Hi there,

We played Dust Devils yesterday! This represents the first serious foray into a new system for this group after eighteen months of Hero Wars. This group's players are "slow-burners," which is to say, they want a lot of components and layers to a situation, a lot of personal investment at the player-level, and a lot of NPC-PC connections, before they really kick into Premise-busting decision-making.

We decided on Dust Devils because I have an itch about this game; I think that Matt has put his finger on a powerful, riveting element of modern story creation, embodied in the concept of "the western," that has always veered off true in role-playing games, from Boot Hill to Deadlands. Westerns are not about setting; they are about alienation, Chinese-finger-puzzle moral choices, and the role of violence in resolving, or failing to resolve, these problems. The players got excited immediately when we talked about it and made up great characters in less than five minutes. (They'd also watched more westerns than me and so I had to scoot off to the video store to watch The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and Destry Rides Again. Moral of both movies? "Pick up the gun.")

I took some time to prepare, as well, because the Premise of the game needs more material than "the bandits stole your cattle and now they're gonna kill you." I'd asked the players what state or proto-state, they wanted the story to take place in, and they decided on pre-state Nevada; also, they wanted to stay away from the Civil War, which has a way of taking over stories. Well, that sent me to the internet and to reference texts, because I'd been under the impression that before the railroad, there weren't nothin' in those parts except for red dust and inhospitable Paiutes, and I was pretty much correct. To my disappointment, Las Vegas was a short-lived Mormon fort that stayed abandoned until far after our period of interest, and then I happened upon the importance and notoriety of Donner Pass in the late 1840s. Hmmm, said I. So our game is set in Reno, in early 1850.

True to form, the players made up characters that did not conform to the "basic" protagonist of the Premise (this group always does that to me), lending themselves more to complex intrigue and smoldering passions than to shoot-outs. So our first run was more about letting them all situate themselves relative to the NPCs and physical setting, rather than pointing them towards a given and pre-set conflict. Just as we did with most of our Hero Wars play, the players themselves tended to generate just how the conflict was arranged, through interaction with NPCs and taking sides on their own hook, rather than by my prompts.

The good news is that it worked wonderfully. We now have a powder-keg situation on our hands, after one little session, full of lurking passions and alliances criss-crossing among the player-characters and NPCs, and only two of the PCs have even met, briefly. What happens when the third PC arrives in town with a satchel full of silver ore is not going to be pleasant.

Now for my comments and concerns about play. Most of these are directed toward Matt but anyone else is welcome to chime in too.

The system is rather Pool-like in letting different people narrate outcomes at any given point. This group hasn't seen this before and they liked it immediately. We found that it also prompts more interesting conflicts, as using the system for a traditional perception check is boring; there's nothing to narrate once you've spotted the whatever. Therefore such events tend to be givens ("You spot it"), reserving the draws for conflicts of interest rather than for tasks. I suggest that some examples would help to focus readers' attention on this crucial element of games with this kind of design (Hero Wars, The Pool, e.g.).

I decided to employ a rules suggestion I'd made to Matt, which is to quantify the Devil to one to three cards, player's choice. This choice is repeated at the beginning of every session, such that the player can decide how hard the character is being "ridden" by his or her Devil based on the events of the past session. As a related issue, I also encouraged the players to consider what flashbacks might reveal about their character when the Devil comes into play, and I did not require these flashbacks' content to be pre-set . (Notice that this variant allows the Devil to be a fine blend of the Kicker and the Humanity mechanic from Sorcerer.)

Actual play revealed a crucial aspect of the Dust Devils system which is probably not evident just through reading: the players are not playing against the dealer (GM). No bluffing is involved; it is a fine example of cooperative Fortune-in-the-Middle. It worked swimmingly during play and everyone got interested in the card mechanic only insofar as it impacted our creative efforts. I highly, highly approve. Don't let the "poker" fool you; there is very little, if any, competitive element to the mechanics.

The players loved the poker system and it moves very fast in play, much more so than most dice systems, even for the one player who didn't know the poker hand ranks. I'm still not sure about how it will work in a multiple-character situation and when I have to deal with lots of NPCs and conflicting or order-dependent PC actions. More questions will arise then, I'm sure.

Here are three questions that arose about the actual ebb and flow of cards in the game.

