Roleplay / Enter the Arena as Your Avatar

aka: The Avatar Arena

Welcome, Tropers, to the Avatar Arena! Here, Tropers pit their forum avatars against each other in heated battle. As of the closing of v4, there are now (currently) two threads for this game: one run by SymeSynth, in the Roleplaying subforum, and one run by Trip, in the Forum Games subforum. Whichever one you choose to check out, please remember to read the Originating Post (OP for short) for rules, setting, and more info.

Tropes fitting the game

• And Now for Someone Completely Different: One of the possible outcomes of a character's death, and the more usual one.
• Anti-Climax: Right here.
  • And here's another, even worse one.
  • And a third.
  Inceptiond (IC): Criminy, what a letdown...
  • Basically, it often happens when people have to go.
• Author Avatar: (Part of) the basic premise of the game.
  • Player self-inserts are not a rare sight in the Arena. Pastry Person's, for instance, is very randomly and unnecessary cruel for some reason. When self-inserts go against characters from series their players know, that can lead to some funny meta moments (like that time when King Sombra inflicted a nightmare on Black Mage Anolis, and it turned out that the latter's greatest fear is to be caught with MLP-themed drawings in public^note Which actually represents his fear of being rejected by society.).
• Badass Boast: Done here in v6.
  • Seen several times during the Spiralblock Peak mid-boss rush in the spinoff (see Boss Rush below).
  • Zenkichi gets an absolutely epic verbal smackdown off against Glitchtrap in the spinoff, here.
• Badass Normal: These show up on occasion.
• Bag of Spilling: Anything a character is carrying that they didn't have when they entered the Arena for the first time is dropped when they die, even if they respawn.
  • Averted, though, in that if a character's player decides to pull them out of the Arena, the character will still have all their stuff when/if they come back.
• Beam Spam: Used by the Gecko, along with Homing Lasers and Roboteching. In fact, only one of its attacks wasn't a laser of some sort.
• Beam-O-War: It's happened several times.
• Big Bad: Although the Arena has no intrinsic plot, individual players can build up a surprising amount of inter-character continuity; for a while, Devil Psyco's Pseudo Porky could have been considered as the Big Bad. He seems to have pulled a Heel–Face Turn as of now - but King Sombra would be more than willing to fill the gap...
• Blood Knight: Several characters, but most commonly the "Humongous" mecha, especially the Red And Black ones that questor uses.
  • Isaki is also one, as well as Amber.
  • Zelos clearly loves to show he enjoys killing.
    • Indeed, many characters display traits of this, whether from their canon or just in order to throw them the Conflict Ball.
• Blood Sport
• Body-Count Competition: Surprisingly, kills actually seem to happen infrequently enough that nobody seems to have hit double digits as yet. Not that anybody's keeping track...
• Boss Bonanza: The landmark Spiralblock Peak in the spinoff turns out to play host to an unofficial "Mid-Boss Rush", starting here, featuring Security Force, Proteus Ridley, and The Gravemind before finishing with a fight against Dark Fiddlesticks-X.
• Boss Fight: A new feature in v3.
  • The 1st bossfight was against Mewtwo, and started here.
  • The 2nd bossfight was against Soul Edge, and started here.
  • The 3rd bossfight was against Tzekel Kan, and started here (only to be aborted a few pages later).
  • The 4th bossfight was against Crona, and started here.
  • V4 has no official boss fights, but Arachnos pulled an unauthorized one against The Anti-Spiral King - it was not originally meant to be a boss battle, but escalated into one when most players started focusing fire on the Anti-Spiral, forcing him to raise his power level.
  • Another "unofficial" boss fight is the one against Giegue/Giygas, which is also described on the "Awesome" page. Just to clarify, it forced Psycho!Ness to go One-Winged Angel and that still didn't damage Giegue (Ness got reverted back to his normal self after Giegue transformed into Giygas) that much. It could've easily turned into a Hopeless Boss Fight, had Giygas got immune to praying. Luckily, he didn't.
  • Yet another unofficial boss fight was the one against the Gecko. Similar to the Anti-Spiral King above, it was meant to be fought by fewer characters, but also escalated when players started ganging up on it. Unlike the above, the Gecko didn't get its power levels raised- it just used more evasive actions and attacks that were harder to avoid.
