The Duellists

This is intended to be an RPG microgame, an RPG which executes exactly one scene, and then ends.  In this case, the scene is a duel between a few (and I do mean few) combatants engaged I a personal, local, duel. It is conceptualised around unarmoured opponents

Tools:
2 six sided dice
One pack of standard playing cards per duellist

Preparation
Each player needs their own deck of normal playing cards.  From the standard card deck, only the numeric cards from 5 though 10 are required.  All the rest can be discarded. You now have a pile of 24 cards, 6 of each suit.  This pile will be used to create a combat deck.

Setup

Before play begins, each player must create their own combat deck.

Creating your combat deck
From the 24 available cards, you have a certain number to choose.  A card represents an attack, with the suit representing the style or form, and the value representing its potential for lethality.  The number of cards that you can use is based on the type of game you are playing and the story-based competence of the characters you, as players, represent.  That is, each combatant will have a numerical Skill rating which determines how many cards they can have in their hand.

When choosing cards for your hand, they MUST be assembled in numerical order.  You CANNOT have the 8 of Hearts with also having the 7, 6, and 5 of Hearts already.  The suits, and the number of cards in each suit, is most important for Counters (see below), but also represents your characters combat style.

Play

Play proceeds in a number of steps.  First, the initiative is determined, and then cards are played to launch attacks against opponents.

Draw a hand
Each player draws a hand of 5 cards from the top of their combat deck

Determine initiative.
The character with the highest Skill rating has the initiative and plays first.  In case of a draw, each player discards a card, face down, simultaneously.  The player who discarded the highest value card takes the initiative.

Attacking
An attack is made when a player with initiative announces an attack and lays down a card from their hand face up.  This represents an attack.  Defending players may either Counter, Parry, or Evade.  The attacking player immediately draws a card from their combat deck to replenish their hand.

The Evade
When attacked, a player can Evade by rolling higher than the value of the attack card played.  If the player rolls and fails, their character has been Struck Down.  If they survive, they take the initiative.

The Parry
When attacked, a player can Parry by discarding a card from their hand and immediately drawing a new one. Neither the value nor the suit of the card discarded have any significance.  The Parrying character does not, however, take the initiative; it is retained by the attacker.

The Counter
If a defending player has in their hand a card of the same suit, regardless of its value, they may Counter by playing this card face up.  Such a Counter is automatically successful in stopping the attack, even if the card used to counter is of a lower value.  The Countering player then MUST immediately play a follow-up attack card of their own, and becomes the attacker.  A character performing a Counter may NOT draw replenishment cards until the Counter is fully resolved.  If two combatants are both Countering, this applies to both of them.

Note on Counters:
All counters are resolved in one exchange.  If there is more than one character on a side, they may not intervene while Counters are being played.  This is significant when it is considered that character with similar styles will have much the same cards in their hand; such character could easily build up a sequence of many attacks countered which are in turn countered.  This entire sequence must be played before initiative can transfer to any other character, and before replenishment cards are drawn.

Victory and Defeat
The game is won when one opponent has caused all their opposition to be Struck Down or Fled.  Struck Down is a result that arises from a failed Parry attempt.  Fled is a result that arises from the play of cards.

Fled
When a player has no more cards to play, they can no longer make any attacks, and are said to be Fleeing.  This character has given up the fight and merely wishes to escape alive.  A Fleeing character may not Counter or Parry (as they have no cards to play) but may Evade.  However, a Fleeing character who successfully Evades does not take the initiative as they still have no cards to play.  If the attacker no longer has cards with which to attack, or chooses not to continue attacking, the Fleeing character is considered to have successfully Fled.

Struck Down
Any time a character fails to Evade an attack which got through their defences, they have been Struck Down.  Such characters are not necessarily killed, but if they are not killed they are always Maimed.  To Kill or to Maim is entirely at the discretion of the victor.  Either way the fight is over for the victim.

Commentary
This may seem like a pure combat mechanic, but I don’t think that’s exactly right, because there is nothing else.  This is the whole game, intended to be an RPG of exactly one fight, the SIS does not extend any further.  It dos not have multiple scenes, has no plot, and no character development.  None the less the play is intended to allow communication, for players to speak to one another and for characters denounce one another while fighting it out, so it is intended that the characters have some back-story and some bone to pick with one another.

It is conceptualised as a Player Versus Player game, but one that can easily be played as a kind of RPG.  You could link a series of dramatic duels together into a plot arc of some variety, especially playing 2 on 1.  The raw inspiration for this shall remain nameless but let’s just say its related to an existing IP that is not exactly far, far away.  I have not fully worked out the ramifications of 2-v-1 play though, although I hope to playtest the draft soon, which will inform my thinking.