1) Given that hand size is not uniform across the group, some non-Poker combinations potentially appear. For instance, does three pair beat three of a kind, or is it only superior to two pair? I'm sure that a few similar issues will arise - say, if someone has a four-card hand and has a Straight with higher cards and better suit than another person's hand with a five-card Straight, what then?

2) I don't see any reason why a player has to retain one of the original cards when discarding and re-drawing (i.e., using a Knack). Is this poker?

3) How about folding? We kind of liked this idea, although no one used it during play. The idea would be that a player might simply "fold" during a conflict, automatically losing but also avoiding damage effects. This might take a little playtesting, as it might, without some tweaking, lead to an easy out - but it does seem kind of good, too. Maybe ... maybe folding causes one's Devil to increase (if you're using the quantified Devil-variant idea)? Or potentially, folding might be disallowed when Stakes are involved?

We decided that the player and GM decks are both re-shuffled after every full conflict scene, but never during that scene. This seems to me to be both mechanically and dramatically necessary.

A minor question arose when I found that, through chip spending, one might hit a maximum number of Knacks equal to Hand + Eye. Does this apply back in PC creation, and how does it relate to the "half a dozen" permitted there?

We encountered no difficulties with the passage of narrative power around the table, but here are some questions that arose from looking over the rules.

1) When taking over the narration by spending a chip, a player may reduce damage to his PC by one. Can he use that privilege to reduce damage to another PC instead? How about to an NPC? And finally, if I own the narration simply by having the high card, can I reduce damage to said PC or whoever by one, without spending a chip? (It would seem logical.)

2) If two players dispute over who gets to narrate, and they're spending chips, I assume that the "defender" (the one with the high card) only has to match the "attacking bid" in order to keep the narration. Correct?

3) Can a player whose character is not involved in the scene spend a chip in order to take over the narration of the outcome? (And before you say "Of course not" I suggest thinking about it. There's no real reason why not.)

We haven't used the damage rules yet, as I'm saving them for more personal and significant conflicts than the ones we've seen in play so far. However, based only on my reading, I strongly suggest taking a page from Over the Edge and cutting all sustained damage in half following a conflict. (I used this in Sorcerer.) It not only follows the conventions of the western but also makes it unnecessary to heal up outrageous amounts of damage through "realistic" means, which functionally leads to lousy stories.

My biggest concern about Dust Devils is about the "end" or resolutions of character issues in general. The rules as written end with a discussion all about whether a character lives or dies, and I find that both flat and irrelevant. I submit that the Premise of the game is essentially unconcerned with character survival - it's more about character decisions, relative to external problems, and what those decisions mean about human nature. (If this sounds pretentious, I recommend watching a few more westerns.) I suggest that a certain "endgame" concept might come into play; i.e., there comes a time when we learn if the character's Devil wins out once and for all. As you can see, both of my modifications to the Devil mechanics lead toward this mode of application, and I think this is probably the one remaining element of Dust Devils design that needs work.

Overall, it's a great game. I anticipate quite a few more sessions and a real blowout of a story from our current play.

Best,
Ron

I can answer the Poker related questions.

Ron Edwards wrote:
1) Given that hand size is not uniform across the group, some non-Poker combinations potentially appear. For instance, does three pair beat three of a kind, or is it only superior to two pair? I'm sure that a few similar issues will arise - say, if someone has a four-card hand and has a Straight with higher cards and better suit than another person's hand with a five-card Straight, what then?

2) I don't see any reason why a player has to retain one of the original cards when discarding and re-drawing (i.e., using a Knack). Is this poker?

Mike Holmes wrote:
On a normal draw in Poker, you may discard three of your five cards. A common house rule allows for you to discard four if you show that you're remaining card is an Ace. Games with other than five cards do not use the draw mechanic. I think that Matt was just trying to keep that retaining element in the game, somehow. Its a strrategy thing forcing the player to consider which card to retain at all times. FWIW, it sounds like it would be a good idea to me.

Hey,

OK, I get the retain-one-card thing - it's poker, so we do it, and I buy it.

However, Mike, you're missing the salient points of Dust Devils mechanics and my questions, which are (1) that some hands will be less than five cards, and (2) that opposed characters or situations will be represented by differing numbers of cards in their hands. To my knowledge, neither of these situations occurs in poker of any kind. Matt, any thoughts on this would be useful.

Best,
Ron

Not sure I'm following Ron.

