Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Caterane 07-21-04, 05:24 PM	Hey all, We all love our characters and surely everyone would love to play his character on his own, round by round, act and react to the opponoment, and adept to any upcoming circumstace. Unfortunately, this is not possible and so we have to give this gladiator in the hands of a pitlord. We send him tactics, and he runs your gladiator according to this outline of your plans ...or does he? It is clear that you cannot write every single move into this tactic-mail. You cannot write every possible action and reaction to all possible circumstances that might happen. Instead, you give the pitlord a description of what you plan to do - if the tactic is a bit more complicated, you write a bit more - but all in all, the reader of this tactic should get a clear impression of what you are planning to do. Sometimes, there might arise a situation that you didn't cover in your tactics, or your tactic broke down because something happened that you didn't anticipate. The question is now: How should the pitlord react in such a situation? IMO, the pitlord should adept to a certain extend. If the cleric is at 10hp and has a meld into stone memorized but didn't write in his tactics "Meld into stone at 10 hp" and it is clear that the cleric won't survive another round without melding, the pitlord should make use of this memorized spell. If a wizard contintuously hits you with magic missiles, and you are a sorcerer with the shield spell, it should be obvious that the player would have chosen to cast the spell in this case. And so on. What I want to say - and see enacted - is that the pitlords follow the tactics as closely as possible, and adapting to clear situations that are obviously the most logical step. However, there are some pitlords here who think that an unrelenting adamant to the letter enacting of tactics are the way to go ...and if something is not mentioned, your character acts like the biggest dumbest idiot, stumbling around and into the open knife like a fly into a fire. Jindl - as the main supporter of the "Homer syndrom" puzzels me the most. On the one hand he frequently complained that my tactics are too long, and on the other hand he adamantely says that if something - no matter what - isn't written in your tactic, it won't be done by your gladiator. So what do you want, Jindl? Obviously, you don't want me to write 6 pages of tactics, but if I don't list a certain behaviour, you don't execute it! How am I supposed to compile all actions and reactions - in every possible circumstance - into one page? Tell me! I am afraid of seeing gladiators getting hit by magic missiles for 10 rounds - arms flailing wildly, cries of help comming from their lips - when they have a memorized shield spell but just didn't state the obvious in their tactics. This is my personal opinion and in no way do I want to force it upon you but I've started this debate to encourage others to run a more flexible fight and have gladiators act like the player would've acted if he could play the PC by himself. What I want to know from you is: What do you think about this? Do you think we should stick to the very word and only make those actions clearly written in the tactic? Or do you think that a pitlord should adept to the best of the characters abilities? Perhaps something in between? Tell me what you think about this topic. Cat
Rabid Labrador 07-21-04, 06:15 PM	Originally posted by Caterane ... As the latest example, we saw a gladiator running out of the threatening range instead of double-moving just because the player didn't write "Please do not draw an AoO when moving out of his threatening range". This is one of the most obvious and extremest manifestations of the Homer-Syndrom, and as a result we payed a high price when a promising newcommer - Amy - left the CoCo because of this. ... I realize I am stepping in the middle of an argument between two people with an axe to grind against each other, but you're not telling the whole story here, so I feel I must speak up. The combatant in question was slower than the one threatening her. So ultimately there wouldn't have been any point in a withdaw action. The pursuer was a fatigued barbarian, though, so unable to run or charge, he would not have caught her had she succeeded in running away. So of the available actions - 5' step and shoot, withdraw and stalemate, or run - the latter was the most risky, but had the potentially highest reward. Not an unreasonable gamble to take, I think, but one that did not pay off this time.
Hatzinger 07-21-04, 06:16 PM	Originally posted by Caterane It is clear that you cannot write every single move into this tactic-mail. You cannot write every possible action and reaction to all possible circumstances that might happen. For it not being possible, you definitively create near-approaches with your 3-page tactics. :P And Cat... stop being polemic about Jindl. It starts to suck now. (To the point that i think about not reading posts from you two any more. And yes, i know that Jindl is not better.) Oh, and yes, i think that pitlords should act with the best interest of BOTH of the competing sportsmen in mind. (in the framework of the characterīs stated general idea of how to win the fight.)
