Blood, Sweat & Tears: A bid-based combat system

28 Sep, 2024

A rally of feints, blows, parries, drawn blood and bruised shins.

Who wins?

In D&D, once the strategy has run its course and steel meets steel, the fight is telescoped down into a series of attack rolls. In the long run, the ‘better’ fighter will win out, in the short run randomness is king.

So I’ve been daydreaming of a combat system that follows from a principle - on a level playing field, the fight will go to the combatant who risks more and pushes harder.

And what of a non-level playing field? I’ve tried to draft a system that is responsive to the environment the combat takes place in and to the methods players use in the fight.

I have further goals beyond this starting point - ideally this system can be expanded to resolution of non-combat tasks. And ideally the system is vaguely compatible with OSR-style play.

We’ll see. There are a lot of open questions and I’ll address a few of them in a commentary below. For now it seems like a fun start.

Blood, Sweat & Tears

Ashcan

CHARACTER STATS

Players assign a base rating of 1, 2 & 3 among their Approaches:

• Power
• Technique
• Cunning

Additionally they have 10 points each in the 3 Humours:

• Blood
• Sweat
• Tears

Each Humour is complementary to an Approach.

• Power/Blood - accrue nicks, contusions, scrapes and bruises as you force your will on the world
• Technique/Sweat - push flesh, breath and bone to the limit as you weave your fate with skill
• Cunning/Tears - defy moral, sense and convention as you blindside opposition with unthinkable action

Humours spent in action may be recouped:

• Blood:
  • +rating - a field bandage
  • +max - fill your belly with good food and drink
• Sweat:
  • +rating - fresh air and cold water
  • +max - a comfortable bed. A warm bath. Rest your aching frame
• Tears:
  • +rating - a grim joke at another’s expense
  • +max - experience levity, frivolity, joy. Remember what it is to be human.

At 0 in a Humour, there are Consequences:

• Blood: the cuts pile up. Take a Wound
• Sweat: breath falters. You may no longer win initiative
• Tears: people wince. Lose reputation with someone you love or respect

Wounds are bad, avoid them.

• 1 wound - will require care and time out, later. Now, you can keep fighting. -1 penalty to Power, -1 penalty to Technique, +2 to Tears
• 2 wounds - with attention and luck, you will get better eventually
• 3 wounds - even if you live, something will never be the same

INITIATIVE

A secret bid of Humours between a player and any opponent who wishes to buy in. Minimum buy-in of 3.

Highest bid takes a combat turn.

Any with a buy-in may set up in opposition to the bid winner.

COMBAT

Combat is decided in turns.

When you win initiative:

1. State a goal that could feasibly be accomplished in the next minute or so. (NB: this could just be, “wound a character”)
2. If there is no opposition (or other impediment), the player succeeds in their goal. Otherwise:
3. Opponents state their opposing goals.
4. Choose an Approach in secret, and apply your base rating:

• Power
• Technique
• Cunning

5. Bid Humours in secret. Bid:

• Blood (x2 value on Power approach)
• Sweat (x2 value on Technique approach)
• Tears (x2 value on Cunning approach)

6. Reveal approaches & bids
7. Apply Environmental modifiers

• Open environment (+rating on Power approach)
• Confined environment (+rating on Technique approach)
• Veiled environment (+rating on Cunning approach)

8. Apply Supremacy modifiers according to your approach and your opponent’s (scissors-paper-rock)

• Power > +rating vs Technique
• Technique > +rating vs Cunning
• Cunning > +rating vs Power

9. Tally base ratings + bids + modifiers. The highest score accomplishes their goal, and pays the full cost of any Humours bid. Narrate the success and the costs.
10. Lower score fails their goal. No cost (part from initial buy-in)

COMMENTARY

Just a grab bag of thoughts

• I like that action is zoomed out. Combat still takes place in rounds, but the rounds express as much time as they need to.
• At this point, the system avoids randomness. I’m not married to this as a goal, but it seems neat.
• I suspect it would be frustrating for players to choose a bidding strategy without some rough sense of their opponent’s strengths/resources. The system will have to make allowances for the GM to telegraph this somehow.
• This is honestly a bit fiddly. Resolution might be slow. Though a focus on bidding to accomplish goals and a small number of Wounds hopefully avoids drawn out encounters.
• You could play on an abacus(!)
• Different environments or situations favour different strategies. This feels promising.
• Multiple encounters in a short time will necessitate different strategies, if you run out of one Humour you will need to use another.
• I wonder if more mechanical asymmetry between the stats would be more interesting. If Sweat replenishes much more easily than Blood, players might save Blood for desperate situations.
• Gear or talents seem like a natural way to build character diversity and favour different approaches (eg armour gives free blood at the cost of sweat. Rascals recoup tears more easily)
• I worry that there’s a “best strategy” for bids. Requires play testing.
• I’ve given no thought yet to how this would play out with multiple player characters. Hopefully it can scale out gracefully somehow.