But I already own all of the books, and I know how it works quite well. You offer me nothing!

I would like to learn how BW works, so... eagerly f5ing!

For reference, the sheet for the character we created in the previous thread. We'll use her to demonstrate the mechanics of the game.
-------------
Dianatra, Orc Slavemaster ("Mistress" to the slaves, "whip-bitch" to the rest of the clan, but never to her face)

Stats:
Will: B5 Perception: B4
Agility: B4 Speed: B4 Power: B4 Forte: B4

Attributes: Reflexes B4, Steel B8, Health B5, Mortal Wound B10

Skills
Ditch Digging B2, Excavation B2, Interrogation B2, Intimidation B6, Torture B2, Command B5, Sword B3
Seduction B2

Traits:
Cannibals, Cold Black Blood, Breeders, Fanged and Clawed, Loathsome and Twisted, Lynx Eyed, Like Burning Coals, Vile Language, Tasting the Lash, Deep Sense, When There's A Whip, There's A Way, Enemy of the Sun

Relationships:
- (forbidden, romantic) Rip-Ear, that one slave that keeps running away, that I keep catching...
- (forbidden, romantic, antagonistic, immediate) Khramm Shunk, Black Legion General, a twisted tale of love and hate and incest

Circles: B2
Affiliations: 1D Black Legion quartermasters, armorers, and other support personnel,
Reputations: 1D Local reputation in the Black Legion as a fuckin' scary and highly effective whip-driver type.

Resources: B1*

>>13510828
(oh yeah, that first relationship is antagonistic too. Damn errata!)
-----
Gear:
A nasty looking scimitar with a spiked handguard for close encounters, run of the mill plated leather, a black iron shield, whip and traveling gear

B: "The strong live, and the weak die. The strong rule, and the weak serve. I was weak once. I will never be weak again."
B: "Life is pain. Strength comes from pain. Those who endure become stronger. Those who endure live."
B: "How someone looks is a reflection of who they truly are. If someone lets themselves look like a slave, they are a slave in their heart."

I: "Never let anyone stand close behind me."
I: "Never give my name."
I: "Any break or slowing of labor on the part of a slave gets them a whipping."

>>13510819
You can jeer from the peanut gallery, Anon!

You are going to make me accidentally purchase this.

It can go next to my Mouse Guard RPG book.

This game includes ditch digging as a skill. I've already lost interest.

BW's core mechanic is pretty simple. You roll a pool of d6s against a certain obstacle. Each dice that meets or beats a certain target number counts as a success - if you get enough successes to meet or beat the obstacle, your roll is successful.

Let's take one of Dianatra's skills to demonstrate.

>Sword B3

Abilities have a Shade, the potential of that ability. Among other things, it determines the target number for our dicepool. Shades are Black (4+), Grey (3+) and White (2+)

And then there's the Exponent, which is the number of dice we'll be actually rolling.

In this case, for Sword rolls, Dianatra will be rolling three d6 against a target number of 4+. If she had to make, say, an Obstacle 2 test, at least two of her dice should get 4 or more to succeed.

>>13510905
It includes any skill you can think of. If you really want it you can buy Cheese-wise. So what? Don't want to be a ditch-digger, don't be a ditch-digger. It's pretty easy to avoid.

>>13511037
Yep, this is sounding like pure narrativist wank.

This shit is totally fucking awesome and you are fucking awesome for continuing this shit.

Rock on, you awesome faétgéuy you!

Also, mind hitting an anon up with an érséÉ

Glad to see that you're back, OP. Looking forward to doing something with this.

>>13511052
It's not. In fact, it's one of the crunchier systems I've played. But don't take my word for it; baseless assumptions all around! I'm going to leave now and stop replying to you so OP can propagate his thread.

>>13510905
Pfft. This game includes Waiting Tables as a skill. Playwrights can buy it.
------------
Something important to mention is that BW makes a distinction between the "task" and the "intent" of a roll. This is probably something most GMs already do in their games, but BW makes it explicit.

A roll's Intent is what you, as a player, want your character to achieve in the game world. The Task is what your character actually does in the game world to achieve the Intent. The difference matters because a) the consequences of failing a roll must be made clear before rolling the dice and b) while Intent fails if a roll is not successful, that does not necessarily follow for Task.

