Problems We Have

[Metal Man]

Good writing and fun, spontaneous battling are not like oil and water, in fact that is 90% of what I do.

Some people take hours on their posts. The most I take is 30 minutes, and that was on that monstrosity that was several pages long.

If you've got high WPM and a good knowledge of English, you can do both, heh.

[Videospirit]

I tend to avoid posting unless I'm in a good mood.

When I'm in a good mood I write posts quickly. If I try and push myself to make a post even longer, it can triple the time I take, but I dislike writing more actions than my opponent, and more than a few simple actions and a major one usually takes up enough time that I assume my opponent would do something other than stand still at that point if I tried to do more, so I like to shift control back to my opponent at that point.

I will post in a bad mood if I've been in one all day though, just so I don't stagnate too much. Anime puts me in a good mood anyway, and I've got plenty of that.

I'd like to think fight scenes I write are decent, and they're very on the spot. I use more of an action reaction combat which some of you dislike, but I dislike your momentum shift style so it's all fair. I'll occasionally try and plan something a few posts ahead of time too. Stuff like that often fails though, since people like to be unpredictable.

I ramble a lot don't i...

[The Willful Wanderer]

Of course spontaneous and well-written are not mutually exclusive.

My point is that they are often neccessarily inclusive, and while that's great, a predetermined outcome and spontaneity are at odds with one another rather completely.

[Videospirit]

Yeah... we don't have predetermined outcomes, so the spontaneousness wins.

[Kargath]

I don't think setting the winner of the battle (or other story details) in the topic startup negotiation is necessarily a bad thing. It would provide structure to the topic, without shutting down creativity like Mistalene is claiming. (Remember, you don't necessarily need to decide the winner in an open, publicly readable space...) I do think, however, that opening rules in friendlies should be able to be renegotiated if one or both parties realise the topic as a whole will be better off for it.
Speaking of structure - if we're moving to co-operative stories, why limit ourselves to topics about fights?

I don't see the problem with competition between writers trying to write the better piece, and I don't see the problem with judging - in fact I'd encourage more of it. That being said, I don't know much about KAF's judging style...
It's true that I weighted that analysis for the greedy case (ie "MUST WIN THIS *CURRENT* BATTLE!") - it might be to an agent's long-term advantage to throw a match here or there.

Mistalene, your problems seem to come from trying to bludgeon existing, outside characters into the Gunjin. If you have a character who is supposed to be a "mystery to everybody", then your opponent cannot accurately judge how they would take attacks. Your posts may be spooky and mysterious for the reader or something, but your opponent would have nothing to work with.
Creating a fresh character that matches the scenario, and is indeed part of the scenario, would be the best approach here. Either that, or drop the condition that no-one but you knows your character, and write just for the third parties, not for suprising your opponent.
Some characters just don't fit this environment. I mean all of my best characters know how to fight in their own ways, and could put up a decent struggle storywise against many characters here. However, I will never use them here, for this environment would poison the characters. How could I ever cheapen the flawed majesty of Nayaga, Marcus' *law abiding* ways or the desperate tragedy of Solace by placing them in some quickie piece that's being half-written by a stranger?



As for fancharacters, this comment on DA amuses me:
deviantART: Comment on according to recent trends by =rtil
(Source journal: rtil's deviantART Journal )
Shadow_Kirby - that's giving up before you've started. Why not do what I do - think of a power or character attribute, and build up piecewise from there.



Just for the sake of discussion, I'd like everyone to answer the next few questions:
What do you like about posting in the Gunjin?
What do you get out of posting in battles?
What are the characteristics of your ideal Gunjin battle (as a participant)?
What are the characteristics of your ideal Gunjin battle (as 3rd party reader)?



As an aside, I am still unsure as to how Mistalene and MM pump out that much battlepost that quickly.

[Repster]

Click Post Reply, type, Submit Reply. BAM! Done. It's how they do it. They've said it before, it's a VERY simple process.

Personally, I can't do that. First I need to do the quick spell check, then comes an overall "Okay what the bloody flame did I just type there? How did I manage to start a sentence with the three words that should end it..." Then I run threw it all again to check grammar, syntax, spelling, sentence structure and have the effect of proof reading to make sure it makes sense, again. Often I will give it another once over.

