Reviving Virtue's Tradition of RPvP (Open discussion)

RE: Ransim and Malech--
Shinsengumi and coalition were heavily into RP and PvP. Not to mention that Kadekawa was actually the one to put together VirtueVerse (and if I remember correctly, he was working on a Shinsengumi & coalition Database-style Wiki as well.)

X-Patriots aren't exclusively RP, but there is/was an RP circle in the SG that would promote and organize events. It certainly would have brought some non-RPers along to the events

Directed at everyone else: What about Team PvP?

Team RPvP may be a better route these days, as opposed to duels (which are largely rock paper scissors, always has been, always will.). It relies more on group coordination, and allows players to be consistent with the specialization of their roles -- so support players and glass cannons won't feel so left out. People are also less butthurt when they lose in a team setting than in a duel -- mainly because the grief/blame is shared... though we really shouldn't be caring for winning/losing.

But what about the Min/Maxers?
Sure, there might be one or two guys in your RPSG with purpled-PvP'd IO'd out everything, who offers to join in and settle all the RPvP disputes. That's all fine and dandy. But in a team setting, he is forced to coordinate himself with the team, follow team mates, prevent weaker allies from becoming farm targets, and keeping a close watch on spikes directed against him.

And if the entire RPSG manages to farm purple/PVP IO out everyone in their entire SG, and they manage to put together a nice team PvP strategy? Then good for them, that's actually quite a commendable accomplishment -- IMO, they deserve their reputation as feared badass ruffians.

But this is just me musing...

PS: It was i13 people are complaining about. I'm still not fully convinced it has much of an impact on the RP community though.

I would be happy to RPvP against anyone, and no I don't have a cookie cutter FOTM build. I will have a go with anyone, any level, exemp me down to level 5 I dont care.

On Pinnacle we used to have battle royals where every character would exemp down to 5, about 30 people, no allies, no exploits, just a bunch of lowbies chugging along with no travel powers slugging it out. It was a blast, pure fun, no trashtalk, just lolz !

While I've got a brief idle moment I thought I'd throw in an opinion.


I've been role-playing since my earliest computer gaming days when a friend introduced me to video games. With the advent of the internet suddenly at my disposal (2000 is when I started, but I'd never really used computers until then), I began looking for communities that I could game with--I instinctively knew that there would be all kinds of personalities showing themselves. Some would be posers, some would be jerks, and some would be genuinely good people.

Thankfully, I found in a Yahoo! video game chat room of all places, a bunch of people role-playing. Uninformed then, I thought role-playing was 99% sexual in nature--thankfully I've learned since then.

Anywho, for a few months I slowly introduced myself to the concept of text role-playing, and even found myself in a few fights. I used the "T1" method of combat--meaning I'd post two or three paragraphs containing all my actions for my "turn" in the round, and wait for the next person in the rotation to do the same. What I eventually realized was that players engaged in text combat tend to use their impression of other players to dictate their aggressiveness. Despite finding myself in the fight, I had been a generally nice bloke, and the round eventually ended with me the victor due to reservations by my opponent. It was satisfying to win, but on the other hand it was satisfying for my opponent not to lose so much as honorably concede.

Anyway, moving to City of Heroes--when I started role-playing in 3D video games, I found myself drastically limited by my skill at the game. My skill with language was immaculate, and I could illustrate entire worlds as easily as I could my character, but when I found myself forced to use game-mechanics as combat mechanics, I was frustrated by generally always loosing. An earlier poster in this topic mentioned a "Well-Defined and Creative Character" losing to a "Less-Impressively Creative Character but with Better Enhancements and Power Sets" (not in any of those words I'm sure). The idea is, if your character, personality, history, style, and game accomplishments outrank that of the other player, is it, in a way, 'fair' for that lesser developed character to win? On one hand it sounds unbalanced to suggest they shouldn't win, but on the other hand shouldn't creativity and character development be rewarded as well?

So it's a tough situation, which is why I've decided not to engage in combat at all. If I see a jerk trying to provoke me, flaring his trench-coat, stupid hair, and katana while saying I'm "a foul beast that is a blight upon this earth and that I shouldn't give so many glances towards his girlfriend", I just put the bugger on /ignore and move on. I've decided that I simply don't want to deal with the amount of passion that comes up in player versus player engagements, whether through text or game-mechanics. It's a simpler life.

I really don't think it's losing that's the problem, that a few people seem to be making it out to be.

