Duelling

[Yves Eau]

From the Random Events thread:

Jacques D'Mestos said:

Although not obviously relevant immediately, personally I'd probably move to a different method of duelling such as TPT used. There, if two regimental rivals met at a club, they'd fight a duel, the loser would go home and lick his wounds and the winner would continue with his ordered actions. This had the advantage of having more PvP interactions just happen, giving an element of "random event" chance that wasn't truly random as they players controlled where and what their characters did.

Louis XIII said:

I'm not against that on principle. My main issue with it is that it's fine for En Garde! veterens who already have a good grasp of the core rules. For newbies (and this game probably has more than the average because I've gone out my way to recruit outside the standard circles) I worry that expecting people to have duel orders ready to go would be intimidating on top of the rest of the game.

Were duels in TPT interactive, or did players submit standing orders?

I think it would be difficult for standing orders to cater for mandatory rests and different weapons (for example, it makes less sense to parry against a sabre).

I would love to see duelling improved, but I feel it would work best by bringing the players together for a more interactive session, using the rules for advantage, optional moves, etc. This may prove difficult in some cases, but it could be an option if both protagonists agree and can arrange a time.

[huillaume]

Taken form another thread:

Nov 14, 2019 14:56:38 GMT huillaume said:

Nov 14, 2019 14:09:51 GMT Ymbert Montgomery said:

I'm not against that on principle. My main issue with it is that it's fine for En Garde! veterens who already have a good grasp of the core rules. For newbies (and this game probably has more than the average because I've gone out my way to recruit outside the standard circles) I worry that expecting people to have duel orders ready to go would be intimidating on top of the rest of the game.

I personally agree some form of inmediate duelling should be applied. As I see it, there are two kinds of duels:

1. Formal ones: when one character is offended by another one and formally challenges him, according a place, weapons (if agreed) and seconds (e.g. the Spaghetti vs Demerat affair, or one player courting another mistress while he's not with her).
2. Inmediate (informal) ones: when two characters meet and just fight informally (e.g. regimental enemities or two (or more ) players courting the same lady at the same time.

In the first case, either the current rules or any alternative could be used, as players know beforehand they will have the duels, and any death is assumed to be accepted risk and treated as manslaughter (and probably rarely pursued) by the authorities.

In the second one, a way to solve then inmediatly should be found, and, not being so formal, and any death should be treated as murder (I understand more serious, as the involved people did not expect them, so have no possibility to avoid them), and it would be more easily pursued.

See that, IIRC, we see both cases in The Three Musketeers, formal ones when d'Artagnan challenges Athos, Portos and Aramis "behind the Convent" at specified times (duels that finally are not fought) and i nthe many instances they meet Cardinal Guards.

[Ymbert Montgomery]

On TPT specifically, their duelling rules are a lot more complex than the norm. They're closer to something like Flashing Blades in terms of the options availible.

[Jacques D'Mestos]

In TPT, you don't have routines where you work out your strokes.

Each character rolls a D20, applies any modifiers from a basic or expert knack they're using and compares it to his swordsmanship (per blade type). If the roll is over the swordsmanship value they've missed, if it's under they've hit. If both characters hit, the one with the higher roll "wins" and the other character has parried, reducing the damage. At this point damage is applied and another "round" takes place. All you need to state in your orders are your default blade and knack (per week if you like) and the rest just occurs.

Of course the distinction between impromptu and "cause" duels described above is also in play.

[huillaume]

Nov 14, 2019 15:15:43 GMT Jacques D'Mestos said:

Each character rolls a D20, applies any modifiers from a basic or expert knack they're using and compares it to his swordsmanship (per blade type). If the roll is over the swordsmanship value they've missed, if it's under they've hit. If both characters hit, the one with the higher roll "wins" and the other character has parried, reducing the damage. At this point damage is applied and another "round" takes place. All you need to state in your orders are your default blade and knack (per week if you like) and the rest just occurs.

This sounds quite like Pendragon rules...

[Ymbert Montgomery]

Unfortunately, the TPT rules are too big to attach. I can email a copy to anyone who wants one though.

[Father William Souris]

Nov 14, 2019 15:18:27 GMT huillaume said:

Nov 14, 2019 15:15:43 GMT Jacques D'Mestos said:

Each character rolls a D20, applies any modifiers from a basic or expert knack they're using and compares it to his swordsmanship (per blade type). If the roll is over the swordsmanship value they've missed, if it's under they've hit. If both characters hit, the one with the higher roll "wins" and the other character has parried, reducing the damage. At this point damage is applied and another "round" takes place. All you need to state in your orders are your default blade and knack (per week if you like) and the rest just occurs.

This sounds quite like Pendragon rules...

90% of the basic rule for combat attacks - only has crits missing!

