Try not to do in RP

 The Try, Not Do Policy    1. THE MOST IMPORTANT SIMMING RULE! When fighting, you do NOT hit the opponent! Rather, you use your weapon on the opponent.  Examples:

RIGHT WAY- *Notches an arrow on his bow and shoots the arrow toward John Doe* WRONG WAY- *Thrusts his sword into John Doe&rsquo;s belly* WRONG WAY- *Knocks John Doe&rsquo;s sword out of his hands with a thrust in Jack&rsquo;s hand* RIGHT WAY- *Taking his sword, John Doe swipes the blade toward Jack Deere&rsquo;s head* WRONG WAY- *When he casts the fire spell, he blasts it at John Doe and hits him at full force* RIGHT WAY- *Finishing the chant, he casts the fire spell and fires it toward John Doe*

If you understand, you do NOT directly hit your opponent; always leave room for your opponent to block or counter the attack.

2. &ldquo;No one-hit KO&rsquo;s.&rdquo;    One thing I thought I&rsquo;d mention is the concept of character death. You can not automatically kill your opponent unless he tells you OoC that you are allowed to. The only person who can choose if a character dies is the owner of the character. Because of this, sim battles usually end when someone has to leave (It&rsquo;s usually covered up IC by saying something like (&ldquo;Argh, you have weakened me, I will leave to work my strength up. You won&rsquo;t be so lucky next time! *Disappears laughing*&rdquo;), when one stops the battle, (&ldquo;Enough! You have proven yourself worthy&hellip;&rdquo;) or when some natural thing stops it. (*Suddenly, for whatever reason, an earthquake forms directly in the battlefield and both fall into the vent*).

3. &ldquo;Never think you are the best and no one can defeat you.&rdquo;   No one can be undefeated. Everyone will find someone who is better than them.

For example, I can never defeat Lloyd. His style is very hard for me, and he can beat me easily.

4. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t do a million things at once&rdquo;    Don&rsquo;t cast six spells, slash at someone&rsquo;s head thrice and at their chest twice, and then kick their chest all in the same turn. In one turn, you do one thing. If you are a mage, you take one turn chanting before you cast the spell. Lately, it has come to my attention that there are now battles are either turn-based or active. In turn-based battles, opponents switch off doing attacks. This is mainly for slow typists and people who prefer to be more organized in battles. Personally, I prefer active battles. In those, you type as fast as you can to get turns in. However, sometimes there can be a problem for if both people type an attack.

For example&hellip;

John Doe: *Starts to chant a fire spell to counter the ice spell he knows Jack Deere is chanting* Jack Deere: *Finishes his ice spell and blasts it toward John Doe*

If the chat is like WoN and the uppermost messages are the more recent ones, there will be a problem over whether John Doe will get hit by the spell or will counter it to save himself. Sorry to say, but in times like this, the attack that comes in first is the one that has to stay; John Doe will have to change his move. This brings us to the next rule&hellip;

5. &ldquo;If doing an active battle, try to be with someone at least your typing speed”    Self-explanatory. It&rsquo;s not fair if you do six turns while your opponent is still doing their first one.

6. &ldquo;Remember your limits.&rdquo; Be rational with your attacks. Doing something like: *Raising his hands, he chants a spell that causes a monstrous energy blast bigger than the world they stand on to head for John Doe* is not only being a lamer, but summoning that much power would kill your character anyway.

7. &ldquo;Summon wisely&rdquo;. Summoning is no small matter. I believe that summoning is okay as long as the thing you summon is not a rip-off and does not do such a powerful attack that you would be considered a lamer right off the bat. I say the best way to summon is to chant like a normal spell and then summon an elemental demon.

8. &ldquo;Armor does not block everything.&rdquo; Although armor will sometimes deflect blades, a hard swing of a battleaxe definitely will not be stopped by armor. Even if you are a warrior with armor, you need to be cautious and do not block everything, which brings us to the next rules&hellip;

9. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t block everything.&rdquo; A very important rule. Even though the Try, Not Do Policy gives you a chance to think of a creative way to counter or block the attack, don&rsquo;t just sit there and block everything and expect everything you do to hit your opponent&hellip; that is the number one lamerish thing you can do.

10. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t rip off spells/weapons and their effects&rdquo; Not only is using a spell like Death lame anyway, saying it will automatically kill your opponent breaks Rule 2 anyway. Rip-off spells include things like Blizzaga, Knights of the Round, Luminaire, etc. Weapons are such as Masamune, Excalibur, etc. The effects I mention are things like that using a spell like "Frost" from FF9. You cannot say it automatically freezes your enemy, and your next attack destroys it automatically. My advice is that, when doing a spell from a game, just use the same spell, but only mention its effects.