  • Another boss fight came from in the form of the Storm Giant Typhon, complete with 100 HP. The battle took 4 hours in total, and 5 inexact phases each adding more attacks: Regular Tornado, Poison Rain, Stomping and Smashing with cloud hands/feet, waves and volleys of lightning, and the Horseman of Pestilence. The battle ultimately ended with the massive tornado coalescing into the Horseman of Pestilence at 20 HP. Rain continued to fall, and he wielded thunderbolts with a magic crossbow. It would've been much much longer and possibly a Hopeless Boss Fight had some of metatron's followers hurled a bomb at it early on. Then they realized that blades and swords weren't, in fact, effective against a tornado made of disease or otherwise.
• Boss Rush: The Finale of v3 was one of these, featuring Mewtwo, Nightmare, Tzekel Kan, and Crona.
• Call-Back: Trolldoka strikes once again.
  • Which calls back to this moment.
  • "An ordinary little girl..."

• Conflict Killer: Happens.
• Continuity Nod: Yes.
• Cool Plane: These were plentiful in v1, and all over the place in v2, but sadly prohibited in v3. V4 and V5 allowed them, however.
  • The Reaper Jet fight in V5 were cool planes (and a winged mage) fighting cool planes
• The Corruption: Metatron.
  • Fractured Mancer's (The Character) Gateseal as well.
  • Ryu Hayabusa's and Spike Spiegel's Grip Of Murder, as well.
  • The Emperor's psychic ability also does this.
  • The Black Dragon is made of this.
  • Chaos.
• Casual Danger Dialogue : It's not uncommon for people to have a nice cup of coffee over news while several boss-level characters fight it out nearby.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Usually doesn't happen - even when it really should - thanks to the nature of the RP.
• Death Is Cheap: You can respawn after you die or use a different avatar.
  • Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: You can technically do it in the same post as your death.
  • Deconstructed with Black Mage Anolis' Johnny. Despite being a Genre Savvyish Original Character, he comes from a universe run by realism. Cue his first death in the Arena.
• Desperation Attack: Fairly frequent.
• Devil in Plain Sight: Hazama. It's a wonder he has any allies at all.
• Enemy Mine: The bossfights, and numerous examples outside of them.
• Even Evil Has Standards : The Emperor pull this at the Judge of Wing upon confronting him, reasoning that while he took the will of his own world, it gave a "safe existence" to the innocents while the Judge just made them his slaves by taking away their emotions. He even says that he's disgusted by the action of the latter.
• Epic Fail: Cyber Sub-Zero's first run consisted of appearing, 2 lines of dialogue and being fatally shot.
  • A more recent example.
• Epic Tank-on-Tank Action: Several times, such as the match between a M1 Abrams and a T-90
• Flunky Boss: The Gecko summoned trucks that allowed the boss to perform Combination Attacks, including a Wave-Motion Gun. Thankfully, his opponents got smart and took them down.
• Ghost Town: If a setting had any denizens, they're long gone by now.
  • Subverted as of the Arena V6. Generic NPC's exist as they need to, but more as a prop rather than actual characters.
• Glass Cannon: Evan, an original character made for the Arena. He's capable of making+mentally controlling several various military aircraft and drones out of nowhere, complete with deadly weaponry. He's also as durable as a normal human and even then quite fragile for one, meaning that a single attack is enough to take him out if his opponent reaches him.
• Gravity Master: The other part of Metatron's effects, and part of all Orbital Frames' powersets (with the possible exception of Vic Viper).
• High-Altitude Battle: The battle with Reaper, Raptor, Isana and Avanth against the Reaper Jets. The first fight wasn't too big of a problem as the Reaper Jets were Weakened by the Light, but when two more attack at nightfall...
• Hopeless Boss Fight: Averted. While the (unofficial) Boss Fight against Giygas could have turned into this, the fact that Psycho!Ness was there, and remembered Gyigas' only weakness (praying) saved everyone.
• I Am Not Left-Handed: One way to balance characters of differing Super Weight against each other.
• Joke Character:
  • Hamzee.
  • Kyubey (sometimes).
  • Daddy Long Legs, from the mobile game of the same name, though he was only used once.
  • Livers.
  • Dave the Starman.
• Jungle Japes: Freeform Jungle, the fifth setting of v3.
• Killed Off for Real: According to foxmccloud4387, Ausar won't be making any returns.
