Swashbuckling: More Stuff About Fencing

So we sorta kinda playtested these swashbuckling rules for the first time last night. I say "sorta kinda" because all we really did was make characters, talk about new rules tweaks, and play out half of a duel between two Joel's fencing mistress and Sayler's fencing student to see how Advantage worked in play.

Andy had some concerns that the Advantage rules, as written, might draw out a combat unnecessarily, a point well-taken. In practice, I don't think this was the case, but it was also kinda hard to tell just how quickly or slowly things were going because we kept stopping to talk about it. Ultimately, Nat had a good point about the relative importance of "fun" over "fast" -- who cares if it's taking a while as long as it's creating an interesting narrative and people are having fun? This is especially valid in a swashbuckling game, where personal combat has such a focus. Sayler and Joel said it certainly had the back-and-forth feel of a duel, with each of them constantly jockeying for advantage (and Advantage) over the other, and there was a lot of thought-provoking discussion about it all.

BTW, the characters:
Andy's playing a would-have-been priest who dropped out of seminary and took up a sword
Joel's playing a fencing mistress, largely self-taught, with a unique weapon
Nat's playing a "Chamingly British" nobleman (in France!) with a title and not much else
Sayler's playing another former man of the cloth and novice swordsman
Tony's playing a high-ranking social combat monster who spreads rumors better than Twitter

It should be restated that the Advantage rules are only for one-on-one duels with NPCs of relative importance. E.g., if you bothered to name the NPC, Advantage should probably come into play. Fighting minions uses the usual FATE rules for combat. Moreover, nobody should really be ganging up on a Big Bad: Either every PC has his own Big Bad or group of minions to fight, or one fights while the rest contribute from the sidelines. Last night I compared that latter situation to the film version of The Three Musketeers starring Gene Kelly as D'Artagnan (it's no Scaramouche, but it's a lot of fun). There's a bit early on where he duels with a sargeant (or something) of the Cardinal's Guard -- and Athos, Porthos, and Aramis just watch, shouting out insults and les mots justes now and then. Mechanically speaking, they're using skills like Art, Presence, and Perception to create aspects on the sargeant, D'Artagnan, or the scene. So they're contributing to the combat, but they're letting someone else do the fighting. I mean, together, they could easily slaughter the guy, but that just isn't cricket. I don't know how (or if) I'd enforce that mechanically, though.

On a related note, I'm thinking about limiting aspects to one tag or invoke per scene. Invoke it once, and you can't invoke it again. This would encourage more aspect creation through maneuvers and declarations (and maybe assessments, depending on the nature of the conflict), which seems to fit the genre very well. It also makes the Three Musketeers' insult-generated aspects that much more important. I compare it to the Blue Raja throwing forks into the wall so Mr. Furious can climb it. If you think of every fork as an aspect, it's a pretty appropriate analogy. Right?

Anyway, here's some actul crunch.

I had the idea that disarms could happen normally, or by voluntarily taking "Disarmed" as a consequence once per scene. As a Trifling (Minor) consequence, it'd be relatively trivial to pick up your weapon again (a supplementary action, say). As a Moderate (Middling) consequence, it'd require a skill roll, like usual -- say, opposed Physique rolls between the two combatants as one tries to block the other's path. As a Severe (Grievous) consequence, it'd be something appropriately dire. At the very least, you aren't getting that weapon back anytime soon. Maybe it's broken, or drops into the ocean. Unlike the usual rules for consequences of that degree, though, it might not necessarily change your life forever. Or it might. I dunno.

Anyway, if disarms work differently in this game than usual, I got to thinking about what other fencing maneuvers could be simulated.

• Bind: A defense usable only in Melee -- spend shifts obtained on a Block vs. Brawn.
  
• Dodge: Using Physique to defend. Nothing special.
  
• Feint: Chicanery vs. Arms (or something); shifts obtained = +dF to next attack, with maximum +dF determined by Arms skill (something like Arms - 1).
  
• Fleche: Arms modified by Physique, spend shifts to close distance from Ranged to Extended to Melee to Corps-a-corps (1 shift/pace, +1 shift for R to E, plus any other modifiers for crossing borders or barriers). If you don't have enough shifts to make that happen, you can take stress instead to complete the move (resulting in a consequence).
  
• Footwork: Use Physique vs. Physique to increase or decrease pace by one.
  
• Lunge: +1dF to your attack, +1dF to opponent's next attack.
• Parry: Using Arms to defend. If your next action is an attack, +1dF to Arms.
• Prise de Fer: An attack usable only in Melee -- spend shifts obtained on a Block with Arms (usually) vs. Brawn.
  