MotherBast 07-21-04, 06:17 PM	Well, I think following tactics as closely as possible is a must. If not, you get "Why did you do this, it wasn't in my tactics!!!!!" on the fights of the week thread, and really, you have no defence. If it wasen't in tactics, and you do it, your dead wrong. Or, if the other gladiator looses because you made a tactical decision for someone that they did not have writen, then the pitlord basicly decided the outcome of the fight. Then again, at the end of my tactics, I always give Pitlords permission to adjust my tactics, and use any of my recorces. This protects the Pitlord from any attack I might attempt to make on him in the FotW thread. If a gladiator sends me tactics and in them he gives me permission to do so, I will adjust his tactics where it is obviously necessary. I will not go out of my way to make him win, but if something is obviously neccessary to complete his stratagy I will do it, or if it is obviously neccessary to keep him alive, I'll do that as well. But only if the tactics specify I have permission to do so. Earlier in my career here as a pitlord I was accused of throwing a fight because I made a decision I belived to be benificial for a gladiator that was not in his tactics, and when he wound up loosing, he blamed me. But in the case your refuring to with Jindl, the tactis did say specificly to "Run", so he did. Also, the point of the run was to move farther than the opponit could move. Double moving would have never alowed that, as it was a 60' double move vs. an 80' double move, so Running was really the only option anyway. Double moving would have only left her being based by her foe at the end of every round. Eventually she would have had to provoke the AoO to create distance. Might as well do it sooner than later the way I see it. Even if the tactics haden't said specificly to run, it was the only possible way to carryout the gladiators goal of gaining distance for a ranged assult. Running was really the only possible option in that senerio. About the debate though, when I run a fight, if given permission, I will make obvious adjustments. If not given permission, I run tactics to the letter.
Ashenai 07-21-04, 06:36 PM	Well, in my first fight (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=3930960#post3930960) here, my tactics included howlers like "ready action to cast Sleep", and other such brilliant moves. Let's not beat about the bush; my written tactics were absolutely dysfunctional. The ideas were sound, but I misunderstood or didn't notice several key rules. Well Tellish_of_Ket's handling of that battle was brilliant (though I didn't realize this at the time). He made the best of a bad job, and he played my character competently, while still adhering to the spirit of my tactics. He saw what I was tying to do, and he did it with the tools at hand. This is, of course, an extreme case (this wasn't about not foreseeing some contingency; it was about dropping the ball on basic game rules) but to my mind, this is a perfect example of pitlording. I don't want to see my character behaving like a blithering idiot because I failed to foresee something. Think about what would happen in a real game! My character (and I) would be surprised and caught (metaphorically) flat-footed by the situation... for the moment. But in the next round, I would improvise and come up with something to counter my opponent's tactic. The pitlord doesn't have to necessarily use the best tactics available... but he/she should definitely find any obvious solutions to tactics. This isn't, after all, a fighting robot programming competition. (Edit: this post should only be taken at face value. I don't know enough about the fight in question to be able to decide whether Jindl was too shortsighted in following tactics or not; I have no opinion about that part of Caterane's post.)
Battousai2005 07-21-04, 09:31 PM	This is what I think. All pitlords should ask themselves, "What would I do in this situation?" Now, of course, if some of us are idiots (me) who get screwed in situations like this. However, like Cat said, the character might be in a desperate situation with a good spell memorized. This may be a problem however. If anyone remembers back to a fight a while back, Hatzinger took liberties with tactics for one of Arti's characters. The reason was that, (paraphrase, sorry to Hatzinger, this was best example in my mind), Laucian is a pure melee build and the tactics were wrong. To be blunt, the pitlord thought he knew the character better than the one who made it. Not a good idea by any means. Unfortuanately, it cost Laucian the fight and also led to some hostile feelings between Hatzinger and Arti. The question I guess I need to pose is this. How far should we modify other's tactics. I know sometimes I read tactics that don't make sense or start to break apart (or at least appear to be doing so) but ended up costing the fight and someone complainign that I "didn't follow their tactics." Cat, I understand what you are trying to do, believe me. I've been on the recieving end of someone who mistook my tactics, but I've also seen ones who took too many liberties. How wise is it to allow Pitlords to 'modify' tactics if they don't think it will work? Ok, so what do I do in said situations? Only, and I mean ONLY if a character is at the ends of thier rope, (tactics are screwed because of such and such) I play the character as if I were in a RL campaign and try my best to play ignorent of tactics. Not easy, but it does the job. I also keep in mind roleplay purpose. What roleplay? Well, an orc with INT 6 would not be likely to know what a caster may do while another caster could hazard a guess. Sometimes I just do something, then check the tactics of the other. I'm not sure if my way is the best way, but it's how I've worked for a while now.