The value range for attacks runs from 5 to 10, and the rolling of 2d6 will produce a value of 7 most frequently.  But the need to roll higher than the attack, so from 6 to 11, makes this a bit harder.  Anyway characters have reasonable odds of Evading high end attacks, and good odds of evading low end attacks, but each should still be dangerous.  Hopefully this will induce in the players the sense of the near miss, on the theme of Churchill’s remark that “There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at without result.”

Any thoughts or remarks appreciated

I've been working on a game for a while that nearly wound up looking a lot like this.  The only major functional difference was that each player had a Focus statistic, represented by a pool of poker chips.  The player with the highest focus had initiative (and the option to pass to the next highest, etc), but playing an attack or maneuver required spending the appropriate nubmer of chips, and the action you played wouldn't take effect until you regain initiative.

This was going to be a card game first, and then for a while I thought it would work better as a computer program, and now it's the combat mechanic in a larger game I'm designing.

For the system as you've described it, I'm not sure how much value is added by the section on Creating Your Combat Deck.  You may have covered this issue with narrative-relevant factors; just looking at the mechanics as written, though, the suits are too symmetrical.  Whether you dedicate yourself exclusively to your main suit or dilute your focus with supplementary suits is an interesting decision; choosing a suit to dedicate yourself to isn't.

My inclination would be to set up an asymmetrical suit hierarchy.  Not sure how you'd work it in to what you've already got, though, so maybe it's not worth bothering about.

Thanks for the remarks Jason.

At the moment this is utterly Colour-less.  The inspirational colour, which appears in my own draft, presents some difficulties which we don't need to get involved with.  But sure, if the skeleton works, then a whole bunch of colour can be slathered on later.

There is no need for each form or style to have the same number or range of cards, for one thing.  All of that can be attached from whatever setting is chosen.  This was not initially conceived as using playing cards, but with much more Colourful CCG-type cards, with images and so forth.  But the implementation I have presented here should allow a play-testable, functional, if somewhat abstract, version of the concept.

The game Ivanhoe does the Asymmetrical suit thing to great effect.  Condotierre does something very similar but with only a single suit where the numbers are asymmetrically distribute and the special cards make all the difference.

I managed to squeeze in a cheeky playtest on the 23rd so the bare bones have had at least had a run through.  Setup and play were both completed while we were waiting for someone else to have a shower.

Obviously with something so simple I was not expecting many hiccups but it was nevertheless good that it was so easy.  My opponent was Kevin, and old friend, and veteran of much PVP play (although not mainly in my games).

I allowed only 10 cards each and then gave him an extra one so as to ask him to start, so he would see me make the first decision.  The game played out as an almost unbroken string of his attacks against me, and all but two of which I parried.  The two were both 6's and fairly safe.  And this all meant that his last card was played against my second last card, I and got to launch the last attack.  Kevin succesfully evaded and thus I was left victor, pervesely, despite having been on the defensive throughout.

This seems to have arisen due to deck composition.  Kevin took two whole suits and a spare 6 as the 11th card; I had one whole suit and some scatterings of the other suits.  The result was that I only once even had a card with which to Counter any of his attacks.  Accepting the risks of the two Evades effectively gave me card dominance even though it was not apparent at the time.  Kevin had no opportunity to make similar decisions because I never got to launch an attack.

So anyway, it was interesting.  We both fell into referring to "I", despite the minimilism and abstraction.  I can't say we were on the edges of our seats but of course there was no character history or identity on the line.  So, I judge this "promising" at the moment.

Always lie to see new take on comabt mechanics ideas, a subject close to my heart.
May be beyond the abstaction you are playing at, at the moment, but ahve you thought about, what the styles/suits represent? Different types of attack? Thrusting cutting, closing and grappling etc?
I'd also go along with the point on mixing suits etc. after all the types of moves taken by different sights and weapons would vary. For example, a spear fighter against a guy with sword and shield. Of course if the fighters were being equipped with smilat weapon types then it would change, but even then different schools fight in defferent ways even when using the same type of weapons.

Thoughts on your initial points, from my own RW experience, All reactions/defences should involve movement, ie evade, just standing their trying to block is the last thing you want to do, unless you want to get hit! 8') But is a default final option.
I like the idea of your evade, but as I've mentioned it is some thing that you have to be very confident to do with out an associated counter attack, of covering your self with your own weapons.
From my point of view, perhaps the mechanics should be switched, you with the mechaincs for evade being used for parry and the parry ones being used with evade, but still keeping the reuslts for initiative?

Look forward to hearing more.

JW

Although the parry is fairly abstract in the SIS, it's role in the physical game is more important.  Parrying is in a sense the default action, and so comprises a lot of movement and so forth.  This is by contrast to the evade, in which it is assumed that your defence has been penetrated, and you are now desperately scrambling to get out of the way.  The decision to parry is very fast, and you can get through a number of attacks and parries in quick succession, which gives it a bit of the feeling of a rapid, if inconclusive, exchange.  This is also a good point to add some sort of terrain rule, because it felt like "being driven back".

