Another OSP In The Bag...
Apr. 10th, 2006 12:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magicaddict...and while it was quite a fun event, a couple of niggling problems continue to play about my head.
Which, incidentally, is also what a large number of blows did at the Tarantulas event this weekend.
The following is a slight rant on my favourite larp subject - the gerontocracy inherent in live roleplay systems of any age. I couldn't say this to anyone who matters as it would just be taken as my being picky and pedantic which, in all truth, it is. I have therefore saved it for the one place I can say whatever I want. If you believe you might find what I have to say offensive, I'm giving you the opportunity to switch off now.
After three years of fighting with daggers, I have received advice of all types from all manner of people about how I should improve my technique. Hit and run, go for the legs, fortune favours the bold, don't charge a line, take hits to deal them and just about everything in between, from both the great and good and those who I am not remotely interested in listening to. I have tried them all, and run into no-effects, global hit creatures and enchanted crush/fatal/harm/paralysis/decay/mage bolt/sharpbluntsharp up my @$$ on many, many occasions. In fact, during a short amount of downtime discussion over the weekend, I realised with some shock and dismay that Rhinyn has personally dropped a grand total of three things in three years. A wraith (which required someone with a gribbly weapon to finish it off), a Jackal archer who never saw me coming, and a skeleton who then remembered he was immune to sharp and stood up again. Everything else has had time to turn round and respond with one of the above selection of nasty calls.
I don't know what game all those people who offered me advice were playing, but I believe the LT uses the Lorien Role Playing Rules v2 as standard (at least until after the Gathering), which seems to dictate that monsters with locational hits are too weak to give a typical PC party a challenge.
Take Rhinyn fighting against the monsters this weekend (not that he'd be seen dead at a Tarantulas event - for the express reason that he would be seen dead the moment after he turned up). Say he manages to ninj one - is never seen coming from out of the darkness and piles into its back triumphantly. Just about every monster this weekend, without going into stats, would have thought "OUCH!", turned round and hit him, causing him to roll with the blow...in which time the next one would come in requiring roleplaying of a strike in another location, and another, and another. Before he knew it, his four hits per location would be in danger of falling to zero and he would either be running for his life or dropped like a pile of laundry being carried by someone who has just won the lottery. None of the myriads of advice on fighting technique would help me there, with the exception of the most wonderfully patronising little suggestion from a healer (who will remain unnamed) one day: "Couldn't you try to get hit less?"
There is a way that works. There is a way in which a daggerboy can do very well indeed.
In those said three years of fighting with daggers, I have learnt what the refs will allow unnamed spod X to get away with and what they won't. Typically, your average ref will allow three strikes per second - that's a little faster than you can say "crisps" over and over again. When I have strayed up to four, and even four and a half, strikes per second, the refs have pulled me over to the side and asked me to slow the blows down slightly. I have done so, and am now quite good at keeping bursts of any more than two strikes at or below the three per second limit. Refs don't complain when I strike at three per second, so I assume this is the unwritten rule about what is allowed.
Sorry, what unnamed spod X is allowed.
Many, many times this weekend, I watched the famous and renowned tarantula faction daggerboys, and found out why they can drop things I can only dream of. As refs watched them, they piled in at five or six strikes per second and minced the crap out of things, as the refs watched on and thereby gave their tacet acceptance of. I have watched many well known and renowned people pile in at four and a half strikes per second and get away with it. I have listened to people saying how they managed to drop this, that or the other with knives or claws by simply piling in and not stopping swinging, regardless of the fact that they were doing so at four strikes per second or above (hell, I watched them do it). Why are they allowed to do this and I am not?
Wait until you've been in the system for ten years then swing at six strikes per second. That's what works - as long as you're known by people, you can get away with murder. This is why nothing I pile into at three strikes per second falls over - the monsters are designed for accomplished daggerboys who strike at a speed way in excess of what I am permitted to at this stage in my LT career, while my face isn't known as one who is "alright". I could strike that fast. I could ignore the first two blows per location "because I'm taking them on the armour", ignoring the fact that being hit with a sword on softish leather armour (even if it's spethial +1 armour) hurts and would make you react. I'd get pulled up for fast hits and poor roleplay before you could say "twink".
I may as well resign myself to playing a scout in a system that doesn't require them, and actually running away whenever anything turns up. I won't be able to hurt it so I might as well go stretcher-bear for the healers for the next seven years. If Rhin survives that long, I might be known by enough people that I can "get inside and shiv it like a bitch" at a speed that will allow "it" to drop before I do.
Which, incidentally, is also what a large number of blows did at the Tarantulas event this weekend.