>The goblins were scared. The Raven King's Citadel had withstood the attacks of many orc clans by centuries, and the steely-eyed elves of its Protector Guard did not know of mercy. Their retribution was swift and bloody, and more than one would-be Elfslayer Chief's head had been raised at the top of a pike, while the outriders finished off the stragglers.

>Dianatra had no time to waste. The tunnels had to be ready by sundown, for the infiltrators to reach the citadel and open its silver gates to the Black Legion. Fuck the Raven King, she thought - the goblins should know by now that it was her whip they should fear above all else.

"The tunnels will be complete by sundown; I Command the goblins to keep digging."

The first part is our Intent, and the second is our Task. If we succeed in our roll, the tunnels will be indeed ready by sundown (a successful roll in BW is unappealable, so determining the Intent is essential) - but if we fail, many things can happen. Maybe the goblins run across enchanted stone immune to their picks, maybe a cave-in happens and the tunnelers are late, maybe they dig upwards before they should and end up digging straight into the Citadel's barracks.

Again, this is probably something you do as a GM already.

Of course, those obstacles can pile up and our dice won't be enough. What do we do? There are many things that will give us dice.

First, Linked Tests. These are used for long operations requiring many skills, and can be undertaken by one or several characters.

Let's say one of the clan's Gate Forgers approaches Dianatra and asks for her boys' help in building an outpost. She will Command the slaves into assisting the Forger's Architect roll.

Dianatra makes her Command roll: if she meets the obstacle, nothing happens. If she rolls over the obstacle, the Forger will get an extra die to his roll - but if she fails, he will get +1 to his Obstacle.

We can also ask for Advantages - if we feel the situation is in our favor for some reason, we can ask the GM for an extra die. Dianatra can jump over a table while fighting a drunk, angry Dwarf in a tavern, and ask for a +1D bonus. Subject to GM approval of course, and the GM can also slam you with Disadvantages raising the obstacle to beat.

If it makes sense, a character can work Carefully (increasing the time necessary for the task by half, but getting +2D), Quickly (successes rolled over the obstacle can shave off 10% of the necessary time per success) or Patiently (successes rolled over the obstacle can be used to embellish the final result, depending on the skill.)

Instead of Linking tests, another character can Help with an appropriate skill or stat: if the exponent is 4 or less, the acting character gets an extra die. If it's 5 or more, they get an extra two dice.

And finally, there is Fields of Related Knowledge (FoRKs): using your knowledge in one skill to help another. For instance, Dianatra could Interrogate a prisoner and use her Intimidation skill to back her questions. FoRKing skills give you an extra die for your roll, unless the skill is 7 or higher - then it's two dice.

You may feel that this is too big a deal for a simple skill roll. BW's intention is that characters get a lot of shit done from a single roll: a cat thief trying to steal jewels from the museum won't be rolling her Stealth skill for every guard she comes across - she'll roll once, and if she's successful she'll get away with the jewelry, but if she fails she'll be spotted at some point of her infiltration.

This is called Let It Ride: you don't roll again until the circumstances have changed greatly. Even if the obstacle changes for some reason (say, a character tracking his quarry through mud ends up following it into a city with paved roads) the roll won't be made again.

Tests matter. You don't roll until it matters. And the consequences for failing must be specified clearly as well- "If you fail this Observation roll, the cat thief will make off with the jewels."

Another reason why rolling should be sparse is that the experience system is linked to the rolls you make.

All rolls are divided into Routine (obstacle is inferior to the total dice rolled), Difficult (obstacle is equal to or very close to the dice rolled) and Challenging (obstacle is superior to the dice rolled)

To advance a skill, a character needs to make a number of Routine, Difficult and Challenging tests. For instance, to increase her Torture B2 skill, Dianatra would need to make 2 Routine tests and either 1 Difficult or 1 Challenging test.

With very few exceptions, you don't need to actually succeed at the roll - all you have to do is get the dice rolling, and suck up the consequences if you fail. This is why the dice actually rolled matter - something that might be Challenging for you might be bumped down to Difficult and Routine with Advantages, Help and FoRKs. So if you want to progress, you'll have to leave behind your crutches sometimes and take your chances.