At one point, my main/namesake was a WP/EM Tanker (rerolled many times over). As that WP/EM Tanker, about the only time I ever won an RP fight, was if it was an RPvP fight. I won a few text fights, but lost most of them (even to ones I as a player thought my toon shouldn't have) purely for the reason that all I ever saw at the time was "You won't lose in this text fight, therefore you're a godmodder" sooo...I just pretty much always let my toon lose.

Save the hassle.

Now in a one on one PvP match, this was never the case, and in a two on one PvP match I almost always survived, unless the duo was specifically setup to beat me, and then only if I didn't back off for 5 seconds.

Was it an optimal build? Well for PvE yes (or pretty close to anyways...I'm sure it could of been better).

After the changes, I didn't get the same feeling in a PvP zone that I did in a PvE zone. Why? Because there are different rules.

Now all that said. Let's look at it from the RP perspective. What's a common thing to happen in the comic book genre?

Why one on one fights of course!

Guess what? Doesn't matter how good the PvPer, some builds just suck for PvP, and get out matched by a lot of other builds.

Regen scrappers? In a one on one fight, if they're not winning, they're tying if the player has a bit of ability, and just a few of the right power picks, and that's just with Generic IOs.

Now, I don't think a lot of the RPers out there are against their toon losing a fight (the good ones anyways), but do you honestly think, they think, that their hero, would lose every fight?

That's just the heroes.

My take on villains is a bit different (from what I've seen). As most who RP the villains, don't want their villains to lose...ever. Of course, forgetting, that really in the end, the villain always loses in such stories in the genre (few exceptions, yes...but I doubt CoX will ever favor the villains winning scenario).

And that could possibly be why more people prefere playing the heroes. In the end, they know the villain has to lose.

Now, you can want more RPvP fights, but untill it gets simplified into 1 build between PvE and PvP, I don't think it will get as far with RPers.

And will never be the main way for any fights, because, frankly, even before i13, some builds just suck in PvP, and people want to play those sets, i13+ just makes it more so.

Frankly, I'm not inclined to RPPvP for most stories at all. Even the name is a misnomer. There's a couple reasons for that.

1. When you're PvPing, you have no time to RP.
2. RPPvP replaces creativity and role-playing with speed-twitch ability.

I have a character who's quite good at PvP, but I don't RPPvP with her. Simply put, she's not supposed to be as powerful as she is in PvP, and I'm not about to abuse a game system that wasn't designed for RP in order to let her win. So while taking a random fight to the arena is fun occasionally (as in, your character won't stop bugging me and I have nothing to do anyway), its not a good tool for ongoing RP, because it forces mechanics not intended to interact with RP into RP, and that never goes well, regardless of whether its an MMO or a pen and paper game.

Then there's the other side of the issue, as to why RPPvP is usually needed. Apophasis does have a good point there, that sometimes, there's not agreement as to where a story should head, and there's no good way to decide, other than the arena. That's a shame, really, but its also more common than it needs to be. That's mostly due to the newer generation of RPers not knowing about (or rejecting) what's called the RPer's Contract (and there's a lot of different names for it, that's just the one I first heard). Probably many who are reading this thread already know what that is, but for those who don't, I'll try to encapsulate briefly.

1. Don't play other people's characters for them. This means ever really, including things like this. (Incorrect: "I smash my fist into your nose." Correct: "I swing my fist at your nose.")

2. Don't godmode. Your character shouldn't ever be able to block everything, dodge everything, always hit, be immune to everything, etc. If you're in a fight, take a few punches. Yeah, you're superpowered. So's the other guy. (Unless she's explicity not, of course.)

3. No meta-gaming (knowing stuff your character wouldn't know on his own).

If those guidelines are applied, 99% of any disagreements can be handled without needing to resort to non-RP solutions. Problem is, players that are actually capable of using those guidelines are becoming fewer and fewer.

If you (and the people you RP with) are able to use those guidelines, you'll never have to worry about needing to use PvP at all to settle anything. If you (or the people you RP with) can't or won't use them, then RPPvP comes in, because all RPPvP is, is a crutch for an inability to resolve character issues through RP.

(In order to keep from derailing this thread, if there's going to be some sort of debate over the guidelines themselves as opposed to the nature of the statement, IM me, or poke me in RPVirtue, or copy the rules to a new thread or something, please.)

Edit: I neglected to mention at all the OP's addressing of RPPvP events. I'm actually for the events, provided they've got an actual story behind them, and aren't just a scheduled excuse to pretend like you're RPing.

Gah, I just reread my last post and thought "Wow, if someone else wrote that I'd think he was a bit of a *****". I don't think I said anything untrue there, but the aggro level was unwarranted. My bad.