T-1 Rules & Regulations

Effort is unnecesary for roleplay. A well-developed character in the hands of a writer who knows how to go in character and has deduced how the character thinks practically writes itsself. Post Length: Write as much or as little as is necessary for the given situation. If the situation only warrants a response seven words long, the that's ok. You are not illiterate for not writing a super long post no matter what the T1 tweens claim. Brevity is the soul of wit. (Shakespeare) One of the things I like to use to rebuke para-kids is this: Did you know that long ago some authors were paid by the word? It made sense for them to make their writing as verbose as possible, right? One of those writers was Alexandre Dumas. You probably know of his works even if you do not know his name. He is the writer of a little story called The Three Musketeers. It has been adapted for stage and screen many times. I dare you to go in and find some dialogue ANYWHERE in The Three Musketeers and see how long the text surrounding that dialogue is. You'll find a majority of the dialogue is short, certainly not five lines of text. If authors paid by the word didn't fluff up the text around their dialogue with useless filler, why would you? No filler: Do not include internal dialogue or information we cannot tell by observing your character. Along the same thought line, roleplay is not an essay. You do not have to explain or justify the reason for your characters' actions. It is useless filler and nothing more. We don't need to know the position of every one of your character's eyelashes as he/she does an aerial backflip. You don't need to spell everything out: Your fellow RPers are not morons. We have imaginations. You don't need to hold our hands and spell everything out. You don't need to keep describing your character in every post, we see your RPC (unless we're not in client. What your character says (dialogue) and does (action) is infinitely more important than what he looks like.

T1 is a type of fighting style generally used by people in chat. These people are generally the more serious RPers. Average time to learn T1 can take anywhere from two weeks to two months, depending on the time spent learning and perfecting the form. It is based off the idea that the paragraphs you use should appear to come out of a book using detailed descriptions so that the people watching can ‘see’ what is happening in chat to make Role Playing a more enjoyable experience.

T1 is probably the hardest way to role-play if you are not good at being descriptive. T1 is turn-based, so you have to wait for your opponent to finish typing his/her attack. It is also paragraph fighting. In a T1 match, you have the ability to reverse the attack or take the hit and come back with one of your own.

Rule #1: No more than two posts for any one action in a fight. There is no reason to do more than two since any one action that takes more than that is most likely a god move and therefore invalid to begin with.

Rule #2: Remember, an attack post must say "at" or "towards" and doesn’t actually hit (that's an auto). It should be at least 5 words (preferably more than that). Dodges are invalid if they are under 5 words and must make some form of sense.

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

Rule #3: Grabbing someone in a hostile manner (in attempt to throw, kidnap, etc) is an auto... you have to GRAB FOR and it must be at least 5 words.

Rule #4: NPCs. Non player characters can be killed by autos as long as no one is in direct control of them. Direct control of NPCs is limited to about 3-5 at a time (this can include pets, monsters, dragons, soldiers, etc).

Rule #5: This is not really turn based in the sense that "you can't post till the other posts". Here's how it works. If you posted an ATTACK you have to wait for your opponent to post before you can post again... but if you posted a defense... or what not... you can put in another post for an attack... prepping.. landing... or what not. It's only after an attack that you have to wait to post. This can lead to an attack and a non defense move clashing... if you post a move while your opponent is attacking and your opponent gets that post in before you get your action. You may find yourself hit by the move they made, so it can be dangerous.

Rule #6: “No one-hit KO’s.” One thing I thought I’d mention is the concept of character death. You can not automatically kill your opponent unless he/she 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, battles usually end when someone has to leave (It’s usually covered up IC by saying something like (“Argh, you have weakened me, I will leave to work my strength up. You won’t be so lucky next time! *Disappears laughing*”), when one stops the battle, (“Enough! You have proven yourself worthy…”) or when some natural thing stops it. (*Suddenly, for whatever reason, an earthquake forms directly in the battlefield and both fall into the vent*).

Rule #7: “Remember your limits.” Be rational with your attacks. Doing something like: *Raising his hands, he performs a jutsu 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.

Rule #8: “Armor does not block everything.” 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…

Rule #9: “Don’t block everything.” 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’t just sit there and block everything and expect everything you do to hit your opponent… that is the number one lame-ish thing you can do.

Rule #10: “Don’t rip off spells/weapons and their effects” Not only is using a jutsu that automatically causes 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*

Rule #11: "Limit your casting"  Every spell will weaken your character; accordingly by strength. Summoning a dragon will greatly tax the strength of the caster. You have to be honest, though, when it comes to tiring yourself out. If you go so long casting all these strong techniques and not showing any sign of weakening, your opponent will probably dub you lame and quit the fight.

“Now I understand the rules… but how do I actually fight the right way?”

See, with RP, you use detail in your attacks. It’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’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’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 “Masamune”, 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’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’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’s unprotected throat, preparing to watch the blood pour out from the opponent’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’s throat*. It doesn’t seem like a lot of detail, but it is adequate and probably the best way to word the attack.

Now about countering and blocking: Countering is making an offensive move to parry or cancel out your opponent’s move. This is normally done by performing an Interrupt. When doing an interrupt, you are basically trying to interrupt your opponents previous posts, making it as if it had never happened. Sounds awesome right? Well it's not easy, when performing an interrupt, the attack section of your post must be longer than your opponent's was in their post before. If you attempt to do this and fail, your left wide open for whatever attack they just launched at you..and your probably going to lose right there, so be careful doing this.

