Mandy's Tournament - Week 1 Thread

[Randy Mandy]

Rules

·You can argue as much as you want about why your team is superior and should win. No post limits and you have 5 days (120 hours) from the time I post this to do it to your heart's content. However, I ask folks to be 1) polite, 2) honest and 3) reasonable. Ideally, this ought to be more about style and cleverness than about raw power.

Which, nevertheless, is not an excuse for rampant PIS arguments.

That's all. Debate and strats are not required, but failing to do one or the other is likely to cost you.

·Voting cannot be done until 24 hours after this post is presented, to give all a chance to post something defending their team or voicing their opinions.

We are not using polls, because this isn't strictly Rumblers League and we probably don't enjoy the exemption granted by Gordon Smith. So when you vote, state clearly who gets your nod.

Also, people not actively playing the tournament can vote, but they MUST give a valid reason. The validity of those reasons will be judged by me and I'll be a strict judge, at that.

·There is probably stuff that I don't remember or haven't considered and which I should mention here. No matter, I'll deal with such things as they arise.

Let's hope this is fun for all.

[AJ Valliant]

I have some time off today so I should be able to properly, if belatedly, link my team profiles.

[Randy Mandy]

WEEK 1 FIGHT 1

RANDY MANDY

VS

KJ STEWART

IN

Arena Name: New Orleans



Universe: Real World

Description: New Orleans, 2005. In the midst of Category 1 Hurricane Katrina. This fight takes place in the middle of a hurricane.

NPCs: With a big, honking hurricane, do you really need one?

Starting Position: Bourbon Street, 500 meters apart

[Randy Mandy]

WEEK 1 FIGHT 2

BOBISBEAST

VS

AJ VALLIANT

IN

Carmen's Stolen Chessboard

Universe: Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego?

Description: A giant chessboard on which which Carmen placed 33 of her more thematic thefts to prove she was not only their mental superior in the crime/crime-stopping game, but also in that classic game of minds, chess.

NPCS: Random V.I.L.E. henchmen will try to strap people in the pawn places for each team, but like most goons, they are easily beatable.

Starting positions: One team starts in the Neuschwanstein turrent being used as Carmen's queen-side (ofcourse) rook. The other side starts on the unamed other rook directly across the board from her tower. that's about 1.2 km according to wikipedia. If someone wants to complain, tough.

Links: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKjN0dGno7U&t=18m10s

[Randy Mandy]

WEEK 1 FIGHT 3

SHARKERBOB

VS

MAILEDBYPOSTMAN1

IN

Ponyville

Universe: Equestria (My Little Pony: Freindship is Magic)

Description: A rustic town filled with that distinct MLP charm. It's a city full of thatched roof brick houses and all the good and sweet stores you need to have in a city. In what is probably the important detail for a fight, the buildings are widely spread out and there's lots of open space in the outskirts of the city (like where the library is) but become more tightly packed for street-to-street action when you go down town to the Marketplace area (Where the candy store/bakery is).

NPCs: A plethoria of potentionally perfectly panicable poines perambulating the place. The Mane Cast are on a vacation in Philly-delphia and will not be around to interfere.

Starting Positions: One group will start by the Ponyville Library, and the other will start by the Sugarcube Corner, about 1 mile away.

Link:http://mlp.wikia.com/wiki/Ponyville

[Randy Mandy]

WEEK 1 FIGHT 4

STIGMA REX

VS

MOONKNIGHT11

IN

Arena Name: Daytona International Speedway

Universe: Real World.

Description: One of the most prestigious racetracks in NASCAR, Daytona International Speedway is one of the most famous sporting venues in the world, period. The track is 2.5 miles (4km) in total length and is a bustling mass of people and vehicles.

Starting positions: Starting along the Back Stretch (which is 910m long), each team will start at opposite ends, 900m apart.

NPCs: It's race day. There are cars on the track and thousands of fans and staff in attendance. Fight starts during a race, so cars will be all over the track, coming towards both teams.

Map showing what the "Back Stretch" is.

[KJ Stewart]

I was debating whether or not to write a strategy in the little amount of time I had over the last couple of days, but I decided against it.

And the reason was because I couldn't actually bring myself to do it, knowing that it wouldn't really be acknowledged.

And now that this is up, I find myself wondering what to say, because I don't really think this works. It kinda feels like we put aside a fair amount of time and went to an awful lot of trouble to essentially make teams that other people get to decide what they do.