Mike's point was that there are certain poker hands (flushes, straits, etc) that require 5 Cards. If you have more than five cards you have a better chance of getting a better 5 Card hand, but there is no such thing as a 6 card hand. a Straight 5,6,7,8,9,J would not beat a 7,8,9,J,Q

Further if you have fewer than 4 cards than there are certain Poker hands you just can't make. You can't make a Flush with 4 cards...4 Hearts does not a Flush make.

Matt may want to change that in the game, but thems the poker rules. Granted I've never seen a poker game with fewer than 5 cards (there are certainly gambling poker-esque games with fewer, but they aren't, strictly speaking, poker)

Personally I think it makes perfect sense and puts a natural breakpoint into the game. It takes a minimum of 5 cards to have a "Skillful" or "Professional" level of ability. At 4 cards are less, there are some hands you can't get so you are at a decided disadvantage ("unskilled" as it were). But you can still get 4 of a Kind which is a very high hand, so you can still do fairly well with 4 cards, if you get lucky.

Thats my take anyway.

I suggest that there be a separation between number of cards dealt and number of cards played. It would be reasonable to state that the number of cards played can be no more than 5, regardless of the number of cards dealt. This would retain traditional poker hands for comparrison without the confusion of excess cards (I was the one with the 3 pairs who was trying to figure out how to proceed). The benefit of being dealt more than 5 cards is that there is a greater chance of putting together a winning hand. For those who have less than 5 cards, well, it's less likely (but not impossible) to have a winning hand.

In addition, I think it would be interesting if only the *played* cards were used in determining high card=narration. In situations where a player has more than 5 cards, they may need to choose whether they will include the highest card in the played hand. There will be times when a choice will be between a hand that has a better chance of winning and one that has a better chance of narration.

BTW, Matt, I'm really enjoying the game!

Julie

Valamir wrote:
Mike's point was that there are certain poker hands (flushes, straits, etc) that require 5 Cards. If you have more than five cards you have a better chance of getting a better 5 Card hand, but there is no such thing as a 6 card hand. a Straight 5,6,7,8,9,J would not beat a 7,8,9,J,Q

Matt may want to change that in the game, but thems the poker rules. Granted I've never seen a poker game with fewer than 5 cards (there are certainly gambling poker-esque games with fewer, but they aren't, strictly speaking, poker)

jrs wrote: I suggest that there be a separation between number of cards dealt and number of cards played. It would be reasonable to state that the number of cards played can be no more than 5, regardless of the number of cards dealt. This would retain traditional poker hands for comparrison without the confusion of excess cards (I was the one with the 3 pairs who was trying to figure out how to proceed). The benefit of being dealt more than 5 cards is that there is a greater chance of putting together a winning hand. For those who have less than 5 cards, well, it's less likely (but not impossible) to have a winning hand.

In addition, I think it would be interesting if only the *played* cards were used in determining high card=narration. In situations where a player has more than 5 cards, they may need to choose whether they will include the highest card in the played hand. There will be times when a choice will be between a hand that has a better chance of winning and one that has a better chance of narration.

true, I seem to have forgotten the 10.


I can't recall where I read it, or whether it was an actual authority, but I remember reading somewhere that there are standard poker hands, and any game where you cannot get all of the standard poker hands is not technically speaking a poker variant. Not that it really matters.

Oh, and in "Baseball" a player recieves an extra card when they draw a four (a walk), IIRC. Just an example of a common Poker game in which each player cn have differing size hands.

None of these things voids the central "scoring" mechanic of Poker (which is actually very versatile): take up to five of your cards, or all available if five or less are available, and find the best "hand".

For our next Poker Trivia Question: can anyone remember what the order of suits is? There are no ties in Poker. Someone always has the high hand.

Mike

Valamir wrote:
I can't recall where I read it, or whether it was an actual authority, but I remember reading somewhere that there are standard poker hands, and any game where you cannot get all of the standard poker hands is not technically speaking a poker variant. Not that it really matters.

jrs wrote:

In addition, I think it would be interesting if only the *played* cards were used in determining high card=narration. In situations where a player has more than 5 cards, they may need to choose whether they will include the highest card in the played hand. There will be times when a choice will be between a hand that has a better chance of winning and one that has a better chance of narration.

BTW, Matt, I'm really enjoying the game!