Tellish_of_Ket 07-21-04, 09:59 PM	Originally posted by Rabid Labrador I realize I am stepping in the middle of an argument between two people with an axe to grind against each other, but you're not telling the whole story here, so I feel I must speak up. The combatant in question was slower than the one threatening her. So ultimately there wouldn't have been any point in a withdaw action. The pursuer was a fatigued barbarian, though, so unable to run or charge, he would not have caught her had she succeeded in running away. So of the available actions - 5' step and shoot, withdraw and stalemate, or run - the latter was the most risky, but had the potentially highest reward. Not an unreasonable gamble to take, I think, but one that did not pay off this time. The point is Labrador is that the current tactic as written broke down and was tantamount to suicide. There were other instances in tactics of "5-step/color spray" which could have easily been adapted to that situation. The point is, the gladiator should not have been "suicided". I've died some horrible deaths were my tactics were completely ignored as well. And i don't mean just altered or misinterpreted, i mean it was as though i had not written any tactics at all. That is sad. Back in the day of "no rerun at all" you were left staring dumbfounded at an extremely humiliating pitlording job. I have always and always will strive to avoid the Homer-Syndrome towards any gladiator. I can give specific examples of my adaptations. I remember Candy winning a fight where her cohort had to guess which rock the opponent may be hidden and isntead of being pelted by arrows without any real chance of spotting, her cohort fired off fireballs at random covers because there was no other way. Eventually the archer-sniper broke off and when Candy was scene he fired a full attack hoping to kill Candy. What happened instead of the archer was put into deep slumber as a result. Clearly Candy's tactics broke down because they relied on spotting a foe that could almost never be seen. They had to do something desperately to change that situation and i made a judgement call instead of suiciding them. There are many others, but i'm sure you get the picture. In my tactics i always write adapt to what i cannot forsee and use any resource to counter what i cannot predict. This will be especially true once we activate the 13th next week. With too many spells and too many options, tactics will have to be guidelines instead of rigid rules of conduct, unbending and uwavering in their execution. -ToK
Market_Share 07-21-04, 10:50 PM	When i first started moderating (pitlording now it's called), i just wrote the fights in story-line format. I've never had one single solitary complaint about my fights being run. They were fun, humorous, and entertaining. OF COURSE, one person did complain and it wasn't someone i even ran a fight for. I'm not one to gossip and complain, but i was basically told i needed to include a round by round action and all the rolls and stuff. I have an old Mac. Very slow. I cannot do my fights online. I have some buddies over and each person takes the gladiator and their relevant tactics shield and i reside over it as a DM-like. I keep notes on how the fight develops and write down the dmg dealt in certain phases. I would then write a comical story concerning the fight and list dmg's as they occured. Often times what i write has nothing to do with the fight. It's just a story being told with the outcome being as the fights were run. But i was basically told to run them properly as CoCo rules. I just said thx but no thx. Since then i haven't moderated any fights nor have i really had much to do with CoCo. The fun that was promised was gone for me after a few events that i really didn't care for. Whenever one of my characters got close (and others, i've seen it) to the one-time fabledm 6-0 record we'd get "crit-killed". That is the greatest shame i've seen and the single greatest reason i've let myself go of the CoCo and why i no longer really participate in it. It's too political and too competitive by a certain individual that when you have a good thing going, he crit-kills ya. That happened to both Pale-Rider and Svenn. I know it happened to ToK's Brock character as well. With no link to dice roller available why anyone getting close the the J-man would get crit-killed. So that's my reason for my non-involvment. The rigging of fights for power and influence really makes it a farce and no longer do i put my faith in CoCo as a testing ground for builds. Ray keeps me informed of the general news and that more than enough for me. I just logged to check out who i might be fighting this week...and the pairings are LATE AGAIN!!!! Why set a time for editing, if you don't do the pairings shortly thereafter or wait until the next day? As far as i'm concerned that time-edit rule is just another reason that the CoCo has bogged itself down in politics, rules and it's enforcement over fun. I do understand why it was instituded. The roster keeper would update and make purchases only minutes before doing the pairings to his advantage. If that's the case, why not get another roster keeper? As a democracy you can stop that bull, install someone more honest, and stop making rules that makes it harder for a character and newbie to have fun. SPIKE! ps. my CoCo rant. pps. keep me updated ray, and let me know when the pairings are done. ciao!
LLMadCow 07-21-04, 11:12 PM	I have to agree with Market_Share on many of his points. I am not going to get into all of that right now, but I can make a recommendation.... I may not have accounted for all possible contigencies, so feel free to break from my tactics and use any and all of my resources, if my tactics have broken down. Or something similar. Alternatively.... Don't you dare do anything I didn't sepcify in my tactics. See? Two possible responses that both leave clear information for the Pitlord running the fight. I was very saddened when I neglected to remember that a Hand of Glory let you see the invisibile, so I watched Clio spend 5 rounds taking direct hits and getting slaughtered. In a RL campaign, I would have quickly realized this and changed course of action to BUFF AC FAST!
