[MH] Underground Fights in a Tourist Resort in the Caribbean?

[Verjigorm]

What about on a boat?

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Verjigorm

What about on a boat?

It would have to be a large cruise ship, but the idea is not impossible.

[RogerBW]

I may have missed a key post, but if you're going to have significant gambling, you've got to be able to call the odds. And if people are getting killed too often, you can't, because everyone's a newcomer. You really want people with some kind of established fighting form, ideally in this specific low-rules tournament setting rather than more conventional martial sports, so that the bookmakers can say things like "Bloody Bob has met Charlie Carnage twice before, and the honours were even, but Charlie's still favouring that knee he bust on Deadly Dave earlier this year".

That's if you can plausibly dress it up as "no-holds-barred fighting sport where anything can happen". If you're dressing it as "come and see someone get killed in the ring", you have a different (and even smaller) clientele.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

I may have missed a key post, but if you're going to have significant gambling, you've got to be able to call the odds. And if people are getting killed too often, you can't, because everyone's a newcomer. You really want people with some kind of established fighting form, ideally in this specific low-rules tournament setting rather than more conventional martial sports, so that the bookmakers can say things like "Bloody Bob has met Charlie Carnage twice before, and the honours were even, but Charlie's still favouring that knee he bust on Deadly Dave earlier this year".

That's if you can plausibly dress it up as "no-holds-barred fighting sport where anything can happen". If you're dressing it as "come and see someone get killed in the ring", you have a different (and even smaller) clientele.

I imagine it works rather like combat. In Vietnam, the vast majority of casualties were new arrivals and those who made it through the first few months had a significantly greater chance of surviving a whole tour.

Given that considerable efforts will be expended on making fighters fight more than once and keeping successful fighters around, I imagine that most newcomers lose their first fight to an established fighter, usually, at least these days, with gruesome results.

Obviously, Bloodsport Fight Club cannot have been going on for too long, as that would inevitably have been discovered. The PCs will probably find evidence that the decadence, illegality and risk has been ramping up, at first slowly, but more rapidly since 2017.

By now, the PCs might come across rumours of things like lethal knife fights, fighters given archaic armour and weapons and even exotic animals pitted against unlucky people. You know, when the thrill of watching mere ordinary battle to the death has started to pall.