Now of course, you need to remember I can't write, so it still ends up as shoddy work.

Back on topic.

(Remember, you don't necessarily need to decide the winner in an open, publicly readable space...)

Dude, whether or not it's made public, you know your going to win or lose already. The publicacity of the matter is not an issue to it.

This is the Gunjin Battlefield That word right there is why we "limit" ourselves to topics about fights. Which is a bunch of bull**** really. This place isn't strictly about fights. It's everything that revolves around them.

The Virtual hotel up there right now? The thing that's pretty much dead? that the downtime between fights. Friendly, or not so much, interaction. I can name a few off the top of my head that reached into the 600 pages easily were closed down strapped an increasing digit and continued on. Not just inns, resorts, a simple campfire and some logs to exchange stories, etc.

Shops, completely pointless shops where you traded around items, interacted and did what those who fight and quest do and outfit themselves.

The quest itself, plenty of room for those, from the basic ZOMG! TEH PR1NC355! SHE IS TEH M1551NGZ!!!!111!!1 to incredibly convoluted and complex plot. It just needs that one person to make sure it moves along. That ain't me, but it can be you.


All these rules? Go for it. Try it out. Now. Do it.
Regulations? Go for it. Try it out. Now. Do it.
Judges? Go for it. Try it out. Now. Do it.
Predetermined outcome? Go for it. Try it out. Now. Do it.

Personally, not my game, but I'll give it a shot if that's how it's going to be. The most important thing to remember here is this.

DO IT!

Live threw the trial, and learn from the errors, sitting around contemplating thing got us that guy who's name starts with A who thought everything was made of fire, water, earth and air. He retarded the advancement of man. It's also the one person who you see in movies/comics/t.v that end up thinking about asmeotihnd ( to further illustrate my original point about my horrid writing/typing ability that should be "something". I kid you not, that is what I typed.) and thinking and thinking and then BAM! somebody else does it and the other one lives happily ever after, or at least somebody learns.

Let words run, let blow flow, let fire and steel lay waste to the land, what will be will be.

[Galefore]

It does limit creativity. If that requires explanation, then damn it you probably aren't creative in the least.

[Wyborn]

It does limit creativity. If that requires explanation, then damn it you probably aren't creative in the least.

All right then, I'll bite. Without slipping into hyperbole like our good friend Selene, tell me how it would limit creativity.

And call me uncreative, while you're at it.

[Galefore]

I wasn't talking to you. It limits creativity to predestine something. Ever thought your life would suck if you knew when you were going to die? Same principle applies here. If that principle is false, whatever. I'll just let my opinion stay mine and you can have predestination.

[Wyborn]

That does not explain how it limits creativity, though. I honestly want to hear your reasoning on why you think it limits creativity - I'm not going to attack you or anything. Just asking for an explanation.

[Galefore]

Ah, I see. Sorry, I expected some huge debate. I absolutely despise debates, which is why I stayed away from the NLBFT chat thread.

My reasoning is that it completely chokes all of the interesting elements from those actually writing the battle. Not knowing which tactic to use next is fun, as I well know from my own battles. To already know how the battle will flow and end leaves you completely choked: you're writing a battle that's already been written. I kind of think it kills the fun.

I, however, am not the end-all authority on this. I'm just speaking from experience. I feel like writing a battle that's not full of surprises, full of fresh twists, is a waste of my time. If anyone else wants to do it, I have no say in the matter. It's a free board.

[Wyborn]

Ah. Then let me pose you a question. This is not an argument: it is just a question.

Pretend that one character fights another. We know that the first will kill the second.

Does this mean we know how it will happen?

[Galefore]

No. But we know who will win. How do we pick one to root for? This leaves what little audience there is in hell.

And even if you do not tell th audience and only the two of you know, how can the loser do this if he knows is character is going to lose? I mean, he could try to keep the tide seemingly in his favor and twist it at the end, but he still knows he would lose. Morale loss, in some cases.

[Microphone_Kirby]

OK... Where to start?

