Dueling

Team Rosters

Is there a space vacant on your House Team?
To join, e-mail me with your wizard name, house, and desired position.

Rules

Here is how official meetings of the DUELING CLUB will be officiated.
(Unofficial duels and practices will be handled along these same guidelines.)

Each team will have 8 players, one of whom serves as captain.
(The main reason for having a captain is for someone to oversee and organize House Team practice sessions).

Two House Teams will meet in a 'Competition' set around 3 'duels'. Each 'duel' involves 1 pair of duelists (and their seconds) from each of the two house teams. Duels can result in either win (2 points), loss (0 points), or draw (1 point to each team). At the end, the team with the best-of-3 record wins the competition, and, at the end of term, the house with the best overall record wins the Dueling Cup!

Procedure:
Like Quidditch, Dueling is played using a storytelling theme, meaning one player passes the story onto the next to create a shifting game.

A general post will announce a Dueling competition between two (or more) House Teams. For play to begin, each team must have 3 'duelists' and 3 'seconds'. The 'duelists' will be the first three members of any given team to post after a competition has been announced. The next three members to post will choose who they will serve as 'second' (e.g. Sam Slytherin is the fourth person from his House Team to join the post, so he announces that he will be Sue Slytherin's 'second'). The final two team members to join the post will be the substitutes.

[One of the first three team members to join the post may volunteer to be someone's 'second', thus freeing a dueling position for another member joining the post later. This is where strategy can come into play. A more advanced student may choose to second a younger student, thus making a stronger pair with a better fighting chance. With only 6 team members competing at any given time, not everyone on the house team will be able participate. But having an 8-member team safeguards against forfeiture by allowing competition to continue even with two members absent.]

Once 6 members from each team have joined the post and determined their positions, 3 new threads will contain the 3 duels, each running independently of one another. The Headmaster will decide the pairings for each duel. When one 'duelist' (or both) is defeated or unable to continue, his or her 'second' takes over for the team. The duel is finished when one or both of either team's 'second' is no longer able to play.

Posting is done in turn, and order of posting is determined on a first come - first served basis (e.g. the first duelist from either of the assigned pairs to post gets to cast the first spell). Each player is allowed to post a reaction and cast 1 spell (this does not include blocking), LEAVING THE OUTCOME TO HIS/HER OPPONENT'S REPLY. The opponent must block to spell or suffer its effects, and cast a counter spell.

The winning team will be decided by the Headmaster according to quality of roleplay, how well a post synchronizes with others, fair playing and power playing will factor. The final play of every game will be written by me, to signify a winner, so do your best to build up to that, and then post your reactions to the end of the game.

Fairness:
Dueling is played on an honour system.You RP your play just like a normal RP post, but you must be realistic, and you must not POWER PLAY!! You must play FAIRLY, taking your share of hits and misses. Any player guilty of power play will forfeit their pair's duel.

The use of other characters is more intricate than in normal RP, so you must not control other characters other than to pass the story to them after you have set them up. For instance if Sue Slytherin sends a Leg-locking curse towards Rob Ravenclaw, she must cast her spell and let him write the results. It would be up to HIM if he were hit or dodged the spell. The only time you are allowed to post the outcome of your own spell if if it 1) is not cast properly (like when you're attempting a difficult curse, et al) or 2) when it backfires. These outcomes affect YOU, not your opponent. Anything else could result in your pair forfeiting your duel.

A 'duelist' MUST know when to give way to his/her 'second'. It is up to him/her to choose when they are unable to continue play. If a duelist keeps playing when it is clear that they should be injured or unconscious, the Headmaster will make that player's pair forfeit their duel.

IF YOU FAIL TO PLAY FAIRLY YOU CAN FORFEIT THE ENTIRE COMPETITION FOR YOUR HOUSE TEAM.

A Note on Spell Casting:
You must cast spells appropriate for your student year. A 1st yr cannot cast an unforgivable curse! You must be very careful in playing your role -- casting a spell that is too advanced for your age group will result in a loss of your pair's match. This said, the Headmaster will try to be as fair as possible in assigning pairs to duels. To cast a more advanced spell, your character must have learned to cast it in a practice session (from a student at the appropriate age level, or from a Professor). It is up to your House Team's captain to call a practice session (which will take place in the Dueling board in the RP Forum). And you must LEARN the spell, meaning that even if your character is the cleverest thing since sliced bread, you probably won't land a spell the first time you cast it. OK?

Yes, Dueling is a competition, but it is also a chance to develop your character and introduce plot elements. You might use it to have a character master a spell that is giving them trouble or to overcome a certain fear. So PLEASE UNDERSTAND that winning isn't always the best outcome. I am counting on everyone being able to play responsibly. This is the best way I can see us making Dueling work in an exciting, interactive way. If people repeatedly break the rules by power-playing, we will eliminate Dueling from the site.

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