I feel as though it's in other people's hands to decide how my team is going to behave and what other teams can do to counter them. And, again, I just don't think this works. My strength is in writing good strategies and backing them up with evidence. But here, nothing I say will be concrete and others are in a position to just dismiss it. I think that takes away the "skill" side of this and it just becomes an "I decide who wins!" for everyone. And, theoretically, either team COULD win, and there could be a million possible outcomes to each fight in-character, but now it's down to other people to decide which of those million outcomes they WANT to happen.

And if that's going to be the case throughout the tournament, especially given that this is going to run through Christmas and New Year when I'm simply not going to be around as much, I actually can't motivate myself to partake. I think I'm just going to withdraw.

I apologise, and I don't mean anything by it, but it doesn't feel like I'm in control of my own team and I can't motivate myself to debate for that reason. Mostly because any debate would actually be pretty futile. Whatever we suggest our team could do, others could view it another way. That's why I personally feel strategies are essential in this kind of thing.

Normally by now, people are saying "my opponent's strategy doesn't work because..." or "I think I win this because...", but it looks as though most people don't really know where to go with it. And that's certainly where I find myself.

Basically, now that it's posted, I feel as though the need for strategies has been totally highlighted. And if you want to introduce them, I'll be involved, but I think I may as well just tell you now that this doesn't really work for me and I won't be participating from now on if this is how it's going to be.

Again, let me stress there isn't any bad feeling here. Can't stress that enough. It might sound like I'm "complaining", but that's not the case - I'm merely being honest so I'm not wasting anyone's time. This just isn't for me.

[Randy Mandy]

That's a very well thought-out post you present there. No irony. It clearly lays out your issues with the situation.

So let me say that I have no bad feelings in regards to your decision (if anything annoyance and that's strictly towards the inadequacy of the format I'm trying to hammer out here and my shortcomings as gamemaster) and that with debate being explicitly not compulsory you are well within your rights to abstain from participating.

That said, I'm not giving up on this. Feel free to chime in if you change your mind or if you feel that the stuff we do other weeks is more your thing, so to speak. Rumblers style compulsory strats are not in the plans, but this might be changed (though ample forewarning will be given if I go for this) for other team vs team weeks, depending on how this one goes.

[KJ Stewart]

That's a very well thought-out post you present there. No irony. It clearly lays out your issues with the situation.

So let me say that I have no bad feelings in regards to your decision (if anything annoyance and that's strictly towards the inadequacy of the format I'm trying to hammer out here and my shortcomings as gamemaster) and that with debate being explicitly not compulsory you are well within your rights to abstain from participating.

That said, I'm not giving up on this. Feel free to chime in if you change your mind or if you feel that the stuff we do other weeks is more your thing, so to speak. Rumblers style compulsory strats are not in the plans, but this might be changed (though ample forewarning will be given if I go for this) for other team vs team weeks, depending on how this one goes.

Thanks, as I say I mean no disrespect or hostility. It just doesn't appeal now that I see it in action, so I'm being honest.

To be honest, I'd rather just have my team removed if this week is going to be as it is. Can you maybe ask Dalak if he'll replace me for this week then? I know it'll just bug me seeing others decide how my team go about their business, when I know I'd write them totally differently (and obviously without me participating, people are just gonna vote against me, giving everyone a guaranteed win against "me", which is pretty pointless).

That way you have an 8 week league in which nobody misses a week.

As I say, if you introduce strategies from hereon-in, I'll partake. I just strongly dislike the idea of not being able to control my own team, which is historically what I do best.

Let's be honest, any of these teams could beat each other, depending on what they do and what their opponents do. But we're never actually going to know either of those things unless definitive strategies are presented prior to the match. It takes away the tactical aspect and I feel you don't really earn your win, and nor do you ever deserve to lose. Kinda removes any aspect of fairness or achievement, I feel.

[Sharkerbob]

Personally, I've never liked pre-done strategies specifically because there are so many different ways things could go down, that I've always felt it too limiting to write up a lengthy strat, and then, because one tiny detail you might have forgotten to include in the very beginning, all your efforts are completely wasted because the other team did something in the fraction of a second you didn't account for, and your team gets stomped. Actual fights between these characters, even by Rumbles standards, are more than likely always going to be fluid, and no matter how much planning is involved, some improvisation will always be necessary, unless the sheer gap in power is just that blatant that it doesn't matter. So, I see the logic in there being a million different ways a fight could go, and going with your gut. But that's just me.

