Duel of wits questions

[Mickeroo]

How do you go about having a duel of wits with 3 sides? I mean, I saw rules with multiple people on each side, but what about a political debate with 3 different candidates?

ALso, in the case of a political debate, what happens in the case of a weakened arguement? Does that just determine about how many people vote for each side?

Lastly, should a political debate be one duel of wits that convinces the people to vote for one person or another, or a series of duels which prove that a candidate is right on a series of points, which would earn him the election?

[Viper]

For 3-way duels, I don't think it's all that much different from a 3-way physical combat- I mean, each participant has a body of argument, and all the maneuvers are one-on-one. There's no way to affect more than one opponent with a single offensive maneuver, just like there's no way to hit more than one opponent with a single sword strike. You simply choose whose argument you are going to attack, and worry about the other guy later.

If you continue the analog to physical combat, then obfuscate or rebuttal should work against a single opponent as well, while avoid the topic would work against multiple incoming points. (I'm not sure if it still holds true in the revision, but in classic, avoid worked against everything coming in, since you were literally getting out of the way)

[luke]

Ze Viper is dead on in his estimations. I actually haven't run a DoW like this yet, but I'm dying to. I know it would work mechanically!

have fun.
-L

[Redoid]

And it would work beautifully thematically. Often it's a good idea, when people are confronting their ideas, to let them argue between themselves, trying to win the approval of the crowd, only for a third party to step in, and try to move the debate in another direction, appearing as a moderateor or "middle way" and having much more weight than the original contestants.

[Mickeroo]

Well, i tried this last night and it went pretty well. The only problem was that there was a lot of inaction, meaning people scripted rebuttles and avoids against nothing. Does this happen in Fight! also?

[Redoid]

In my experience, it's not that common to have a fight between three characters, each wanting to kill both of the others. When it happens, either everyone thinks it may be hit by two strikes and avoid as hell, or the two weakest concentrate on the toughest one because they don't want to face it alone, and it turns into a more classical 2 to 1 fight.

[Mickeroo]

Well, that's kind of what happened. In short summary, a spooky rouge wizard, an elf noble, and a dwarf drunk were all running for office, and only one spot was open. Pretty much, people went after the wizard and the noble, the dwarf got hit with maybe one point. Eventually, the mage was gone, the elf was at 1 BOA (body of arguement) and the dwarf was at 10 (I doubled everyones BOA to make it last a little longer). Then it was interupted by events I am not going to go into here.

Anyway, while the mage and elf were duking it out, the dwarf was getting in the occasional point or failed dismissal (he tried to do it on the first action against a BOA of 18...) but he was also scrpting rebuttles that went unused, or people would script an avoid only to have one opponent hesitating and the other attacking the hesitater. Is this just bad scripting, or should there be some sort of precaution?

[luke]

sounds like the Dwarf's inadvertent tactics won the day for him.

I can imagine the crowd getting fed up with shrill Elf and imperious make-up dealing wizard. When the smoke clears, the Wizard and the Elf look like panting asses, while the Dwarf is just smilely feebly, "Come on!" Suddenly, he's the mayor!

"Great speech!"
"But I didn't say anything!"

One point that I've found important is that even if no dice are going to be thrown in a volley, due to odd maneuvers being tossed out there, it's vital to let the players roleplay their actions and add to the confusion. Sure no, dice are going to come off the body, but it keeps the flow going, which is vital to good roleplay, no?

thanks for posting this stuff, Mike.
-L

[Mickeroo]

I was thinking of doinjg that, but I wasn't sure how to. I mean, what would someone's rebuttal be if they weren't attacked? I could see avoids without a mechanical purpose.

Would a failed feint, say, against a point, just come across as a weak point?

Also, what about the other 2 questions I had:

In the case of a political debate, what happens in the case of a weakened arguement? Does that just determine about how many people vote for each side?

Should a political debate be one duel of wits that convinces the people to vote for one person or another, or a series of duels which prove that a candidate is right on a series of points, which would earn him the election?

[luke]

1 In the case of a political debate, what happens in the case of a weakened arguement? Does that just determine about how many people vote for each side?

2 Should a political debate be one duel of wits that convinces the people to vote for one person or another, or a series of duels which prove that a candidate is right on a series of points, which would earn him the election?

1: I have no clue. Your call depending on the game you're running.

2: It depends on how indepth you want your politics to go. If this election is a minor part of the campaign, then one duel is fine. But if your whole game is about this election, then it's gotta be a bunch of duels spanning across a good amount of time.

3: If one "candidate" loses and has more money or clout or think he's particularly clever, he should just kill his rival and take office for himself.

4: What medieval democracy are you playing in again?


-L :wink:

[Mickeroo]

Since the election is a minor part, I'll just do one duel of wits, the winner of which gets the office, the losers get some votes, but nothing substantial, unless it's a tie or sometihng, then I don't know what to do.

As for killing off the other candidate, I don't think I have to worry about that, well, one of them might die soon for unrelated reasons, but he didn't win anyway.

The type of government is a town council, with 3 elected memebers. One of them recently died while on a diplomatic mission. I figured I would let one of the players gain office so they have more stake in their town for a Save the WOrld type game, although I'm not sure if that's what I'm going into yet.