I heard that Dead of Night uses something similar, but here's what I've got so far; I'm basing it on the chase scene rules from Spirit of the Century

• Combat begins with determining the attacking party through some method, probably skill vs. skill (i.e. Small Arms vs. Alertness or whatnot) with situational modifiers.

• The attacker decides on an objective. Every objective (be it disarming your opponent, hacking a panel, killing a horde of security guards) has a certain number of "hitpoints", which represent the difficulty of achieving the objective. The skill used for the attack must be one that can be reasonably used to achieve the objective (i.e. hacking when, well, hacking, persuasion when trying to get a crowd under control and so on). The defender then decides on an appropriate skill for defense.

• After this, the defender sets a target number for his defense and rolls the dice against it. If the roll succeeds, nothing happens; if it fails, the attacker gains one "hitpoint" worth of success in achieving his objective, and the target number is lowered to the value of the roll.

• Example: the defender sets the target number to be 5. If he rolled 5 or more, nothing would happen. However, the defender has bad luck and rolls a 3. Now the new target number is 3, and the attacker is one "hitpoint" closer to his objective.

• Then it's the attacker's turn. The attacker rolls against the current defense target number. If his roll is higher than the target number, he achieves his object (gains "hitpoints) by a degree equal to the difference between the target number and the roll; if his roll is equal to or less than the target number, the defender gains the initiative.

• Example: because the defender failed his previous roll, the attacker's target number is now 3. If he throws 3 or less, he becomes the defender and visa versa. He gets a lucky roll and ends up with a 6. Therefore he gets a 6-3=3 or third degree "hit" in gaining his objective..

• The process then repeats itself: the defender (with or without changed roles) sets a new target number, rolls against it and so forth. Once someone drains all the "hitpoints" of an objective, that object is achieved and the play progresses accordingly.

Everything is narrated with common consent; this model assumes a group with a strong enough shared vision that they can imagine up the fluff together. If push comes to shove, I guess the winner of the roll gets to describe what happens.

Now, this works very nicely for a duel of two opposing parties that act as a single unit, but it breaks down horribly with multiple opponents. What happens when a guy engaged in melee wins initiative against an opponent who is shooting him from meters away? How does withdrawal from combat work if one is engaged on several fronts?

It seems that it's a fundamental problem with this sort of "asymmetric initiative"; volleyball for example has a similar mechanic (only one team can score points at a time) and is limited to two opposing parties. Any ideas?

well in terms of weapons, weapons have spread... ie the degree of accuracy,

a rifle is substanially more accuracy than a hand gun, though at short range, the gun is easier to weild, rifles have greater kick back, semi auto is less accuracy than single shots etc

as for being out numbered, it should be a moral issue, also there is a limitation of how a crowd can attack an individual...a person with a bat has greater range, yet also can potentially hit a freindly next to them, a right handed man with a bat can only slash in one direction etc

it sounds a good system, though it needs stablising and thought put in.

Hi there,

I see two avenues to solving the dilemmas raised at the end of the post ...

1. The kinds of situational conflicts that will define the game. For instance, in Primetime Adventures, conflicts are always expressions of a given protagonist's issue. Or in Sorcerer, conflicts' outcomes will always affect the balance of power, both momentary and long-term, among every significant character. Or in Tunnels & Trolls, conflicts are about characters' wits, risk-taking, and resource management.

So I'm talking about the Shared Imagined Space, really - what's going on, and who is in conflict, about what, in your game? The important thing is to recognize what isn't involved, so that questions about stuff that doesn't matter cannot interfere with your design process. There are no mechanics to resolve conflict strictly among NPCs in Primetime Adventures, for instance.

2. Perhaps it's possible to have all conflicts ultimately to be decided among two sides, after all. The Shab-al-Hiri Roach does this, even though all the characters present in a scene are rambunctiously active, and even though all the players involved do have a mechanical stake in the outcome. The conflict is still rolled as a two-sided process. I also thought it was interesting, as we played many sessions of Hero Wars, that although the Extended Conflict rules do permit multiple characters in action, many times the group found it more meaningful, effective, and sensible to augment and otherwise help one character, as a kind of representative, making the conflict into a two-sided thing.

Best, Ron