Thoughts of an Ikki Tousen RP

[Mamono Assault Force]

Re: Thoughts of an Ikki Tousen RP

Maiko pretty much said what I've been wanting to for some time, but couldn't find the words. I'd like it much more if the historical figure thing wasn't a major factor, since it's kinda more of a frustrating thing to me rather than anything else.

 

[Termite]

Re: Thoughts of an Ikki Tousen RP

The way I see this I (and by extension everyone else) have two options.

1. Find an officer I'd like to use as the Magatama and develop my character around that. I'd need to do research into that officer's life and accept certain traits or circumstances while ignoring others. I'm thinking of using Zhou Tai, and he's best known for sacrificing his body to protect Sun Quan from certain doom. He's a fiercely loyal man and was welcomed as a brother by both Quan and Ce. My hypothetical character would be someone who will fight tooth and nail for the people he loves, and in situations where his friends are in peril his strength will nearly double.

2. Say "Screw that!" and just go with a nameless soldier. The schools seem flooded with fighters all over the place, so a bunch of them must be lowly foot soldiers or low-tier officers. Maybe they had their own ambitions. Maybe they were cut down before they could try to realize them. Why can't these souls get a second chance at greatness now? All they have to do is fight enough until they manage to raise their rank.

So basically I just have to figure out how small a box I want to work in.

By the way, if anyone wants info I suggest hitting kongming.net

 

[TentanariX]

Re: Thoughts of an Ikki Tousen RP

OKAY. I think it is time for a new poll:

How do you want this to go down?:

A.) Limited screen time NPC main cast, taking figures from other mythology/histories, future setting after series
B.) approved main cast PC's/NPC main cast, figures from both Rot3K and other cultural myths and time periods etc., concurrent with anime/manga
C.) NONE of the main cast, non canon or Rot3K characters, pre-series time line
D.) Other (Suggestions are MOST welcome.)

 

[maikochan]

Re: Thoughts of an Ikki Tousen RP

That's a tough one. I think I'm leaning towards option A, though with the option for some non-Ikki Tousen Romance characters (like Zhou Tai)

 

[undead_kenny]

Re: Thoughts of an Ikki Tousen RP

Think i'l go with A on this one.

 

[The Alpacalypse]

Re: Thoughts of an Ikki Tousen RP

I'll vote A as well.

 

[cross_grave]

Re: Thoughts of an Ikki Tousen RP

I choose A.

 

[TentanariX]

Re: Thoughts of an Ikki Tousen RP

It looks like Choice A is the clear victor. The RP will take place sometime after the end of the manga and anime, will feature the main cast minimally, and Player Characters can be taken from other figures of historical, mythical, and legendary significance.

 

[TentanariX]

Re: Thoughts of an Ikki Tousen RP

I still need to produce some good and clear rules of play for everyone. My primary focus should be making it to where things aren't stupidly stacked against the players, and to where players can't break the game. Some way of regulating the fights and making sure things work properly.

 

[maikochan]

Re: Thoughts of an Ikki Tousen RP

That's a tough one. The only guidelines I can think of, and they might not reflect the way things are in the anime/manga, are such:

Anyone with a magatama rank can defeat anyone without one with little difficulty. Thus a 100lb school girl could kick a 300+lb professional fighter. It may not be realistic, but these things are magic.

Toushi of the same rank should be roughly even in battle, but depending on style or circumstance, one would have an advantage. These sort of things would likly be decided mutally between the players if two PCs are fighting, not nessicarrily at the outset, but when it seems the momentum is shifting in one person's favor, it might be worth working together to make the scene memorable.

Against NPC enemies of the same rank, I guess similar guidelines would apply with both sides being roughly even at the start of the battle, but as the fight progresses, one will most likly gain the upper hand through creative fighting or other circumstances. Also, knowledge of your enemy's style would grant you a signifigant advantage in battles of the same rank.

In battles between Toushi of differing ranks of no more than one rank difference, the higher ranked fighter would obviously have signifigant advantages, with the weaker fighter only having a chance of victory with a combination of planning (knowing the enemy's style and weakpoints, fighting in a prepared area, etc.), cunning, and luck.