(Incidentally, Helping characters also log the test for their own advancement - so there's a definite reward for being a nice guy)

You can also get tests by practicing, or learning from others. This takes a lot of time, but it's not uncommon in BW games for the GM to say something like "alright, you'll have a year of downtime, tell me what you'll be practicing meanwhile."

I love you fools, and your foolishness!

Hear hear /tg/!

But then, there are some skills and attributes where succeeding at your tests is mandatory. And shit, sometimes you'll definitely want to make that Obstacle 5 test with your piddling B2 skill. That's where Artha comes in.

But first, let's talk a little about Beliefs and Instincts.

Recapping from the previous thread:
>Beliefs make your character act. They are not vague, they're clearly defined and your character is involved with them. A paladin doesn't just have a Belief in "justice", but one like "I am the sword of justice; I will bring swift death to those who pursue evil and harm innocents." A pacifist prince doesn't just think "war is bad" but "The pen is mightier than the sword; war will never be an option while I rule." Playing to your Beliefs and fulfilling them gives you Artha points.

>Instincts are precisely that - actions so internalized by your character that they barely consider before performing them. The archetypal instinct is "Always draw my sword at the first sign of danger" but can be anything that your character always keeps in mind, like "Always assess at every juncture while underground," "Never wake up before 12PM", "Forage for food while marching with the army" or "Check my gear every morning and evening." Instincts don't have to get you in trouble (you are not forced to draw your sword if you meet your nemesis while at the court of a neutral lord, frex) but playing up the trouble can give you artha points.

Now, Artha is the fancy BW name for what other games call "fate" or "hero" points. It makes our rolls easier and can literally save our lives. There are three types of artha, each more powerful than the previous.

Fate artha is obtained just by roleplaying your character. Following your Beliefs, getting in trouble due to Instincts or Traits, having the right skill at the right time or just stopping the table dead with laughter can net you Fate artha. These points can be used to make a roll open ended (6s are rerolled as new dice) or shrugging off +1 Obstacle's worth of wound penalties.

Persona artha is obtained by more serious roleplayan shens. Embodying the mood of the scene, accomplishing personal goals, being the MVP of a scene or just being the most relied upon character of the game can net you Persona artha. It can be used to directly add dice to a roll (1 point, 1 dice), ignore 1D of wound penalties, ignoring time-related consequences for failing a test made Carefully and, most importantly, declaring that your character has the Will to Live if he takes a Mortal Wound, thus giving others a shot at saving him.

And finally, Deeds artha. This is for major goals accomplished, stuff that goes beyond the desires of your character. This is rare, 1 point a campaign artha, but powerful as fuck - it can temporarily shift the shade of a roll, or reroll all failed dice for ANY test (including non-skill stuff like equipment dice and such)

Most importantly, dice added by artha never count for advancement purposes. With enough artha, that one Ob 5 test can be done on a B2 skill, and it can still count as Challenging. Being a PC has its bonuses.

And incidentally, if you spend a shitload of artha on one ability (like 20 Fate, 10 Persona and 3 Deeds) throughout a campaign, you can permanently shift its shade. So roleplay well and you'll be killing Balrogs in no time!

What you've seen so far is the main rules of BW. Everything that comes from now on is optional.

We'll take a look at some of these subsystems, and then we'll get to the long-waited for audience participation bit!
-----

Dianatra has Resources: B1. What does this mean?

Resources is an abstract measure of a character's purchasing power. It can mean money, but also includes credit, favors owed, and so on.

It works like any other skill, but you cannot FoRK skills into it (you can Link a previous test, though). If you fail a Resources test, your rating is reduced - you wasted money and didn't found what you sought, your credit isn't as good as you thought, etc. To recover it, your character needs to work.

If the GM is using these rules, Resources is also used to support your character's lifestyle - so you better have your full Resources rating when the king's tax collectors come calling.

Next, there is Circles. This is probably my favorite mechanic in BW.

Circles is an abstract measure of the people you know. This is not used to contact other PCs, or relationship NPCs - this is used to get in touch with informants, find professionals through the grapevine, track down insurrectionists and so on.