Mike Holmes wrote:
For our next Poker Trivia Question: can anyone remember what the order of suits is? There are no ties in Poker. Someone always has the high hand.
Mike

Matt Snyder wrote:

jrs wrote:
In addition, I think it would be interesting if only the *played* cards were used in determining high card=narration. In situations where a player has more than 5 cards, they may need to choose whether they will include the highest card in the played hand. There will be times when a choice will be between a hand that has a better chance of winning and one that has a better chance of narration.

As for your suggestion, I actually avoided this specifically to make things interesting. This means you can either include that high card in your hand to resolve conflict OR you can keep that high card to win the narration.

Ron, I'm thrilled you and your group played Dust Devils are are looking forward to more. Besides, how cool is it that I'm featured at the same table top that Robin Laws was featuer via Hero Wars, and all run by the guy who wrote Sorceror. Ok, so I'm overstating things a bit ... reality will set in a few minutes from now, but, by God, let me enjoy my delusions of granduer for a moment!

On to the comments ...

Ron Edwards wrote:
The system is rather Pool-like in letting different people narrate outcomes at any given point. This group hasn't seen this before and they liked it immediately. We found that it also prompts more interesting conflicts, as using the system for a traditional perception check is boring; there's nothing to narrate once you've spotted the whatever. <snip> I suggest that some examples would help to focus readers' attention on this crucial element of games with this kind of design (Hero Wars, The Pool, e.g.).

Ron Edwards wrote:
I decided to employ a rules suggestion I'd made to Matt, which is to quantify the Devil to one to three cards, player's choice. This choice is repeated at the beginning of every session, such that the player can decide how hard the character is being "ridden" by his or her Devil based on the events of the past session. As a related issue, I also encouraged the players to consider what flashbacks might reveal about their character when the Devil comes into play, and I did not require these flashbacks' content to be pre-set . (Notice that this variant allows the Devil to be a fine blend of the Kicker and the Humanity mechanic from Sorcerer.)

Ron Edwards wrote:
Actual play revealed a crucial aspect of the Dust Devils system which is probably not evident just through reading: the players are not playing against the dealer (GM). No bluffing is involved; it is a fine example of cooperative Fortune-in-the-Middle. It worked swimmingly during play and everyone got interested in the card mechanic only insofar as it impacted our creative efforts. I highly, highly approve. Don't let the "poker" fool you; there is very little, if any, competitive element to the mechanics.

Ron Edwards wrote:
The players loved the poker system and it moves very fast in play, much more so than most dice systems, even for the one player who didn't know the poker hand ranks. I'm still not sure about how it will work in a multiple-character situation and when I have to deal with lots of NPCs and conflicting or order-dependent PC actions. More questions will arise then, I'm sure.

Ron Edwards wrote:
1) Given that hand size is not uniform across the group, some non-Poker combinations potentially appear. For instance, does three pair beat three of a kind, or is it only superior to two pair? I'm sure that a few similar issues will arise - say, if someone has a four-card hand and has a Straight with higher cards and better suit than another person's hand with a five-card Straight, what then?

Ron Edwards wrote:
2) I don't see any reason why a player has to retain one of the original cards when discarding and re-drawing (i.e., using a Knack). Is this poker?

Ron Edwards wrote:
3) How about folding? We kind of liked this idea, although no one used it during play. The idea would be that a player might simply "fold" during a conflict, automatically losing but also avoiding damage effects. This might take a little playtesting, as it might, without some tweaking, lead to an easy out - but it does seem kind of good, too. Maybe ... maybe folding causes one's Devil to increase (if you're using the quantified Devil-variant idea)? Or potentially, folding might be disallowed when Stakes are involved?

Ron Edwards wrote:
We decided that the player and GM decks are both re-shuffled after every full conflict scene, but never during that scene. This seems to me to be both mechanically and dramatically necessary.

Ron Edwards wrote:
A minor question arose when I found that, through chip spending, one might hit a maximum number of Knacks equal to Hand + Eye. Does this apply back in PC creation, and how does it relate to the "half a dozen" permitted there?

Ron Edwards wrote:
We encountered no difficulties with the passage of narrative power around the table, but here are some questions that arose from looking over the rules.

1) When taking over the narration by spending a chip, a player may reduce damage to his PC by one. Can he use that privilege to reduce damage to another PC instead? How about to an NPC? And finally, if I own the narration simply by having the high card, can I reduce damage to said PC or whoever by one, without spending a chip? (It would seem logical.)