  • The Same with Orbital Frame Idolo. But its remains however...
  • Dark Meta Knight, too.
  • And according to Beaver Kefka won't be back either
  • After an epic Boss Battle, Typhon will never return.
  • According to his player, the first of 4maskwolf's many characters is dead for good.
  • As said by Robot Tophat, Lucifrost will no longer make a return in the Arena.
  • According to D himself, Relius is gone for good. Another Relius, played by another member, is still alive however.
  • Ironcommando's Word of God states that being Meta, the Reaper Jets get erased from existence when destroyed. (Un)fortunately since those are mere mooks, there's always more where those came from.
  • After a five-phase boss fight involving several gods, KiriK's Derak has been erased from existence
• Lethal Joke Character: Flutter-Plush, and presumably there were others.
  • Pastry Person's so-called "Eldritch Abomination" is... a Green Bush from Epic Battle Fantasy. Only this Green Bush for mysterious reasons knows every single attack from the Epic Battle Fantasy series. Including Limit Breaks like Genesis. That's right, you better run.
• Loads and Loads of Rules: V3; to be fair, most of them were just to try and keep the Godmodders and Game Breakers out. V1 and v2, by contrast, had next to no stated rules.
• Made of Iron: Almost everyone, by necessity, but special mention goes to Joshua, who survived the Megidolaon spell... four times.
• Man of Kryptonite: A complication that arose when Lumina Augoeides (a star deity who radiates sunlight) wanted to interact with Noelle and Mavra (vampires who are both terribly burned by sunlight).
• Marathon Boss: Derak, spanning a whopping five long phases.
• Mega Crossover: We've had characters from many universes; see the trivia page for the long, but probably incomplete, list.
  • Original Character: We've had plenty of these, too.
• No Plot? No Problem!:
  • Played with in Syme Synth's spinoff. Several of that game's participants are involved in an overarching plot, both with their characters and with others'. In fact, it's the reason that the spinoff was started in the first place, though, thankfully, it's only optional.
• Order vs. Chaos: There was a conflict between the forces of LAW and the CHAOS in the city of Whiterun. It started when Junon siding with Raphael because she felt that he can solve the Prophecy group's problems and attacking Lico to prove her loyalty. Glimmer sided with CHAOS because she's a polytheist and Ragna sided with them because he's a rebel.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Formerly a Side-effect of Metatron overwhelming a sentient being, or for those who have too much of it, but its true goals have been revealed to be more along the lines of an Assimilation Plot.
  • And then you have Mu. Good God.
• Painting the Medium: From the beginning of the World of Light plot in SymeSynth's Arena onwards until the introduction of the Cyber Angels, DevilPsyco would have his forum signature be encrypted messages. Due to the nature of profile editing, the encrypted versions can no longer be retrieved, but their translations were as follows:
  • WE HAVE ALMOST REACHED OUR DESTINATION. SOON, THE THIEVES SHALL PAY AND THIS WORLD SHALL BE PURGED!
  • WE HAVE ARRIVED, BUT THESE GODLY BEINGS STAND IN THE WAY TO PROGRESS. LET US WAIT PATIENTLY ON THE EDGE OF THIS WORLD... FOR NOW.
  • —-ZZZZZZZZZZZ—- BROADCAST INTERRUPTED —-ZZZZZZZZZZZ—-
  • "Hello? Can you hear me?"
  • "It's me... Michael..."
  • "...My mind is clear now. I remember who I am... you must... find a way to contact me... you won't hear it like this... and it is urgent..."
  • "I am in Pseudo Porky's base. Please... hurry, before..."-zzzzzzzzzzzzz...
• Psycho Serum: Metatron. Particularly when it comes in contact with Magic users.
• Physical God: There were a couple of these in the first thread, most notably Chabal2's rendition of Night on Bald Mountain's Czernabog.
• Power Creep, Power Seep: Generally done to allow otherwise broken characters to fight against less overpowered ones.
  • Calia and Amber. In canon, they are Super Weight 4s who can instantly turn their opponents into solids/gas for a One-Hit Kill if any of their attacks even scratch them. In the Arena they're downgraded to a Super Weight 3, and the One-Hit Kill is absent.
