreak whipped up his arm and shot a single shot perfectly aimed at the rotating sling, aiming to cut it loose.

"Shh, I'm texting." He said, still looking down at the phone.

Southern Red Desert

(I'll leave this one short, as there isn't much deviation from the previous attack, and no counter-attack is attempted)

Seeing Solomon pop a foot out to his right to move out of the way of the oncoming swarm of bullets, Killstreak chuckled, and aimed his right gun carefully at Solomon's ankle, which took him less than a fraction of a second to do. Firing it repeatedly just as the extreme's right foot rose from the ground to join the other, intending to blast it clean off. It was worth noting that each shot fired with those revolvers produced two bullets, as it had two barrels on top of each other.With a yawn, he deported his left-hand revolver into his inventory while still firing a steady stream of bullets with his right, and withdrew the communication device that Arthur Greystoke had sent him prior to his arrival at the tournament grounds. A "Cellphone" was what he had called it. He scrolled through his contact list, which was very small, and selected "Mr.Greystoke" - before composing a text message, which was the apparent technical term.

"Sup? Hf U k1LL3d t3h n00bz y3t?!?11+"

He glanced over at Solomon. The spray of bullets was closing in on his ankle.

"Pwn1ng a n3wb in t3h d3s3rt. lawl."

He pulled up the phone and took a picture of Solomon, during the exact moment of which the bullets would hit his ankle. He saved it, and sent it to Arthur with the caption "G3tt1ng Rekt."

Southern Red Desert

The two gunshots were just the initiation. The cheese on top of the mouse trap. A carrot on a stick. A move that was carried out with the purpose of identifying the combat prowess of his opponent, as well as to lock down his movement and trap him against Killstreak's follow-up. The next move after that would end the fight entirely, if Solomon could even survive this one.

As the bullets reached Solomon's position on both sides of him, he was essentially boxed in, and so sideways movement would momentarily be next to impossible, unless he was as fast as Killstreak, which would be nice to discover at a safe distance, and not up close and personal.

With both of his guns pointed in their original position, Killstreak started firing them both rapidly, while moving his left arm in a downwards horizontal swing towards the right, and his right sweeping downwards to the left, making an X pattern. Since his movements were carried out at 20x speed , his sweeping motion was faster than the movement of the bullets, and so instead of firing a single bullet at a time, the guns would instead produce two steady lines of bullets in front of him that would travel forward in an X pattern, hitting in-between the space his two previous bullets were aimed for. If they were to hit their mark, Solomon's body would likely be cut to pieces, then the bullets would explode.

The timing of his follow-up volley to his first two shots, were so that the X patterned volley was fired when the first two bullets were right next to Solomon. Since the two combatants were at a distance of 10 meters between each-other, Solomon had roughly 0.025 seconds to react to Killstreak's follow-up. Since Killstreak was already aiming his guns at the starting points, the guns being fired (which would seem like rapid machine gun fire to outside sources) were the only heads-up to the oncoming attack he would get. As for bullet count, roughly between 15 to 20 bullets were fired.

Will Solomon survive!? Tune in on the next breathtaking episode of.. Pwnz0r-TV!

Southern Red Desert

Killstreak let off a smirk and put his hands forward, in a nonthreatening manner, both fists closed. His fingers snapped, and the pointy finger of each hand shot forward, pointing at Solomon, as Killstreak's upper body leaned slightly backwards. "Ey!.. Quiet type, eh?" - He said, jokingly, as both of his golden revolvers materialized into his hands, and he pulled the trigger once for each of em. Firing off two explosive bullets at Solomon, one at his right elbow, the other at his left knee. Should the bullets, for some reason, find their mark and embed themselves within his body, the results would be.. truly limb-devastatingly bloody.

Southern Red Desert

From the north, a sand cloud was approaching.. or rather, a trail of sand was being kicked up because Killstreak Von Leetus was walking really, really, fast, and the sand couldn't handle the pace. He was reviewing some documents that Arthur had undoubtedly emailed him by now, popping it directly into his inventory, describing the various areas of the realm. This desert was supposedly treacherous and vile, prone to engulf unwary fools in quicksand. A dangerous area indeed..

You know, unless the fool in question interacted with the world as if it was 20 times as slow as it really was. Then, quicksand didn't really seem like much of a problem. The sun was more of a problem, but he had taken the liberty of equipping his shades, so no biggie.

Just as the documents said, there was a Warrior-looking guy here already, and by the looks of it, he was one of the "extremes" being mentioned. Not that Killstreak knew what an extreme was, but it was nothing he couldn't handle. He stopped 10 meters short of Solomon, both of his guns still in his inventory, and spoke loudly; "1 Hav cum to kick 455 and chew b0bl3gUm, and 1 am all out of b0bl3gUm." - "Come at me bro."

The Everlasting Arena: Main Thread

Ah man. Demon and angel characters crack me up. No offense to Drallinix.

All hail Arthur. Lord of the devils (Lordship by conquest)

Oh, and Schradinger. A nice way to limit your electricity powers could be to limit it to touch only (or a non-controlled AOE if discharged in contact with water/Conductive material), basically making it less controlled, and more "natural", if you will. A touch-based electric heart-stopping power is still pretty powerful, but doesn't roflstomp your opponents as easily unless they fuck up. Which should result in a roflstomp under normal circumstances anyway.