Charlatan Fencing Masters Dueling for Business

[Bill Masek]

Jasper,

I like your dueling system so far.  It looks fast paced, exciting and fun.  However, I have yet to see anything regarding the broader game play your game is trying to create.  Is each session going to be a duel?  It could start with the players defining why the duel is occurring then acting it out, with the results determining everything from the players skills to the success of their school.

Or do you want to build more game play into your system?  Are PCs going to interact with other characters?  What type of interactions will they have?  If you don't have a GM, who is going to control the NPCs?

I think you have a great idea and I'd be interested in hearing about the bigger picture.

Best,
Bill

[Jasper]

Bill,

There's definitely going to be a lot more to this game than just duels. I've just focused on that because it's fairly central.

I'm imagining that a lot of play will revolve around the players managing their respective fight schools. This will probably involve spending funds in various ways, like on equipment or renting extra space, and making choices about training students. The charlatans will also make forrays into the town to advertise/brag, stage false fights that show off their daring, spread gossip, and so on. And they should probably be able to journey off to other cities and learn from other masters -- but that'll be handled briefly in the abstract.

This is also not clear in my mind yet, but I've thought about including actual write-ups of students as well, or at least prize students, who might fight each other and be sent on missions by the masters.


Since there's no GM, I'll probably need a fairly rigid ruleset for all this. I was thinking that players would take turns handling their fight schools, with the other player overseeing the process and spending his own resource to introduce trouble (in a meta sort of way).


So it's kind of vague right now -- the other reason I haven't talked about it much yet. But it probably is helpful to have more of a background in mind while thinking about duels.

[Bill Masek]

Jasper,

I think it might be a good idea to solidify the basic game play of your game before you try to flesh out details such as combat.  I have noticed that many games which focus on well defined details before the basics are established often end up with those details feeling out of place.


So let me sum up what I understand about your game thus far.

1.  Your game is about resource accumulation

2.  The players' objective is to win.

3.  Your game is GM-less

4.  The fun of your game has more to do with silliness and flavor then victory conditions

5.  You want the process by which players achieve said victory conditions to create said flavor and silliness


Since you have a GM-less game, it seems appropriate that there be a finite set of options for characters to do.

If you choose to go the finite option route (and I don't see anyway around it, but I could be wrong) then there are three other options you have:

1.  Each option occurs as part of a turn.  Players always have the option to do all of them a finite and equal number of times each.

2.  Each  option has a resource cost.  When a player partakes in an action, this costs her a certain amount of that resource, the amount either finite or based on the potential payoff.

3.  Combine 1 and 2 so that the game has phases in which players can do certain things, some of them which they must do (such as, say, untapping in Magic) and some which they can pay resources to do or have so many resources each phase to use.


If you want to incorporate actual rp into this game, you could have some of the actions lead to, well, role playing encounters.  Since the characters are rogues I see no reason why the community should be particularly friendly.  Thus it would make perfect sense for your opponent to player the NPCs in most RP situations.

This is just a bit of advice to help your structure your thoughts.  Once you have this type of stuff down it becomes a lot easier to pull a game out of the vague premise stage and turn it into quality stuff.  If you decide to use one of these options I would recommend that you outline all possible options you would want players to have and post it on the board or online.

Hope this helps.

Best,
       Bill

[Hereward The Wake]

This an interesting thread and close to my own project of devising what I feel to be a good simulation of what a combat is, in to a gameable format. It isn't easy thats for sure. And knowing about the skills involved only makes it harder in some ways.

The thing that one has to consider when dealing with different schools, is they tended to advocate different methods or felt that different things were important in combat. Some schools felt that techniques were important others that the Principles need to emphasised, others favoured certain weapons.
In that sense perhaps the idea should be to have a loser combat system that makes more allowance for the players devisning there own sub system to represent their 'style'. Also by devising their own style, that creates the main reason for the conflict, as the other guy trys to proves that your system is useless, and tries to prove it by picking a fight with you but he keeps avoiding the fight, but still has lots of students because hes good looking and also has the local Prince as a student.

