The Losing Edge, or How to Get Good at Failing

[Tyneras]

Personally, I turned all "Stage <skill>" skills into techniques.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Tyneras

Personally, I turned all "Stage <skill>" skills into techniques.

I do too. Ditto for Combat Art/Sport. Even if these things were extensive enough to justify full skills (and mostly they aren't) they're background that is going to come up so rarely in a game nobody is going to sink many points into them. As techniques they're more attractive. Should I put these 4 points into Broadsword or Broadsword Art? raising whichever by 1, well we all know how that's going to go. Should I raise Broadsword by 1 or Broadsword Art by 4? might concievably be a choice.

[JCurwen3]

So we have 3.5 suggestions:

(1) use modified skill plus an additional Acting roll;
(2) use a Stage version of the skill;
(3) use Stage Combat; and
(3.5) same as (2), but make it Stage versions a technique.

I'm still not sure which to use but these are all good approaches.

Note that sometimes being good at losing can be harder than actually playing to win though, especially against an opponent that also wants to lose.

On South Park, their team intentionally chooses not to try to hit the ball with the bat, and guess when the other team is throwing a foul ball instead (and only then swing at it). Denver notices and actually throws the ball at the bat. If we were dissecting the game into individual skill uses, that seems like a Size and Range modified Throwing roll, right?

Later, Denver shows its skill at sucking again, by batting themselves out. Their batter swings and hits the ball, but swings the bat such that the ball is aimed at the baseball mitt of one of the reluctant South Park team, thus is "caught" and the batter is "out". Hitting a baseball with a bat seems like Parry Missile Weapons. But I'm not sure what penalties you'd apply to aim the ball / missile weapon you parried; it seems like it'd be tough though, especially to aim at a target as small as a hand.

[Aneirin]

Hitting a baseball, into someones waiting hand...even if it was a cinematic campaign...would be ludicrously difficult.

There is no skill as such for hitting a ball with a bat onto a target, but would default from sport (baseball) at...I don't minus - 10 (and this is before the range penalties!)

Plus you wouldn't be able to aim either as you wouldn't know the trajectory the ball is coming from unless from a machine and even if you could, I doubt hitting a ball would have any acc to add.

It would be a hard technique to buy off (and shouldn't be able to remove more than half the default penalty)

But you would need a skill that is mystical best in the worls to be able to pull it off (22 in baseball, technique of aimed hit brought up to maximum making the skill 17, then add in speed and range penalties and you may wind up with a 50% chance of doing it, if you want to be guaranteed like the Denver nuggets, you are looking at skill in the 30 range)

Hitting a bat with a ball, would just be aimed thrown item at a SM-3 or SM-4 (however small a bat would be considering the narrowness)

And the batter would get a dodge/parry skill to avoid it if he wanted to miss the ball, but Butters wasn't paying attention and so didn't roll an active defense. (a feint to trick them into thinking a throw would be made or not made based off of IQ would work for hel;ing to reduce this chance. but as Kyle 2 shown, it can be done with some luck)

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Tyneras

Personally, I turned all "Stage <skill>" skills into techniques.

I do the same with Sport/Art forms, and Stage sounds like a good addition.

Effectively, <Skill>, <Skill> Sport, <Skill> Art, and Stage <Skill> are all effectively individual skills, but rather than the standard default rules, you can buy off the penalty for using the wrong one as a technique. That prevents the issue that turning a epee fencer into a swordfighter is as easily accomplished by getting more practice with the epee (four points to buy up default).

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by RyanW

I do the same with Sport/Art forms, and Stage sounds like a good addition.

Effectively, <Skill>, <Skill> Sport, <Skill> Art, and Stage <Skill> are all effectively individual skills, but rather than the standard default rules, you can buy off the penalty for using the wrong one as a technique. That prevents the issue that turning a epee fencer into a swordfighter is as easily accomplished by getting more practice with the epee (four points to buy up default).

I don't think that works for stage combat. My impression is that the "swordfighting" actors do in movies or on the stage is not merely of no value in actual combat, but of negative value—it will teach you things that will get you killed. I think that at best there ought to be no default from Stage Combat to any weapon skill.

Bill Stoddard

[JCurwen3]

Originally Posted by Aneirin

Hitting a baseball, into someones waiting hand...even if it was a cinematic campaign...would be ludicrously difficult.
<snip>
But you would need a skill that is mystical best in the worls to be able to pull it off (22 in baseball, technique of aimed hit brought up to maximum making the skill 17, then add in speed and range penalties and you may wind up with a 50% chance of doing it, if you want to be guaranteed like the Denver nuggets, you are looking at skill in the 30 range)

Hitting a bat with a ball, would just be aimed thrown item at a SM-3 or SM-4 (however small a bat would be considering the narrowness)

And the batter would get a dodge/parry skill to avoid it if he wanted to miss the ball, but Butters wasn't paying attention and so didn't roll an active defense. (a feint to trick them into thinking a throw would be made or not made based off of IQ would work for hel;ing to reduce this chance. but as Kyle 2 shown, it can be done with some luck)

Nice analysis! And yeah, some godlike level around 30 seems necessary to pull off hitting a baseball into someone's waiting baseball mitt reliably.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I don't think that works for stage combat. My impression is that the "swordfighting" actors do in movies or on the stage is not merely of no value in actual combat, but of negative value—it will teach you things that will get you killed. I think that at best there ought to be no default from Stage Combat to any weapon skill.

Bill Stoddard

It teaches you things that would get a trained combatant killed if he tried it in real combat, but when compared to no training at all, at least it teaches some sense of time, distance and proportion.

Being aware of the changing positions of others around you, mindful of your stance and familiar with the feel and balance of a weapon as an extension of your reach, these are all things that are transferable to some extent.

Granted, they're probably less valuble than a proper mindset and a couple of hours of real instruction, but that's mostly because mindset is vital in any kind of violent confrontation. If someone who is good at dancing with a sword in his hand is mentally prepared to cause severe harm, his skills are probably fairly transferable.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Being aware of the changing positions of others around you, mindful of your stance and familiar with the feel and balance of a weapon as an extension of your reach, these are all things that are transferable to some extent.

On the other hand, so does baton twirling. or Morris dancing. Although now that I think about it, you probably could make a pretty good case that stage combat is an optional specialization of Dancing if you wanted too.