Jindl 07-21-04, 11:43 PM	Originally posted by Market_Share Whenever one of my characters got close (and others, i've seen it) to the one-time fabledm 6-0 record we'd get "crit-killed". That is the greatest shame i've seen and the single greatest reason i've let myself go of the CoCo and why i no longer really participate in it. It's too political and too competitive by a certain individual that when you have a good thing going, he crit-kills ya. That happened to both Pale-Rider and Svenn. I know it happened to ToK's Brock character as well. With no link to dice roller available why anyone getting close the the J-man would get crit-killed. You should at least get your facts right before accusing me of anything. Pale-Rider's first loss was to Voliana at 3rd level, and it was run by ... Prexx. Pale-Rider's next loss was after 6 straight victories. He lost against Peter and Snarkhunter was the moderator. Brock's first loss was against Dusk, in a fight run by LLMadCow. And though I did run Sven's first loss, which was against Kage, I object to your complaint about not using the dice roller. I use the dice roller more often than any other pitlord. And exactly how many times have you used the dice roller? -Jindl
TaggIIV 07-22-04, 12:03 AM	Lemme get this straight. You want pitlords to 1) write a good story, to 2) follow tactics, 3) make changes to tactics that work in scenario but remain true to what player wants, 4) format the fight just right, and 5) make rolls online, 6) other various odds-and-end rules. That's a whole lot for a measly third of an ECL. I don't know about other people, but for me fights take about 2 or 3 hours (and thats without considering revisions), and that's for like a 10 round or less fight, and I don't spend much time on the story. I don't understand how you want people to spend practically their whole day on something (yes, I don't doubt it could take this long if you try and follow all the rules you're putting in)... And then give them a third of an ECL. If you're going to demand so much out of your pitlords, I think credits should have more power... ~~~ On topic: Thing is there are so many times when, if you change something about the tactics, people get mad and say "why didn't you do this." Yet apparently we are supposed to know when it's going to be good to change something and when you're going to invoke a riot. You can't have both. Also, back to the time issue, spending an extra 10+ minutes per round reading and rereading the whole tactics and rerearding the fight so far and reading over possible alternatives to what they have written.. colossal!!! Personally, I feel the COCO has gotten far too obsessive. Finding small little things, blowing it up, and etc. etc etc. It seems everyone is between a rock and a hard place when it comes to knowing what to do to stay out of penalty or ire. Chill. It's just a game, there's no need to go over every little thing with a magnifying glass and then dissect it until it breaks. And why can't people play round by round? Set the pairings and have the players and pitlord get into an IM chat, and play the match round-by-round. The people would have 5 days to get together, so with an ounce of organization, I don't see how it's not possible. For those that dont have AIM or MSN or something, well... that might require more thought. Email even might work, or PM. If the people are actively checking, with email you could get several rounds done per day. Or, wild idea, give people more time and allow them to fight play-by-post. Make like five or sex coliseum threads, and you can have a fight goingat each one. One fight at a time is held play-by-post at each arena. An example: Post 1 [Pitlord]: Match between Bob and Joe. ECL 3. Post 2 [Bob]: <<character sheet, init>> Post 3 [Joe]: <<character sheet, init>> Post 4 [Bob]: <<Action>> Post 5 [Joe]: <<Action>> Etc. Post 10 [Pitlord]: Bob is the winner, used 4 arrows and a potion of mage armor, and receives 2700gp. Joe used 2 arrows and a potion of cure light wounds. ~~~ And the pitlord just looks over actions during the fight and if there are errors interrupts with a post. I don't think it would take all that long this way.
Druid Roxors 07-22-04, 03:09 AM	You want to know how to pitlord fights? Ill tell you how to pitlord fights! As Battousai2005 said before me, having the pitlord take liberties whenever he "feels" its the right thing to do is not right. I have seen countless posts of "But I never said to do that on my tactics" and "Why didn't you do the obvious". This is contradictory in itself. If you want to have pitlords invent tactics for your characters and then come back at them every time they do because they didnt work is not the way to go. I've had some of my characters lose because of "Pitlord Judgement Calls". For instance, I remember corinthus having full cover within his obscuring mists, his enemy tied up and entangled. The tactics said that I was to summon a wolf and send him and my companion after my enemy. What did I do? Well, I summon the wolf and command my companion to attack as told. At the same time, I (without saying it on my tactics) run like a madman out of the mists directly (outside my own attack range) towards Enillias, without wolf cover, without concealment. My enemy, with ~4 hp left, shoots me and im done. Yes, as you can probably guess, I came to despise pitlord's creative thinking. Mostly because they never brought a benefit to me (or almost never). If I state something in my tactics, It should be followed, to the letter. The only problem I see is for example If I say "Use my scroll of Restoration to cure my damage" and I get the red ink "Druids cannot cast Restoration" and the pitlord doesn't tell me that obvious error in a reply or at least tries to adapt like using my "lesser restoration" scroll. Pitlords who enjoy inking pages and pages with red ink should at least try to inform their characters about their tactical mistakes. I am sure several of you (who are reading this) know that I repply to your tactics with doubts and concerns. This should become at least more common. Specially for experienced players, I believe that having explicit tactics is the best way to go. If you leave a sidenote explaining that you can take minor asumptions or tactical changes then your pitlord should do it. Not otherwise. I will use Bubo Vs Ernie as an example (I hope you do not mind). Ernie's Tactics said that he would fight Bubo with his bow the whole time. Doing this was a disadvantage, he is much better at melee and Bubo needs to be at melee range to be effective. I didn't change his tactics until his bow was sundered, where the obvious was to change to the lance. The other side wasn't without erros, Jindl expected him to use the bow and said that I should sunder his bow, when this would be completely counter-effective. Should I had followed my logic for only one of this characters I would have been unfair. Should I have followed the tactics for both I would have been unfair because the loser would say I meddled with his tactics... I am sorry, There is no escape. Either you detail your tactics completely, or you sucumb to a very basic pitlord Judgement call.
