Sarcose wrote:If I may add my two cents, a lot of forums like this actually have an objective GM rule who is successful at what, etc., like a judge. In one example of an RP battle forum whose name escapes me, the two contenders would post their intended actions - long posts of complicated actions that would be called godmodding - and then the GM consolidates the actions into his own RP post.
Now, I'm not sure how to handle this in the setting of the DT RP forum or if it even can be. As that would be fiddling with the established structure too much, I am not recommending it as a universal solution. Rather, a proposed alternative to a duel be to having a third party judge decide what happens, based on character details or other factors. Perhaps it would be viable to petition a mod to act as a conflict resolution IC, but then I suppose that would require mods dedicated to RP conflict resolution, and I don't know if there are any of those.
I almost suggested a dice rolling conflict resolution, but truly stubborn players would imagine themselves having all kinds of hidden bonus modifiers to their skill rolls, making the randomization factor pointless. I will note that sometimes in my RPing I will roll a die to determine how successful I am at a given task just on the off chance I like the result of the die and decide to roll with it - such as, suddenly, my low-tech pistol malfunctions. Rather than having that planned in advance I let it happens when it happens, and it adds a degree of uncertainty to even an area which I would imagine having otherwise total control. I guess now I'm getting off topic sort of. But it's about conflict resolution, really.
DTRP is mostly a free-form RP, though people are permitted to make a thread where they are the GM, just for the record. One notable exception is Orthorbbae, which is completely GM run, under my jurisdiction.
I'm also against the dice idea, since it usually is just asking for more problems than solutions, all for the reasons you've said. Generally, this RP is social based, so we try to encourage people to make characters based off backgrounds and not abilities. Fights do occur, and the usual rules apply, which you can find on this board.
Working it out between players is generally the best idea, so long as the agreement can come peacefully, else it would be advisable to just not fight at all.
