I have some questions regarding standard (non-gestalt) BDTP with multiple opponents. Let's suppose we have three characters: A, B, and C. (I thought long and hard about those names.)

Question #1:
A decides to attack B, B decides to attack C, and C decides to attack A. All of these actions are declared perpendicular. All of them roll dice and A gets SL 5, B gets SL 4, and C gets SL 3. How is harm distributed? I'm guessing that it's like so:

A beats B by 1, so B takes level 1 harm.
B beats C by 1, so C takes level 1 harm.
C doesn't beat A, so A takes nothing, but C does not take any additional harm either.

Question #2:
Last round, C was attacking A. This round, A and B both decide to attack C, and C decides to take a defensive action. Can C only defend against A, because that's who C was attacking last round? Or does he defend against both A and B simultaneously (and if so, how does that work)?

Question #3:
Same as question #1, but B decides to attack C with a parallel action. All of them roll dice and A gets SL 5, B gets SL 4, and C gets SL 3. How does this work out?

Thanks in advance for the help.

Did something like this really happen?  I would assume B lost the initial roll (perhaps it involved C), brought the pain, then C said "Hey, I want in on that action."

If it was me, and I know I don't have a whole lot of experience with the game, but I would tell the players that actions (plural) are either parallel or perpendicular.  A single action is not necessarily either.  If someone's trying to be perpendicular with you, you have to do something about it.  In your case, A isn't doing anything about what C is doing to him, etc.  Their relative success levels don't, therefore, have anything to do with one another.  You're comparing rolls when you should be comparing intentions, and in this case, the intentions don't seem to have anything to do with each other (A is worrying about B, but C is worrying about A - that's not a contest, as they're unrelated and neither parallel nor perpendicular).

First, I would ask people, "This is complicated.  Can you simplify it?"  One pair might act out BDTP first, or the players can pick two sides (intentions) to be going up against each other.  If not, I might say that everyone can make a defensive action against their attacker (without bonus dice), and also an attack against their stated target.  Everyone attacks AND defends in the round, then another free-and-clear stage begins.

The book suggests that when starting BDTP with multiple people, everyone picks a target and sticks with the target unless they change intention.  That means B has to defend himself a round first.  Then I would probably have A and B roll together, if their intentions are identical, into one success level, or compare C's roll against both A's and B's roll.  If C rolls higher than both (and he's non-defensive), he chooses how the harm is distributed.  Otherwise the differences can be distributed normally, with multiple Harm possibly piling up on C, which seems reasonable given the situation.

For question 3, if C is still trying to act perpendicular to his attackers, B can't just be parallel... see the book (and above).  It would have to be worked out with B and C, and given A is still trying to be perpendicular (meaning C can't be either), and the players are STILL trying to make things as complicated as possible, I would fall back to separate rolls for B and C (a parallel contest), and A and C (a perpendicular contest).

There are probably lots of ways of doing it.  I don't think Clinton will yell at you for making the best of it.  I think the important thing is to consider a pair of actions to be parallel or perpendicular, not a single action.  Players have to work that out themselves, even if they're parrying swords behind their back.

I'm just going to tell you what I did in a Question #1 situation.

I made all the actions parallel not perpendicular.  A is attacking B, who is attacking C and *not* defending against A.  During the free and clear stage, if B decides not to roll against A and instead roll an attack against C, then that is a conscious decision.  This method of handling BDTP with multiple opponents makes things get really nasty, really quickly.

Just to clarify: this did not come up in an actual game. I was just reviewing the rules and realized, "Hey, what happens if..." Based on the responses, these situations don't come up much, and I'm trying to solve a problem that isn't much there.

So for question #1, the solution is simply that it can't happen: B is not attacking A so B cannot defend himself from A, so A gets a parallel attack against B. That sounds reasonable. Twobirds pointed out quite rightly that it's not one action that is parallel or perpendicular: it's a pair of actions. That explains most of my confusion. That also means that in question #2, C can only defend against one person (namely A).

That means that if you're in BDTP and two people team up against you, you're going to get hammered unless one of them is Unskilled in the ability he's attacking you with. That sounds both nasty and totally in keeping with TSOY.

Secret of Multiple Opponents

This Secret allows you to defend against multiple opponents at your normal skill rating.  For each opponent past the first you get 1 penalty die.

**Don't try to find this.  I just made it up but it seemed appropriate.**