Druid Roxors 07-22-04, 03:11 AM	Oh, and Cat. Stop making new posts to "Rally your forces" against the "Tyrant Jindl". It is not going to work. I am not going to deny it. You have superior negotiation and persuasion skills than most of us here on the boards. You might become a great lawyer, too bad you try to use this skills to harm others instead of helping. There is no need to portray Jindl as an "enemy to all life and fun". He does try to get the most out of his characters while optimizing (jindleizing), which is what this board is all about. Many players try to do this but your personal vendetta with Jindl has gone too far.
Hatzinger 07-22-04, 05:23 AM	Batt, in the fight of Artstimis, his tactics were suicidal. Not wishing his life to end so quickly, i used other tactics. They didnīt work, and Artstimis complained. Had i used his own tactics, his loss would have been faster and without being "close". With the non-suicidal tactics, he at least had a chance. I did not think that i 'knew his character better than he did'. I just gave him a chance that he didnīt see. But as he complained so much about it, i from then on robot-pitlorded all of his characters. He requested that. Of course, he didnīt see the future and couldnīt have written perfect tactics, as such a thing is impossible within reasonable time. And so he often lost. What have i learned from it? I still use the tactics as long as they do not break down or are suicidal. Maybe i have learned that a nicer tone is a big benefit to any critique from any side. Maybe i have learned that not everyone is absolutely informed about how broken tactics are or why or why not this or that happened. I talk more with people to explain what happened. That helps. The problem is that we can not ask the characterīs owner if something is confused. We do most often not have the time or he is not available or whatever. The more higher-levelled the fights get, the more impossible it gets to write tactics that encompass all possible situations. We have to orient ourselves on the general idea of the playerīs tactics. And thus, there will always be misunderstandings and resulting tactics that were not wanted by the character. On the other hand, if there is no need to alter the tactics, then we should not do this. By taking away the freedom to have their character play as they like, we are severely limitating the other playerīs fun in the COCO. So we have to ponder very seriously about when, if and how we improve the tactics. There is a fragile band of trust between the players and the pitlord. This band must be kept intact for everyone to enjoy the fights. In order to do so, i try to make the fight-mechanics as clearly visible as possible and even started to make battle-maps for the spectators to easily follow the fight. Oh, and i now use an online-roller. This way, i can relaxedly stand above any accusations or suspicious glances. Tagg, donīt whine. :D I usually take 2-3 hours checking the character sheets and 6-8 hours doing the fight. (Yes, i too think that credits are hard to get.) I usually do not write stories, except when i am in the mood. In my opinion, stories are not what the COCO is made for. They add nice flavor, but the blunt data is what we are here for.
kedi 07-22-04, 08:14 AM	I take the tactics, read it out loud, and then mod the fight. Instead of asking "What would be in favour of the PC?" I ask "What would PC do?" Tactics can't give you a detailed information on PC's acts, should be well writen enough to make pitlord understand how the PC is aligned to do in fight. And think, there are two PCs (A and B) with almost power. Now, A goes and writes a detailed tactic on what he's planning to do at fight while B goes with a tactic like "RUN&CHARHE&KILLZ0RXZ00". Now despite the fact B could win the fight, I wouldn't do anything but make him walk fast, run, charge and attack. But as I got the idea of how A tries to play, even if not listed, do what he would do. If we're supposed to mod in favour of PCs, it would cause meta gaming, cause we know what the other PC is going to do. And meta gaming is bad. After Arkin's fight (which I at first went with spiked gauntlets b'cause I thought it would be in favour of Arkin) I began to use this format: 1) What does tactics say when met in this exact situation? 2) What does tactics say when met in a similar situation? 3) What would s/he do when met in this situation? Although, to get how character is aligned, you do not need a complex well writen tactic. A mono word "Kill" would mean without any defensive acts, PC is going to use full speed, and will attack with highest damage dealing ability. There you go. (Friendly Reminder: After Arkin's fight, my pitlording mistakes were only game mechanics mistakes. Never had a problem with "Why didn't you followmy tactics!" etc.) Tagg's TerisianArena idea sounds good. We'd have pairings on wednesdays, The for ex: Jindl is going to mod mine and tagg's fight, we all three meet in a IM conversation or discuss on boards for a time to make the fight. We'll decide on Saturday 21:30 GMT. Then we have the fight, preferable while talking on a IM service. After fight, everyone's happy. The only bad thing about it is that you have a short time to react your opponent's acts. But I used it, I like it. I'll open a thread here for CoCo arena version which will be built on this system. Any pitlords or PCs interested, wait ;)
Ashenai 07-22-04, 08:47 AM	I was just idly wondering about the "round-by-round" ideal, and fight moderating by IM (or IRC, or whatever), and I had a thought. Obviously, modding fights in this fashion is a lot more difficult than modding as normal, meaning that few pitlords would be willing to do it. However, this--together with the complaint that credits are hard to come by--gave me an idea. Might it not be possible to give, say, 2 credits for a fight if the pitlord volunteers to run it round-by-round, discussing it with the characters? Pitlords could then have a tag next to their names, signalling whether or not they'd be willing to run fights round-by-round. Players who insist on round-by-round fights could then choose the pitlords who are willing to accomodate them (for extra credits) and everyone's happy. Of course, I believe that a fight should only be run round-by-round if the pitlord feels like it and both of the players have the time and inclination to do it that way. I don't think it's fair to just have one of the players react round-by-round while the other has to make do with writing tactics, because he/she doesn't have the time or the Internet access to do a round-by-round fight.
