Would Indiana Jones beat Boba Fett?
The combat system of 7
Part Pact
on a
car ride with your little brother
Games like SuperFight sell the fantasy of you pitting your favorite fictional characters
against those of your friends in an epic struggle.
(For a board game that actually pulls that off, check out the Unmatched series.)
At the end of the day, all these so-called games are merely a degenerate shouting match as you all argue about who would win, one person gets more votes and feels vaguely triumphant, and one person feels sorely put-out.
I have always wanted something with more structure, that still allowed that free-form experience. How do we decide if Captain-America’s shield can withstand Darkseid’s Omega Beams? And how do I know if I have won or lost the battle?
During his excellent series on the revolutionary role-playing game / board game / cosplay
7 Part Pact, A Knight at the Opera: Seven-Part Pact: Combat Knight at the opera describes the combat system.
Immediately I was intrigued. This combat was largely narrative. But it ties the narrative to a specific procedure that dictates the Narrative Flow. Basically, who gets to say what happens.
This is ‘roughly’ how it works, with notes on modifications I made.
At the start of the fight, determine who is fighting and where the battle will take place.
Each player controls either a character, group or even army in the case of an actual Battle between nations.
They each answer these questions to determine what Assets their character has.
What weapons do you wield? Each weapon is a separate Asset.
Do you wear Armor or use a Shield? Armor is a single Asset.
Do you have any Treasures? ‘In my testing, treasures were e.g. jetpack, healing potion etc.’
Do you have any Magical Abilities? For Darth Vader, this was the Dark Side of the Force
Are there any trained beasts or henchmen fighting with you? Each is an Asset.
What are your relevant Skills or Training? ‘Being honest, I completely missed this one...oops’
Can you use the Landscape here to your advantage? If so, it is an Asset.
Are the winds, seas, a higher power etc. on your side? ‘This one never came up in testing’
Are you committed to winning this fight? If you are, that is an Asset.
Whoever started the fight in the fiction goes first.
When you have the initiative, you have 4 possible Actions:
Strike at (Character) with (Asset). Defender must Respond with a Defence Action
Use my (Asset) to destroy your (Asset). The Defender loses the Asset, but gains the Initiative.
I step back and gather my strength. You lose the initiative, but may Repair an Asset, create a new Asset in the fiction, or flee. If you Step Back three times in a row, you must Flee.
Say “I don’t know” and pass the initiative.
When someone uses the first Action to Strike at (Character), the Defender must choose a Defender Action.
Defender Actions:
I parry your (Asset) with (My Asset). You must justify how your Asset could stop their attack. However, they Retain the Initiative and may ‘go again.’
I Take the Hit, but Strike Back. The attacker describes the damage they deal, and may destroy any Assets of yours as are justified by the fiction. If you take enough damage, you may become Incapacitated. Now the Defender takes the Initiative.
Say “I don’t know” and take the damage from the attack.
How this works in practice, is that players take turns destroying each other’s Assets until one person feels they have enough of an edge to attack the opposing Character directly.
It is not just a question of “I need to get rid of his Knight’s Armor, Valiant Steed and Love for the Princess to win.” But also “How do I destroy those things in the story, with my Pet Ooze, Black Sorcery and Bumbling Trio of Goblins?”
So I ran this system, just the combat, pretty much as-written on several car rides, just me, my brothers, some paper and a pen.
We did Indiana Jones versus Boba Fett (Indiana was not equipped to break into Slave I and had to retreat)
Darth Vader versus Popeye the Sailor
(I believe Vader won, but not before Olive Oyl tragically perished, and Popeye used his Rubberhose-cartoon powers and Spinach to trash a Super-Star Destroyer and beat Vader within an inch of his life.)
The Joker versus Kermit the Frog (Many Muppets and gangsters perished, but in the end Kermit had the Swedish Chef’s bazooka, and Joker was forced to flee.)
And Iron Man versus Syndrome, a high-intensity battle of lasers and missiles that ended quickly with the Omnidroid crushing the Man of Iron.
During play several questions came up, such as can you Parry with an Asset if that Asset would be destroyed? (We figure yes, its fine, and mathematically worse for the Defender.)
We would Step Back sometimes to move around the battlefield in the fiction, gaining assets like At the Fork in the Road or Taking cover behind a Car.
The beauty of this system, is that everything has a narrative power that cleanly translates into mechanical function.
If your group is extra fractious, I suggest that you rule that an Action or Defence Action can only take place if everyone agrees that if makes narrative sense. My brothers and I had no problems with resolution, but we are an agreeable lot and have been playing together forever.
Apocalypse World and other ‘Storygame’ RPG’s have always frustrated me, because they claim to get the mechanics out of the way and let players tell the story. Unfortunately, you still end up checking stats, adding bonuses and rolling to meet a target number. And the Game Master bears the brunt of all this, as the games give them no solid procedural support.
This in my opinion is an evolution, in a really good way.
There
are so many more tests I want to do.
Group Combat between three
or more players!
Superhero fights! Sieges and army battles!
And go read the original series of posts, KATO wrote it better, with prettier words and better grammar.