Also, I'm an utterly atrocious strategist. :P

[Sharkerbob]

Anyway, onto my match:

My primary advantage is that Phenix and Qubit can just teleport/dimension dump everyone. He can also shut and lock off Amadeus' teleport shield, since Qubit controls all the teleport technology which he invented. He is shielded from telepathic probes and manipulation, so he shouldn't be mind-blasted or anything.

If for some reason that doesn't work, my group has four ginormous robots that can be called into the battlefield and used to rain destruction down upon the enemy team.

Likewise, Oriko has precog and telepathy, and can inform her teammates as to the actions of the enemy team.

Magus can run interference for his teammates, as can Chao Lingshen, by using super speed and time-jumping to intercept ranged attacks.

[Sharkerbob]

Guess I got double-posted....

[mailedbypostman1]

Seems logical, but only Qubit is resistant to telepathy.

With the Menthor helmet's array of long distance mind control feats, Mastermind's illusions, and Amadeus' additional heavy telepathy backing them up, Qubit is going to find himself the only sane person on his team, as his other members attack each other, call down robots to hit him, and otherwise disrupt his team's flow.

Put it frankly, if Qubit can't shut my team down, my telepaths will be able to.

Midnighter's speed is amped by multiple machs from the cave light exposure, so he'll intercept any attacks that go to her and Amadeus. Armed with the Impact Ring which sent an Iron Man Suit flying into the horizon, and the TMD, which can age people to dust, throw down fields which slow things at bullet speed to a crawl, and the Force Rifle, he can do incredible damage from afar, and with his zero armor, anyone he even touches that is no technologically powered gets reduced to a human in terms of stats and then gets their head kicked off.

Kylar can turn invisible, and with the spider bite he's also a bullet timer, and he can amp his speed a bit. He also has a sword which cuts through anything and destroys souls. He'll be intercepting attacks, and using his teleporting abilties to get the better of people.

Lady Mastermind creates her famous full-senses illusions, which have been good enough to hide hte presence of an entire enemy team from the X-men in the same room, including Wolverine and Emma Frost.

[KJ Stewart]

Personally, I've never liked pre-done strategies specifically because there are so many different ways things could go down, that I've always felt it too limiting to write up a lengthy strat, and then, because one tiny detail you might have forgotten to include in the very beginning, all your efforts are completely wasted because the other team did something in the fraction of a second you didn't account for, and your team gets stomped.

That's why you write contingencies. I never just write a linear strat - there is always an element of accounting for other possibilities.

Here, debate just seems.... pointless. No matter what you say, the opponent can write a counter to it AFTER you've said it which is kinda like walking in to the opponent's dressing room before a sports match and saying "by the way, here are our tactics, do whatever you think is best to counter them".

For instance, if I was writing a strategy, I'd have Raven use her item assortment to completely and utterly protect my team's minds against telepathy. Then, if someone tried to use telepathy in a strat, it would fail.

Now, if I say "Raven protects my team against telepathy", they could just say "my fastest character is therefore going to kill her IMMEDIATELY!" which they shouldn't be able to say, because there is absolutely no way that they could DEFINITELY have known that she was going to do that. They might say "well I knew she'd do that", but there's no proof of that unless a pre-written strategy is written.

Basically, a clever, inventive or totally game-changing tactic could just be completely ruled out because the opposition say they have a way of countering it which they're only doing because they know what your plan was. Or it could be completely ruled out because someone who isn't even participating in the match doesn't like the idea of that being a possibility, so they just dismiss it.

It's essentially going to come down to "I want this to happen/I want this team to win/I want this person to lose, so that's how I'll vote". The end result at the end of the season is therefore going to be a winner who has won because of an array of scenarios that a group of people who don't know your team as well as you do have decided that they want to happen.

If it was bloodlusted, it would make more sense. But when it's in character, it simply doesn't. Whoever wins hasn't achieved anything, hence my lack of motivation - I wouldn't feel happy/proud if I won without having earned that myself, but I'd be highly frustrated if I lost because other people decided what my team did for me.

One of the most hated things in Rumblers League was when people wrote in their strategies what they thought the opposition would do. And this is basically a whole season of nothing but that.

[AJ Valliant]

I enjoy the free form style.