Trollbabe Combat in Over the Edge

Posted by Bryant on November 29, 2004 at 06:30 PM

This is a somewhat baked idea, born from my desire to abstract combat a little bit without abstracting it "too much." I remembered, while cogitating upon this question, that I really enjoyed the way Trollbabe conflict worked out in practice. So I figured, hm, what if I snipped the stuff I liked out of Trollbabe and slapped it on top of Over the Edge? Since that's the system I was thinking about at the time.

Here's what I came up with. It'll help if you know a little Over the Edge but if you don't: roll somewhere between probably 2 to 5 six-siders, and total up the result. Compare to your opponent's roll. Highest roll wins. If you have a penalty die, roll an extra die and discard the highest die.

So at the beginning of a fight, the player declares whether he wants it to be a casual fight, a moderate fight, or a serious fight. (These terms suck and I need new ones.) A casual fight is best out of one roll, a moderate fight is best out of three rolls, and a serious fight is best out of five rolls. You can always get more serious during the fight if you want to, but you can't get less serious, so the most advantageous tactic is probably to start casual and get more serious as need be.

A casual fight is just that: casual. A little pushing, a little shoving, a couple of shots fired. Nobody's going to get seriously hurt.

A moderate fight is more important. There might be some blood on the ground when it's all over. Someone might wind up in the hospital. People care about the outcome.

A serious fight is the kind of fight where people get killed. If a character is looking to kill someone right off the bat, there's no point messing around with the introductions.

Let's say the player wants a casual fight. The player and the GM each roll. Neither of them want to press the issue, so they're done and consequences happen to the loser, about which more in a second.

Well, that's kind of a dull example, so let's say the player loses the first roll. OK, she can now escalate. "I want this to be a moderate fight; I'm going to fight harder." A moderate fight is more intense than a casual fight, so there's gonna be more at risk, but that's the price of slipping behind.

Now it's a best out of three situation, and we toss the first result out the window. The player wins the first roll, but loses the next two. She lost the moderate fight. This conflict is really important to her, though, so... "I want to get really serious." Now it's a best out of five. The player needs to win three rolls out of the next five to win, and if she doesn't the consequences are fairly severe.

Or take a step back; let's say the player wanted all the drama and consequence of a serious fight right from the beginning. Well, she could just cut straight to the best out of five without all the preliminary stuff; that's cool too. It's a matter of how important and how intense the player wants the fight to be.

Maybe you want to feel out the quality of the opposition before you put a lot at risk? Start casual. Maybe you think you're better than your opponent and you want to minimize the effects of random chance? Get serious. It should be a roleplaying decision.

OK, what are the consequences? Hm, one more thing first: all combats come with an objective, specified by the player. "I want to beat up the bouncer and get into the club." "I want to look good in front of my new pals." "I want to intimidate these punks." There. Now consequences:

The loser of a casual fight takes one penalty die on their next skill roll or conflict. If she escalates the current conflict, she will take that penalty die on the escalation. Alternatively, by fiat of the GM, she may take some other penalty not reflected by the dice. She also fails at whatever objective she specified.

The loser of a moderate fight takes that one penalty die until she's healed up in some appropriate manner. She must also take a penalty of some kind in addition to the penalty die. "You ain't never getting in this club." Plus, of course, failure.

The loser of a serious fight has one fewer dice on all rolls until healed. I.e., if she had a 4d6 skill? That skill would be 3d6 until she heals up. Plus failure. Plus she's at the winner's mercy, up to and including death. Remember, a PC can never get into a serious fight unless the player wants to get into a serious fight.

Healing up could be physical. It could also be social. Maybe the damage isn't that significant but the PC's self-esteem is bad and people are laughing at her until she does something to redress the embarassment. That sort of thing.

And there it is. This could be adapted to a lot of games, I think. Comments welcome. In particular I'm not sure who narrates when. I could just be traditional and say the GM narrates everything, but I could also say "winner narrates," or "loser narrates." Dunno yet.