Gamestar Forum

CST battles are a tug of war between two or more writers. If done correctly it makes a clean and entertaining duel where each writer gives and takes from his own side, like this:

Person A vs Person B
(PA vs PB)

Person A

PA leapt at PB, sword drawn, and took the first swipe. PB dodged it and drew his own sword, and the two met face-to-face.

Person B

They exchanged attacks, appearing to be evenly matched. At one point PB saw an opening and scratched PA's arm, then jumped back and took a better position.

[Advantage at this point is to PB. PA has a light scratch, but his writer still has a lot of options to fight with.]

Person A

He continuously struck PB's defenses, trying to look for an opening. He pushed through and landed a clean hit hit to PB's leg, but when he stepped back he noticed a bigger cut to his shoulder.

[PA and PB both have damage done to them. It's a relatively fair exchange and tide turnings that become more and more intense with each subsequent post. By the end, if PA wins, PB won't feel cheated, and PA won't get too cocky about it, because in the end the two users cooperated to create an even fight scene. A fight between two characters isn't supposed to also be a battle between two writers.]

Unfortunately, this is almost never the case. A cheap way to get your character in the advantage is to cripple the opponent. Common cheap tactics I've seen include using super speed to tie the hands of your opponent or pinning them against the wall with a wind barrier, or heck, I've even seen someone try to use SLEEP DARTS. Even if it might make some sense, it doesn't change the fact that it's just plain BAD WRITING. At the end of the day, the other user will feel cheated out of a good fight, and you're likely to get retconned.

The most cut-and-dry remedy to this is using Sanctum-Style fights, which means both users creating extensive posts with full control of each others characters, then submitting them to a third party to decide the canon entry and, by extension, the winner. This IS a battle of writers, in this case, and by doing so will maximize the potential quality of the scene. Of course, if the story demands it, a less talented writer might NEED to win in order to move the story along, so his opponent should keep that in mind, and a regular-format battle post might be necessary.

This is a discussion thread, and I'd like everyone who reads this to chip in. How do you think we can formulate a strategy to improve our CSTs' battle quality?

I have to say, I like the idea of a Sanctum-like approach to dealing with these battle posts. It makes a more organized way of dealing with these battles which subsequently results in less retconning (which after recent events I 100% support). One concern is that how shall we decide who the third party is?

Maybe the GM should be the third party, unless the GM is involved in the conflict, in which case control is ceded to a global moderator that isn't involved? Zen's idea works also.

I agree with this, and I have to admit, I do some things like that... But at least other people that do this as well as me now may realize that we did something that was kind of unfair to the other charrie.

And Hannah, totally agree with the no killing thing (exception, of course if you have permission to kill). It can ruin various plans that may be coming. Now that Hannah mentioned plans, I think that some things about plans if you want to keep them suspenseful is to just talk with one or two people (not just people like me, run them by the person who started the CST or Iaa, Zen, or Nitrox) and if someone says no to your idea, it doesn't mean that they don't like it, so people don't feel bad. ((Refusal of plans is to be expected, I checked with Leap for something in IRL, but she said that couldn't happen))

Indestructible stuff has just been decided ((literally just now, I was half way through typing that above part)) not really allowed, so the word "indestructible" should basically be not allowed for stuff, especially weapons. If someone says indestructible in a post by mistake, I think that we should just take it like it's HARD to defeat or something, but not indestructible.

Something that I have seen that has irritated me a lot is that some charries just know EVERY SINGLE DAMN THING that is going on. When they are forced to make a guess, they make the RIGHT decision no matter what. PLEASE keep in mind that what you know as a writer about other charries, your charrie does NOT know what other charries things are. Say another charrie makes your charrie guess something, your charrie can't ALWAYS be right.

In battle, sort of like Zen said, always (or maybe with one or two exceptions) have you write your OWN charrie getting hurt. It can usually help the fight seem a little more fair. It should also effect your charrie a little in his/her fighting style. If it's just a tiny scratch, then that is as if nothing happened. If it's a broken finger, then your charrie may need to adjust if they are holding a weapon.

I do realize that I occasionally do one or two of these things myself, and I just want you guys to understand the mistake and tell me so that I can realize what I did wrong and fix it!

I'd have to disagree with your last statement, Ele4. Remember, we're writing stories, so if your subplot will make the plot better, move it along or give it a deeper meaning, then it should have some protection, given it has the GM's support.

Sanctum-Style

It would force long, drawn-out, detailed fights when in reality a simple sniping shot might be more logical.

If things such as cold-blooded character kill-offs match up with the tone of the story, than sure, but generally getting shot by a sniper from a distance is extremely anti-climactic. Even if it is logical, it might not make for a very good story.

You have a point there; most of the time random sniping isn't the best option.  But iaa said this, and I'm inclined to agree, that having the writing itself be competitive basically forces people to write 'books.'  Not everyone's inclined to do that, and it goes against the general system of a CST where individual posts don't usually take too long.