Hatzinger 07-22-04, 09:27 AM	I like Kediīs approach, too. (Btw: very creative, Kedi. I bow before thee. :bow: ) There are a few points that need to be discussed before we try to run a test fight, though: 1) The Rolls. The players have to use an online roller. Iīd suggest to roll 100xd20 and a few dozens d12s, d8s, d10s, d%s, et cetera. Then the rolls are used from top to bottom. Wait... This would give the players the opportunity to make insignificant checks (free intimidate/bluff/anything check) to "use up" the bad rolls... So how about the players describing their action ("I full-attack") and the Pitlord, who has the list of prerolled dīs (or rolls just now) posts what the result was. OR the players have to use the online-roller, but may not pre-roll. they have to roll when they need one, and have to name the roll and to link the rolls. 2) When and how to play. We should not forget the significant time-zone delay between the players. If we want to play in a chat-game, it would be nearly impossible for me in germany to play with cellardwellar in australia; for one of us, the time is always bad. Also, it is quite difficult to make an appointment for three persons, each of a different time-zone and each with a life besides the COCO. Itīs not impossible, just a little bit harder. Iīd suggest playing per message-board. The benefits are clear: No intermediary between you and your tactics. And you can interrupt if you have to sleep or if your girlfriend comes visiting. The costs, on the other hand, are something that would affect the COCO seriously: These message-board games would take much, much longer. I mage a big guess here, but i think that two weeks for a fight would be realistic. My personal opinion on this is that i would like to test if this playstyle would be fun or not. I hereby volunteer to be part of a test-run. [EDIT:] And if all three participants are online at the same time, (which can be arranged as easy/hard as in the chat-based game) the pace of the message-boards game would be as fast as in the chat-based game.
Ashenai 07-22-04, 09:30 AM	Iīd suggest playing per message-board. The benefits are clear: No intermediary between you and your tactics. And you can interrupt if you have to sleep or if your girlfriend comes visiting. How would you deal with meta-gaming? For instance, a player knowing where his opponent is while his character doesn't.
Hatzinger 07-22-04, 09:36 AM	The pitlord is still there. If he notices metagaming, he can intervene. The metagaming player then has to correct his actions for this round. [EDIT:] for example: "your character canīt possibly know this. Roll a d5 to see which of the 5 possible squares he decides to attack". The pitlord is still an integral (and impartial) part of this game. This is basically the cool thing about this style of play: Whenever a problem arises, the three participants can discuss it and thus prevent errors. The result would be pretty much error-free fights and no reruns. To keep the fight-threat clean, i suggest having two threats for each fight. One for the fight, one for the discussion.
kedi 07-22-04, 09:41 AM	Originally posted by Hatzinger I like Kediīs approach, too. (Btw: very creative, Kedi. I bow before thee. :bow: ) There are a few points that need to be discussed before we try to run a test fight, though: 1) The Rolls. The players have to use an online roller. Iīd suggest to roll 100xd20 and a few dozens d12s, d8s, d10s, d%s, et cetera. Then the rolls are used from top to bottom. Wait... This would give the players the opportunity to make insignificant checks (free intimidate/bluff/anything check) to "use up" the bad rolls... So how about the players describing their action ("I full-attack") and the Pitlord, who has the list of prerolled dīs (or rolls just now) posts what the result was. OR the players have to use the online-roller, but may not pre-roll. they have to roll when they need one, and have to name the roll and to link the rolls. 2) When and how to play. We should not forget the significant time-zone delay between the players. If we want to play in a chat-game, it would be nearly impossible for me in germany to play with cellardwellar in australia; for one of us, the time is always bad. Also, it is quite difficult to make an appointment for three persons, each of a different time-zone and each with a life besides the COCO. Itīs not impossible, just a little bit harder. Iīd suggest playing per message-board. The benefits are clear: No intermediary between you and your tactics. And you can interrupt if you have to sleep or if your girlfriend comes visiting. The costs, on the other hand, are something that would affect the COCO seriously: These message-board games would take much, much longer. I mage a big guess here, but i think that two weeks for a fight would be realistic. My personal opinion on this is that i would like to test if this playstyle would be fun or not. I hereby volunteer to be part of a test-run. 1) Rolls: Just plain online dice. Trust me, I've tried this before and it doesn't take that muchwhen using online dice. 2) That's not always a problem. For example, when I was in Terisian Arena, I used once with my Australian friend (Trojan Rabbit) while our GM was american (TaggIIV) and I live in Turkey. (Though it was 02:00 GMT lol) Anywayz, without using an IM service, you could play it for one whole week. Biggest problem is what Ashenai have pointed out. ....