Ron Edwards wrote:
2) If two players dispute over who gets to narrate, and they're spending chips, I assume that the "defender" (the one with the high card) only has to match the "attacking bid" in order to keep the narration. Correct?

Ron Edwards wrote:
3) Can a player whose character is not involved in the scene spend a chip in order to take over the narration of the outcome? (And before you say "Of course not" I suggest thinking about it. There's no real reason why not.)

Ron Edwards wrote:
We haven't used the damage rules yet, as I'm saving them for more personal and significant conflicts than the ones we've seen in play so far. However, based only on my reading, I strongly suggest taking a page from Over the Edge and cutting all sustained damage in half following a conflict. (I used this in Sorcerer.) It not only follows the conventions of the western but also makes it unnecessary to heal up outrageous amounts of damage through "realistic" means, which functionally leads to lousy stories.

Hmm, this reminds me of something similar from 7th Sea, where minor wounds "disappeared" while major wounds (Dramatic wounds, was it called?) stayed w/ the character. I think it's worth considering, and I think your solution would work fine, Ron.

Ron Edwards wrote:
My biggest concern about Dust Devils is about the "end" or resolutions of character issues in general. The rules as written end with a discussion all about whether a character lives or dies, and I find that both flat and irrelevant. I submit that the Premise of the game is essentially unconcerned with character survival - it's more about character decisions, relative to external problems, and what those decisions mean about human nature. (If this sounds pretentious, I recommend watching a few more westerns.) I suggest that a certain "endgame" concept might come into play; i.e., there comes a time when we learn if the character's Devil wins out once and for all. As you can see, both of my modifications to the Devil mechanics lead toward this mode of application, and I think this is probably the one remaining element of Dust Devils design that needs work.

Overall, it's a great game. I anticipate quite a few more sessions and a real blowout of a story from our current play.

I think you've really called a spade a spade here, Ron. Heh. The last section on character death might just be irrelevant (or at least less important) that resolution of a character's Devil. I'd love to here more detail on it, because my oft-traditional brain is wrangling with how to handle this one in the game text.

All in all, thanks very much for your comments, Ron. They're very helpful and insightful. Dust Devils will be a better game for it!

Matt

Hi Matt,

Just a couple of points to ponder …

ONE
I am not sure that Narrating another player’s PC to suffer less damage is against the spirit of the game, given its other text. Nothing in text suggests that the wounding of other player-characters is in any way an advantage to a player.

In some ways, it comes down to what you would to encourage players players to do – which is to say, specifying what are rewards good for. If they can help one another freely with spent chips, with no price to pay in damage of their own, they will do so; if you make it hurt, it may be less common.

Another, related issue, is how you perceive player-characters to be interacting. For instance, in our game, at least two of them are at distinct cross-purposes at the moment (the players know it, but the characters don’t yet). To take it to Unforgiven, would Little Bill be a player-character? Do you see play as a matter of potentially irreconcilable conflicts among player-characters?

Now, the funny part is that if the goal is to address the Premise you’ve stated, then even such a PC vs. PC story can be created with the players enjoying themselves thoroughly, and not operating at cross-purposes. That is, even if Little Bill and William Munny are both PCs, that doesn’t mean that the players have to be competing – and given every aspect of Dust Devils as written, Little Bill’s player might well spend chips in Munny’s favor during that last showdown.

So I’m saying something kind of complex – that if you penalize “helping” one another, you make it less common, and promote a player vs. player thing; but if you don’t, you make it more common, and promote a player-with-player thing that still permits PC vs. PC conflict.

TWO
I think that Hero Wars or Pool style “goals” is the key issue for the outcomes of hands. So if I’m shooting at four guys shooting at me, my goal is to win the friggin’ gunfight, not just to take them down one by one, round by round, draw by draw. I’d play it as my one hand vs. one hand representing all of them (a biggish one, naturally).

Now, if I get a lousy hand that still wins (say a high pair), I win the fight – but I can only do a shitty little bit of damage, distributed across the combatants in some way. Now whoever does the narrating will have to take all that into account, including distributing the damage.

This is a totally, totally different way to play from the traditional mode. I like it a lot, and I suggest trying it out in play before making rules tweaks.

