I’m tinkering with some of the basic moves in Star Wars world. I aim to support combat exchanges that are more like the lightsaber duels from the movies. I think this draft of the moves will serve for both lightsabers and any old combat in the swashbuckling world of SW. Star Wars World gives PCs and some NPCs more harm than in standard AW, so I think it can sustain the system I’ve come up with.
I hope to playtest these soon. In the meantime, what are your impressions? Do you see any imbalances or exploitations that would undermine what I’m trying to achieve?
Rules
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Advantage. Advantage means you have the momentum or positional advantage in a fight. It functions like right of way in fencing–only one member of an opposed pair may have it at a time. It can represent many things: simple momentum and pressure of attack, flanking your opponent, getting them off balance, getting inside their guard, or taking advantage of a longer weapon.
>>When you sacrifice your advantage to defend, reduce harm by 2.
Assault. When you attack with intent to cause harm or seize an objective, roll+hard:
On a 10+, exchange harm as established. If you have advantage suffer no harm. Choose 1:
* Seize the advantage. If they have it, they lose it and you get it.
* Seize an objective.
* Impress, frighten, or scatter your enemy
* Force your enemy to pause and listen.
* Immediately follow with a Threat attempt with potential +1 harm.
7-9, exchange harm as established. If your opponent has advantage, inflict no harm. Choose 1:
* Seize an objective.
* Suffer -1 harm.
* Inflict full harm despite opponent’s advantage.
Act Under Fire. When you act under threat, surveillance, or psychological pressure, or when you maneuver for advantage in combat, roll+cool:
10+, you do it. In a fight, take no harm and inflict no harm, then choose one:
* Disengage or circle. Eliminate their advantage
* Close or flank. If they don’t have it, gain the advantage.
* Create an opportunity to persuade, observe, read, or trust the force without getting cut down.
7-9, you can abort safely, or succeed at a cost. In a fight, choose one:
* Take harm but eliminate advantage
* Take no harm, but suffer a drawback or be maneuvered by your opponent
Threaten. When you attempt to control your opponent’s behavior with the threat of harm, roll+hard:
On a 10+, they must comply or suffer full harm. If you have advantage, inflict terrible harm (+1).
On a 7-9, they may choose to comply, suffer harm, or choose 1:
* get the hell out of your way
* barricade themselves in
* give you what they think you want
* back off, hands in the air
* tell you what you want to know (or hear)
>>If you have advantage and don’t like you’re opponent’s choice, you may sacrifice advantage to force them to remain engaged with you.
NPC Advantage. NPCs normally take advantage only in hard moves, though an NPC might gain advantage in some circumstances with a soft move — for example, taking a strong defensive stance. Of course, the PC doesn’t have to charge at them and PC or NPC might lose advantage if they give up their strong position (say, but charging).
Comments
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I removed most of the pluses and minuses to harm because I want those to come from the interplay of advantage. These moves are designed, I hope, to interplay and feed back and forth into each other. The extra harm that they have in SWW should allow more than one assault roll before someone dies
I could get more elaborate, having four or five moves to represent different dueling tactics, but I would rather have a a system integrated with a few basic moves–a system of simple rules that creates complex patterns.
So…impressions? Do you see any imbalances or exploitations that would undermine what I’m trying to achieve?
Okay, so it seems like advantage is an almost purely narrative thing. You can sacrifice advantage to reduce harm, but what happens if I have the advantage and pres the attack? There seems to be no mechanical benefit. What happens when an NPC has advantage and I miss my roll? What happens when I don’t have advantage, declare “I am chopping this fucker’s head off with my lightsaber” in response to “what do you do?” and roll a natural 12 and elect to “seize my objective”?
In every Stars Wars game I’ve ever played a lightsaber is an insta-kill weapon and Jedis learn how to reduce damage from their attacks because they don’t want to go around murdering all of their opponents. I would suggest that two lightsaber-wielding force-users enter into a duel, that has it’s own unique moves, and when a force-user attacks somebody with a lightsaber it’s like a specialized version of the regular attack move.
