1000% agree…except for the caveat (that Thor mentions) that you may still be taking a very real risk of death via a Mortal (or a Traumatic death spiral). Depends on your PTGS, the weapons involved, number of dice they can muster to roll, and if they have Artha to spend.
So it is about laying a beatdown with a lower chance of death.
As for Intent, I’ve chosen to use it for things like “I want to get into Location X, even if I have to go through them.” The damage becomes only consequential of the goal, and killing another character a risk of that. So I don’t have to decide how much damage has to be done to get through, I let the dice handle that. Likewise for failure, though I will tack another outcome onto it like you are incarcerated or tossed out or so on.
That’s how I’ve done it, most net successes laying in with the damage (regardless of actual wounds dealt out), Burning Heretic that I am. That advice maybe shouldn’t be in this particular subforum.
If both sides are wounded and neither fails Steel, then you (the person with the highest roll, as defined in the BV rules) get to continue Bloody Versus with another go or an alternative test (like Forte vs. Forte). I don’t think the overall intent resolves until we finish the conflict.
(I mean, consider a goal like “I want to drive the demon bear away.” Actually gaining that intent as the result of your first exchange would kinda preclude another exchange, wouldn’t it?)
I’m likely to tell the player “no problem. You get your intent. You get up the stairs or whatever. This here bloody versus is to see how many pieces you’re in when you get there.”
As a player why do I choose anything other than splitting the pools into max defence? That seems really problematic.
Burning Wheel Gold BV rules are actually much better than BWR, BWR had a fairly big hole left in describing who “wins”. The above borderline heretic description by me was crafted in response to BWR. Mine is only a slight tweak from BWG (well not really a tweak since my version predates BWG), and I’d probably never’d have bothered with it if BWR had BWG’s version. BWG’s doesn’t leave me scratching my head when reading it and I’ve liked the results the few times I’ve used it.
@Alex
An important caveat is that, assuming both hit and both pass any required Steel Test, the person that rolled the most [raw] defence successes chooses the Test for the next step of resolution (so not necessarily the GM). Recommended if it is another damaging BV round that each side choose a different Skill to roll (thus nearly certainly a different weapon, unless Boxing changes to Brawling or visa versa). Also, the Conflict ends if everyone can agree back down and just call it a draw (I think this implies nobody gets Intent but maybe horsetrading is allowed to get partial in return for agree to stop the Conflict???).
Because if you go max defense, your opponent is still standing and gets to beat on you again. That’s one answer. The other is that maybe it’s fine if you go full defense. Your goal is to get up the stairs, not kill a dude after all.
the sneaky answer is maybe you have a belief that I’m baiting. Maybe killing this particular dude wars with your desire to get up the stairs.
It really comes down to the importance of the conflict and the amount of nuance you want. Just rolling a Versus test to resolve an entire fight doesn’t offer much in the way of nuance, but its not that important. This is for scuffles, like brawls in the tavern, minions, etc.
Fight is for the conflicts that really drive the story forward. Bosses, the monsters you’ve been hunting in the jungle, that evil wizard - moments where you need to zoom in and roll out the blow-by-blow.
A BVT falls between the two. A conflict that requires some nuance that isn’t unimportant, but also isn’t the central struggle. IE, a monster blocking your path into a dungeon where you plan to retrieve a long-lost family relic. While you could go for a fight in this situation, you could also just roll a BVT and decide what happens based on that. Success = you successfully best the guardian or failure = you’re wounded and must find another way.
Alternatively, I also find BVT is a good way to teach people basic fight mechanics.
You post seemed to imply it was done, although I might have read too much in. Alternatively by RAW it won’t be the same attack, and the piling on of defense dice means it is likely they get home field advantage of choosing the (the one quibble I have with BWG RAW, why I like my heretic net attacking successes better, less encouragement for turtling).
The later is where I see the real problem. Why bother roll at all, seems to be waste of time if turtling to nothing happening is the ‘smart’ move anyway?
the sneaky answer is maybe you have a belief that I’m baiting. Maybe killing this particular dude wars with your desire to get up the stairs.
That just further encourages piling on defense in hopes of a 1 success victory or changing the Test to less deadly means. shrug
Anyway, I think this might be diverging too much from the initial post’s subject so I’ll leave that as having said my piece and bow out.
It all depends on the fiction, really. But, I have no conceptual problem with you throwing as many dice into defense as you can and me throwing everything into trying to cut you down where you stand. That’s a cool scene to me, whether I’m successful in wounding you or not.
If both sides hit, then there may be Steel tests involved. If either side fails their Steel test, then they lose the conflict and are at the winners’ mercy. If both sides fail Steel, then each side privately chooses Steel reactions and go from there based on what makes sense. (If both flee, for example, then they probably aren’t in range for armed conflict anymore.) If both sides succeed at Steel (or suffered only supies), and neither side is willing to flee or back down, then another round of BV happens, but the side that had previously rolled the most defense successes gets to say what skill or stat the new test is rolled on. Like if you were using longish melee weapons before and now you’ve closed into knife fighting.
Erm, if you both hit each other, the side with more attack successes gets to dictate the outcome. See “Both Sides Hit” vs. “Neither Side Hits” on page 427.
Oh right, it’s the side with the most defence success that decides the terms of the next Test stage if nobody hits. Attack successes decides for both hit and pass required Steel Tests. (but not deciding the outcome, in either case)
That advice maybe shouldn’t be in this particular subforum.