Also the nature of the what the players do, should be, as has been mentioned, allowed to get out of fights.
If one looks at the opposition of George Silver to the Italian rapier masters in london. Despite Silvers offer to fight various master, evening dragging on e out of a carrage on the street, they all avoided it.

Jonathan

[Jasper]

Bill, that's good advice. I might modify your framing of the game a little though.

4. The fun of your game has more to do with silliness and flavor then victory conditions

5. You want the process by which players achieve said victory conditions to create said flavor and silliness

Yeah, more or less. I don't see it being a bare-knuckled contest, and more about the journey as the destination. But the victory conditions need to be there to guide what you do.  And I wouldn't say silly per se. It should be humorous, even sometimes a bit ridiculous, but mostly with a serious, dead-pan delivery, if you know what I mean.

And there are probably two other points of note. The game should be at least mildly instructional for people unfamiliar with historical combat -- maybe just conveying a few important principles and some background history. And for those who are familiar with historical combat, the game should be an insteresting kind of exercise. Not to inform the practice of martial arts or anything (which would be supremely stupid), but I'd like there to be enough parallels for someone to smile a little at the familiarity of it.


As for finite actions, yeah, definitely. I'd go more with option #2. The major resources of the game will probably be money, time, reputation, and students. And as you say, time could be less an actual numeric resource than a restriction on what can be done. Hm. This is just a start but here might be the major actions that can be done in a day:

[*]Acquire material improvements for the school
[*]Actually teach your students
[*]Train yourself, by studying manuals or taking a trip to visit another (real) master
[*]Spy on your opponent
[*]Sabotage your opponent's school
[*]Engratiate yourself to local men of prominence
[*]Spread lies about your opponent or publicly mock him
[*]Start legal proceedings (to counter defamation or sabotage), or simply challenge your opponent directly
[*]Fight in a judicial duel or contest
[/list:u]

Those are the main things, I think. Many of them could also involve having your students go out and do equivalent actions (with risk to them but a smaller time requirement for you). Is this what you were thinking of, Bill?


Jonathan,

I really like the idea of individuallized fighting styles for each school. Very smart. Last night I began working on pinning down the combat system a little more, though I was making it more structured... I'll have to see if that could still work with this idea. I'll post what I've come up with soon. And yes, escaping from combat will definitely be viable, though of course not without consequences.

[Bill Masek]

Jasper,

Yes, that is exactly what I am talking about.  Excellent start.

Tell me if this fits with your idea.  At the beginning of every session, both players assign their opponent a conflict which will be resolved before the session is over.  Resolving these conflicts will be one of the major parts of each game.  If a player fails to resolve the conflict in their favor before the end of the session a negative effect will result.  If they succeed before the end of the session then a positive effect will occur.  This, or something like it, will help keep your game fresh and prevent it from getting redundant while increasing opportunity to roleplay.

Consider the following player options:

Recruit Students
Steal Students from Rival
Build a Reputation
Extort Students (con them into giving your even MORE money, but at a cost to their stats such as Loyalty)

I would allow students to perform any action (or at least most of them) that the PC can.  However, some would have a stat cost to that student.  (Again, some type of Loyalty stat might work well.)  Students would also be less effective then the teacher, so situations where the school could either be helped or harmed might not need any cost.

Also, I would break reputation into two categories.  One for how respected your sword skills are and one for how believable your word is.  After all, just because you can beat someone in a fight does not mean that you'll tell the truth.

Again, just a few ideas.  Take them for what their worth.

Best,
Bill

[Jasper]

Note: I'm going to split development into two threads for the time being. This thread can continue to be about the game's overarching mechanics and any details except combat. I agree with Bill that this needs attention before too much can/should be nailed down with the duels. At the same time though, I have a tentative and rough system I've fleshed out a little more, which I'd like to present. That'll go into a new thread, where all combat matters can be discussed. Thanks.

Getting back to matters at hand...

