The Art of Combat

Contents

1. Introduction
2. A word about MUD client settings
3. A word about using triggers
4. A word about Avalon macros
5. The Basics
6. The great levellers: equilibrium & balance
7. How to become a great fighter
8. The theory of one-on-one combat
9. GLOSSARY

A word about using triggers

When two fighters confront each other, it is perhaps for the challenge, a conflict of ideals, or a deep-rooted hatred. For whatever reason there is to fight (of which there are many), the honour which goes beyond the politics of the realm should be remembered. Whether you are evil, wicked, saintly or neutral, there is a certain unspoken code of conduct. One of these is not to bore your opponent to death by automating your side of the fight with triggers (see glossary). Not only is it offensive that you made the challenge yet have your MUD client fight for you, but it proves only your weakness in battle. A person who uses triggers relies on triggers. It isn't a convenience, but a crutch. If you remove or kick out that crutch, they collapse like a bad souffle.

You will never become a good fighter if you rely on triggers. You'll only defeat fighters who are baffled by them. Every trigger has a way to be fooled and, short of writing an artificially intelligent MUD client, you're not going to profit by the use of triggers except in ensuring you stay mediocre.

There is a much more important, and yet overlooked, disadvantage to using triggers. Namely, if you are assuming the trigger is going to take care of the problem you've set it, you'll not watch the text. Instinctively, you'll blot it out of the screen and look for other things. Not only does this make the fight boring for yourself, but it also means you've set a huge limit on yourself. By training your instincts rather than your computer to recognise text, you inevitably help your creativity in battle. Someone who just thinks 'megillos cures yavin' is totally missing the point. And that's about as far as you can go with triggers.

However, triggers are not entirely hopeless. I've known many people who have used them in an 'advisory' capacity. In other words, what you may have heard called 'colour triggers'. Instead of having your MUD client react for you, you create a trigger which only colours the text on the screen. No actual command is sent to Avalon. Variations on this idea are triggers which produce a sound instead of change the colour of text and triggers which substitute (see glossary) lines of text -- for example, 'You feel a twitching on your scalp.' becomes just 'WYG'. I would recommend colouring over substituting only because the actual lines of text are atmospheric. You run the risk of tiring yourself if a fight is just comprised of 'wyg', 'web', 'nann', 'mouurark', 'net', 'jab', etc. Don't underestimate the usefulness of text to help your creativity in battle.

Of course, there will always be some who think triggers are a nifty idea and will use them, maybe even extensively. They'll not last long, if not only because of equilibrium and balance (see the great levellers: equilibrium and balance).

Proceed to next section: A word about Avalon macros