So you break the tie with a test between two individuals. The skills you can use depend on what you were trying to do. For Suppressive Fire, you have to use a weapon skill; for Withdraw, you can use stealth or movement skills. This new test not only breaks the tie, it COUNTS AS the maneuver test; you can allocate the successes from it, it reduces Disposition, etc.

You narrate it as somebody from the fireteam stepping up and making the difference between defeat and victory (although it doesn’t have to be a direct conflict between the two individuals). It works well in BE because the Firefight rolls are almost all Command, Tactics or Strategy; just having Squad Support Weapons 8 doesn’t win maneuver rolls… UNLESS you have to break the tie. Then some of those miscellaneous combat skills, such as Signals, Infiltration and Physical Training win the day.

For Bloody Skirmish, you might disallow whatever skill (or character?) that made the Assault roll; some other factor has to tip the balance.

I shall now have to check it out again. Can you give me more details on the bits you mention above? I want to know more.

Have you considered using the “individual action” mechanic for tiebreakers a la BE? I’ve found my players (and me, too) like the idea of the hard-fought stalemate that just needs their character to tip the balance. Great chance to for heroic stuff to happen; might specify that the volley leader can’t take the individual action, as a spotlight-passing mechanic.

I have an idea for a fast and exciting way to handle “quick” combats, such as the random goblins example. I want to handle such things quickly, but NOT as quick as the “single roll resolves everything” method of the standard Bloody Versus. This new method should hopefully allow quick resolution of these “lesser” combat scenes, without restricting the fun of dice-rolling and strategizing. Additionally, I think some of these ideas will help keep it more in line with the “sets of three” mechanics of Burning Wheel. Heavy inspirations are drawn from old-school DnD’s handling of Mass Battles, and a little from that old “stages” flow of battle I remember - arrows, then spells, then combat, etc.

Lemme know what you think.

I call it the Bloody Skirmishes house rule:

Using Bloody Skirmishes, these minor combat encounters are divided into exactly three volleys of action, with the goal of resolving all possible actions via the final dice roll in the third volley. During each volley, each side of the skirmish declares a Leader, who handles the dice rolling during that volley. Leaders can change from volley to volley (in fact, I would like to possibly even make this a requirement, just to give each playera moment in the spotlight). In the volley, both sides narrate their actions, determine their dice pools, and roll off to determine winner.

VOLLEY #1

1.1 Determine Leader, set stakes: Both sides determine who shall lead the first volley. Choose highest Perception or Speed, as it matters. Leaders set Stakes; EX: “If we win this volley, we gain the superior position and drive our foes into a dangerous corner.”

1.2 Initiative: The beginning of the process is kicked off with a single Initiative roll. This roll only happens at the beginning of the first Volley; in subsequent volleys, initiative is determined by the results of the previous volley’s dice rolls. The test is opposed Speed or Perception (or Observation skill) of the leaders (their choice). Winner gets to choose to either declare their side’s actions first, or wait and declare reactions to the opposing side’s actions. If successes more-than-doubled the opponent’s, the victor gets a one die bonus to the following dice roll.

1.3 Determine Dice Pools: Now the Leaders of each side establish their dice pools. Base pool is set by the weapon skill the leader is bringing to bear in the fray. FoRKs can include tactics. Bonus die if the Initiative test was spectacular. Bonus die if your side has longest weapons (in comparison). Bonus die if your side has more combatants, two if your side more than doubles the enemy. Bonus die for awesome armor. Helping dice can be added from teammates.

1.4 Roll for the Assault: Both sides roll the dice! Determine the mechanical results as per standard Bloody Versus.

1.5 Victor! The victor now describes the outcome of the first wave of the tide of battle, based upon the stakes they set when accepting the role of Volley Leader.

VOLLEY #2

The flow is similar

2.1 Leader and Stakes: Leaders can change from round to round. It’s up to the players, really, although I encourage it simply for the sake of switching things up, character spotlights, and dramatic representation of the flow of battle. Each volley requires new appropriate stakes; EX: “If we win, we seriously thin out their numbers,” “If we win, we take out their heaviest hitters and leave the rest for final clean-up,” and so on.

2.2 Initiative: There is no initiative test. If the winner of the previous volley’s actual combat test more than double the opponent’s successes, they get to make the initiative choice (declare now, or wait and react). Otherwise, the loser of that test makes the choice.

2.3 - 2.5 These steps are identical to those in Volley 1. Winner of the previous Volley’s combat test gets a bonus die.

VOLLEY #3 is identical to volley #2. The results of the final test determine the overall outcome of the battle. Stakes should likewise emphasize finality: “If we win, we slaughter all but one, to be kept as prisoner for interrogation,” or “If we win, we chase them off scared back into the hills from whence they came,” and so on.

I’m eager to see this in play. I can already foresee a few issues that might arise:

* What if the combat tests tie? If so, it’s a stalemate. If the whole process is a tie, that means that the overall aggressing side has withdrawn somehow, and just might make an appearance later in the game, seeking a second assault, potentially with enhanced numbers and better tactics.

* What if we kill everyone in the first volley? Well, against groups of multiple opponents, this might not be possible. With a single roll, the outcomes will be applied as best makes sense. Perhaps additional successes can be “spent” to cause additional wounds, etc. But with a focus more on “stakes” than on actual damage, I don’t foresee this being a big issue.

* What if it’s just one pidding enemy? Don’t bother with Bloody Skirmishes or Fight, and just use a single Bloody Versus test. Chances are you’ll kill him in a single roll of the dice as your arrow penetrates his eye sicket.

way to bitch-slap BW and make it do what you want!

I confess, I play BW WRONG! WRONG! So WRONG that I’m a little afraid to post on the forums about it.

In addition to not Burning characters, I sometimes ignore scripting and disregard the Fight! and DoW maneuvers in favor of a more freeform Versus Test based system. Essentially, handling fights the way I did in D&D: ask the player what they want the character to try, and if it’s not fitting in the maneuvers in the book, I make up a Versus Test to resolve it (with a little inspiration from how opposed/asymmetrical actions work in RAW).

This gets rid of one of my pet peeves in RPGs: the player declaring what rule they’d like to engage (”I make a spot check”) instead of describing what the character’s doing. Roll Dice or Say Yes cures this in most situations; the player says what they want and sometimes the GM gets in the way. But then, you engage Fight!, and we’re back to “I take the Strike and Lock action this Exchange and the Avoid action next exchange” while the player’s reaching for the dice, which bores the living shit out of me when I’m GMing.

(Reflexes are handled like this: “You’ve got one double-action in the next three exchanges… do you want to use it now?”)

And I also ran Fight! with repeating firearms, which Luke Crane specifically called out as never a good idea. Does make fights really short, I admit.

Anyway: drift, it\’s what\’s for dinner.

I was interested to read the Known World rules, and I\’d be interested to see your houserules doc for Palladium/Burning Wheel too, if it\’s postable.

-Nate
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