The following is a slight rant on my favourite larp subject - the gerontocracy inherent in live roleplay systems of any age. I couldn't say this to anyone who matters as it would just be taken as my being picky and pedantic which, in all truth, it is. I have therefore saved it for the one place I can say whatever I want. If you believe you might find what I have to say offensive, I'm giving you the opportunity to switch off now.
After three years of fighting with daggers, I have received advice of all types from all manner of people about how I should improve my technique. Hit and run, go for the legs, fortune favours the bold, don't charge a line, take hits to deal them and just about everything in between, from both the great and good and those who I am not remotely interested in listening to. I have tried them all, and run into no-effects, global hit creatures and enchanted crush/fatal/harm/paralysis/decay/mage bolt/sharpbluntsharp up my @$$ on many, many occasions. In fact, during a short amount of downtime discussion over the weekend, I realised with some shock and dismay that Rhinyn has personally dropped a grand total of three things in three years. A wraith (which required someone with a gribbly weapon to finish it off), a Jackal archer who never saw me coming, and a skeleton who then remembered he was immune to sharp and stood up again. Everything else has had time to turn round and respond with one of the above selection of nasty calls.
I don't know what game all those people who offered me advice were playing, but I believe the LT uses the Lorien Role Playing Rules v2 as standard (at least until after the Gathering), which seems to dictate that monsters with locational hits are too weak to give a typical PC party a challenge.
Take Rhinyn fighting against the monsters this weekend (not that he'd be seen dead at a Tarantulas event - for the express reason that he would be seen dead the moment after he turned up). Say he manages to ninj one - is never seen coming from out of the darkness and piles into its back triumphantly. Just about every monster this weekend, without going into stats, would have thought "OUCH!", turned round and hit him, causing him to roll with the blow...in which time the next one would come in requiring roleplaying of a strike in another location, and another, and another. Before he knew it, his four hits per location would be in danger of falling to zero and he would either be running for his life or dropped like a pile of laundry being carried by someone who has just won the lottery. None of the myriads of advice on fighting technique would help me there, with the exception of the most wonderfully patronising little suggestion from a healer (who will remain unnamed) one day: "Couldn't you try to get hit less?"
There is a way that works. There is a way in which a daggerboy can do very well indeed.
In those said three years of fighting with daggers, I have learnt what the refs will allow unnamed spod X to get away with and what they won't. Typically, your average ref will allow three strikes per second - that's a little faster than you can say "crisps" over and over again. When I have strayed up to four, and even four and a half, strikes per second, the refs have pulled me over to the side and asked me to slow the blows down slightly. I have done so, and am now quite good at keeping bursts of any more than two strikes at or below the three per second limit. Refs don't complain when I strike at three per second, so I assume this is the unwritten rule about what is allowed.
Sorry, what unnamed spod X is allowed.
Many, many times this weekend, I watched the famous and renowned tarantula faction daggerboys, and found out why they can drop things I can only dream of. As refs watched them, they piled in at five or six strikes per second and minced the crap out of things, as the refs watched on and thereby gave their tacet acceptance of. I have watched many well known and renowned people pile in at four and a half strikes per second and get away with it. I have listened to people saying how they managed to drop this, that or the other with knives or claws by simply piling in and not stopping swinging, regardless of the fact that they were doing so at four strikes per second or above (hell, I watched them do it). Why are they allowed to do this and I am not?
Wait until you've been in the system for ten years then swing at six strikes per second. That's what works - as long as you're known by people, you can get away with murder. This is why nothing I pile into at three strikes per second falls over - the monsters are designed for accomplished daggerboys who strike at a speed way in excess of what I am permitted to at this stage in my LT career, while my face isn't known as one who is "alright". I could strike that fast. I could ignore the first two blows per location "because I'm taking them on the armour", ignoring the fact that being hit with a sword on softish leather armour (even if it's spethial +1 armour) hurts and would make you react. I'd get pulled up for fast hits and poor roleplay before you could say "twink".
I may as well resign myself to playing a scout in a system that doesn't require them, and actually running away whenever anything turns up. I won't be able to hurt it so I might as well go stretcher-bear for the healers for the next seven years. If Rhin survives that long, I might be known by enough people that I can "get inside and shiv it like a bitch" at a speed that will allow "it" to drop before I do.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
3 points
Date: 2006-04-10 06:24 am (UTC)2) Sanctioned event. Refs more likely to know player, like player etc. You might 'get away with' faster dagger strikes at unicorn events. not that would try. Nor am I suggestting the daggerboy fights slower at main events.