Kargath: About your "piece-by-piece character building": I don't know... even if it's origional visually, ability wise it's just going to be another mash-up of known abilities and skills, and it'll be no better than what I got now IMO. It's worth a shot, but I still won't give up on the character whom I gave long thought over (as opposed to creativeness)...

Your 4 Questions?

What do you like about posting in the Gunjin?
The excitement of being part of a battle, as opposed to watching one. Trying to become the fighter I'm writing for.

What do you get out of posting in battles?
A little bit of Imagination. I always try to invision the battle as it progresses and just write it down to a certain point, where the fellow writer then takes over.

What are the characteristics of your ideal Gunjin battle (as a participant)?
Spontaneity. That's it. A little cleverness would help, but a spontaneous battle is a fun battle.

What are the characteristics of your ideal Gunjin battle (as 3rd party reader)?
It depends on what kind (A Quest, A "hotel" topic, a regular battle, whatever else...) but the common link to all three is that I must be able to visualize it. As a reader, I MUST be able to "see" the battle/story play out in my mind, or I lose interest quickly.

Regarding Galefore Vs. Wyborn:

Ah. Then let me pose you a question. This is not an argument: it is just a question.

Pretend that one character fights another. We know that the first will kill the second.

Does this mean we know how it will happen?

This reminds me of my favoriate Video Game and the ONLY complaint I have with it: Shadow the Hedgehog.

How it relates? You can choose the path you take to the very end. The paths branch, creating many possibilities. I loved that part of the game.

My complaint? The "very end" (Last Story) is only ONE possibility; no matter what path(s) you take, it leads to only one end, and that STINKS!! If it was up to me, I would've had a Dark Last Story and a Hero Last Story; two different endings with opposite results (as opposed to two endings with the same result).

In simpler words, I agree with Gale 100%. For me, if I knew I was going to lose in a fight, I'd lose all spirit for writing a futile attempt to win.

[The Willful Wanderer]

I don't think setting the winner of the battle (or other story details) in the topic startup negotiation is necessarily a bad thing. It would provide structure to the topic, without shutting down creativity like Mistalene is claiming. (Remember, you don't necessarily need to decide the winner in an open, publicly readable space...) I do think, however, that opening rules in friendlies should be able to be renegotiated if one or both parties realise the topic as a whole will be better off for it.

As Galefore and SephiKirby pointed out much more succinctly than me- I guess the use of examples and projected instances isn't much appreciated in this argument, oh well- for at least us three and, I suspect, a number of others, part of what makes writing battles so interesting is not knowing beforehand how they will end. As I stated in my bit about coming up with new strategies, you really can't try new things in terms of combat or actions in battle in the case of a predetermined fight because what if that would have won the fight and your character had been predeclared the loser? It won't shut down creativity wholesale, but improvisation and coming up with things on the spot- which I think is what should be happening in a battle, since it does in real-life ones for reasons that have nothing to do with physics and the like- will basically go down in flames.

As far as that last sentence there, though, I agree entirely. For me, usually, most of the standard rules of the Gunjin apply pretty much universally, but I'm probably going to start having little side-conversations beforehand about this sort of thing, since its clearly much more important than I thought.

Speaking of structure - if we're moving to co-operative stories, why limit ourselves to topics about fights?

Not sure I understand this....

...Mistalene, your problems seem to come from trying to bludgeon existing, outside characters into the Gunjin.

Unfortunately, pretty much all my characters are existing, outside characters, because I really can't create *just* for the Gunjin very often. MAK0-70 is pretty much the only example of just for the Gunjin I have in recent memory. All my other characters are... yanno... characters. Even MAK0 has already started taking on more life, which is really seemingly the only actual difference here between an 'outside character' and a 'Gunjin character'. I just can't do partial characters, I don't have it in me.

If you have a character who is supposed to be a "mystery to everybody", then your opponent cannot accurately judge how they would take attacks. Your posts may be spooky and mysterious for the reader or something, but your opponent would have nothing to work with.
Creating a fresh character that matches the scenario, and is indeed part of the scenario, would be the best approach here. Either that, or drop the condition that no-one but you knows your character, and write just for the third parties, not for suprising your opponent.

