Dueling Systems

[Moochava]

Ah, I'd might as well break in the new forums, so I've got a question for all of you: where are the good dueling systems? I have a bunch of fantasy games on my shelf, from D&D to MERP to Exalted to Castle Falkenstein, and you know what? The only dueling system that really makes me go nuts is my cheap, battered little copy of Swashbuckler!, an overpriced game mechanic pretending to be a complete game.

For those of you not familiar with Swashbuckler!, characters are defined by abilities like Slash, Riposte, and Feint; they declare their maneuvers simultaneously and check a Big Ass Chart to determine who (if anyone) gets a bonus on their attack roll. Then, on the next round, the types of maneuvers you can perform are limited by the maneuver you performed the previous round. It makes for wild, chaotic, freewheeling, hideously fun duels.

It's not perfect, of course. It's completely unrealistic--you start off with very few abilities, while out here in the real world any idiot can pick up a sword and Slash or Jab, and an hour's training will allow you to perform almost any maneuver. Further, the book itself is just badly written--I have yet to figure out what some maneuvers *do*, and there's just a general haziness about everything except standing face to face and duking it out with rapiers.

So, Swashbuckler! has its very minor problems, but all the other duel systems range from barely adequate to horrific. Falkenstein is cool, but your maneuvers are rather limited, and the system is only for one-on-one duels. D&D works best one step up in abstraction, with squad-level tactical combat, and doing anything interesting in D&D usually draws an attack of opportunity or requires feats, so flashy duels aren't very easy to pull off. 7th Sea is *scoff* *chuckle* *choke* just no good.

So here's my request: make dueling systems! In my vast hubris, I order, for my own amusement, that people here come up with dueling systems that don't suck for games. Honest-to-goodness, lots of rules that actually make sense, Gamist galore dueling systems. Someone drag Brian Gleichman back here and put him to work making a gritty, gruesomely realistic medieval dueling system. Someone else find Jared Sorensen, kick him off the Narratavist bandwagon, and tell him to make a cool swashbuckling game that's actually fun to play because the rules are cool, not the themes. Tell Mithras to add a good dueling system to Zenobia, which is the best bronze age fantasy game ever. Go out and make, make, make! And for God's sake, don't tell me about games that you like--I've already read them, probably already played them. Yes, even "S."

Now, if you'll excuse me, it's time for my third attempt to force Swashbuckler! rules around the D20 rules for lightsabre duels in Star Wars.

-----
Kyle Marquis

[Mithras]

Whymme. He's your man. I know for sure he's chalked up at least one working version of a card-based duelling system. I'm sure ....

[NPC Whymme]

Somewhere on the net there is a duelling card game by my hand. That is possibly what Mithras is referring to. But that game is not very suited for role play without significantly modifying it.

In the old forums, I once suggested the mechanic below. If you like it, you could try to make it work with Castle Falkenstein, or another card-based game. Let me know what you think of it.

Whymme

--------------------------------------------------
I thought of this system a while ago. Its intention is to make combat a sort of mental challenge for players (as opposed to characters), in which they have to second guess the opponent's actions, bluff from time to time, and so on.

Each character has a combat score; it should be at least 6, preferrably higher. Any advantages, opportunities, and so on, are dealt with by changing this score.

Combat is resolved using a deck of playing cards. At the beginning of the round, each player draws a number of cards equal to her combat score. This is her hand, which will be used to fuel the next phases. These will appear in roughly the following order:

- Initiative
- Attack vs. defense
- Damage vs. soak
and start from the top again.

If, before the initiative phase, somebody has fewer than three cards in her hand, players can draw cards again. We'll treat that later. First we will take a better look at the three phases.

Initiative. Each opponent draws a card, puts it before her, covered, and then uncovers it as soon as the other opponent has chosen a card too. The character with the highest card attacks, the other defends. If the two cards have equal value, repeat this.

Attack vs. defense. Both players choose and play another card. If the attacker's card is higher than the defender's one, go to the damage phase. If not, the attack is successfully blocked or dodged; go to a new initiative phase.

Soak vs. damage. Both players choose and play yet another card. The attacker's card shows how much damage is done, while defender's card shows how much damage is soaked. If attacker's card is higher than defender's card, he does a number of hit points damage equal to the difference between the cards.

If a player has less than three cards at the start of an initiative phase, both players can draw a number of cards equal to their combat score, and then discard cards until the number of cards in their hand is equal to their combat value. So the player with the higher combat value has the advantage of being able to choose from a larger set of cards.

Optionally, weapons could have a damage value and armor a soak value (both preferrably 1 to 3). During the damage phase, the attacker plays a number of cards equal to the damage value and adds them up to determine the total amount of damage dealt. Defender does the same with the soak value.

[NPC Whymme]

Do you know the 'Highlander' CCG? It's all about sword fighting. Attack cards can strike at one of nine area's (from top left to bottom right), while defense cards block three or four areas at a time. It shouldn't be too difficult to change that to use in an RPG.

There, two duelling systems in less than an hour after you posted your request.

I did get Swashbuckler a few months ago, and the duelling system looked nice. I haven't tried it yet, though.

Whymme

[Tim Kirk]

Lace and Steel used cards for dueling.

It worked something like this IIRC:

You had a hand of cards, and declared either where you were attacking (high, middle, low) or the strength of the attack, your opponant played a defense if it was appropriately strong your attack was avoided, if it wasn't for example I play a Middle attack Card, and you defend with a Parry yet my card is 5 and yours 2, i win and do damage to you. This way the person knew where to defend, or how fiercly too--by reading your body position essentially, but not specific manuevers...it worked fairly well for simulating attack, parry, riposte form of dueling, and made it dramatic.

[14thWarrior]

had an interesting duelling system that used action cards for resolution.

The cards described specific maneuvers the character was capable of performing, and included info like maneuver speed, offensive strength, and defensive strength, damage potential, etc. (Some of this may be off track, it's been a while since I've actually played the game).

These factors determined who got their maneuver in first, and how well each character was likely to succeed, etc.

It generally played quickly and smoothly, and worked quite well.

Such a system would be fairly easy to adapt to virtually any game mechanic, and new maneuvers created to suit the duelling style required.

[Jared A. Sorensen]

Originally posted by Moochava
Someone else find Jared Sorensen, kick him off the Narratavist bandwagon, and tell him to make a cool swashbuckling game that's actually fun to play because the rules are cool, not the themes.

I have something (discussed in the LotR post on my forum at The Forge) but it's not ready for prime-time. Needs a lot of thinkin' put into it yet.

[NPC stuart]

"out here in the real world any idiot can pick up a sword and Slash or Jab, and an hour's training will allow you to perform almost any maneuver. "


hmm... not sure about that, mate. any idiot could pick up a sword and swing or thrust it. true enough. but that's a whole world away from actually swordfighting.


stuart b.

p.s. nice to see an annapolitan on the board. grew up in severna park myself. went to school at st. mary's college of maryland, not far from you. arguably my favorite place, annapolis.