Bill, I like those suggestions. Missions would really give an immediate focus to what's going on. Other possibilities might include acquiring a rare manual, humiliating your rival when his parents come to town (maybe a bit silly), or convincing a special student to join you. Lots of variations possible there.

I'm not sure about the reputation though. After all, both charlatans are claiming to be master swordsmen when they're really not -- their whole aim is to eliminate any apparent discrepancy between their words and actions. Apparent being the key word of course. I am, however, thinking of introducing a separate 'Ego' stat for how much the charlatans really think of themselves. Could be used for all kinds of bluster and insults as well as appearing convincing to students.

[Hereward The Wake]

Students would also be less effective then the teacher, so situations where the school could either be helped or harmed might not need any cost.

Bill

This would not have to be true, after all even good teachers have students that surpase them and these guys are bot meant to great teachers.
Having students that could be better than you could be good, as they would perhaps be better in a fight, but is they are better, do they need you as a teacher? That brings in the whole, 'secret techniques' are, which are taught only after a certain amount of time, a way to keep students at your school regardless of their abilities.

Jonathan

[Jasper]

I like that idea, Jonathan. And it brings up the concept of the 'false art' whereby fighters do flashy but less effective moves to impress people, which could be tied in to the individualized/secret techniques as well. The false art could be used for public demonstrations in the city (to attract students and bolster reputation), to intimidate one's rival, and to keep students in their place. A few really good students might be taught some of the false arts, in order to help with the first two applications. But if they're taugth too much, they may become immune to the third use, and disillusioned with the master.

[Hereward The Wake]

This crosses, kind of in to the other thread, but this is where my earlier suggestion of allowing players to design their own style comes in. How one does that will come on the other thread! 8')

Jonathan

[Jasper]

I've been working on the dueling sysem and am very happy with it so far (and this is beyond what's posted in the other thrad). But now it's definitely time to nail down the core parts of the game, apart from dueling.

I've collected all of my current thoughts on the core rules, including many good ideas from this thread, in a single place: http://www.primevalpress.com/games/cfm.html

I'd especially like ideas and comments on the character skills, the handling of students (it's very vague right now) and legal procedings -- what kinds of details could I work into them? Ideas on implementing Jonathans's great idea for personalized styles would also be very much apreciated, since I don't have a clue right now, but that might be better handled in the other thread, depending on whether they really tie into the specifics of dueling or not (they don't have to).

Thanks.

PS. I should be playtesting the dueling rules, and whatever else is operational, this weekend.

[Jasper]

First, I've created a wiki on my site to store the notes and drafts from all this, for those who are interested: http://primevalpress.com/wiki/

I've turned my attention to character creation for the moment. The main issue is combining the kind of free-wheeling enemy-definition discussed above and the hard numbers. My thoughts so far:

To begin with, numerical traits don't represent what a skill actually is, but rather what the two charlatans suspect or hope it to be. All skills begin undefined.

In each round of the char-gen-duel, a d10 is rolled by each player. Whoever loses, with the lower value, states something admirable about his enemy: he defines ons skill as being level 3. The winner defines something contemptible, and sets it to level 1; he also describes that bit of the fight. If the players tie, each says says somehing positive about the other.

This is repeated ~9 times. In subsequent rounds, the same skill can be selected again, but it is then lowered or raised by 1. Each round is considered one phase of an exchange, with three distinct phses per exchange, and therefore 3 exchanges during the whole fight. Combat skills that don't apply to the current phase can't be selected.

After all this, any undefined skills default to 2. Each player gets 5 points to spend on his combat skills, but he can only raise skills that are already 2 or higher. Combat skills are then summed up and the diference from some "typical value" found -- this becomes points that can be spent on non-combat skills and starting resources.


How does that seem? I'm also considering including a smallish list of personality quirks, which could be selected and given to the opponent, instead of modifying a numeric skill. Each of these quirks would give a modifier when rolling on certain kinds of actions (like legal proceedings, or recruiting noble students).


Thoughts? As I said, my main concern is making sure it goes beyond mere numbers and has some flavor as well.