Best,
Ron

Gordon C. Landis wrote:

Mike Holmes wrote:
For our next Poker Trivia Question: can anyone remember what the order of suits is? There are no ties in Poker. Someone always has the high hand.
Mike

My understanding is that this is *not* true. I remember looking it up way-back-when, and according to the most authoritative source I could find at the time . . . no suit is higher than any other. Identical (non-flush) straights will split the pot. If 2 players both have 2 pair, Aces and Eights, with a Queen kicker, they split the pot. The "tie breaker" in poker is always the high card - if one of our Aces n' Eights players had a King kicker to other guys' Queen, he'd win. If you can't break it that way (very rare), it really is a tie. Even with flushes, you look at the value of the cards, not the suit. If (in some odd wild card and/or multi-deck game) you have flushes with the same value . . . again, that's a rare, "real" tie.

Gordon
(Who doesn't put it past Mr. Holmes to have posed this as a "trick question", to see if anyone really thought suits had ranks . . . ;-)

Oh yeah,

The way we played, which I thought was by the rules (evidently not), was that the Dealer has one deck for any and all NPCs in a conflict, and the players share one deck. Again, no shuffling of any kind during the conflict, but shuffle thoroughly after each one.

(Unsurprisingly, casual shuffling as a "thing to do with one's hands" was common for both decks, just like rolling or arranging one's dice can be.)

I kind of liked that effect, and I'm thinking in terms of probabilities. I like the idea that character effectiveness is "spread" across the PCs via the removal-factor of everyone drawing at once. I like the idea that this effect does NOT, NOT apply between players and GMs because they are using different decks. This ties into my observation that GM and player(s) are not "playing poker against one another."

As for ties? No problem. If the goals are compatible (I shoot you, you shoot me), they both succeed. If they aren't, they both fail. In fact, I rather like the idea.

True ties will be very rare anyway, as Matt's rules do include the ranks of Suits, thus ties of hand type would also have to include full matches of Suit type. Not real likely.

Best,
Ron

Mike,

In Dust Devils, Matt stipulates the suit ranking from low to high as clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades. I have no idea if this is standard for poker (although I have this notion that the ace of spades is considered to be the high card). I do know that this same ranking is used in bridge.

Julie

jrs wrote: Mike,

In Dust Devils, Matt stipulates the suit ranking from low to high as clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades. I have no idea if this is standard for poker (although I have this notion that the ace of spades is considered to be the high card). I do know that this same ranking is used in bridge.

Mike,

Yeah, my "wild cards/multi deck" comment re: flushes was wacky - of course you can have "identical" flushes. For what it's worth, the faq for rec.gambling.poker (I found it at http://www.conjelco.com/faq/poker.html) says "Suits are not used to break ties, nor are cards beyond the fifth; only the best five cards in each hand are used in the comparison. In the case of a tie, the pot is split equally among the winning hands."

But the S-H-D-C ranking is (as far as I know) the "default" ranking of suits in many games.

Gordon

Thanks Gordon, I shoulda thought to check Usenet.

Anyhow, I like Ron's suggestion for ties. I envision those two flushes being laid down simultaneously, and both players realizing that their characters had just shot each other dead in one shot. Nifty.

FWIW, I play a lot of Sheepshead (State game of Wisconsin) in which the order of the suits is C-S-H-D (for queens and jacks only, which are high trump). I highly recommend the game.

Mike

Great post everyone...

Just a few notes here. I did a lot of playtesting with the card system myself, and I did it in a fairly different way. I suppose it's my habit to skew most games in a 'cinematic' fashion, but I have been allowing larger than 5 or 7 card hands (sometimes my character ends up with 10 with a Devil bonus, and a 'big weapon bonus' (think Shotgun or Sharps Rifle)).

I do give each NPC a hand, based on a plot importance (equal to hero, important, and pistol-fodder) and allow the hero to spread his hand as need be (i.e. if he ends up w/ 4 pairs, he gets to play them all as needed, against indiviual NPC's.). In one of my PM's to Matt I think I might have asked about adding rankings for 'non-standard poker hands' as well. I've mainly played out a series of combats and steel-eyed showdowns of will...

I also give bonus cards for various advantages - Big Gun or Signature Weapon, suprise, etc... This is a more standard way of handling things, but it also works well. Just goes to show the flexibility of the rules, I think!

Sean
(the only Forge member who hasn't read Hero Wars?)