• Read the Freaking Manual: It is strongly advised that new players read the first post before posting, and possibly tell us that they've read it.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: When people have to go, making their characters arbitrarily disappear, or finish their fights/scenes quickly or in a certain way because they know they'll have to soon.
• Retool: The third thread. Arguably, also the change to the Star Wars setting and on for v3.
• Resurrective Immortality: Certain characters can come with this, allowing them to have an easy revival.
  • The Fairwells are an interesting example- thanks to their condition, they retcon actions and events involving them to have never existed, including their deaths.
• Running Gag: There have been several.
• Samus Is a Girl: You need two hands to count the number of times a female character was introduced as gender-ambiguous. Might as well consider it part of the drinking game.
  • Bolded's Good Hunter, Ashen One, and Tarnished are all women who were too covered up by thick clothing and armor, and too mute, for anyone to tell.
  • Being a Defense, you'd think "Fire Emblem!Defense" would be male like all the others, until the Powered Armor comes off to reveal it's an Anna.
  • Each and every one of DevilPsyco's Cyber Angels were called "it" until it turned out they used to be the females of an organic species before becoming machines to survive a deadly plague that wiped out the males.
  • Major Arachnos villain Polyphemus gets bonus points for being a plot antagonist frequently referred to with he/him pronouns by in-universe characters and they/them pronouns in narration, only to turn out to be neither male nor nonbinary, just a Chuuni making her voice sound ominously vague to be cool.
• Scenery Porn: Done by SymeSynth in the form of a spaceship tour led by his OC.
• Schrödinger's Gun: It's never been explicitly stated, but the more freeform maps (e.g., Peaceful Gulch) are... well, freeform. Strangely, though, nobody's really taken advantage of it so far.
  • It is however, how several characters have entered the game.
• Senseless Sacrifice: v4; Pohatu's Suicide Attack actually harmed Alex Mercer, but did nothing to stop him.
• Springtime for Hitler: Micool intended for Kyubey to be a Joke Character, but somehow managed to get a girl to sign a Contract with him.
• Start My Own: V2 was started because v1 didn't have any rules about not allowing godlike entities. V3 was started because v2 didn't have any rules about not allowing armies. Finally, v4 was started because v3 had too many rules.
  • Version 4 ended when Knowlessman decided to stop looking over the game in favor of letting others take the helm, leading to two spinoffs, a continuation in the Forum Games section created by Edward's Senpai, and a true, more plot-centric spinoff in the Role Playing section created by Syme Synth.
• Strong as They Need to Be: Another way to balance characters of differing Super Weight against each other.
• Suicide Attack: Frequently used, as Lampshaded here by Fate.
• Tank Goodness: Since v4 allows vehicles once more, several tropers use tanks as their avatars. Gecko from Einhänder was a Spider Tank.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Done against Weber in SymeSynth's arena upon the defeat of his two darklings. Immolation, physical beating, hit with a bomb, and hacked to pieces. [1]
• Trademark Favorite Food: Taken to its logical conclusion when Adachi manages to weaponize cabbage.
• Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny: This is kinda the point.
• Villain Decay: Poor King Sombra. In his first appearances, he was a feared, formidable threat who bent Majora's Wrath to his will and promptly ended up with a whole army from Pseudo Porky under his command. However, a combination of Status Quo Is God preventing him from scoring any meaningful victories and the original Porky repeatedly screwing with him, culminating in the disbandment of most of his army, gradually neutered most of the threat he may have had early on. Sombra himself acknowledges this in-universe, and it's a deciding factor for his decision to go out with a bang.
• Weakened by the Light: The Reaper Jets. At day, they're easily defeated by a little girl with Stand powers. At night, they are Hero Killer-level assassins with Invisibility Cloak, high reflexes, and speed. It was a good thing that Avanth and Isana could produce bright light, and Raptor had flares. AU!Reaper wasn't so lucky.
• The Wild West: Peaceful Gulch, the fourth setting of v3.
• Willfully Weak: Can be used to make a very powerful character viable for the Arena. Arachnos' rendition of Konngara has the obscene ability to burn absolutely anything, but because of her sense of honor she has only used it to its full extent once - against someone who was willing to have her kill him. Similar deal for the same roleplayer's EX-Cirno.
  • While Lumina Augoeides is capable of casually creating stars or causing supernovae, she limits herself to far weaker but much more precise attacks as she consciously tries to avoid collateral damage.