As written, Bloody Versus with multiple combatants on each side relies on having a primary fighter being helped by his friends. This can generate a situation where either no one on a side is hurt, or everyone is equally hurt (if a wound is taken, everyone on one side takes that wound). The following is my attempt at reconfiguring Bloody Versus slightly, in order to do away with the helping rules and the ‘equally wounded’-case. It is also my goal that all players contribute equally to a fight, both in a risk-reward sense, and in the sense of giving everyone a chance to flex their gaming muscles.
- Unlike normal Bloody Versus, each fighter participating is paired with an enemy fighter. No one is allowed to simply stand on the sidelines and offer help.
1a. After all fighters have been paired and there are still fighters on one side remaining, these leftovers are assigned to unlucky fighters from the outnumbered side. Note that these must be equally distributed; no ganging up on a single enemy with 3 fighters if there are still unpaired enemies left.
- Everyone builds their base pool with FoRKs, advantages and so on, and distributes an attack and defend pool (as per the normal rules).
2a. Outnumbered fighters make two (or three, or whatever) pools: one for each enemy facing them. They thus get a chance to wound each enemy, while also being at risk themselves of taking a hit from each enemy. To represent the disadvantage of fighting two enemies at once, these unlucky fellows add +1 Ob to either their Attack or Defense pool.
Victory conditions follow the usual Bloody Versus rules:
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If one side takes a hit while the other is unharmed, a clear victor has been found.
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If both sides are hit, all wounded fighters make a Steel test. If one side fails a Steel test while no one on the opposing side does, a victor has been found. If both sides pass (or fail) their Steel tests, the side with the most attack successes decide what happens: another round of fighting, or opposed Speed/Forte/Power tests. These tests are done using the lowest exponent in the group, with helpers adding dice to the pool.
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If neither side hits, the side with the most defense successes chooses what happens: new round of fighting or an opposed stat test (as above).
Comments and critique are welcome, this was something I just whipped up and it hasn’t been playtested. Obviously, the biggest issue is how much of a disadvantage the outnumbered fighter should face. In place of the Ob penalty, I considered giving each outnumbering fighter a +1d advantage (but decided this advantage was too small).