Duels

How often do duels crop up in games? Not just guy vs. guy, but two people who know of each other, who have reason to respect each other's talents, and who have something more at stake than just survival.

Any cool duel moments?

I tried using the 2nd edition Combat & Tactics duel rules for a fight against a recurring antagonist, but since it was our first time breaking them out, it didn't accomplish the epicness I wanted. Mostly it was just awkward rolling on tables.

I had a skirmisher duel once, though, when two archers fought each other in the midst of a larger battle. Two other PCs took on dozens of mooks in a warehouse while the PC shadowdancer and the NPC drow assassin covered almost every inch of the battlefield in a pretty cool mobile duel. But at the end one of the other PCs delivered the killing blow.

I once had a player who engaged in spell duels a lot, taking on NPCs at a wizards school, and occasionally handling enemy mages one on one. I set up a few prominent spellcasting foes, and then the player moved away, so I never got much resolution. Duels with mismatched weapons just don't carry the same oomph, I feel.

I had a PC attack the father of the woman he wanted to marry (the guy was also the general of an evil army), but that fight lasted two rounds, and took place in basically a living room.

I think I should put some effort into setting up potential equals for the PCs in my next campaign, to increase the likelihood of awesome showdown duel. Hopefully some of you have had better luck than I. And if you have any advice for keeping other PCs from intruding on a one-on-one fight, please share them.
 

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RPGs generally strive to make interactive tactical combat systems. These generally work based on group tactics - which makes one-on-one dueling pretty dull.

Trying to think of exceptions...

Lace and Steel was supposed to be very one-on-one, but I only read that.

Rune Quest / Basic Role Playing was one-on-one oriented, as were other relatively simple systems such as Flashing Blades. But these combat systems were usually very basic dice-fests.
 


1st edition L5R had a sweet dueling system, but the rules were difficult to puzzle out. I'm hoping the new edition pulls it off.

Regardless, that game supports a ton of 1-on-1 dueling, is a lot of fun and frightfully deadly.
 

And if you have any advice for keeping other PCs from intruding on a one-on-one fight, please share them.

Off the top of my head:

Honor: The one PC should be calling for his buddies to hold off. (Could be difficult, depending on your party makeup.)

Situational: The PCs facing down a much larger, more powerful force. The PC paladin calls out to the evil warlord for a duel to decide the matter. If the other PCs jump in, the warlord's army gets in on the action and the PCs are toast.
 

I used C&T for the only true dual I ever ran. It was good, but had the main problem these things tend to: everyone sitting around watching the duelist. Not a problem for all groups, or players, but certainly a problem for some.

Assuming you go ahead an have that dual, I think the two main issues have been touched on: issolation and keeping it interesting.

For the first, you can have an actual challenge mechanic (which would fit some 4E classes, for example), just do it through RP/World conventions (if challenged to a one on one under certain circumstances, you better accept), or by engineering the circumnstances (Haldo falls into the pit, then the trap closes, forcing him to confrot the strange demomancer on his own).

For the second, enviroment and the standard rules might be enough. The show down in Empire is a classic example of how a mix of enviroment and "encounter" powers can make a dual intersting.

Or you need to add specific stances or attack types (riptoste, lunge, counterspell...) so that combatants who are just standing there have some tactics.
 

In general, most games already had rules for two people trying to kill each other. They're typically in the big chapter labeled Combat.

As for getting the rest of the party to not interfere, there's having the duelists cut off from the rest of the battle, social mores that prevent interference, threat of instant death (body guards with readied crosss bows and the like to keep them honest). The largest problem here though might be a table issue though. If the other players can't let d'Artanion have his moment of awesome by dueling the Comte de Rochefort then there's a table issue to deal with. Especially because in a game the Comte should have brought enough mooks to keep the rest of the party entertained while the duel occurs.
 


Also, I'm referring to the actual fighting duel as seen in a swashbuckling tale. For a quickdraw at high noon or a iaijutsu duel, it might be worth looking at the Standoff rules in SC2.0.

In essence, the parties make an opposed Resolve check, looser takes stress damage. When he breaks, he can choose to surrender and not do anything without the winner's permission for the rest of the fight to be attacked and drop to -1 wounds.
 

I was running a Swashbuckling adventures game at one point.

A player was playing a noble girl and they wanted to kill this powerful musketeer who was a rake and a cad. Did she fight him? Nah. With the PC's help she staged an incident when she was manhandled by the guy (Who was actually trying to save her at the time!) Enter best swordsman in the party to come to her 'rescue'. Glove slap, swords at dawn.

However, she wasn't finished there. Pretending to be honest and not want the man to fight, she drugs the bad guy with a bottle of wine and tells him a number of insults the PC said, but 'You don't have to do it, my lord! Oh, please!' etc.

To be honest, much like the real thing, most of the tension is before the duel. Duels need a good set up I feel.
 

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