> "Shit! Fuck!" The Forger was never a pleasant orc at the best of times, but today he seemed particularly angry.
> "What the fuck got into you now?" asked Dianatra.
> "Look at this bullshit!" He showed her a long, hollow brass tube.
> "I see nothing."
> "Exactly! One of my tools is lodged inside and I can't... reach... the fucker!" His thick arm was bleeding from trying to jam it inside the slender tube.
> "So break it."
> "No can do, the Siege Master wants this for whatever the fuck reason. Hey... coming to think of it. Your slaves are runty enough - don't make that face - think you can lend me one?"
> Dianetra spat. "What's in it for me?"

In this case, Dianetra would roll her Circles to find a slave appropriate for this task. It works just like a skill, and Affiliations and Reputation dice can be used to augment it. The obstacle will depend on the specificity of the target, the urgency of the request, the place for the meeting, the social positions of the people involved, and several other factors.

Most importantly, the NPC being sought does not have to exist before the roll is made - effectively, a player can create useful minor NPCs out of nothing. Of course, if the roll fails, the NPC might very well not exist at all, or not being able to get in touch with the PC. The GM can also invoke the Enmity Clause if the roll fails - the NPC exists, but is pissed at your character for some reason. Who knows, maybe Dianetra finds a slave with slender arms - but he's under the orders of another Whipmaster that hates people taking his slaves away, and the slave himself hates Dianetra's guts after she cut off his nose...

Call me crazy, but this looks like a slightly modified FATE system

And finally, Steel. This is a measure of our character's cold blood, courage, and resistance to shock, fear and pain. Dianatra has a pretty good Steel of B8, and her base obstacle for Steel tests is 10 - Will = 5. This obstacle is called hesitation, the number of actions we lose to shock. Our Steel successes are used to cut down on our hesitation.

Failing a Steel test can result in one of four outcomes, to be chosen by the player:

Stand and Drool - not literally, but the character effectively does nothing for the remainder of their hesitation (clutching a wound, gasping at a horrifying sight, etc.)

Fall Prone And Beg For Mercy - self explanatory

Swoon - pass out to pain or shock

Run Screaming - AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH

Characters do one of these four things for the remainder of their hesitation. You can see how this can be a problem in combat - get punched hard, and then get stabbed in the throat while you're reeling from the pain. At least Steel tests are naturally open-ended. Steel advances as a skill.

>>13511937
So we roll 8 dice, and each 5 or 6 we roll reduces our hesitation by 1. Since we have a hesitation of 5, what happens if we roll more than 5 successes?

>>13510880
sure is loaded full of fluff hey !
>>13511810
there is fate points, or something of the such

all the d6's reminds me of shadow run

And now, the conflict subsystems! These are where BW gets most of its reputation as a massively complex system. It's not harder than core 3.x, IMHO.

First, Duel of Wits, the social conflict subsystem. This is where big things are on the line, and a simple Persuasion test won't cut it. Characters line up their arguments and use a number of maneuvers to, effectively, LOOK correct. This is important: no one is necessarily convinced by the winner of a Duel of Wits, but they find themselves without any way of attacking the argument.

> "...and forty slaves." The Follower ended up his account of the clan's stocks for the following attack on the Raven King's Citadel.
> The Named nodded. All the higher ups of the Clan were around him - the two Whipmasters, the Knower of Secrets, the Gate Forger and the Siege Master. His loyal Head Taker ensured that no one had any funny ideas about command.
> "Fine," Dianatra started. "I'll take the slaves and---"
> "If I may, sire..." The Knower of Secrets interrupted. Dianatra hated him - a sneaky coward, someone who lived by sorcery and poisoned words instead of steel and muscle.
> "The young lady," and Dianatra could hardly believe the hatred he put in each word, "surely means the best for our Clan, but there are better uses for the cattle. Give them to me, my Lord: a grand sacrifice to the God of Darkness and Blood, that our Master covers the land in twilight at noon. A blood twilight, suitable for carnage."
> "You promise a lot of shit, sorceror, but last time, I don't think you delivered."
> "A temporary setback, hm..."
> "Temporary, my green ass----"
> "Enough!" bellowed the Chief. "I'm not going to waste time seeing you two squabbling on who gets to play with your slave toys." A malicious glint crossed his eyes. "Convince me."

>>13512013
(4+ and if we roll more successes than hesitation, we don't hesitate - we ignore the shock and move on.)