See previous, and further: I'm afraid I'm a bit overly continuity-oriented. This naturally gives me problems with the 'you can die/be maimed/disappear into another reality/etc in a fight and it doesn't matter' thing, because my characters are always constantly developing. Part of why I know my characters better than someone else does is that I know how my character has just changed, just now. More importantly, the bigger issue is not a matter of keeping the character secret, but of not always remembering everything that might possibly need to be told and telling it. In fact, I get a lot of character exploration done through fights sometimes, which makes it very difficult to pre-explain everything about my character even if it wouldn't normally take way more time to do that than the fight winds up taking up.

Actually fully explaining a character involves a lot of moments akin to describing the color blue without using any examples- it would probably take all day to do, given previous attempts that only lasted about four to five hours and weren't really near complete anyways.

Some characters just don't fit this environment. I mean all of my best characters know how to fight in their own ways, and could put up a decent struggle storywise against many characters here. However, I will never use them here, for this environment would poison the characters. How could I ever cheapen the flawed majesty of Nayaga, Marcus' *law abiding* ways or the desperate tragedy of Solace by placing them in some quickie piece that's being half-written by a stranger?

Given the length of the fights some of us wind up in, I'm very reluctant to consider most of this stuff 'quickie pieces', and I'd like to hope we can get enough of an idea of one another from each other's writing that I can call most of the people here at least 'associates' instead of 'strangers'. But that's a matter of opinion, I think.

Just for the sake of discussion, I'd like everyone to answer the next few questions:
What do you like about posting in the Gunjin?

The average literacy degree is rather a lot higher than most other RPing places, there's pretty much always something going on, I have friends here already, and I get to see a lot of interesting characters.

What do you get out of posting in battles?

The same thing I get out of any RP- fun and interesting character exploration, to see other peoples' characters and ideas in action. But more- to get to see these characters' actions and reactions under pressure, and practice a form of writing that it is very hard to get better at when writing alone. At least, for me it is, I'm not sure how many other people are in that boat.

What are the characteristics of your ideal Gunjin battle (as a participant)?

Characteristics? Crap. Um..... Literacy and effort out of my opponent/cowriter, naturally. Innovation is always happy. Interesting conflicts, unusual techniques/spells/responses/tactics/whatever. A character to battle with who I probably would not have come up with myself, or anything like them. Some sense of newness. A surprise or five is nice, too. A good flow of action from one writer to another? Not sure how further to define it, there are some things I don't think there are words for.

What are the characteristics of your ideal Gunjin battle (as 3rd party reader)?

See above, really. New and interesting things coming together in unexpected ways for a conflict that spurs innovation. With good writing and comprehensible grammar, or at least a strong attempt thereat.

As an aside, I am still unsure as to how Mistalene and MM pump out that much battlepost that quickly.

Well, I sit down, look at where things are, and then start writing what my character would do, and what happens because of it. Then, eventually, I figure 'this would be a good spot' and stop, leaving off for the other writer to pick up.

[Erdawn Il Deus]

^Shadow. Is that seriously the only problem you had with Shadow the freaking Hedgehog.

[Microphone_Kirby]

^Yes, it is. I love the gunplay. The controls were easy for me. The story could be better but it didn't bother me enough for it to be annoying. Don't care about the graphics.

With all the talk about choosing sides, the Last Story annoyed me becouse I didn't have a choice, plain and simple.

[Metal Man]

What do you like about posting in the Gunjin?
What do you get out of posting in battles?
What are the characteristics of your ideal Gunjin battle (as a participant)?
What are the characteristics of your ideal Gunjin battle (as 3rd party reader)?



As an aside, I am still unsure as to how Mistalene and MM pump out that much battlepost that quickly.

1. Releasing my creative muse out for some unrestrained freewriting. Let's just say it gets cranky from all the programming and computer-like thinking I do.
2. An attempt to improve my writing by trying to write something more believable than my opponent's, and something that I attempt to have more of a deep meaning than theirs.
3. Somebody who's dead-even with me, using tricky mind puzzles I must think of, stretching my character to the absolute limit (causes me to engineer ingenious moves and other interesting stuff), without being outright cheap or annoying.
4. Lots and lots of descriptions, things which snap, crackle and pop, medium length, and a close, epic battle between two people. Or perhaps something written like out of a storybook.

