Serenti Prep.

[The International]

Confession - I'm weak with battles.
Solution - I need to do some mad reading, and your help.

1. Link me to two of your favorite battles in Althanas
2. Provide one tip about battles on Althanas.

[Vigil]

Don't overthink it. Focus of the battle should be on the action. I learned a long time ago that trying to produce a story in a battle is a bit too much of a task if you're trying to preserve the integrity of your character's timeline. Just fight. Focus on the fight, the emotions surrounding it and what you think relevant at the time.

[Silence Sei]

Vigil's right, there's only so many times you can say 'I don't go to the citadel because I'm a pacifist, but here I am again.' or 'I'm going to test myself' or 'I wanna kill something', before it gets stale.

As far as favorite battles go, here are two of mine.

Hero or Mercenary? (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?21222-Hero-Or-Mercenary)

You Must Be This Tall To Fight (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?9640-You-Must-Be-This-Tall-To-Fight)

It also gives you some looks at two of your opponents, Bloodrose and BlackandBlueeyes respectively

[Duffy]

I'm afraid the two battles that spring to mind are somewhat unorthodox, but they both illustrate the points I'm trying to make.

Firstly, one I partook in myself:

Death Dances (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?20344-Death-Dances&highlight=skie+and+avery)

The most important part of a battle is to remain tight, controlled and simplistic in your writing to portray the blunt action of your character in a very narrow time frame. Second, is to always bring the unexpected to the battlefield, surprise your opponent with something you'd never get away with in a normal narrative; go for broke, if you have to, but be believable.

The second battle is something I'm rather likely to be found re-reading quite often, whenever I take it upon myself to not do a straight up fight in the Citadel:

Confidence in the Domination (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?20939-Confidence-in-the-Domination&highlight=visla+eraclaire)

Not every battle in the Citadel has to end in death, and not every death has to be in the Citadel. Metaphor is a strong and powerful tool to bring to a battle thread; a character's motives, a character's dreams, desires and fancies can all be put on the chopping block and fought over with knives and swords and sundering spells.

If either of these strike your imagination, I'm sure I could pull out a few more choice selections from the Annuls to offer advice on anything else that crops up in your reading.

Most importantly of all, have fun - don't not write something because it's not regulation, not grammatically correct or if it doesn't 'feel' right. You need to cut your talent down to suit the pace of the battle. Write off the cuff, quick witted paragraphs and edit later - you can't afford two weeks to post in the Serenti, it's do or die - and if you don't do...well.

You die.

[Slayer of the Rot]

I don't have links at the ready, but the tip I have, is the tip Shyam used to give me in all his judgings because I used to be so weak at it; never neglect your setting. Don't just tell a person what it looks like, tell them how it feels and tastes and smells. And don't leave it at that - USE your setting. Throw grass, dirt, rocks in your face, trip your opponent into trees, get up the hill or cliff and use that high ground, trick your opponent into traps, whatever. Really, you can have the most interesting character on the site but if it feels like you're fighting on some grassy plain with nothing around, or worse yet, just some blank featureless room...well, if I was a judge, you'd be getting a zero.

Also, if you have any sort of pole arm, do not afraid to get personal - and by personal, I mean stick it up his or her ass. Literally. Jam it in there, impale them with it Yari to Dyne style. Because even if you lose the judging, you can still mock them viciously that you sodomized the dog shit out of them with your weapon. They'll never be the same in weapons shops or around posts or parades ever again.

EDIT: I'm not joking at all about the sodomy. First opponent in the Serenti, my axe has a date with your brownhole, sweetheart.

[Letho]

One thing that brings my piss to a boil is when people break the flow of action. Like person A swings the weapon, naturally describes his action and then of course leaves it to his opponent to react. But then person B has two fucking paragraphs of bullshit before he writes the reaction to the attack and it's like taking two steps forwards, then one back, then two more forwards and it's tedious.

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

Slayer is dead right about using the setting to your advantage. If you're the one who designs the setting, create it in a fashion where it will become one of the characters in the battle. Going with a one-on-one in a tavern? You have plenty of glass mugs and chairs to be swinging around. I used to fight in a haunted carnival back when I served on the Dajas Pagoda. There was one fight where I was thrown into the pellet gun shooting range. Naturally, I snatched one up, took aim, and pulled the trigger.

As far as favorite battles go, there are a few that I'm quite proud of; but my rumble with Bloodrose (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?18416) is my favorite. The story is always in the battle; it just helped out for both of us that our characters shared a bullet point in our respective histories.

I'd post a second link to a story I wasn't involved in, but it's been so long since I've read anything here that I can't remember.

