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How to Duel? (Western Style)


Tenshi

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One of my Fated's is a gunfighter whose backstory is that he used to be part of an Outlaw gang that turned on him and left him for dead. Now, he's looking for them to get some revenge.
It's all very western-like.

At some point he'll find the gang member that teached him how to use guns. And I'd like it to be a 1v1 duel.

Has any one done something like this before? And if so, how did you do it? I'd like to build the tension, and not be just a basic card flip duel.

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Play some epic western music, I’ll put a link to a good one for building tension. But then, break the rules of the game and cut the deck in half and take half of it for yourself and draw 3-5 cards. Instead of dueling against an enemy’s rank, duel as if it were a game of M2E. When I did this, the tension was high because the players have never seen me do anything like this before, so they didn’t know what was coming.

Hope any of this helps.

 

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Here's some quick n' dirty rules for a 1v1 Showdown.

  • Both duelists draw four cards and apply the highest result to the Acting Value of an appropriate Skill for a Ranged Attack action (Pistols for a Pistol attack, Necromancy for a Necromancy spell, etc.). The Spellcasting TN for a spell must still be met. The duelist with the highest result is the winner.
  • The losing duelist is immediately reduced to 0 wounds and suffers a Critical Effect as per the normal rules.

If you want to draw it out a bit more in Dramatic Time, you could try:

  • Play "The Ecstasy of Gold" by Ennio Morricone on any nearby sound system.
  • Determine Initiative.
  • Both duelists are Slow until the end of Dramatic Time.
  • Both duelists take Focus actions. For a Showdown, the Focus condition does not end with the end of their turn, but carries over and stacks up to a maximum of +3. This continues until both duelists have Focus +3. If either duelist takes any other action but Focus, their Focus ends and the Showdown immediately moves to the next step.
  • Both duelists draw a number of cards equal to their Focus condition +1. They then apply the highest result to the Acting Value of an appropriate Skill for a Ranged Attack action (Pistols for a Pistol attack, Necromancy for a Necromancy spell, etc.). The duelist with the highest total result is the winner.
  • The losing duelist is immediately reduced to 0 wounds and suffers a Critical Effect as per the normal rules.

Ideally, a Showdown should take the length of the song to complete. Intense eye contact must be maintained between duelists. Beads of sweat on the temples are encouraged. When you draw your Focus cards, keep them face down until both duelists are ready to shoot, and don't flip them until the music ends.

EDIT: I forgot, in the event of a Tie, both duelists are reduced to 0 Wounds and take a Critical Effect. Good luck!

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This me just spit balling, so sorry if I don't give actual numbers or anything. Hoping to just give you a skeleton to work with.

 

Caveat 1: This system assumes both shooters fire at the same time and hit each other, kinda like a samurai duel where they both strike and one falls down two seconds later. I didn't think about that until after I finished.

If you don't like that, one suggestion I have is that you deal them both a facedown card to add to their Initiative. Let them Cheat Fate if they like, but they don't turn the card over until it's time to Draw. Fastest player shoots first, then the opponent fires if they're still alive.

Caveat 2: I don't know when and where you'd like to Cheat Fate, but for added tension, maybe only allow a player to cheat one time during this entire process, so they have to choose the best time to use it.

 

First, The Countdown, I'd set up some number of rounds minimum ("Till this here coin hits the dirt" or "When the second hand strikes twelve"). Maybe 4 minimum, so they have choices. You want to build tension, otherwise it'd just be a normal combat session with the faster person shooting first.

 

Second, The Staredown. On your turn you're either prepping to fire, or testing your opponent's nerve.

  • Prepping to Fire: Make an attack flip (I'm assuming Pistols, but whatever weapon/magic you're actually using). I'd say start at TN 7 to make things simple, or opponent's Defense if a static number doesn't sound fair (you're both just standing there with nothing to hide behind). Each MoS adds :+flip to your damage flip. If you Prep to Fire more than once, you take the best flip as your attack.
  • Test Opponent's Nerve: Make an Intimidate flip. The TN should be something appropriate, like the opponent's Willpower or something. Each MoS imposes a :-flip to the opponent's damage flip. If you Test Nerve more than once, you take the best flip.

 

Third, The Draw (or The Showdown, if you want to keep the rhyme scheme). After the minimum number of rounds have passed, the duelists can keep Prepping or Testing as much as they want (keep going round to round), but as soon as one announces that they're firing their weapon/spell, they both attack simultaneously (see Caveat 1 if you don't like this). In the event that one of the duelists never Prepped, then they were too slow to draw their weapon and don't get an attack (or they fire second if they live, up to you).

For the damage flip, the shooter should hopefully have some number of :+flip unless they lost their nerve. Allow the player to flip one at a time and add a special damage trigger:

  • The Quick and the Dead: Each leftover :+flip adds X Wounds.

I have no idea what X should be, but you can either make it a static number (1, 2, 3) or the severity of the flip (W/M/S).

 

Again, I'm just spit balling so maybe this doesn't make much sense or it only looks good on paper and not in actual testing. I left all the actual stuff to the damage flip because it's the only open ended system I could add stuff to.

If you want, you could move the :+flip/:-flip stuff to the attack flip, but then you're capped at 13 for the highest card value. Even then at best the damage flip only gets one :+flip if you beat your opponent's value by 11 using normal rules.

I'm not an expert on the system, so feel free to toss this whole thing out if you want. ^_^

 

 

 

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What if you will do it similar style as the card game with Zoraida? See pg 48 of "Into the Bayou". Some poker game depends on the Fated's Pistols Skill, luck and completed Destiny Steps. You can change the way the Fated's enemy performing the duel (no one is good in shooting like Zoraida is good in gambling). And change the outcome of the duel, of course. 

And play some cool western music. Music helps a lot.

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