Friday, June 07, 2013

Culture Shock: Riding Down, Coasting Up

Recently, a friend of mine linked me to a forum that was having an RP tourney, or that's what he alluded to it being. I, already warming to the idea of another duel tourney (having done one already this year) jumped in ill-prepared and unknowing (I'm like that, being all-up-ons when it comes to duel tourneys). Well, I was in for a culture shock.

Their main method of "dueling" is that each person must post a biography of the character they intend to use throughout. Normally, among my typical crowd, a bio is just extraneous info for the crowd to read if they desire, but has no meaning and bearing on a match. This however is the opposite for the group I'm doing the tourney with. The purpose is to give an in-depth look at the character, because you, as a participant, will be writing a fight sequence using not just your own character, but your opponents as well. Your opponent does the same thing. Both sequences bare no relation to one another, and can be done up in any fashion the writer desires.

Creative license is granted to both duelists to write what they desire and move the match in any direction they want, up to and including the complete humiliation of the opposing character if so chosen. Not that this seems to happen, but it is open and, seemingly, allowed. This creates an environment that focuses more on the whole of the writing piece than the piecemeal effort of attack/defend/counter that is seen in other forum dueling, as there is no sudden break from the action as each poster goes through finalizing their attack and leaving open space for their opponent to retaliate in. The downside, though, is that there is a lot more to be written, and that the whole piece must be more engaging. In a regular forum duel, a single bad attack could detract, but wouldn't ruin the match for you. Whereas in the other, a number of bad lines, paragraphs, etc, can detract wholly from the entirety of the written structure.

This could mean that there is no internal consistency, excessive monologuing or unnecessary dialogue where it wouldn't make sense. In forum dueling, your opponent can often make up for your own deficiencies allowing for the whole to at least be cohesive. In this second, it's a single writer, so the onus is on him (or her) to make a masterful piece that must have all the parts everyone expects of a duel (flow, creativity, consistency of thought and action as well as a fully functioning worldspace that it all takes place in).

While I am a strong proponent of forum dueling as I know it, I'm not against this other method. It forces the duelist to write not just their own character, but also to account for the other entity. And, assuming proper accounting, to get in the secondary characters head and portray them in as realistic a fashion to the actual author who created that character. This, I believe, is the most difficult portion, in that given creative license, getting right all the nuances of someone else s creation is a fairly difficult prospect.

In the end, where several judges come in with forum dueling to give a decree as to the outcome, the participants all come in and vote on whose sequence of events they prefer more.

I'm not opposed to this other method. It's intriguing, and outlandishly different from what I'm atypically used to. But, assuming I make it past the first round, could be quite the learning experience. It also, to an extent, could allow for a means of bettering ones writing skills through the use of other characters and writing them well. This I'm fully behind. If anything, I recommend at least giving this a try once. Who knows, the style might grow on others as well.

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