I just don’t see force-users playing by the same rules. When Boba Fett tries to shoot Luke Skywalker, Luke disarms him uncermeoniously. When Han Solo empties a barrage of blasts at Darth Vader he blocks the blasts with his cybernetic hand then disarms Han with little to no effort. But hey, that’s just how I see it!
I like the general idea of advantage/disadvantage a lot. A few thoughts…
Like Patrick Henry Downs, I wonder what happens when the NPC has advantage and I miss a role. Maybe look to Monsterhearts for that?
I also think lightsaber duels are probably better off as their own things, with their own moves. But maybe you handle that with something other than the fighting moves themselves. Like maybe there’s a move like when you inflict harm with a lightsaber that works differently than harm with a blaster.
As written, Asault and Act Under Fire feel a bit too prescriptive. I think you could make them better by reducing the options and making them broader.
I think it’s entirely possible that no one has advantage. And that one successful move should either negate it from your opponent or seize it, but not both.
I’d make triggering some moves (like Threat?) only possible if you already have advantage.
Could you expend advantage in more ways? Like to turn a miss into a 7-9, or a 7-9 into a 10+ (probably only on some moves). Or to ask a question/use the force/etc? (Not at all sure about this; just seems like a fruitful design space.)
Jeremy Strandberg
Notice a few things about the current design:
– if you have advantage, you suffer no harm on a 10+
– if your opponent has advantage, they suffer no harm when you roll less than 10+
– if no one has advantage, the combatants usually exchange harm as established.
– I left the effects of NPC advantage on a failure open on purpose. As with AW, the extent of a MC hard move is up to the MC. (I suppose adding suggestions wouldn’t hurt.)
– the options of “choose 1” are designed to force a choice between eliminating advantage and taking other options, such as noncombatant moves.
– On the other hand, if the PC has advantage, the noncombatant moves (which might be used to assess an opponent, use force, etc.) become more attractive.
– I really believe that there is little difference between the dynamics of a light saber battle and any other kind of fight in the movies. They are both dramatic exchanges rather than realistic sudden death.
I don’t see that these moves are more prescriptive. Would you explain that a bit more?
“I really believe that there is little difference between the dynamics of a light saber battle and any other kind of fight in the movies.”
I can think of three scenes for each kind of fight (lightsaber vs blaster) that are hugely different and reveal the contrasts of each.
Lightsabers:
1) Obi-Wan and Darth Vader duel on the Death Star. They circle around each other for quite some time, neither gaining a clear advantage over the other until Obi-Wan sacrifices himself.
2) Darth Maul fights Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon in a protracted battle where Maul keeps getting the upper hand by splitting the two Jedi up. When Maul has Obi-Wan where he wants him, Obi-Wan puts all of his energy into a single move which kills Maul instantly.
3) Luke an Vader duel around the Emperor’s throne room, Vader is constantly at an advantage though clearly doesn’t know the terrain which Luke uses to hide and gain an advantage. He lashes out of the shadows by disarming and nearly killing his father.
Blasters:
1) Han and Chewy are trying to hustle Obi-Wan and Luke aboard the Falcon when a platoon of stormtroopers starts firing on the Falcon. Han holds them off while Chewy pilots the Falcon out of Mos Eisley.
2) Han charges after a couple of stormtroopers and runs into a corridor filled with them, he manages to shoot and kill several while turning and fleeing.
3) The stormtroopers invading Hoth sweep through hangers and corridors making quick work of any rebels left behind.
It also occurs to me that about half of the Jedi duels in the movie end with one of the combatants being left utterly at the mercy of their opponent (when Anakin fights Count Dooku, when Anakin fights Obi-Wan, both times Luke fights Vader). Another good reason why a Jedi duel should potentially end once one combatant has a clear advantage.
