Play-to-lose (P2L) is essentially the same thing (from my experience) but involves the player willingly taking hits, which can help draw out drama and ensure everyone has fun (essentially the opposite of powergaming).
P2L is an unfortunate name because it doesn't reflect what it means in practice
It is indeed the opposite of powergaming but neither are to be treated in a traditional sense in a text-based roleplay setting
If you look at the wikipedia page, powergaming is defined as the following:
Wikipedia said:
Powergaming (or
power gaming or
optimization) is a style of interacting with
games or game-like systems, particularly
video games,
boardgames, and
role-playing games, with the aim of maximizing progress towards a specific goal.
This definition can be (for us, text-based roleplayers) quite confusing, which, surprisingly enough, is indirectly mentioned later in the article:
Still wikipedia said:
In
online text-based role-playing games that emphasize collaborative
role-play over acquiring levels or skills, players can be described powergamers if they presume or declare that their own action against another player character is successful without giving the other player character the freedom to act on their own prerogative.
This is echoed in neb's ruleset:
HL2RP ruleset said:
Powergaming - Forcing your actions onto a another character either unfairly or without allowing a reaction (e.g stealing someone’s ration without allowing them to type something or punching someone using the fists swep.) You can avoid this by always allowing the other player to respond and always making sure you attempt to do your actions, rather than forcing them.
So, in text-based RP's case, P2L (if defined as the opposite of powergaming) merely implies that all your actions must be attempted while granting the other character sufficient space to react
There is the more literal definition of having to submit to an enemy's advantage, but with the exception of zombie characters (who have it emphasized in their ruleset that they must allow an armed opponent to win and vice-versa), extremely rarely have I seen it enforced correctly. This I believe to be a side effect of the general bias towards rebels/citizens and them being given much more leniency when they fight against CPs (of which the former are thought to be "more meaningful" characters and as such are given a chance even in a grim situation)
At the end I'll attach neb's definition of P2L; you have to take into consideration that every RP server could have their own take on combat systems (and even then what you see on paper doesn't have to reflect how it played out in practice) and it could be challenging to provide a universal definition
Ruleset again said:
Playing-to-Lose - Playing to lose is the main method of judging confrontations on the server, it’s designed to make the player with the advantage in the situation be the usual victor. (E.g If you sneak up on someone from behind to attack them, they have to play to lose due to being at a disadvantage). You can make sure you’re playing to lose correctly by responding to someone’s advantage or disadvantage.
