Bloody versus tests... why?

From the description in BWG, a Simple Martial Conflict (p.425) i need to ask myself if a fight is a big deal or not, witch is pretty fine with me, if there’s no big deal, no belief involve i can figure out when to use a versus test. But how to choose between Bloody Versus or Fight rules when you want a more cruchy outcome from it, or when something “big” is behind the scene. I mean, why does the BVT rule exist? It sounds to me like an average mecanic of a fight. The fight is important but no big deal… When do you guys use the BVT? In what context is those rules are the bests?

Yoan

Here’s how I tend to think of them…part of it is totally how I’d imagine it in a movie.

Test against Ob: Cutting your way past a guard on a spiral stairway (brief combat against background characters; combat is secondary to escape, no major threat against life)
Versus Test: Hacking your way past the guard who’s cornered you (brief combat against someone where the fighting is now in the foreground)
Bloody Versus: A guard engages you in the middle of the room during your escape (short combat sequence where something is at stake)
Fight: You find your rival and duel them

For me, Bloody Versus is the default, unless it’s not that big of a deal. It gives players some control over the circumstances of the fight, so it should be a situation where defeat is costly. A versus test should only give you a situation where you’ve got a complication incoming.

The game’s core things – beliefs, artha, advancement – work just fine without ever engaging the big subsystems. The big subsystems like Fight and Duel of Wits just add tactical play and more potential to “zoom in” on key scenes. How much you use them is really up to the group’s discretion.

A full Fight is tactical and, well, difficult. You’re scripting. There are a lot of options, both to learn and to consider in play. You have to plan around advantage as well as just actions. It’s a big, meaty, down-and-dirty blow-by-blow kind of subsystem. Bloody Versus gives you similar outcomes to Fight without the full fictional detail and the complexity of resolution. If you love Fight, you can use Fight a lot. If you like Fight but want to save it for special occasions (as a matter of pacing, for instance), Blood Versus can pick up the slack. If Fight is too crunchy and tactical for your tastes, Bloody Versus is there as a convenient replacement that still lets you get bloody without having to navigate all of Fight.

The heuristic that I’ve been using is “is the character’s intent to kill/capture this particular opponent(s), or do they just want to get past them/drive them away/hold them long enough for something else to happen?” In the fomer case, Fight!; otherwise, Bloody Versus. Basically, is defeating this opponent a means to an end, or an end in itself?

BVT also provides more nuanced results than a standard versus. Sometimes you want a little extra threat before you go for the big guns: SOMETIMES YOU NEED TO FIGHT OFF AN ARMY OF BUGBEARS BEFORE YOU ASSAULT THE EVIL FUCKING WIZARD IN HIS HIDEY HOLE. RIGHT STORMIE?

Sometimes you just want to cut a dude.

Thanks for reply everybody!
I’ve been running 2 campains of BWG since my first reading and, i keep going back to that BVT rule with the same question. Since you’ve always have the choice to use simple versus test in many narative manners, how do you discribe the intent and task with BVT? I mean, it is prety obvious to have a clear task if one of my player just wanna cut trough the guards with is sword to get to the door. With the versus test i could mix it with other actions by the linked test mechanic… But could i use a BVT in a Linked test? Since the default description of the BVT, as i read it in the book is already scripted (one side hit, both side hit, Neither side hit), how do i get an Intent/Task from it? I am pretty familiar with the fight mecanic and i love it. I also like the possibility to use a simple test to get going when the intent is not “the fight itself”. I agree with all those systems but i’m just a little confuse when the times come to use or BVT or Simple vs Test.

Yoan

There is no intent and task in BVT!!!

I thought in Bloody Versus, part of the point was that you got your intent if you hit them and they didn’t hit you?

What I mean is, there’s no more Intent and Task in Bloody Versus than there is in Fight. Read what happens when your Attack beats the Defense in BV: you damage your opponent according to the normal weapon rules. If only one side is wounded, then the winning, unwounded side has the wounded side at its mercy—they can kill them, interrogate them, etc. But you can’t, for example, enter into Bloody Versus with the intent only to capture your foes—you could easily wind up accidentally killing them!

Matt

There’s absolutely Intent and Task in BV. You wound or get wounded in addition to whether or or not you achieve your Intent.

That what i tought, it realy make sense to me. Could you give me an exemple of a situation where you would choose the BVT insted of a Simple VS Test?

Simple Versus tests are entirely black and white; either character A gets exactly what he wants (and no more), or character B gets exactly what he wants (and no more). Regardless, the loser gets nothing. With Bloody Versus, we introduce the wrinkle that even though only one party to the test will get what they want, both might get something that they didn’t want (a wound).

I like Thor’s post here

In a Versus you can declare the stakes as “I kill him,” but so can they. In a BVT, you can’t kill him without the number of successes. So, BVT is a good way to resolve a fight when you don’t want to risk dying on a single roll, but are willing to risk wounds.

As for Task and Intent in BVT, remember task has to match the intent. So, sure you can get your intent, if it’s getable by being stabby.

Yeah man, BVT definitely has a task (beat the snot out of the other guys) and an intent (whatever you’re going for). You just also run the risk of taking some damage along the way.

In a Versus you can declare the stakes as “I kill him,” but so can they. In a BVT, you can’t kill him without the number of successes. So, BVT is a good way to resolve a fight when you don’t want to risk dying on a single roll, but are willing to risk wounds.

As for Task and Intent in BVT, remember task has to match the intent. So, sure you can get your intent, if it’s getable by being stabby.[/QUOTE]

It completly answer my questions thanks!

That’s odd…there’s an example in the book of using extra successes from a sword test versus an NPC to figure out what sort of wound you dealt. (The example that involves decapitation and Bruce Lee posing.)

I don’t have the book handy, but that’s probably an example of an open test, where the number of successes is determining how well you succeed. That’s totally legit. So is saying “loser dies” in a versus test.

That sounds right-ish.

Yeah, as soon as automatic wounding gets involved, you really don’t have normal Task+Intent anymore. That’s all I meant.

The overall concept of Task+Intent isn’t irrelevant, of course: both sides have to be armed/capable of fighting, willing to fight, etc. But if, say, I had a group of NPCs simply trying to capture the PCs and drag them off or something, I’d probably ask for a Versus test, though leave it open to the PCs if they wanted to escalate.