It's tricky figuring out what to do with the cards and suits next, not least because any design using something other than a standard playing card deck will need to be physically produced in order for it to be tested.  I'd have to be pretty confident about a set to justify the expense.  On the other hand its much harder rationalising the abstract suits and their symmetry, particularised cards will be more evocative.  At the moment I think of them mostly like attitudes, an aggressive driving attack or a cautious experimental one.  Familiarity with the technique allows one to defend against it; but this is not very elegant.

Thinking about the broader context, I've had a new thought as to how to present and use this.  I think it would work as a kinda game of the movie Highlander, something along this sort of line.  You have a map of the and some tokens on it representing player characters and NPC's.  Each turn on this board represents an era, and players take turns moving their tokens and challenging other characters, whereupon they play out a duel as above.  The existing material provides enough rationale to handle introducing new characters to replace casualties.  Play goes on till the survivors are wittled down and their is only one.

Perhaps that makes it more boardgame-like, on the other hand you could add a hell of a lot of RPG character play and fluff as padding between the duells.  It still doesn't require a bigger character sheet or anything with this conceptualisation, because, quite a lot of play does not.  That is, in many games the character sheet sits unused for 90% of play, which is players waffling about, conducting "research", interviewing people and followng clues and whatnot.  Its almost always done entirely by verbal play so I don't really see the point in bothering to write for it at the moment.  The key will be that this play sets up the circumstances of the fight, changes your Skill rating such that you can have more cards, and determines what kind of cards those can be.  Thats the potatoes, and then you fight the duel itself as the meat.

You still play this with a GM who does narrations, plays the NPC's, moves them about on the board.  The GM has a very limited creative duty, in that they only have one type of scene to think up and describe really, which is how the two combatantas come to eventually meet, although add side plots and romantic excursions to taste.  Players can either team up, or go solo, and of course can potentially meet and kill each other.  That would be entirely at the discretion of players through the action of play; this also gives them something to talk about while the fight, which they can easily enough.

Although the parry is fairly abstract in the SIS, it's role in the physical game is more important.  Parrying is in a sense the default action, and so comprises a lot of movement and so forth.  This is by contrast to the evade, in which it is assumed that your defence has been penetrated, and you are now desperately scrambling to get out of the way.  The decision to parry is very fast, and you can get through a number of attacks and parries in quick succession, which gives it a bit of the feeling of a rapid, if inconclusive, exchange.  This is also a good point to add some sort of terrain rule, because it felt like "being driven back".

It's tricky figuring out what to do with the cards and suits next, not least because any design using something other than a standard playing card deck will need to be physically produced in order for it to be tested.  I'd have to be pretty confident about a set to justify the expense.  On the other hand its much harder rationalising the abstract suits and their symmetry, particularised cards will be more evocative.  At the moment I think of them mostly like attitudes, an aggressive driving attack or a cautious experimental one.  Familiarity with the technique allows one to defend against it; but this is not very elegant.

Well, I have scored enough half points by forcing an opponent out of the ring to be fairly comfortable with this abstraction of movement.  Movement will necessarily be a part of the descriptions of action, if suitably colourful descriptions can be added to each card.  That is one significant reason for desiring to use cards.  The current bland normal suits is not the main idea.

You point out that being stuck on the defence is a bad idea, and I agree with this, but it is represented by the hard limit to the number of cards available to you.  Ditching cards in order to parry is very nearly a waste, it may well be worth risking a couple of Evades instead. If you are compelled to parry and parry and parry, you will exchaust your deck to no good effect.

The counter as is was an attempt to make some use of the suits, but also to allow defejnders an opportunity to break the cycle.  So the restrcition on repleneshing your hand here makes this a sort of micro-contest conductred with the cards in the hand alone, as opposed this in the deck.

OK
this makes things abit clearer as to your design point of view. I'll have a play my self and see how things run.
It might help if we knew what your setting was. Your mention of "ring out" has lead me to believe that you might have based it on a well known consol fighting game series? 8') Many of my thoughts were based upon the idea of the system being a primarily a weapons based system. If it is an unarmed system it makes more sense as you have set it up.

Best
JW

Not as such.  The idea was originally to do with Star Wars type Jedi lightsabre duels.  Hence the restricted number of combatants and absence of consideration of armour.  But as above, Highlander arguably fits just as well - anything in which the primary action is a 1-on-1 duel by default would fit.

In referring to rings, I meant my own experiences with judo and karate; I don't claim to be any kind of martial artists but I have a fair amount of experience of hitting and being hit.  I don't like separating movement into a separate decision from he attack or defence.  As the design stands, the only aspect of movement that it is intended to worry about are the results of a series of parries.