D&D 5E A modern fantasy setting?

[Fanaelialae]

Duels (using guns) are a really interesting and kind of horrific test for almost any RPG system, I imagine. Hard for me to think of a system that wouldn't play out in a completely silly, un-duel-like way. The duelists would either just keep blazing away after getting hit a couple times (assuming revolvers or multiple guns on hand) or whoever's hit worse would be the loser...and just be fine. Almost no game in existence wit rules for the fact that a wound might only become fatal a day or two later.

This is giving me agita, tbh. My trad gamer brain is frying like an egg on a hot sidewalk. But it's also really useful. Good reminder that, in a game without magical healing, you could do some really cool stuff with a "death" result for a PC or NPC, where they aren't actually dead on the spot, but there's no saving them, even if they're conscious for a long time.

Pretty cool escapism, I know.

You could just use special rules for duels.

Maybe something like you get sneak attack bonus damage for the first shot. If you get reduced to half hp, you need to save vs disease. If you get reduced to zero, roll on some special table to determine whether you die horribly. Something like that.

That would allow for a variety of ways for the duel to turn out, ranging from dead on the first shot, to we both miss and are now running for cover because it's now a shootout.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

You could just use special rules for duels.

Maybe something like you get sneak attack bonus damage for the first shot. If you get reduced to half hp, you need to save vs disease. If you get reduced to zero, roll on some special table to determine whether you die horribly. Something like that.

Those are good ideas for reverse-engineering duel tropes, but there's something very weird to me about having different mechanics slot in because you're forcing those kinds of results. Shouldn't taking a nasty bullet in a big battle royale also call for a save vs. diseases?

But the sneak attack bonus damage, or similar, could be a cool way to get at the fact that, in a typical duel, you can't do anything defensive. Just gotta stand there. That's easier to adjust for in some systems, like ones where your measure of success ups your damage, and so defending can reduce it. But how do you handle something like AC if you're supposed to be basically immobile? Starts to really tweak your brain, or at least my brain, to decouple AC from active defensive movement. And then if it's just super easy for both people to hit, then it's a real gruesome, darkly hilarious scene. Just reliably blasting out each others' guts till someone looks at their HP count and cries uncle.

I feel like the other big subsystem or rules tweak you'd need for a duel, in addition to damage, is initiative. Like you should be able to lose some initiative in order to aim, and vice versa, at a level of resolution that slices up a standard combat round. Most systems don't zoom in close enough for that (thankfully, since combats would be even slower) but I like the idea of a duel mode that's very different.

I had wanted the new Dune RPG to have something like that. And it does...but I just hate it. Since duels in that setting are always melee you have to maneuver your body and both hands around as separate assets. It's weird as hell, and not in a good way (imo).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I had wanted the new Dune RPG to have something like that. And it does...but I just hate it. Since duels in that setting are always melee you have to maneuver your body and both hands around as separate assets. It's weird as hell, and not in a good way (imo).

Oh god this sounds upsetting and bizarre lol. I almost want to buy the Dune RPG to see this insanity. But not that much. That almost mid-1990s-level bonkers RPG design.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

If I were doing fantasy western with D&D-based rules I'd give (sub)classes that specialise to gun use 'deadshot' ability that would basically be sneak attack that they could utilise under certain conditions. Would make things like duel at the dawn or snipers work more sensibly.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Those are good ideas for reverse-engineering duel tropes, but there's something very weird to me about having different mechanics slot in because you're forcing those kinds of results. Shouldn't taking a nasty bullet in a big battle royale also call for a save vs. diseases?

But the sneak attack bonus damage, or similar, could be a cool way to get at the fact that, in a typical duel, you can't do anything defensive. Just gotta stand there. That's easier to adjust for in some systems, like ones where your measure of success ups your damage, and so defending can reduce it. But how do you handle something like AC if you're supposed to be basically immobile? Starts to really tweak your brain, or at least my brain, to decouple AC from active defensive movement. And then if it's just super easy for both people to hit, then it's a real gruesome, darkly hilarious scene. Just reliably blasting out each others' guts till someone looks at their HP count and cries uncle.