>>13512088
So we have a social conflict! At this point, Dianatra's player and the GM state their conditions at a meta level.

>Dianatra wants the slaves under her command, and the Knower of Secrets to shut the fuck up about strategy for the rest of the campaign.

>The Knower wants the slaves for sacrifice, and Dianatra to stay silent during the war councils.

Next, we roll our Body of Argument - our "hit points" for the Duel. Attacks drain the opponent's Body of Argument, and if it reaches zero the duelist loses. Our Body of Argument is determined by rolling the main skill we'll use for the duel - successes from it are added to our Will, and the final number is our BoA.

>Dianatra will go with Intimidation, see if that shuts the fucker up. The Knower will use Soothing Platitudes, ingratiating himself with the Chief.

Some rolls later, we get three successes for Dianatra's B8 Intimidation and two for the Knower's B4 Soothing Platitudes. Add them to their respective Wills of 5 and 4 to get:

>Dianatra's BoA: 8
>Knower's BoA: 6

Right then! Ready to shut a cunt up?

>>13512088
So, does that "AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION STARTS HERE" indicate that we should be coming up with arguments, or are you going to be posting more?

Be warned that if we're entering play mode, my instinct as a player is to constantly ask for more information. Here, for example, I'd want to know more about the structure of the clan, its enemies, and its recent history- such as the 'last time' referenced- to make some decent arguments.

>>13512233
The Duel is divided in "exchanges", each exchange divided into three "volleys." Players write down actions for each volley of the current exchange, then reveal them as the volleys take place and playing out the actions against each other. The maneuvers we can choose can sometimes counter and be countered by specific other maneuvers: part of the game is outguessing and outwitting the other players as much as just rolling better than the opponents.

And no, you can't change your maneuvers from volley to volley - so plan carefully or you might end up in a line of argument that your wiser opponent can crush.

You don't just shout maneuvers at each other - you're expected to say a sentence or two representing it. You don't have to be a rhetorical master, of course, but the intent must be clear. (cont.)

The maneuvers are seven, as follows:

>Avoid the Topic (tests Will + FoRKs)
>>Defends against: all maneuvers but Dismiss
>>Requirements: the character must veer off topic
>>Effects: successes in Avoid the Topic are subtracted from opponent's Point, Obfuscate or Incite. Avoid automatically beats Feint and Rebuttal. Does not work on Dismiss

>Dismiss (tests Skill)
>>Defends against: nothing
>>Countered by: Rebuttal
>>Requirements: this is used to bring the argument to a close.
>>Effects: +2D to your skill as you declare that you're completely right and your opponent is a fool and not worth being listened to - but if you fail to win during this volley, you must hesitate during the next.

>Feint(tests Skill)
>>Defends against: Obfuscate
>>Counters: Rebuttal
>>Requirements: Feint only works against Rebuttal or Obfuscate
>>Effects: You lead the opponent into a trap, making him think you're discussing one point while attacking with another. Feint automatically counters Rebuttal - it simply does not take effect, and you can make a Point against the defender. There is no attack or riposte against a Point, Dismiss or Incite, and a defender walks away unharmed with an Avoid. Against Obfuscate, the Feint's skill is tested twice and successes are added.

>Incite (tests Ugly Truth, Intimidation, Command or Falsehood)
>>Defends against: Nothing
>>Counters: Nothing
>>Requirements: You must outright insult your opponent
>>Effects: test the skill with the opponent's Will as an obstacle, success forces the victim to take a Steel test. If they hesitate, they lose their next action - however, if the Incite fails, the margin of failure is given to the opponent as advantage dice for the next test.

>>13512478

>Obfuscate(tests Soothing Platitudes, Oratory, Rhetoric, Falsehood, Ugly Truth)
>>Defends against: Everything but Feint
>>Counters: Everything but Feint
>>Requirements: You must present a non sequitur or bizarre point, confusing the opponent
>>Effects: opposed test between the opponents' argument skills. If you win, the victim loses their next action. If you exceed the obstacle, the victim is at +1 Ob for the next action- but if you lose, they win +1D for the next action.

