I’ve been unsatisfied with the close combat move for Wyld for a while, and I ran a quick playtest of it and identified some problems. Here’s the previous move:
Fight in Close Combat (Old)
To fight your enemies up close and personal you will exchange harm, but first roll +Might.
On a 16+ choose 3. On an 11-15 choose 2. On a miss choose 1. If your enemy is a PC they roll as well, if an NPC the GM chooses 1 on a hit, 2 on a miss.
- You attack aggressively, inflict 1 more harm.
- You defend effectively, suffer 1 less harm.
- You gain the advantage: take +1 forward, or give +1 forward to an ally
- You force them where you want them
- You seize or hold some objective by force
- You win free and get away
- You force your way through
- You protect someone from harm. As long as they remain within reach of you, they have 1-armour against the next blow they take.
If you have a protective weapon such as a shield you may choose to suffer less harm more than once.
If you have a brutal weapon such as most 2-handed weapons, you may choose to inflict severe harm more than once.
If you are using a light weapon, you can choose to roll+Grace instead of +Might.
The problems are several, but the main one was that if you’re clearly losing, and your opponent is almost certainly about to finish you off, you can chose a tactical goal and there’s nothing your opponent can do to stop you. This is actually a feature of Seize By Force in AW as well, but is a little less of a problem as if you’re dead most of the options are not relevant (you win free but youre dead?). But this move is trying to do more tactical work. So here’s my revised version.
Fight in Close Combat (New)
To fight your enemies up close and personal you will exchange harm, but first roll +Might. On a 16+ hold 3. On an 11-15 hold 2. On a miss hold 1. If your enemy is a PC they roll as well, if an NPC the GM gets 1 hold on a hit, 2 on a miss.
Each side chooses how to spend their hold secretly, 1-for-1 on the following options:
- Inflict severe harm (+1 harm)
- Suffer less harm (-1 harm)
- You gain the advantage: take +2 forward, or give +2 forward to an ally
- You protect someone or something within your reach from harm, they take -1 harm.
- You aim to achieve a tactical goal.
Any tactical goal must be chosen from below when the hold is spent. If both sides choose a tactical goal, either may give up their goal in order to counter their opponent’s choice of goal instead.
- You force them where you want them
- You seize or hold some objective by force
- You win free and get away
- You force your way through
If you have a protective weapon such as a shield you may spend hold to suffer less harm more than once.
If you have a brutal weapon such as most 2-handed weapons, you may spend your hold to inflict severe harm more than once.
If you are using a light weapon, you can choose to roll+Grace instead of +Might.
It’s a bit of a beast, but it seems to achieve better what I’m aiming for. Is it clear what the intent is though? Any options you think are missing, or ambiguity?