A hypothetical is when you post a section about what your character would do under certain events. (Ex. John Doe would roll backward a few feet and throw a storm of shuriken toward Jack if he evaded his previous attack.) Hypotheticals are not required in posts, but can be very helpful in getting out of sticky situations, especially when your opponent is a formidable one.

These rules, I feel should be emphasized, Some I have already said, but i feel should be repeated.

You cannot block an attack with your body and take no damage from it. No matter how insanely powerful your character may be, if you are directly hit with any attack, you take damage from it that is relative to the attack dealt. For example: if someone slices your arm, and you fail to either dodge it or block it with a weapon or shield or something of the like, your arm gets cut. Depending on how the attacker worded the post, your arm could in fact be cut clean off. Don't make excuses if this happens. If you're retarded enough to stand there while someone slices your arm, you deserve whatever damage it causes.

Your attack, no matter how complex, no matter how powerful, no matter how long it took you to charge it, CAN AND MUST be able to be completely avoided in some way. Now, the way it can be avoided can be extremely hard to figure out, or it can take a lot of power to avoid: power equal to the amount of power it took to make the attack. Which means that if you put every last ounce of your energy into an attack and someone manages to avoid getting hit by it, you're out of luck because you just used up all your power and are now almost completely defenseless. Bottom line is, there is no such thing as an attack that cannot be avoided, period.

You need to include as much information about yourself and your equipment in your entrance. Your entrance is an introduction to you character, mostly what they look like and is carrying, what they're doing and why. You are NOT allowed to attack during an entrance post. Also, forgetting to mention an important weapon in your entrance, then mentioning later is an automatic void, and will leave you open to an attack as your post will have not happened.

Armor does not protect you from everything. If someone with the strength to punch a building and turn it into a crater slashes you with a sword, no matter how thick your suit of armor is, that steel isn't going to prevent it from penetrating. Armor is almost completely useless in a high power RP fight, and it is recommended that it be used only for show. Another thing, if you're wearing a super thick suit of plate armor made out of some fictional RP material that you made up that is super strong and able to withstand that kind of stuff, you better not be able to move faster than a snail, because if for some reason you're so super strong that it doesn't hinder you, then someone can just as easily cut through it. This rule also applies to barriers both physical and magical. Any kind of protective shielding can be broken through.

An attack requires an equal amount of power to create as the amount of damage it causes. The harder it is to defend against, the more power it must drain from you in the process. For example: If someone makes an attack that is powerful enough to take out several people and deal incredible destruction to the area at the same time, that is what we call a "Finisher" move. Such a move usually requires the user to be drained of nearly all power after usage. It is a trump card, if you will.

Illusions are a tricky thing to call into an RP fight for several reasons. One of those reasons is that it's so easy to god mod when using one and usually takes a lot of skill and practice in order to use one that is not a mod. In order to use an illusion, you MUST make it possible to whoever it is being used on to figure out that it is an illusion. You can make it difficult to figure it out, but it must be able to be figured out without asking if it is an illusion. Another more noobish way of doing it, is to include in the post itself that it is an illusion. You can't make some kind of super crazy attack that nearly destroys someone and then say "oh it was an illusion, don't worry" UNLESS you make it so that they can figure out what it is BEFORE it is used. They don't HAVE to actually figure it out, but you have to provide what is needed in order for them to have been able to do so.

Any weapon can be broken if it is put under enough strain. You can augment your weapon, enchant it, forge it, whatever it to make it stronger both physically and magically, but it is by no means completely indestructible. Even if a weapon can be disassembled and reconstructed, or shattered and reconstructed, it can be permanently disabled/broken somehow. Again, the way to do it can be hard to figure out, but it can be done. It does not matter what race you are, how you got your powers, how old you are, what your blood line is, or anything of the sort. You are not the most powerful being in the universe. You are not one step below god. You are not all powerful. You cannot control the planets. You cannot control the flow of souls. You cannot move a star/planet/anything that huge and powerful. GET OVER IT. Doing so would take so much energy and power that even attempting to do it would drain a person of their strength and cause them to collapse, no matter how strong they are.

You do not have an unlimited amount of chakra. You do not have the ability to completely drain your chakra in an attack, and then absorb energy from something else to regenerate all the chakra you used up. You may be able to become stronger or obtain more chakra based on certain circumstances, but it is not unlimited.

This is probably the most important rule on this list. It is also probably the most basic and most important rule ever for RP. It is simple. YOU CANNOT CONTROL ANY OTHER CHARACTER BUT YOUR OWN. To clarify what exactly this means: you cannot attack someone and say in your post that it hits. YOU DO NOT have the power or ability to tell someone that your attack hits them before they even have a chance to defend against it. There are absolutely no exceptions to this rule. Do not post something like *I shoot you in the chest and you die* because you do not get to decide whether or not they die from it, nor do you even get to decide if it even hits them. They have the chance to defend against it. ONLY if they cannot find a proper way to defend against it does the attack succeed in doing what it was intended to do. Even if you have the gun pointed point blank at their head, you still do not get to decide if the shot kills them, they still get the chance to defend. Only after they fail to do so does your attack hit. THIS ALSO INCLUDES MIND CONTROL. Mind control is not possible unless the person you are using it on willingly agrees to allow you to do it.