Ashenai 07-22-04, 09:46 AM	If he notices metagaming And this is the problem. Let's say I'm fighting a covert build. If I don't know where he is, and I move in his general direction (not _directly_ towards him, mind), is that metagaming? Or just a lucky guess? What would you do, force him to roll randomly for the direction in which he moves? Or let's say my opponent uses a move action to retrieve a scroll, and he's holding it in his hands. Now, it could be a scroll of Blindness, or a scroll of Sleep. Now let's say I (the player, not the character) knows it's a scroll of Sleep, which is a 1-round spell. If my character decides to move towards the spellcaster, even though he can't reach him in that round, is that metagaming? My character is somewhat covert, but it's not his whole schtick. Nonetheless, I would never agree to play on a board, with my opponent seeing every move. Never. It completely wrecks tactics that are based on bluffing or outthinking the opponent.
Hatzinger 07-22-04, 09:57 AM	Hmmmm... I see. With a pen&paper game in mind to guide my thoughts, iīd say what if the players pm/email/icq/whatever the pitlord what they do this round. The pitlord is the only one who posts. He posts the results of each round. The pitlord knows where the hiding rogue is or what scroll the cleric has in hand right now. The other player does not know. Metagaming is killed. And for the reader of the post, who aches to know what happened, or which buffs the characters used, there is an AFU ("after-fight update" :D) from the pitlord. he updates his own post with the until now withheld data.
Dawnlord 07-22-04, 10:06 AM	I like your idea Hatzinger. The player who is on turn sends his action to the Pitlord via Mail. Like one-round tactics (IF I trip him, ELSE...) Then the Pitlord handles the information, makes checks, saves, attacks, etc and posts it. Like: Mail Player1-to-Pitlord: "Draw Potion of Fly and fireball him" Pitlord: Rolls save for Player2, fail. Rolls Damage 23 and posts: @Player2: "You get strucked by a fireball, fail your save, 23 damage. NoNameIdea becomes visible and you can see him at (12, -1) holding a wand and a potion in his hands." =>No metagaming. =>Pitlord makes all rolls.
Hatzinger 07-22-04, 10:10 AM	would someone like to test this style? grab any of your ECL2 toons and weīll see if this works. I could pitlord or play; depends on you.
Ashenai 07-22-04, 10:15 AM	I'd love to! Hang on, I'll finish up Galatea (should take 10-15 minutes), and we can give it a shot!
kedi 07-22-04, 10:19 AM	I can pitlord it. My msn is kedi98@hotmail.com
Dawnlord 07-22-04, 10:19 AM	Great! As I have no PC I could Pitlord. @Hatzinger If you like you can fight. But if you want to pitlord I will step aside.
Dawnlord 07-22-04, 10:20 AM	Well, seems there is no shortage of Pitlords.
Hatzinger 07-22-04, 10:21 AM	Cool. Iīll make a new thread called "Kedis new COCO idea - Test fight - do not post." But we need another player. Dawnlord, how ībout you? Grab an old lvl 2 char of yours and lets go. doesnt have to be correctly build. its just a test.
Dawnlord 07-22-04, 10:22 AM	OK !
Hatzinger 07-22-04, 10:29 AM	woah. what a response. the last 3 posts were posted while i wrote my last one. kedi, you can pitlord, if you like. i just watch it then.
kedi 07-22-04, 10:29 AM	Ok so I'm going topost the arena just in case (for laziness to open more than twobrowsers :P)
Hatzinger 07-22-04, 10:32 AM	take my thread. we donīt want to spam the coco. ;) (just installing icq now. for all contingencies)
Ashenai 07-22-04, 10:44 AM	Hang on, I just found out I'll be kinda busy for the next few hours. I'll sit this one out, sorry 'bout that.
kedi 07-22-04, 10:45 AM	Hat, I'veadded to you on my msn list,go on MSN ;)
Hatzinger 07-22-04, 10:47 AM	Iīll jump in for Ashenai. Ill use my old lvl 2 sheet of Oetzi. Kedi, what is *M$N*? Kedi, why the arena picture in the threat?
Hatzinger 07-22-04, 10:53 AM	do you want to play or to pitlord, kedi?
kedi 07-22-04, 11:17 AM	Originally posted by kedi Ok so I'm going to post the arena just in case (for laziness to open more than two browsers :P) Well, I'd rather Pitlord but doesn't matter to me, I can play too.
Hatzinger 07-22-04, 11:22 AM	ok, pitlord. iīll post the young oetzi.
Hatzinger 07-22-04, 11:28 AM	Kedi, Dawnlord, how do we communicate with each other without this threat? Do you two have icq? (took me 3mins to dl and install it)
Druid Roxors 07-22-04, 11:34 AM	go.icq.com Use it
kedi 07-22-04, 11:34 AM	Originally posted by Hatzinger Kedi, Dawnlord, how do we communicate with each other without this threat? Do you two have icq? (took me 3mins to dl and install it) I was thinking MSN but I can download ICQ too...
