05-05-2012, 06:34 PM | #11 | |
Join Date: May 2011
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Re: Dirty Tricks in combat
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05-05-2012, 06:41 PM | #12 |
Join Date: May 2011
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Re: Dirty Tricks in combat
My answer would be that the specific effect depends on the trick, but you are seeking to give the opponent a penalty to attack on the subsequent round or on their active defenses immediately. Saying "look, the Goodyear Blimp!" might cause the opponent to change his facing if he fails to win a quick contest. Throwing a snow ball in a high arc to draw the eyes upward might give a penalty to Dodge on the follow-up snow ball (again, if they fail the quick contest or whatever). Yanking on the rug they are standing on might require a DX based quick contest, to avoid a -1 or -2 penalty (on active defenses or their next attack). Flashing a light in the opponents eyes might cause a penalty fodue to vision impairment the next round, whatever.
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05-05-2012, 08:49 PM | #13 | |
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Vermont
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Re: Dirty Tricks in combat
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My ongoing thread of GURPS versions of DC Comics characters. |
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05-06-2012, 05:27 AM | #14 |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Upper Peninsula of Michigan
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Re: Dirty Tricks in combat
Is that what it's called? This is a known thing? I've never had someone try to pull this on me. It would certainly work the first time, because I'd much rather not fight someone. The second time they pulled it it would probably still work because I'm generous enough to figure the first time might have been a misunderstanding, and I'd really much rather not fight someone.
After that, though, assuming I'm in this fight because I can't run and the authorities aren't about, this fight doesn't end until one of us is dead or clearly incapacitated, because this guy has just lost the option to surrender. I could never trust him to try. This right here is the reason civilizations make a norm of the rule not to attack after calling for truce or surrender. Dang, just the thought of somebody amoral enough to do that makes my blood boil. Weird. |
05-06-2012, 05:40 AM | #15 |
Join Date: May 2011
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Re: Dirty Tricks in combat
It isn't a common name for it, as far as I know. "Fishing with Gandhi" is a ruse described in an independent film of the same name, and it is pretty much the same trick you described. I was trying to be funny with the "the old..." thing. I liked the movie a lot, and the name is so apt that I like to see it spread.
You're right, it is offensively unfair and undermines the sense that a fight could be ended without some sort of outside intervention. Having had it actually done to you when you were young, it isn't surprising to me that you'd have a visceral response. It seems like a Dirty Trick to me, playing on someone's sense of limited violence. Probably not any good against orcs, but it could make a bar fight get awfully serious. |
05-06-2012, 06:43 AM | #16 |
Join Date: Apr 2011
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Re: Dirty Tricks in combat
I think you're right that most of these can be represented by one of the three kinds of Feint: feints, ruses and beats. Their main value is to momentarily distract the opponent.
Dirt in the face is an obvious Dirty Trick, but you're right that it's the only one I can think of that isn't either a combat maneuver or a Feint. I still like the "dirty tricks" callout box because it helps a GM figure out how to run all those generic things that players think of that don't have rules. And, really, the suggested rules aren't all that tight anyway, and to the extent that they're fully baked at all, they are basically Ruses. |
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combat, combat rules |
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