Say I want to use Ice3 from FF2. *As John Doe finishes his chant and raises one hand, he drops the ground as he starts to summon grand powers. Gasping words of commandments, John Doe drops his hand as a green aura surrounds around him. Having to rest, he does not see as countless numbers of massive and sharp icicles fall down toward the 50-foot radius of Jack Deere*

11. &ldquo;No healing&rdquo; Don&rsquo;t get me wrong, healing is allowed, but only certain types of healing. It is possible to waste two turns healing something. (First turn to chant, second turn to confirm what you want to heal, and then you heal in the third turn), and all you can heal are flesh wounds. If you have a cut across your chest you can heal it. However, you cannot heal yourself as in to give yourself completely refilled health (i.e. Hit Points) so if your opponent is near death, you will be back to how you were at the very beginning of the fight. The use of healing magic is that you are even able to reattach a missing limb if one gets cut off. (Note: Healing is MUCH more practical in RPing. In fact, healing in simming is probably altogether lame)

12. "Limit your spell casting" I got an e-mail and decided to include this. Casting spells does not cost anything like Manna or MP. However, every spell will weaken your character; accordingly by strength. Summoning a dragon will greatly tax the strength of your spell caster. You have to be honest, though, when it comes to tiring yourself out. If you go so long casting all these strong spells and not showing any sign of weakening, your opponent will probably dub you lame and quit the fight. This, of course, would give spell casters a slight disadvantage, but a good strong spell is better than a regular weapon, isn't it? The disadvantage: Warriors will not get as tired from fighting with weapons as mages will do with magic. Remember that spell casters may carry small weapons (daggers, staves), and they should resort to those, too.

(Note: In normal RPing, it really doesn't matter how much magic you use... as long as you don't attack someone outside of a sim battle)

Lesson 2- Details and Variety

&ldquo;Now I understand the rules&hellip; but how do I actually fight the right way?&rdquo; This is definitely the hardest section to write. First of all, you don&rsquo;t need to rip off spells because you use variety in your magic. You say *Casts a spell which makes a freezing wind form around John Doe. The swirling wind starts to encase John Doe in a block of solid ice*. With an attack like that, you are using correct Sim Tactics and you are also following the Try, Not Do Policy. Magic is very hard, at times, to follow the Try, Not Do Policy with. Doing something like *Casts Ice 2 on John Doe* is A) lame, B ) Breaking the Try, Not Do Policy, and C) Breaking Rule 10.

See, with Sim Tactic, you use detail in your attacks. It&rsquo;s the detail and the variety of your attacks that makes someone have a different style. Everyone will have a different style because everyone will use different details and variety.

The same thing goes with regular weapons. *Unsheathes the Masamune and slashes at John Doe* just doesn&rsquo;t work because it is A) lame, B ) Breaking Rule 10. But also, you did not use detail. Even if you DO use the Masamune, you need to make it clear it&rsquo;s a sword, and also, you need to ALWAYS, ALWAYS make it clear where you are aiming your weapon. Even if I kept the name &ldquo;Masamune&rdquo;, the better way to make this attack would be *Unsheathes the Masamune and, as light gleams off the tip of the blade, John Doe slashes the Masamune at Jack Deere&rsquo;s head*

While it seems that the best thing to do is use loads of detail, that is not true. In fact, too much detail is worse than too little detail: While *Slashes sword at John Doe* is hardly enough detail to use at all, it&rsquo;s not always preferable to *John Doe, an evil stare in his eye, grimly reaches his gloved hand down toward the hilt of his blade, before quickly taking out the blade from his scabbard, the blade singing as it escapes into the air. John Doe, giving a menacing battle cry, takes the blade back and thrusts it forward toward Jack Deere&rsquo;s unprotected throat, preparing to watch the blood pour out from the opponent&rsquo;s throat*.

While that attack may have seemed awesome and you wish you could use detail like that, hold yourself back. That attack was way too long and it will do little good. It will annoy your opponent while he tries to read it while you are already starting your next attack, which will probably make your opponent stop the fight anyhow. All that detail was pointless, and one of the best ways to combine those two attacks into a more balanced detail is something like *Unsheathing his blade, John prepares himself before thrusting his sword toward Jack&rsquo;s throat*. It doesn&rsquo;t seem like a lot of detail, but it is adequate and probably the best way to word the attack.

(Note: I just thought I'd mention that even if detail in simming is limited, you can use as much detail in RPing as you want; no one really cares.)

Now that you got detail, let&rsquo;s get variety&hellip; it makes sense that if your character is a knight, he will not be able to use magic, first of all. And if your character is a mage, he will not be able to take a battleaxe and slice off somebody&rsquo;s head.

If you&rsquo;re a mage, it&rsquo;d be tempting to do every single kind of spell you can think of, but remember your limits. In the next chapter, I will add to the lesson book by talking about strengths and weaknesses. You should use your strengths and weaknesses to determine the spells you can use. If you are an elemental, you can use magics of that element without having to chant first. That seems like an advantage, but that leaves you with a weakness that your opponent can use to quickly take advantage of you. If you&rsquo;re a knight battling a mage, you&rsquo;ll have to rely on cutting through his weak physical defense to defeat him.

Paladins and fighters both have to rely on their weapons, while mages have to rely on their magic. Fighters can carry more weapons and have stronger weapons, but paladins can use adequate weapons and healing magic.

Now about countering and blocking   Countering is making an offensive move to parry or cancel out your opponent&rsquo;s move.

Example: If John Doe lets loose a fire spell toward Jack Deere and Jack Deere fires an ice spell to counter, the spells will hit each other, change into a hot mist, and cancel each other out.

The same thing works with swordplay. Blocking is letting some part of your body or your weapon block the blow. (It can hit your armor, or maybe it will hit your weapon. Both of these will block the attack).