Mystfall

Random thought I had while viewing a thread:

Characters who win fights through skill prey on their opponents ability to procrastinate.

If I can learn something, so can another. And so any tricks I might use to beat them they can learn as well. So the only reason I would beat them is because they either procrastinated their learning, or I was lucky.

Normally you see people go around this in one of two ways.

They go the route of repetition or training and dedication. Saying that their years of doing this one particular thing makes them better than anyone else at it. 

Or they give the character a power outside the rules of the game(anti-magic in a magic-dominated world or something similar) and that just throws out the entire idea of skill beating power. You just gave them a different power than everyone else.

The first is really the only way to justify this except that if you can spend 60 years learning how to perfect swordplay, so can this other guy I met who also happens to be able to shoot lasers from his hands.

I don’t think you’re winning that one.

Now, there is nuance. Not everyone can spend 60 years learning swordplay. For a variety of reasons(they have actual priorities, they have to work, they have other responsibilities, etc) all sorts of things.

But that lets me say the following:

If your opponent does not have a life, you will lose. 

Anyways, thank you for seeing Myst’s random thought that he spent way too much time on