>Point (tests Skill)
>>Countered by: Rebuttal, Avoid the Topic
>>Counters: Feint, Obfuscate, Incite
>>Requirements: make your damn point!
>>Effects: test your skill, successes are subtracted from the opponent's Body of Argument. Simple!

>Rebuttal(tests Skill)
>>Countered by: Feint
>>Counters: Point, Dismiss
>>Requirements: first let the opponent make their Point or Dismiss, then refute and make a fresh attack.
>>Effects: split your skill between attack and defense pools: defense successes are subtracted from opponent's Point or Dismissal successes, while the attack pool works as a Point.

So! Pick three maneuvers for Dianatra and some appropriate sentences to go with them, while I'll do the same for the Knower of Secrets. I promise I won't cheat and look!

(btw, how did you roll on /tg/ again?)

>>13512495
dice+XdY+Z

>>13512495
>Incite
"The Knower of Secrets hardly deserves his title! He spills rivers of blood from sacrifices and the only gains are the meat of the corpses!"

>Point
"The slaves are our greatest expendable asset in battle. Without them on the field, driven to the fore, every arrow the elves fire will be driven towards a more valuable warrior- and he would have us discard that shield!"

>Dismiss
"His plan is sheer folly, and he has failed to produce results in the past; what more needs be said?"


Hopefully the sorcerer won't run circles around us, but... we'll see.

>>13512536
In the email field.

I vote that one of our actions should be Incite.

>>13512669
I don't think one set of 3 will put him on the ropes, let's not dismiss for now.

>>13512715
What would you suggest instead? I've never used this system before, I'm not sure how quickly damage is dealt. I figured we're rolling eight dice and we only need six successes to take him out, so...

rolled 2, 6, 6, 3 = 17

>>13512669
Alright then!

First, Incite vs... Point!
>Knower: "We are all servants of the God of Darkness and Blood in the end. It is only natural that He is given his due."

Let's start with his roll first... (it is possible for both Bodies of Argument to be reduced to 0 in the same round, incidentally.)

rolled 2, 6, 1, 6, 3, 5, 4, 4 = 31

>>13512764
2 successes for him! Now, Dianatra's Incite. Target is the Knower's Will of B4.

rolled 1, 1, 4, 5, 4, 4, 4, 1 = 24

>>13512775
Five successes! Our barb worked perfectly.

>The council remained deadly silent as Dianatra spoke out against the Knower. Everyone knew of the slavemaster's temper, but to openly defy a Servant? As the Knower put his barely contained rage back into control, Dianetra spoke again.

His next action goes poof due to the Incite, and he'll have an extra +1 to whatever he'll do come Volley 3!

Dianatra makes his point.

rolled 6, 1, 4, 3, 5, 3 = 22

>>13512812
(dang, I forgot about the Steel test for Incite. Let's assume he doesn't make it.)
----
Ouch! 5 successes knocking down his Body of Argument to 1.

Volley 3, Dismissal vs... Dismissal! Let's roll first for the Knower.

>"The young lady perhaps fails to understand the importance of rendering due homage to our God. Perhaps she should not intervene in matters beyond her ken."

rolled 1, 3, 5, 4, 3, 4, 1, 1 = 22

>>13512866
Three successes for him, knocking Dianatra's BoA down to 3.

Now, Dianatra's Dismissal....

>and he'll have an extra +1 to whatever he'll do come Volley 3!
Am I reading this correctly, that he'll gain a bonus to his Volley 3 action? Why? The description of Incite that you posted doesn't seem to give any bonus to the target unless the roll is failed.

And that's it! The Duel of Wits is done, and the Chief will favor Dianatra's opinion.

Now, this is where it get interesting. The ONLY way we can get away with our intent with no objection at all is winning a Duel without losing a single point of BoA. If we do lose, we'll need to compromise - the winning side still gets their way, but must make concessions to the loser. In this case, the Knower knocked down our BoA from 8 to 3, less than half. Some major concessions are in order.

> "Very well." muttered the Chief. "She Who Bears The Lash will have the slaves. But those tunnels will be ready by sundown, or the Knower will have his pound of flesh."
>Dianatra was not entirely happy with the outcome (less than a day to work) but the Knower was positively fuming. He stormed out of the council, while the other orcs smirked behind his back.

>>13512886
(I was posting as if it were Obfuscate, then forgot to erase that. Sorry!)

