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Roleplaying combat is no different than roleplaying anything else. It boils down to conveying information. I think the key to learn is, knowing what information to convey, and how to do so while still writing an interesting, entertaining post. But let's be honest, all you're doing is conveying information and trying to think of something for your character to do that fits them and their situation in the fight.

If all you roleplay is fantasy and someone tries to get you to roleplay a sci-fi setting, you might go "Oh no, no, no. I don't roleplay sci-fi, I don't know how!" But when you sit down and actually try, and you do it consistently, you start to learn just through the habit of doing it. You pick up terminology, what's important in hard sci-fi versus soft sci-fi, how to describe a space ship or FTL travel or whatever.

Fighting's the same way. People will insist that they can't roleplay it, but if they just sat down and did it, they'd probably pick it up pretty easily.

Are some people going to be better at it than others? Yes, but that's true of all roleplays. Some people can roleplay really great horror stuff, or sci-fi settings, or high fantasy. Some people just happen to roleplay combat better than others, through experience or perhaps because it makes sense to them more than it does to others.

Most people who can't or don't know how often can and do. They just don't realize it. I think sometimes the occasional rotten apple you have - the "textual combatant" - might scare some people off and make them go "Oh, I can't do that." But it's just because they see this one guy being a complete ******** tool and they're like "I don't want any of that."

If they're introduced to it naturally, through the progression of roleplay, then it probably becomes pretty easy for them. A lot of roleplaying on any topic, to me, boils down to: if you don't know it, it's probably because you haven't done it. Do it, and you'll learn through experience. Roleplaying combat isn't special to me, or different than roleplaying anything else.

EDIT:: If I were paired up against someone in a tournament, and they were just completely green when it came to roleplaying combat, I'd help them where I could. I'd also wonder why they entered a tournament with no knowledge of how to fight.

I'm not going to be like "Here's what you should do in response", but I'll hep them learn the basics of actually roleplaying fighting so that they can do it properly, because even though I'm there to win, I'm also not above helping somebody. In the same vein, if my opponent makes an obvious OOC mistake - say, accidentally writing "left" rather than "right" - I will let them fix it. Why? Because I'm competitive, but I also believe in good sportsmanship, and I'd rather lose honestly than win based on an OOC miscommunication that gave me a free shot.

Outside of a tournament? I'll still help them all the same. Now, if they came to me and ASKED that we agree on a resolution to the fight beforehand because they don't know how to fight or they don't want to, then I'd discuss that with them, because I'm not going to make somebody do something they don't want to do. That has less to do with whether or not we're being competitive and more of just being polite.

Goddamn it Vizzle

Why you gotta take every topic and treat it as if we were in a ******** judge joe brown.

chill out broski

You know what?

I ******** WILL, f*****t

CAUSE ST. ANGEEERR ROUND MAA NECK

HEEE NEVER GETS RESPEECT

Enjoy your nuclear rain.

Roleplaying on Starcraft II is weird but cool.

-5 pts.

Have fun with that!

I like your list there, Hael. Here's my agenda for the day.

-Work
-Sleep