3) there is no 'too fast' for the purposes of the rules. It's a game. What I pull people up for as a marshall is fighting unsafely. Which can involve 'too frantically.'
and dave's own method of dropping LT monsters with daggers.
a) pick a monster who has already dropped someone. LT monster briefs are longer, makeup and stats then a five minute walk to the faction gates. If they are struck by a flurry of daggers in the first few seconds of combat, they will (at the very least) turn around and take a swing.
b) footwork. move like a boxer, sting like a nettle. keep on the edge of their weapon reach, then keep moving around. When they come at you, go for the opening. There may not be one. move on. not everyone can be 'taken' from the front with daggers.
c)Occasional smear imaginary poison on the blade, then use it to feint. dirty tricks are you friend.
d) never go for legs. it leaves you exposed. Your targets are shoulders to waist and the arms. if you are certain of the pulling of the blows go for unarmoured (OOC) locations, then they can feel the blow.
Re: 3 points
Date: 2006-04-10 09:53 am (UTC)1) Some of the refs there were outright refs (up as far as Steve Lewis).
2) I'm sure I have at times. Like you said, doesn't mean I should or that it should be acceptable.
3) Surely that leaves fighting styles open to hugely subjective opinion as to their safety, putting some people at an advantage and others who fight no less safely at a disadvantage? Has that never been considered a point that needs addressing amongst staff?
I heave heard each of those suggestions before, with the exception of smearing poison on the blade. That one I'll definitely give a try, but I can't help but see myself getting charged at having it lose the visual effect.
Re: 3 points
Date: 2006-04-10 10:43 am (UTC)2) who are we to set a standard? The closest it is possible to do is calibrate one ref off another. The relative high hits of some monsters compared to the lowest player means everyone would have trouble sticking to a 'three hit per second' rule. As a general rule, in LT and TL I will fight to the best and quickest of my ability if it is called for, and roleplaying of full strikes allowed. If a marshall or ref calls me up for 'hitting too fast' I generally look confused, ask if I was fighting unsafe, or they thought the swings were too short, and then carry on, with that in mind.
3) yes. LARP will always depend a great deal on OOC skill, both of player and staff. Not a lot you can do about that one, except make sure the rules allow someone to be endangered no matter how 'twinked' they get. Hence the rules changes to all systems.
If they charge you, drop back and let your allies cover you, or just run, you've got a decent turn of speed, (again OOC skill) so use it.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-10 09:00 am (UTC)You then point them out to a ref and say "Numpty! Sickum!"
To my knowledge, there is no other ruling for speed of swing except that crush is a fully RP'd blow. However, most refs accept rule 7 and enforce it if someone is really taking the mick.
With daggers, there's three ways I can see of doing it with daggers.
1) Hit a seperate location each time, and since you've got two daggers, that means the righthand dagger can always hit the chest.
2) Draw a cross across someone's back / chest. Make sure your daggers hit the top right of the location, and go at least as far as the bottom left of it, then repeat on the other side with other dagger.
3) Fully roleplayed blow. If you're moving from the shoulders, you should be okay. Moving from the elbow can be done if done properly. Done from the wrist should never be done.
That said, I acknowledge that I am teaching granny to suck eggs here and that you are far my superiour with daggers. :) That is just my personal view as a player / spod.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-10 10:00 am (UTC)I can hit separate locations at six strikes per second, after seeing how to do so from Warren (Dantarian) playing in the Bath home system. It's a fantastic looking way of fighting, but it's still twice as fast as I'm allowed to swing and get away with.
Drawing a cross and a fully roleplayed blow would drop me down to two strikes per second which, while well inside the safe zone for speed of strikes, leaves me even more open to being moshed when the monster turns round. Runawaaaay.....
Consider what would happen if you and I were to fight at three strikes per second max, then if Rhinyn and Meldir were to do so. The first fight would be fairly close and the second would have Meldir walking all ovr Rhinyn like he wasn't there.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-12 08:27 am (UTC)Point 2) If it looks good to be (and I shudder to use the term when applying it to a fantasy game that does not really involve logic) realistic, then go for it would be my opinion.
Point 3) As Steve said, unless you've got reasons to really stick in there and go toe to toe, why would you want more than 2 blows before running like a sod.
Point 4) I love it when people overestimate my leet skillz. Would this be before or after I unleash my psionic rays of dhoom? ;)
no subject
Date: 2006-04-10 12:31 pm (UTC)That's my personal opinion. Plus I'm amazed someone said go for the legs. I mean, how? Bend over and kiss the ground in front of them?
no subject
Date: 2006-04-10 12:50 pm (UTC)It did, however, have some measure of success. I was able to take the legs out from under someone while they hammered me on the back - they were a locational PC, I was a global monster.
I think I'm probably expecting too much from what I have - it's just hard not to when you hear exalted tales of dagger fighters doing the impossible, and is extremely demoralising when you see first hand how they do it and your first thought is "but that's cheating!"