[Max Dirks]

I stole this from myself, but here's some things that might help:

Selling Moves: Selling a move is allowing another character’s attack to strike home and cause a tangible effect on your character for the duration of the battle. For example, if your character is thrown against a wall, he might be groggy and less effective in combat for a time after the attack. Selling moves keeps the battle from lasting forever and also add a flavor of authenticity to it. If your character gets hit with a bunch of moves, but never goes down or suffers any ill-effects from it, then it isn’t very realistic. However, just like your character shouldn’t be invulnerable, your character also shouldn’t “oversell” moves. Just because someone swings a sword at you, doesn’t mean your character’s head will be cut off automatically. The best battles will involve characters who cause damage to the others by attacking with moves (which aren’t “powergaming”) that the other character can’t realistically escape from. Remember, since the team with the higher score advances and characters are healed between rounds, the In-Character death of your team may also be an appealing conclusion.

Teamwork (Permissible “Bunnying”): Like the rubric points out, teamwork is inherent in the tournament and is likely to affect every category on the rubric. So there is an important exception to “bunnying” rule that can be utilized: “bunnying” is allowed with permission from the controlled player(s)...Collaborating on a story can actually increase your overall scores...if two opposing characters are having a long dialog, it might enhance brevity to combine the conversation into one post. It might also be wise to make long sword fights (which would take several posts if done one action by one character at a time) into a single post by one player. Both players will receive action [related] points for this! If you do have permission to bunny, don’t forget to let the judge know what action is being allowed by using an OOC tag (({OOC}{/OOC} (using [ and ] instead of { and })) at the start of the post.

[Max Dirks]

Double post because I think it's important.

Many players incorporate the tournament's backstory with their characters (i.e. Dirks is participating in the Serenti Invitational for the prize money), but it's not necessary to do so. Since the Mistician Assailing Arena (remember that Rayse?), the moderators have provided a backstory to assist with character development. Most players have used the backstory, but not all of them. It's important to remember that the tournament is technically between writers so you will lose no points for failing to refer to Serenti or the IC tournament in your match. There have been several quest-like tournament battles on the site that feature very little combat.

I say if that's your cup of tea, go for it. Just make sure that your opponent knows you have no interest in the IC tournament. It might be weird if Max Dirks thinks he's fighting Josh Cronen in a tournament, but Josh Cronen is fighting Max Dirks to thwart his most recent criminal scheme. Make sense?

[The International]

This is all very very good. Keep the advice and the links coming, people.

[Slayer of the Rot]

I'm really not kidding about that weapon-sodomy thing. It's gratifying.

[Duffy]

Your advice is going to bite* you in the behind Slayer.

*read, poke.

[The International]

Slayer, that's sick!


































...... I like it.

[Christoph]

For once I actually have to agree with Dirks on both counts. I have enhanced many battles through bunnying. "Selling" attacks is also important, though I've actually struggled with rationalizing taking hits in past battles. It gets annoying when you're trying to take some damage against an opponent making poor and easily countered tactical decisions. This leads into my next point: when attacking, take pains to ensure that your attacks make sense and could logically cause damage.

THIS (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?19872-Veteran-Bracket-Semi-Finals-Christoph-vs.-Bloodrose) is my favorite of my battles. It didn't score as high overall as some of my other battles, for whatever reasons, but it is doubtlessly far and away my best.

I certainly can't reveal all my tricks of the trade (:cool:), but I will leave you with the following: try to make your battle a piece of something larger, even if that Something is in the background. Make the battle feel like a crucial event for your character. It gives your story more life, and more importantly, it gives you the edge as a player in the battle.

[Elrundir]

So glad you made this thread. It's been so long since I took part in a battle of any kind, nevermind a tournament, that I don't even remember how they go. >< Reading some good examples will be just the thing.

[Slayer of the Rot]

So glad you made this thread. It's been so long since I took part in a battle of any kind, nevermind a tournament, that I don't even remember how they go. >< Reading some good examples will be just the thing.

Maybe you can fight a saiyan again. Have some hope.

[Visla Eraclaire]

Be more popular than your opponent.

[Ruby]

Rofl Visla, well put.

[Vigil]

Another one. Want to win?

Don't try to have a loose interpretation of a battle and shoehorn something in that doesn't belong there.

Want to lose? Piss off the person who is evaluating you.

[Breaker]

For someone who is already a good writer but unfamiliar with how to "write a battle" my advice is to approach it like you would any other story. Take into consideration the content of the story - since it's about your character fighting someone else, a lot of the advice we've seen here already applies. Since battles are generally one big action sequence, the best advice I can give is to never lose sight of the action. But also don't forget that it is still a story about your character, and you shouldn't depend entirely on the action to make it interesting.

[The International]

This is all amazing! Keep it coming!