Outfit Wars - The Collector's Game

Outfit Wars is a game-within-game that Byakushin dreamt up one night.

Introduction

The basic idea of Outfit Wars is that since our world is filled with ways to dress up in more or less challenging collections of equipment, i.e. outfits, we can use those as a basis of soft player-versus-player battles and have some entertainment in the process. Different outfits defeat different other outfits, for example dressing up as a Pinkie will defeat an opponent dressed up as old Farmer Hinnak (or vice versa).

Are you thinking of Pokemon yet? I'm trying very hard not to think of Pokemon.

Outfits come in three different categories of difficulty: basic ones, like the Poor Newbie getup (just wearing the shirt you start with), challenging ones, like the Pinkie and Farmer Hinnak (as they involve rare drops), and rare outfits, like Santa Claus, which involve equipment that is either not acquirable, is only possible to get through periodical quests or by buying it for outrageous prices (typically from other players). You can haul around as many outfits as fits in your inventory; this limits the "deck" size slightly, while the quality is limited by the time the collector-players have invested in acquiring e.g. clothing of different colours and the rare and very rare drops.

Status

I've noted down a bunch of outfits to start with, but the rules for which defeats which are even more work in progress. I also just invented these ones from memory, so I'm missing a ton of rare items that I haven't seen often.

In my opinion any outfit that the wearer can entertainingly justify to defeat the opponent's should work, but I fear not everyone shares my wild tendencies towards crazy theatrical improvisation. It would be interesting to see if there are others theoretically interested in playing this for fun and general amusement.

The Outfits

Basic Outfits

These outfits are quite simple to acquire.

Gratuitous Nudity

• Items: Nothing.
• Defeats: Fighter ("I don't even need gear!"), Boyish (confusing)

Fighter

• Items: any helmet, any metal armour, any pants, any boots, any gloves; bonus points for better (visible) gear
• Defeats: Mage, Healer (argument: personal choices for what's the best class ;)), lesser-equipped Fighter

Mage

• Items: dyed silk robe, bonus points for wearing magic boosters
• Defeats: Fighter, Healer, lesser-equipped Mage

Healer

• Items: undyed (/bleached) silk robe
• Defeats: Fighter, Mage, Death

Miner

• Items: miner's gloves, miner's helmet, leather boots, leather shirt, any pants (bonus points for black pants like the NPC miners)
• Defeats: Gratuituous Nudity ("Stop that, I'm a miner!", pronounced like mi-nor).

Karate Kid

• Items: silk headband, red shirt, white (undyed/bleached) pants - like that Karate Kid action figure I had
• Defeats: Fighter (with the crane technique), Highlander (more sophistication), Girlish (gets them in the end of the movie)

Poor Newbie

• Items: undyed (/bleached) shirt, nothing else (just the gear you start with)
• Defeats: Gratuitous Nudity ("Hey, I figured out how to wear this shirt. Cool!"), Girlish, Boyish, Unisex (the average player swoons at the sight of a newbie, and turns into a helper machine), Emperor's New Clothes

Desert Nomad

• Items: desert hat, desert shirt, any skirt
• Defeats: Highlander ("the other cultural outfit")

Girlish

The "regular joe" outfit has been split to three options: Girlish, Boyish and Unisex. Sorry to girls who think pink is oppressive or does not fit them, and to guys who hate light blue. :)

• Items: pink top and bottom (if top is not a robe), bonus for pink shoes, gloves and headgear
• Defeats: Boyish, Unisex, less-bonused Girlish, Elfen Lied (by innocent normality)
• Note: Extends to the Pinkie outfit.

Boyish

• Items: light blue top and bottom (unless top is a robe... yeah), bonus for light blue shoes, gloves and headgear
• Defeats: Girlish, Unisex, less-bonused Boyish, Elfen Lied (by innocent normality)

Unisex

• Items: yellow top and bottom (unless top is a robe), bonus for yellow shoes, gloves and headgear
• Defeats: Girlish, Boyish, less-bonused Unisex, Elfen Lied (by innocent normality)

Highlander

• Items: long skirt, boots, nothing else; bonus for long, flowing hair
• Defeats: Desert Nomad, Unisex (guys wearing skirts get more attention than neutrals), Tricolor (see Tricolor), a lesser Highlander

Tricolor

• Items: something dyed dark blue, something white (undyed/bleached), something red
• Defeats: Highlander, Great Scot (it would have to defeat "the Briton" if there was one, and vice versa), Death, Pirate
• Cultural reference: The "tricolor" flag represents the three-part slogan of the French revolution: freedom, equality and fraternity ("brotherhood"). The colours have since been adopted into multiple European flags.

Challenging

Challenging outfits contain rare drops, rewards from complex quests and/or painful dyes.