Personally I like this type of resolution, as character skill matters more than players skill (I have zero skill as player with the routines!).  Also combats can be swiftly resolved allowing duels to possibly be done immediately.  It also makes fixed duels pretty much impossible!

The system is used in a caribbean enGarde! I am in, but forget name of!

[Adam de la Bassée]

Nov 14, 2019 15:15:43 GMT Jacques D'Mestos said:

In TPT, you don't have routines where you work out your strokes.

Each character rolls a D20, applies any modifiers from a basic or expert knack they're using and compares it to his swordsmanship (per blade type). If the roll is over the swordsmanship value they've missed, if it's under they've hit. If both characters hit, the one with the higher roll "wins" and the other character has parried, reducing the damage. At this point damage is applied and another "round" takes place. All you need to state in your orders are your default blade and knack (per week if you like) and the rest just occurs.

Of course the distinction between impromptu and "cause" duels described above is also in play.

Well I will go on record and say I am totally against this.

It reduces dueling to a RNG event rather than the skill of the player to craft a sequence of blows and counters.   It also removes the ability of a canny player to learn that his opponent has a set sequence and craft a counter to it.  RNG dumbing down is not really why I play EG!

[Yves Eau]

I am not sure which way I lean, but I am sure we can do better than the standard system.

• A modified-random approach, basing results on character skill, is consistent with how other aspects of the game work: no player's Sandhurst training can swing a battle result, for example.
• Is it right for an experienced player to have an advantage over a novice, regardless of their character's supposed skill?
  
• I enjoy trying to guess what moves an opponent may choose, based on reports or experience of his previous duels.
• I do not like that many duels under the En Garde! rules as modified for play-by-email end up being decided by pure luck, as a game of rock-paper-scissors or brute force.
  • Optional routines and conditional orders are cumbersome.
  • Advantage and mandatory rests generally matter little, in my experience, as most affairs of honour are settled before they have a significant impact.
  • If not stopping at first blood, endurance plays too great a role, with a character able to win by attacking relentlessly; skill with a blade does nothing to block the blows.
    

[Jacques D'Mestos]

Nov 14, 2019 18:46:04 GMT Adam de la Bassée said:

Nov 14, 2019 15:15:43 GMT Jacques D'Mestos said:

In TPT, you don't have routines where you work out your strokes.

Each character rolls a D20, applies any modifiers from a basic or expert knack they're using and compares it to his swordsmanship (per blade type). If the roll is over the swordsmanship value they've missed, if it's under they've hit. If both characters hit, the one with the higher roll "wins" and the other character has parried, reducing the damage. At this point damage is applied and another "round" takes place. All you need to state in your orders are your default blade and knack (per week if you like) and the rest just occurs.

Of course the distinction between impromptu and "cause" duels described above is also in play.

Well I will go on record and say I am totally against this.

It reduces dueling to a RNG event rather than the skill of the player to craft a sequence of blows and counters.   It also removes the ability of a canny player to learn that his opponent has a set sequence and craft a counter to it.  RNG dumbing down is not really why I play EG!

To be clear I'm not proposing that we change. I simply gave some more detail to flesh out the context. I just mentioned it in answering another point regarding PvP.

[Ymbert Montgomery]

Thoughts on this.

I'm less confident about us managing to "fix" duelling as it seems to be a standard issue in EG! games.

While bringing players together is a good idea, I'm not sure how it would work in practise. Specifically in terms of things like downtime turnaround and press writeups.

I'm of the view that player skill should have a role to play, although character ability should also have a strong influence. If we just handled it like the military we'd just end up having a single "duelling stat" and doing it all on a single roll.

While I agree that conditional routines are clunky, of everything I've seen before they work the best in terms of allowing player skill in online games.

There are some changes in Liminal that address some of the most glaring issues; the fact that END scales less, Expertise being use for hit chance instead of mandatory rests etc.

[Alain Andre Durant]

I agree that duels should be more immediate upon the cause of their necessity instead of being put off for potentially weeks. They should occur in the same week the cause was generated. But there are trade-offs for the sake of the game.

One resolution system I've been playing with that could be used for impromptu duels: On 3d6 (I use excel for this), a successful attack is 11 or less. A character's weapon expertise acts as a modifier with the defender's WE acting to make it harder to hit and the attacker's WE making it easier. The character with the higher WE would have the advantage.

Example: ABC has WE 3 and XYZ has WE 6. If ABC is attacking, the roll would be 8 or less (11 + ABC's 3 - XYZ's 6). If XYZ is attacking, the roll would be 14 or less (11 + XYZ's 6 - ABC's 3). This may seem one-sided, but three and six are far apart in the game. If the WEs were closer, the difference would be less.

But most duels would be impromptu and this does completely take out the duel order system.

It is a quandary on how to be more realistic in immediate response to cause and in the trade-off for game.