5. I can type at 90WPM, and I have been steadily refining my ability to roleplay for over 7 years. At this point, should I require myself to, I can just keep on going and going and going with my post, adding more and more in. I get the feeling fo what my character would want to do in response, and then it runs off without me.

Also, in the case of the Selene battle, I decided to challenge her gigantic posts with some gigantic ones of my own, as I torqued my mind to maximum power to type the most possible. It was somewhat satisfying, however it seemed to be missing something...

Basically, the longer you roleplay, the more you can pump out. In IRC, I often flood my own cutscript with 3+ paragraph long posts in one go. It just too me 3 years of practice there to do that.

Of course, that's me; when I focus on something enough, I forget my body and reality exists and only focus on my task. That can also lead to extremely long posts, like... this one?

[Kargath]

Repster ... you're limiting your thoughts because of a title?!?!
It's better to establish the terms of engagement first rather than riding a rocket with a blindfold on.



The problem with you, Galefore (and SK, and many others here), is that you are still equating character loss with writer loss.
Remove that tenet and there's no problems.
(I'm also curious as to why you hate debates, Galefore.)


You're doubting your own abilities too much, SK. A *long* time ago, I wrote stories for school assignments that took bits off other stories as a base. (Granted, that's what I was asked to do in several cases, but still.) All it took was me waking up to the fact that it would be far better for my stories to be written with my own ideas, and I shot ahead from there.
You've already passed the stage where you realise that it would be good to write your own original characters. The only thing stopping you now is your own doubt.
(I was going to offer to step through my create-a-char process with you live on AIM/YIM/MSN, but apparently something similar happened with SD a day or two ago...)

As Galefore and SephiKirby pointed out much more succinctly than me- I guess the use of examples and projected instances isn't much appreciated in this argument, oh well- for at least us three and, I suspect, a number of others, part of what makes writing battles so interesting is not knowing beforehand how they will end. As I stated in my bit about coming up with new strategies, you really can't try new things in terms of combat or actions in battle in the case of a predetermined fight because what if that would have won the fight and your character had been predeclared the loser? It won't shut down creativity wholesale, but improvisation and coming up with things on the spot- which I think is what should be happening in a battle, since it does in real-life ones for reasons that have nothing to do with physics and the like- will basically go down in flames.

As far as that last sentence there, though, I agree entirely. For me, usually, most of the standard rules of the Gunjin apply pretty much universally, but I'm probably going to start having little side-conversations beforehand about this sort of thing, since its clearly much more important than I thought.

It's absurd to claim that fixing the ending fixes the middle - you can still try new attacks/events, but you just have to take into consideration their effects, that's all. No more shooting off cannons if your opponent will die from a poke in the ribs.

Not sure I understand this....

I was wondering why we're even focused on writing battles at all if we're moving to a co-operative writing system. However, it doesn't seem like things are going that way, so the point is worthless.

Unfortunately, pretty much all my characters are existing, outside characters, because I really can't create *just* for the Gunjin very often. MAK0-70 is pretty much the only example of just for the Gunjin I have in recent memory. All my other characters are... yanno... characters. Even MAK0 has already started taking on more life, which is really seemingly the only actual difference here between an 'outside character' and a 'Gunjin character'. I just can't do partial characters, I don't have it in me.

How come? Why create a galaxy when a plain will do?

See previous, and further: I'm afraid I'm a bit overly continuity-oriented. This naturally gives me problems with the 'you can die/be maimed/disappear into another reality/etc in a fight and it doesn't matter' thing, because my characters are always constantly developing. Part of why I know my characters better than someone else does is that I know how my character has just changed, just now. More importantly, the bigger issue is not a matter of keeping the character secret, but of not always remembering everything that might possibly need to be told and telling it. In fact, I get a lot of character exploration done through fights sometimes, which makes it very difficult to pre-explain everything about my character even if it wouldn't normally take way more time to do that than the fight winds up taking up.