I feel like the other big subsystem or rules tweak you'd need for a duel, in addition to damage, is initiative. Like you should be able to lose some initiative in order to aim, and vice versa, at a level of resolution that slices up a standard combat round. Most systems don't zoom in close enough for that (thankfully, since combats would be even slower) but I like the idea of a duel mode that's very different.

I had wanted the new Dune RPG to have something like that. And it does...but I just hate it. Since duels in that setting are always melee you have to maneuver your body and both hands around as separate assets. It's weird as hell, and not in a good way (imo).

I don't mind different rules for a gun duel because it's so different from a normal gunfight.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

Oh god this sounds upsetting and bizarre lol. I almost want to buy the Dune RPG to see this insanity. But not that much. That almost mid-1990s-level bonkers RPG design.

I would truly love to read your take on it, since I am very possibly way too much of a grump about it. I'm both very impressed at the degree to which they thought through what it would take to really capture the full Dune experience--warts and all--in a TTRPG, and pissed that they didn't just say, Hey, forget being faithful to low-action books that read like a play without stage directions, and let's have you play mercs or criminals something because this is getting hella abstract.

To me it's almost like a Fate or PbtA game without the tight narrative focus/playbooks that can make those work well. Most everything in the game is an "Asset" one of kind or another, and you use those to create "Truths," which could range from filling a room with smoke to planting a false rumor. There are people who really like it, so maybe I'm unduly weirded out, but what really bugs me is the way it goes from very abstract and narrative about virtually everything (you can probably do a thing because your character is passionate about it) to....this:

I misspoke before when I said your body and such are assets. Those are separate zones, whereas a weapon or personal shield is an asset, so you'd move your knife asset into the target's zone, but that's probably going to be blocked by a knife in their guard zones, and this creates a situation where essentially all duels involve dual-wielding and...man I just hate it so much. Also leads to rules like this:

"If you find yourself without any other weapons, you automatically receive an ‘Unarmed Attack’ tangible asset with a Quality of 0, allowing you to strike and grapple without the use of a weapon."

So you can't just attack unarmed, the system has to define not having a weapon in a given hand as an Asset that is mostly bad.

I mention all this not just to randomly dunk on Dune, but because, imo, it's a good example of how a dueling subsystem can get wacky as hell. Granted, I think the larger system contributes to that, but there it is. And a Dune RPG really does need some good dueling rules, because of the whole thing about personal shields and lasers turning them into nukes. I just don't know if this is the way to do it. I think if I were running Dune I'd rather break out the Street Fighter RPG every time a duel happened.

(apologies for the off-topic tangent everyone...can't really pretend this is related to the thread)

 

[Yaarel]

You could just use special rules for duels.

Maybe something like you get sneak attack bonus damage for the first shot. If you get reduced to half hp, you need to save vs disease. If you get reduced to zero, roll on some special table to determine whether you die horribly. Something like that.

That would allow for a variety of ways for the duel to turn out, ranging from dead on the first shot, to we both miss and are now running for cover because it's now a shootout.

I would keep all lingering wounds, including disease, as part of 0 hit points.

A houserule that sounds great is Exhaustion if reaching zero hit points. The player can pick which level penalty then explain that penalty narratively. For example, player is shot, reduced to zero, then picks Exhaustion 2 (without having had Exhaustion 1), thus incurs half-speed, and decides it is because the leg was shot, and now limping. A character cannot pick the same level again if still in effect.

There are other ways to make lingering wounds more complicated, but the above is easy and less disruptive to gameplay.

The point of lingering wounds is, all damage is superficial (albeit increasingly bloody in a fightsport sense), except for zero hit points when potentially lethal deep damage occurs.

For gritty/grim flavor, death can instead mean "life or limb", such as losing a bodypart instead of actual death.

 

[Aging Bard]

It looks like we will be getting a Sci-Fi Fantasy setting from the Worlds of Web DM: The Big One