Hatzinger 07-22-04, 11:38 AM	i donīt know msn. we could use the pm, too. it informs us about newly arrived messages, too. dawnlord is still making his char, i suppose?
Dawnlord 07-22-04, 12:13 PM	Came home from work now... char is going to be done soon. How's about eMail? I
Hatzinger 07-22-04, 12:46 PM	The main point is that something on your screen starts to FLASH when something has changed. My email does not do this. PMs do. ICQ does, if i remember correctly). Reason is that we surely donīt want to hit the reload button every 5 minutes to see if something has changed.
Caterane 07-22-04, 03:24 PM	I'm sorry that I didn't respond earlier but I had all hands full with other things. I'm trying to catch up now. Thanks for the participation, and seeing the amount of people involved here I thought about making an open poll about that. This poll shouldn't necessarily become a written rule but more of a guideline that reflects the overall tendency. What do you think? If we don't adept the character to a given circumstance - even if it is not covered in his tactics, then we don't compare gladiator vs gladiator but who of the two wrote the longer tactic. Gladiators becoming preprogrammed robot-machines that only follow input orders and 'bump against a wall' if something doesn't work; not because he had been outsmarted, but because the player didn't cover every possibility that might arise in an pageslong essay. Originally posted by Motherbast: Well, I think following tactics as closely as possible is a must. If not, you get "Why did you do this, it wasn't in my tactics!!!!!" on the fights of the week thread, and really, you have no defence. If it wasen't in tactics, and you do it, your dead wrong. Or, if the other gladiator looses because you made a tactical decision for someone that they did not have writen, then the pitlord basicly decided the outcome of the fight. I am not sayin that you should take over the gladiator but if you see that a certain tactic is not going to work, then you should reconsider continuing the actions. If a gladiator will lose because of insufficient tactics - and with insufficient I mean 'didn't write 5 pages to cover everything - then you should check his spell list and equipment and see what you can do for him. Gladiators are intelligent living beings and would adept when they see that their current approach isn't working. Originally posted by Ashenai: Well Tellish_of_Ket's handling of that battle was brilliant (though I didn't realize this at the time). He made the best of a bad job, and he played my character competently, while still adhering to the spirit of my tactics. He saw what I was tying to do, and he did it with the tools at hand. That's exactly what I want to say! Bad tactics which are not going to work so the pitlord makes the best of it. Tellish is one of our best pitlords, perhaps the best one, and I can only recommend to read his fights as a shining example on what I mean. Originally posted by LLMadCow: "I may not have accounted for all possible contigencies, so feel free to break from my tactics and use any and all of my resources, if my tactics have broken down." Or... "Don't you dare do anything I didn't sepcify in my tactics." That might be a good thing to add. However, almost all tactics have the latter written at the end, and still nothing has been done except a pitlord comment like "Oh sorry, you failed that save and now your tactics broke down. Since it would be unfair to adept your character to the new circumstances I decided to have him do nothing". What I'd like to see is making the last statement default and only overruled if the player wrote the former sentence in his tactics. Originally posted by TaggIIV: Thing is there are so many times when, if you change something about the tactics, people get mad and say "why didn't you do this." Yet apparently we are supposed to know when it's going to be good to change something and when you're going to invoke a riot. You can't have both. Also, back to the time issue, spending an extra 10+ minutes per round reading and rereading the whole tactics and rerearding the fight so far and reading over possible alternatives to what they have written.. colossal!!! You're right Tagg. I have to admit that I haven't been the mutest one but I thought a lot lately and came to the conclusion that this has to be changed (including powering down my own objections). This is why I opened this thread, to define WHEN it is appropriate to complain, about WHAT, and to WHICH EXTEND. This helps us getting rid of a lot of headaches and makes pitlording easier to run and adept. Originally posted by Kedi: I take the tactics, read it out loud, and then mod the fight. Instead of asking "What would be in favour of the PC?" I ask "What would PC do?" Tactics can't give you a detailed information on PC's acts, should be well writen enough to make pitlord understand how the PC is aligned to do in fight. Well said Kedi. :thumbsup:
KerlanRayne 07-22-04, 04:03 PM	@Cat: I know this is picky but adept means you're good at something, you mean Adapt, which means to change to accommodate the current situation. KerlanRayne @LLMadCow: :P
LLMadCow 07-22-04, 04:10 PM	@KerlanRayne: I know this is picky but acconodate isn't a word, you mean Accommodate, which means to make fit or suitable: adapt, adjust. LLMadCow :smirk: So, he can catch his own mistakes.
Druid Roxors 07-23-04, 02:54 AM	Wow Cat, not a single insult/harsh comment on that last post of yours. Perhaps your intentions were good on this issue after all. Consider my big post on page 1 (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=4015475#post4015475)for comments on this issue.