When two toushi of vastly differing ranks fight, the higher ranked one should be nearly unbeatable. We're talking a match-up like He Yi vs Lu Bu. There would be no contest. That said, situations may arise where a higher ranked fighter could be bested by lower ranked foes. Off the top of my head, some of these situations could include illness, poisoning, overwhelming numbers (even Lu Bu wouldn't be able to take on the whole Yellow Turban army), or betrayal (Dian Wei was killed during a suprise attack by someone who had surrendered to Cao Cao).

I think the best rule of thumb would be to make fights as fun as possible for both sides.

Oh, one more thing, two lower ranked toushi acting together might be considered on par with a single toushi of one rank higher?

Those are my thoughts.

 

[cross_grave]

Re: Thoughts of an Ikki Tousen RP

I agree with Mai, altough I'd like to add one thing to what she said. Whether one uses weapons or bare hands shouldn't be a big factor in determining who has the advantage. A skilled fighter can take out an armed opponent even if they're evenly matched, as long as he knows what he's doing. And I'm not talking only about things like tricks and traps, there are moves for dealing with armed enemies.

 

[Kathy]

Re: Thoughts of an Ikki Tousen RP

For the sake of keeping the RP interesting and not constantly falling back to stats being the determining factor of fights, I would suggest that rank differences don't outright decide who is going to win, but as Tenta mentioned earlier, it decides what kinds of attacks and abilities you may have. For our combat purposes, this would mean higher ranks get more special skills and abilities, but also, I was thinking some kind of an advantage factor.

When two characters go at it in a fight, this advantage shift could be customized per character, but an easy example of it would be for each rank higher a fighter is, they may be 'immune' to the damage from one successful attack. Like the way that so often happens in any number of animes when two super-powers go at each other, one seems to get beat up badly, then they casually stroll out of the "lethal" attack blast, or standing up after being smashed into the ground and stretch as if nothing happened, usually muttering something along the lines of, "Gee, that was a good one. Keep that up and you may actually hurt me. Guess it's time to get serious."

In this way, even a bad mismatch of E vs. A ranks won't be an auto-win, but the odds of the E-rank winning will be VERY very low. (Since up to 4 attacks will have no effect on the A rank.) While a far closer match, say D vs. C, with only one attack difference between them being nearly on-par, it can quickly shift in favor of the D-rank. (Note: Due to the abilities learned at higher ranks, this won't be their only advantage, but it is a noteworthy one that fits the setting fairly well I think.)

 

[cross_grave]

Re: Thoughts of an Ikki Tousen RP

I don't like the idea of "immunity", sounds too much like deus ex machina to me. I mean, if the attack is something along the lines of "impaling a guy on a long spear" then it's hard to find a way to make one immune to this without doing an ass-pull. It's not Dragon Ball or Bleach, people, we're still humans. I think that higher rank should equal more power, greater speed and strenght. For example, an E rank might be able to damage an A rank, but it's unlikely due to the difference in capabilities - he's too slow to react in time, for example. It is, however, possible if the A rank has a weakness that can be exploited or is very careless - or too dumb to live. As for the special skills and abilities, I suppose this shouldn't be something along the lines of "new level, new skill points". Rather, a "new level, greater strenght, more potential I can find a use for" approach might be better, with people learning new tricks thanks to practice with the help of a teacher, their peers, or their magatama granting them a small piece of the warrior's skill which they need to master before using.

 

[maikochan]

Re: Thoughts of an Ikki Tousen RP

I would think weapons would have some effect in a battle, they add reach to your attacks and provide a pretty signifigant psychological advantage; an enemy with a sword is a lot scarier than an unarmed foe. Most of the effects of a weapon would be taken care of through roleplaying though, and shouldn't decide a battle, with the possible exception of epic weapons like Guan Yu's blade (name escapes me) or Cao Cao's Sword of Heaven, but those should be very rare, if they make appearances in the game at all.

Otherwise, I'm in agreement with cross.