They’re prescriptive in the sense that they have relatively broad triggers and a finite number of fairly specific outcomes. I predict that in play, you’ll find that situations pop up where the likely outcome isn’t neatly handled by the various combinations of pick lists. Gears grind.
Also, the handling time on the moves feels considerable. It might not be in play, but it feels that way.
I’d try something like:
– Having a few more moves. Some would only be available when you have advantage (e.g. threaten or strike down). Some would be necessary if you were at disadvantage (e.g. get out of a jam).
– Moving some of the success options to be part of the trigger rather than the outcome (e.g. “when you attack or maneuver for advantage, position, or opportunity, roll +???”). Then have the outcomes be more about how well it worked. (e.g. “On a 10+ it works as well as can be expected; on a 7-9 it works but also one of these: cost/requirement/consequence.”).
– Having Advantage influence who makes the choices (e.g. continuing the 7-9 above… “If you have Advantage, you choose. Otherwise your opponent does.”)
– Making “Grant or take away Advantage” a GM move rather than an explicit outcome of most moves.
This is all just spitballing, though. Once you start playing with the basic moves of a game, you’re into seriously hacking it from more-or-less the ground up. I generally like what you’re doing; if you like what you’ve got, playtesting them is the best way to find out how well they work.
Oh… another thing to consider is the overall tone you’re going for. If you really are going for a Star Wars feel, “exchange harm” (and the usual AW framework for harm) isn’t great. “Named” characters in Star Wars don’t exchange harm; they dish it out on mooks and they generally avoid it (getting into worse positions) or suffer it (with pretty significant consequence).
The harm rules for an AW hack are so close to the core of the system that they’ll affect almost every other move, so I’d suggest really thinking about those first. (Personally, I’d go with some like the Conditions in Lady Blackbird. Maybe have Vitality as a pool of something you spend to prevent a Condition or a miss, or to act despite a Condition.)
Thanks Jeremy, these are some great ideas. I will take them away and consider for a while.
Patrick Henry Downs Those are some great examples. I’ll take what Jeremy wrote and see what moves they suggest. It does seem that PCs and key NPCs have more story privilege. Maybe I can change the moves to reflect that.
Jeremy Strandberg One of the things you said struck me as completely at odds with what I see — you wrote: “Also, the handling time on the moves feels considerable. It might not be in play, but it feels that way.”
This strikes me as an odd statement as the moves I drafted require fewer post-roll decisions that the AW equivalents. I can’t see how they would have more handling time than the existing moves. Can you explain?
Like I said, it’s a feeling rather than a detailed analysis.
Let’s see though…
For Assault, partly I’m reacting to having played more Dungeon World than actual AW. SBF in core AW seems pretty high handling time to me to start with. Your Assault has fewer player choices to make than SBF, but more if/thens because you’re working Advantage into it and you’ve got different lists for 7-9 vs 10+. So it’s like roll >> 10+ or 7-9? >> Have Advantage? >> how much harm am I doing/taking? >> ok, make choice. SBF is roll >> how much harm? >> make choices (2 or 3). Also, the nature of the choices is different. SBF has two purely fictional choices, but they both flow pretty obviously from the trigger of seize something by force. Your choices imply using this move for a much wider range of tactics, but you don’t get to pick your tactics until after you rolls. That makes me think we’ll need to look at the possible outcomes before we decide whether someone’s Assaulting or Acting Under Fire.
Something else I just noticed: on 7-9 without Advantage, I can reduce harm. On 10+ I can’t. Weird.
Act Under Fire: the existing move is super elegant and broadly applicable. By adding specific choices here, you’re making Advantage a more defined thing but you’re increasing the handling time a lot. Like, standard AUF is basically 10+ it works and 7-9 it works but the GM makes a move. This is much less fluid.
Threaten: it’s basically Go Aggro but with an if/then for having Advantage. So not much more handling time, but a little.
I know Andrew Medeiros is thinking of a re-write of SWW once Urban Shadows slows down.
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