You might be wondering if Dianatra and the Knower log all those tests to their skills. The answer is not quite: in situations where you need to repeat rolls constantly (like whenever you whip out a conflict subsystem) only the hardest roll counts for effects of improving one's skills.

Next, Range and Cover!

Can someone upload the revised books? All I can see on /rs/ are the original ones.

Burning Wheel?

>>13513011
Am I correct in thinking that all our rolls there were equally hard? It looks like we just rolled our Intimidation skill three times in a row, and only on one occasion did we actually have a target number of successes.

>>13513011
Range and Cover is BW's ranged combat system. Yes, there is a separate combat system for ranged and melee, because Fight! (the melee system) is in your face, blinding quick combat where bows and other ranged weapons are very slow to bring to bear. It's actually simpler than it sounds like.

Like in Duel of Wits, we write out three maneuvers for the exchange, then play them out against each other. These maneuvers are for the opponents to get into position against each other - assassins with throwing blades in the mean streets, playing a deadly mouse game; a knight pinned down by a jackass with a repeating crossbow; two hillbilly hunters fighting the feud that has been bleeding their families for the last 50 years.

Dianatra does not have ranged skills, but she can still be part of Range and Cover - she might be ambushed by a bowman, and be forced to choose between escaping or taking the fight to him. Do you want to play this out, or shall we jump straight to Fight?

>>13513045
When making open rolls, they're counted as Ob 1 tests - Routine in pretty much all cases. And even in the Incite situation, 8 dice against an obstacle of 4 would've counted as Routine.

>>13513112
Skip to Fight. Do range and Cover later.

>>13513112
I'd be interested in playing it out, but won't insist.

I'm with >>13513148.

Question: in your write-up, it says that Point counters Incite, yet we still got to perform our Incite action. What does it mean for one action to Counter another?

>>13513236
I was typing out from the book, but I don't think Point actually counters Incite - the countering effects for other maneuvers are explicitly stated in their writeups. Compare Avoid the Topic, where it states that it's automatically successful against Feint and Rebuttal.

Wheelie, have you considered putting this on suptg?

>>13513266
You mean, like in the archive? I think it was archived, not sure.

Also, we're doing FIGHT! then. Range and Cover can come later.

(And I just found that there were some nifty tables in the BW Wiki for Duel of Wits maneuvers. I would've saved myself all that typing. FUCK. At least we'll have them for Fight!)

>>13513346
Let's Fight!

Fight! is the BW melee combat system. Like in Range and Cover, characters struggle for positioning against each other; and like in Duel of Wits, players select maneuvers from a list and try to outwit each other.

These are the martial actions we can take.

And these are the interactions between each other.

>>13513457
Charge, Great Strike.

>>13513499
Easy there! Let's set up our battlefield first.

>Walking down the orc camp towards the slave pits, Dianatra couldn't help but feel something was off. The other orcs and goblins stayed ever so slightly away from her - more than usual. There are few secrets in an orc camp, and news of the Knower of Secrets' humiliation were probably all over the place by now.
>She turned around a corner, only to see a slave with his back to her. Doing nothing.
>The whip was on her hand immediately. "Back to your pit, dog!" she barked, cracking the whip over the slave's head.
>The goblin slowly turned around. His eyes shone with the glint of madness, and a line of drool fell down his chin. "I ain't... going anywhere... bitch." His voice was strangely calm.
>Dianatra knew the effects of the deadening drug when she saw them. She quickly put two and two together - the Knower had sent someone else to do her in, his hands ever unblemished by the murder of a respectable orc. The whip was useless against the drugged goblin, and Dianatra slowly drew her blade.

>>13513624
I note that a lot of those are dependent upon Weapon Skill, which we don't have a lot of. Am I correct in thinking that we basically have to roll it anyway, and can't try to boost with linking/forking as described earlier because those are restricted to extended tests?

Let's start talking about damage. When hitting something or someone, our damage can be Incidental, Mark, or Superb. Which damage we'll get will depend on how many successes we roll on our attack actions.

Incidental damage is half our Power, rounded up.
Mark damage is our Power.
Superb damage is 1.5 times our Power, rounded down.