Veteran Fighter

• Items: maxxed gear - currently snakeskin chaps, either one of the best helmets (e.g. warlord helmet), fur boots, leather gloves and warlord plate - extra authenticity for Setzer and max shield even though they won't show
• Defeats: Fighter, Fallen

Fallen

• Items: snakeskin chaps, warlord helmet, warlord plate (like vet. fighter, but no gloves or boots) - bonus points for an eyepatch
• Defeats: Fighter, Veteran Fighter, Death (well, it's undead, so it didn't work on the first go)

Fluffy Hunter

• Items: fluffy hat, fur boots, fur gloves, turtleneck sweater
• Defeats: Farmer Hinnak (the contention of the hunters vs. gatherers)

Pinkie

This outfit has been made famous by e.g. Giradia and Estellise.

• Items: pinkie hat, pink top and bottom, fur boots, fur gloves
• Defeats: Farmer Hinnak (through driving him nuts), Girlish (uber-girlish)

Graduate

• Items: graduation cap, black silk robe
• Defeats: Asylum Escapee (retained sanity through school or fakes it well anyway). Anime Chick (geeky chicks like them with brains)

Asylum Escapee

• Items: axe hat, undyed shirt and pants or other undyed cotton wear
• Defeats: Graduate (knows all the Stuff They Don't Teach At School), Anime Chick (too weird even for them), Emperor's New Clothes (too crazy to care)

Anime Chick

• Items: cat ears, dyed miniskirt, dyed (different colour) top or shirt
• Defeats: Graduate (brains can't resist geeky girls), Asylum Escapee (through infinite amounts of hyperpositive attitude)

Farmer Hinnak

• Items: farmer's hat, scythe, leather boots, some earthy-coloured shirt and pants
• Defeats: Pinkie (through hirelings), Fluffy Hunter (hunter vs. gatherer)

Great Scot

• Items: turtleneck sweater, green/black/matching-colour long skirt, some black or non-cotton boots
• Defeats: Highlander, Tricolor

Gypsy Fortune-Teller

• Items: bandana, red shirt, long black/matching-colour skirt
• Defeats: Death (by precognition), Black Cat (by knowing the complex rituals)

Pirate

• Items: pirate hat or bandana, black or red shirt and pants or skirt, bonus for eyepatch
• Defeats: Tricolor (representing organized governments of people), lesser (extra points for both hat and patch) Pirate

Noh Player

This outfit has been made famous by e.g. WildX.

• Items: noh mask, green robe
• Defeats: Anime Chick (Japan fans dig old Japanese culture)

Black Cat

This outfit has been made famous by Katze. It may require adjustment to fit the Katze style perfectly.

• Items: cat ears, black robe or black top and bottom, bonus for black shoes and/or gloves
• Defeats: Gypsy Fortune-Teller (susceptible to superstition)

Demon=

• Items: Demon mask, red or black robe, bonus intimidation points for scythe
• Defeats: Asylum Escapee (if it's the inner demon type), Gypsy Fortune-Teller

Rare

Rare outfits contain no longer obtainable items; I am for the moment making an exception for items sold by the Exotic Trader who charges prices so high you might be able to get the gear from another player for that price too. (This is mostly because I haven't checked if the Trader has a fixed inventory of items or not yet; if it turns out he can pump out a thousand Caps etc and does not vary his inventory, some outfits may be downgraded to Challenging.)

Death

This outfit has been made famous by e.g. Mistakes.

• Items: black silk robe, skull mask, scythe, bonus for spiked black or no hair
• Defeats: most of the regular folks, e.g. Fighter, Mage, Veteran Fighter, Fluffy Hunter, Pinkie, Graduate, Farmer Hinnak, Girlish, Boyish, Unisex

Emperor's New Clothes

In a story about the Emperor's new clothes, a dishonest tailor claimed to dress the emperor in such splendid magical clothing that it could even reveal dishonest/generally unworthy people - because those could not see the outfit. The court and emperor of course all claimed to see them to not lose face, but in the end a child pointed out the emperor is naked and they had to believe the innocent.

• Items: a crown, nothing less
• Defeats: Graduate (common sense and reason)

Woodland Elf

The Elf theme can easily come in variants: Elf Mage (with robe), Dark Elf (black outfit). I did not separate them yet to not make the few rare outfits completely overrun by elf stuff.

• Items: elf hat, dark green top and bottom, dark green shoes, extra confience from forest bow even though it's not visible
• Defeats: Fighter, Veteran Fighter, Highlander, Great Scot, Karate Kid

Elfen Lied

This outfit is based on a brutally violent and simultaneously very innocent anime character who happens to wear a hat much like the elf hat in many of the episodes.

• Items: elf hat, red or yellow miniskirt, pink or red shirt or turtleneck sweater
• Defeats: Fighter, Veteran Fighter (anyone who thinks they can fight a girl with no visible weapons), Graduate (baffles even scientists)

Santa Claus

• Items: santa beard hat, red shirt and dress or red robe
• Defeats: ?

Playboy Bunny

• Items: bunny ears, matching colour short top and miniskirt, or jeans chaps seen from behind (don't you think they look like tights?)
• Defeats: ?

Gentleman

(This could also be the Briton I was looking for before, but the top hat should really be a bowler hat (lower, with a round top) for maximum stereotyping.)

• Items: top hat, black shirt, black pants, black shoes
• Defeats: Graduate