• Punch: Fisticuffs, only when Corps-a-Corps.
  
• Shove: Usable only when Corps-a-Corps. Brawn vs. Brawn (usually); success means pace becomes Melee. With vitesse (spin), it's Extended instead. Can't decrease pace.

Of course, I don't want to overburden gameplay with too much crunch, so I don't know if we'll actually end up using these. However, I invite you to try 'em out if you're so inclined.

Swashbuckling: Salons D'Escrimer

Fencing schools -- the swashbuckling equivalent of magic, in a way. FATE being what it is, simply adding a bunch of bonuses isn't really the best route. Small bonuses make a big difference, and the last thing I want is a game of mechanical oneupmanship driven by escalating bonuses for no good reason. So I'm stealing a page from the Leonard Balsera playbook and doing a sort of roll-and-keep thing (roll XdF and keep the best 4dF). This increases the odds of getting a +4 on the dice without actually pushing past that threshold. I tried this out with an NPC in "Spirit of the Fist," and it worked fine. (That's "fine" as in "sometimes I still got a crappy roll, despite rolling 6dF and keeping the best 4dF.)

The simplest thing to do here is to treat each fencing school as a package of benefits -- say, three -- that's accessed through a stunt. I'm thinking there would be a number of these to choose from, organized in tiers that are unlocked by your Weapons skill. I concede that this is double-dipping a bit with Weapons, since it determines both how good you are in a fight and how versatile you can be, but c'mon, it's a swashbuckling game. That said, depending on the school a different skill could be used to determine just what you have access to. I'm thinking here of something like Academics or even Mysteries.

What fencing schools can do:

• +1-3dF (keep best four dice) with Weapons, Fists, or Guns for attacks, defenses, or specific type of weapon
  
• +1 in broad circumstances only with a particular skill that doesn't directly deal stress -- e.g., +1 Athletics to cover ground, +1 Intimidation in combat
• +2 to maneuver with a skill
  
• Use a different skill when rolling initiative
• Some other skill substitution in combat with non-stress-dealing skills
  
• One secondary skill can only complement and never restrict Weapons, Fists, or Guns
  
• No penalty to Weapons et al. when using a particular skill as part of a supplementary action
  
• +1dF when you have Advantage
• +1dF when you don't have Advantage
  
• Withstand an additional Minor consequence (this would be a very high-tier benefit)
  

What fencing schools can't do:

• Grant flat, blanket bonuses to Weapons, Fists, or Guns
• Grant flat bonuses to stress dealt on a successful attack
• Grant flat reductions to stress when successfully attacked
• Skill substitution that lets you use something other than Weapons et al. to deal stress

Notice I'm including Guns in there. That's just the completist in me, really, but there ought to be room for it; they aren't "The Three Rapierists," after all.

For example:
Salon de Montcharles: A school whose techniques revolve around understanding the opponent's mind and intimidating him into submission.

Novice Techniques (Prerequisite: Average Weapons)

• +1dF Weapons with rapiers
  
• +1 Empathy in combat
• +1 Intimidation in combat when you don't have Advantage
  

Intermediate Techniques (Prerequisite: Fair Weapons)

• Use Empathy instead of Alertness for initiative
• +2dF Weapons with defenses
  
• +1 Resolve when you have Advantage

Master Techniques (Prerequisite: Good Weapons)

• +1dF Weapons with attacks
  
• +1dF Weapons with defenses
  
• +2 Intimidation with maneuvers
  
• When you take a physical consequence, you may choose to take a mental consequence of equal severity instead

When you take the stunt for a particular fencing school, you pick three of its techniques from any available tier. The idea here is that I'd stat out a number of schools -- a dozen or more -- for players to pick from. That shouldn't prevent players from coming up with their own, but having pre-established schools would be an important bit of setting, I'd think. Techniques that grant bonus dice stack with each other, but techniques that grant flat bonuses don't: Use the highest applicable bonus. To take an example from the above, if you have +1 to Intimidation in combat and +2 to maneuver with Intimidation, using Intimidation in combat as part of a maneuver will only net you a +2 bonus. Keep in mind the rules of Advantage here. Normally, getting a +1 to Empathy in combat wouldn't be an especially big deal, but when a good Deceit roll can give you the ability to inflict consequences, having a decent Empathy suddenly becomes more important.

I'm not exactly sure how I'd handle other stunts (or their equivalent) here, but it'd be great if I could get away with limiting bonuses to Weapons solely to aspect invokes and tags. Oh, and the other thing I'd do is limit aspect invokes to once per scene, to encourage more maneuvers and the creation of new aspects.