When we hit, the damage we do will go into the hurt character's Physical Tolerances. It will also typically force a Steel test - it is easy to finish a fight in one blow as one fighter reels from pain.

For reference, the stats of our weapon:
Scimitar:
Power: +3
Add: 2
VA: 1
Speed: Slow
Length: Long

Weapon Power is added to our own Power when calculating damage. Add is the number of successes needed to bump damage from Incidental, to Mark, to Superb. VA is the Versus Armor rating - a penalty to armor rolls made against the weapon.

Speed tells us how often we can use our weapon - Fast weapons can Strike as often as we want, Slow weapons can Strike every other action (ie, we need any other action between our Strikes) and Unwieldy weapons require us to Set before we Strike - using two actions to attack once, in effect.

And finally, Length: longer weapons give us bonuses to positioning and let us strike from farther away, but become more unwieldy in closer range. That spear is nice and good to fight off the dude with a dagger until he bypasses your defense and starts stabbing your face.

Dianatra's weapon is her scimitar, with the same stats as the sword above. The scimitar's spiked pommel has the following stats:

> Power +1 Add 2 Speed Slow VA 1 Length Shortest

The goblin only has a lousy shiv.

> Power +0 Add 1 Speed Fast VA - Length Shortest

>>13513744
Linking, no. We could FoRK into our weapon skill if we had an appropriate skill, like Brawling or Boxing. Unfortunately, we don't.

But hey, at least we're trained.

>>13513782
We can't give a bold and terrifying shout as we attack to fork intimidate, or a cruel twist of our sword to fork torture?

rolled 1, 2, 4, 3, 3, 1, 2, 2, 6, 1 = 25

>>13513838
Maybe you could get your GM to accept it, but I'd say no. The skill entries for weapon skills only list other combat skills as valid FoRKs, after all.
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All battles are started with a positioning test. Positioning is a versus Speed test, plus extra dice if your weapon is longer than your opponent's. The winner of this initial test determines the initial distance between the fighters.

Dianatra has a Speed of B4, +1D for her sword (longer than his shiv). The drug-crazed goblin has a speed of B5.

I'm rolling for both at the same time to make things faster. First five dice are Dianatra's.

>>13513907
Well shit, a tie! Ties are usually given to the "defender" in a situation. I think it's safe to give it to Dianatra for now, letting her win the test.

(If both sides are aggressors, the guy with an appropriate call-on trait wins. And if not, flip a coin or something.)

The winner of this initial test sets the initial distance for the fight. She can start outside of striking distance, lunging, or optimal distance, but not inside.

Outside striking distance: cannot use attack actions.
Lunging: can attack at +1 Ob.
Optimal: can attack with no penalty
Inside: weapons get penalties to attack, usually worse the longer the weapon is.

Of course, that means "optimal" distance for you - if we start there, the goblin will be outside striking distance and will need to close in somehow to attack.

>YOUR CHOICE

>>13514002
I don't understand the question. Are you saying you're leaving the starting position up to us?

In that case, yes, let's win and keep the goblin with the shiv out of range for an action.

>>13514091
Yes. Maybe you wanted to start further away so that you could escape or something.

Alright, get ready for SCRIPTING

We have a number of actions equal to our Reflexes to use in each exchange. Both sides have B4 Reflexes, so 4 actions.

Remember, exchanges are FAST. Punch the air four times as fast as you can: that's how long an exchange last.

As before, each exchange is divided in three volleys. Actions must be divided between them as evenly as possible.

Each volley also has to have a positioning test alongside the actions being taken - this does not cost an action and is executed in tandem with the actions of the volley. You can Close, Maintain Distance or Withdraw, or just stay still and let the opponent win the volley's positioning.

You CAN change your mind for actions in volleys that you haven't played yet, but it'll cost you - you need to sacrifice one action that you haven't taken yet for each change.

Take a look at the actions above, and write down your maneuvers for the exchange.

>>13514174
I feel that I should be posting here, so I'll admit that I don't think I have any idea what I'm doing and have pretty much abandoned coming up with a decent attack plan for that reason. Lost track of how distance and weapon modifiers and what have you all fit together and don't have the focus and mental energy to work through it. Mostly all I came up with was "our power is now 7 and our weapon skill sucks, so charge and lock all the time".