 

[cross_grave]

Re: Thoughts of an Ikki Tousen RP

Yes, a weapon's main advantage might be reach... Psychological effects will be weaker as we face stronger foes, who should be capable of going against weapons bare-handed. I'd also like to suggest describing attacks in detail. Sure, it might be difficult, but regulating a fight is easier when you know exactly how the attacks are executed - you can tell whether they'll hit, what kind of damage they might cause and it allows you to show off your character's fighting style. Oh, and one more thing about Kathy's idea: the "immunity" would make battles between high-level characters unnecessarily long, considering that both combatants would be good at avoiding blows and the first few successful attacks would be simply wasted. I'm pretty sure that at least one person would get frustrated by that - and that's a good motivation to finding a way to bypass the rule.

 

[Termite]

Re: Thoughts of an Ikki Tousen RP

The immunity thing Kathy suggested is between different ranks, not based on rank. A Rank A vs a Rank C will shrug off a couple of attacks because there's two steps between them, but two Rank A Fighters will immediately start smashing each other around. That being said I'm not all that fond of the idea. I don't like the idea of just up and saying "Doesn't count!" in the middle of a fight.


I sent Tent some a suggestion for some stat influence when he sent out the PM. Basically it boils down to every character having four stats that really matter when in a fight.

Attack - Strength of punches and kicks
Defense - How well someone can absorb damage
Speed - How fast a character can move
Reflex - How quickly a character can react

Each one gets their own ranking in addition to the overall rank of the Fighter. These stats are only physical and have nothing to do with a Fighter's mental prowess. That leaves all the mental junk up to the player to showcase. This way a truly skilled player can get their Fighter to take on someone with higher rank by learning all they can about their opponent and devising some kind of battle strategy that can maximize their strengths to take advantage of their opponent's weaknesses.

As for weapons, when two men face each other and have equal skill the one with a weapon always has the advantage. I'm can't really accept that someone trained extensively in hand-to-hand will be able to do much to a fencer who targets his opponent's limbs.

 

[cross_grave]

Re: Thoughts of an Ikki Tousen RP

Termite, a weapon user has advantage in term of reach. However, he also has a disadvantage - he usually has a slightly longer recovery time after each attack due to weapon's weight affecting him and on top of that, there is usually some distance he has to put between himself and his opponent for his weapon to be effective. A fast fighter might be able to dodge a blow and get close enough to render a long weapon less useful, if not outright useless.

Also, I'm not sure if adding more stats is a good thing. Didn't we agree to make this freeform? As far as I know, that usually means stats and such are reduced to minimum. I doubt adding more will help much.

 

[TentanariX]

Re: Thoughts of an Ikki Tousen RP

Okay. I have a crazy schedule, and limited times I can get on the internet. Not to mention other hobbies and interest and sites I like to visit ON the internet. So, my time card is all cut up and wacky; which means Even if I am on for a while other people might not be, and my attention may be divided. Which is one thing I like about Forum RPing, is that I can get on whenever I want and take of things on my own pace and leisure. So running a Beta test on chat or something might be hard, I could try running a Beta thread or two for one or two people and try to work things out that way though. I am not really certain if I want PVP as it can be fairly complicated that way. But I might try, especially if anyone wants it enough.

 

[Termite]

Re: Thoughts of an Ikki Tousen RP

I can understand that for large weapons like axes and broadswords and nodachis and the like, but for everything else that delay is minimal and is easily offset by the distance the unarmed fighter must keep to avoid being hit. A weapon fighter has much more control over the battle simply because his opponent needs to avoid every shot.

I'm still advocating that those stats be kept hidden from everyone else. Those are just to help Tent figure out who wins in a confrontation and how it will end. The only people that know the absolute truth behind your stats are the GM and yourself.

 

[cross_grave]

Re: Thoughts of an Ikki Tousen RP

Not every shot needs to be avoided. Not every part of a weapon can actually deal damage, and some weapons might be parried with bare hands, dealing limited damage at best. It all boils down to forcing your opponent to fight on your terms - if you can do that, you control the battle. And while weapons are helpful, they are not 100% effective.