Actually fully explaining a character involves a lot of moments akin to describing the color blue without using any examples- it would probably take all day to do, given previous attempts that only lasted about four to five hours and weren't really near complete anyways.

If you're afraid of having a detail filled in wrongly by your opponent, you just aren't providing enough description or background for them. It also seems kinda silly to think that in a communal setting where about half of the writing is done by your opponent to expect them to not make your character do things that aren't an exact copy of a previous event or move.

Given the length of the fights some of us wind up in, I'm very reluctant to consider most of this stuff 'quickie pieces', and I'd like to hope we can get enough of an idea of one another from each other's writing that I can call most of the people here at least 'associates' instead of 'strangers'. But that's a matter of opinion, I think.

"Quickie" probably wasn't the right term - "throwaway" more suits.
We may be "associates" online, but only HotD is not a "stranger" to Solace and the others.

1. Releasing my creative muse out for some unrestrained freewriting. Let's just say it gets cranky from all the programming and computer-like thinking I do.
3. Somebody who's dead-even with me, using tricky mind puzzles I must think of, stretching my character to the absolute limit (causes me to engineer ingenious moves and other interesting stuff), without being outright cheap or annoying.

1 - You're a programmer? I thought it was only Ace and I here on the boards.
3 - What is your definition of "cheap or annoying"?

Of course, that's me; when I focus on something enough, I forget my body and reality exists and only focus on my task. That can also lead to extremely long posts, like... this one?

"Ah, I finished my perl hack ... but why is it so dark outside?"

What do you like about posting in the Gunjin?
What do you get out of posting in battles?
What are the characteristics of your ideal Gunjin battle (as a participant)?
What are the characteristics of your ideal Gunjin battle (as 3rd party reader)?

1 - I don't anymore, and probably won't until the current system is fixed.
2 - The pressure of writing something with an incredibly tight deadline, and the bursts of creativity that environment brings. The enjoyment of seeing the responses to my writing when I really affect someone.
3 - Enough time to write a full and proper response. Enough of a time limit to pressure me and to ensure promptness from my opponent. Posts where both my opponent and I are seeking to better each other in terms of writing skill, not to declare our character the in-story winner. An opponent who does not ignore elements of the scenario and characters that have already been put in place, and who leaves room for me to do the same at the end of their posts.
4 - Flow, almost wholly. I want to be able to read the battle from start to finish without being reminded that the Damage Game is still being played, without being jolted out of my reading state by participant X's shoddy English spelling and sentence structure or participant Y's unintentionally hilarious dialogue, or by sudden perspective shifts that don't make sense contextually. As a secondary consideration to the flow concept, I would like to have the writing affect me. I would like to smile, gape, feel concern, laugh, whistle in admiration (I can't actually whistle, but you get the idea).

Off to chores, and then my novel...

[Wyborn]

I think a large part of the problem here - not the biggest by any means but a fairly big one - is that everybody here still treats fights like they're occurring in some melodramatic anime, where it is possible (indeed, common) for battles to go on long past any reasonable point of no return - that there are tides to a battle that should stretch out for a long time, shifting back and forth.

That's not how it ought to work.

A fight can end in a heartbeat, in the breadth of a moment, from a pen driven into an eyesocket or a gun emptied into one's chest. "Strategy" doesn't convey the immediacy of what's going on here, and in fact can't come into play on any large scale unless you are only taking incremental damage, which is in itself ridiculous.

You want to see me fight more? This is how things need to work:

1. Neither person is trying to win, they are trying to write something that other people would like to read.
2. There needs to be an understanding about which character is going to win beforehand - how this happens will occur during the course of the battle, to be written by either person. Doesn't matter who. Hell, figure out how they will win, it does not hurt my feelings, and it certainly doesn't keep you from coming up with the middle part on the fly.
3. There needs to be an understanding that this is not an inherently competitive context. If it is, then it's in terms of writing abilities, not characters.

I think that covers nearly all of it.

If anybody wants to take me up on these conditions, let me know, and I will show you - all of you.

Kargath? Interested at all?