When I GM’d the Jewel of Yavin adventure for my Desert Rose Solutions SWRPG campaign, one of my players expressed an interest in participating in the cage fights at the bar called the 4 1/2 down on the lower levels. To prepare for that, I worked up a three-roll process to handle each match, representing the tactics being used, the actual fight itself, and how much the match wore the participants out. That rule set came in very handy several other times during the campaign, and the form it takes here is the result of input from the players. It can work for Genesys as easily as for SWRPG.
Actual plays or serialized stories benefitting from these rules have the Fight Night tag.
Note: We only used these fight night rules in one-on-one matches. What were the other players doing? Talking to bar patrons, making side hustles, spying on NPCs, betting on matches…
Tactics
Use any skill of your choice that you can justify to reflect tactics or tricks to hamper your opponent. The roll is opposed by a skill of the opponent’s that makes sense to counter it. Here are some suggestions.
Skill | Opposition | Explanation |
---|---|---|
Deception | Vigilance/Perception | feints |
Coordination | Coordination | control the fighting rhythm |
Athletics | Athletics/Coordination | push/pull opponent off balance |
Streetwise/Perception | Stealth/Deception/Cool | analyze opponent’s strategies to counter them |
Medicine | Resilience/Coordination | identify any physically weak points |
Coercion | Discipline | intimidation/taunts |
Charm | Cool | woo the crowd to demoralize opponent |
Stealth/Cool | Perception/Vigilance | position to hide your moves |
Survival | Vigilance | sand-in-the-eyes type trickery |
The outcome affects the upcoming Fight roll. Advantages could still be used to recover strain, but here are some other things the roll results can do.
Cost | Result Options |
---|---|
Success | upgrade difficulty of opponent’s Fight roll |
2 Advantages | add a boost die to your own Fight roll |
Triumph | upgrade your ability on your own Fight roll |
Failure | nothing |
2 Threats | add a setback die on your own Fight roll |
Despair | upgrade the difficulty of your own Fight roll |
Fight
Melee or Brawl, your choice, opposed by the Melee or Brawl of the other combatant. Remember to apply the pool adjustments from the Tactics roll or last round’s Resilience roll. Compare the (Success,Advantage) result of both combatants to find out who won. Even if no one gets successes on this role, someone wins the match.
Success and advantages go towards determining the winner. Here are some possible ways to spend other symbols.
Cost | Result Options |
---|---|
Triumph | count as two successes or upgrade a roll on your next match |
Failure | nothing |
Threats | for winner, add a setback die to your Resilience roll; for loser, at setback die to the next social check at this establishment |
Despair | suffer a Critical Injury or upgrade the difficulty of the upcoming Resilience roll |
Resilience
After each victory, if you are proceeding to another match, make a Resilience roll. This roll represents the accumulated effects of all the blocking, as well as the hits you’ve been taking. On a failure, you’re more reluctant to suffer the pain of blocks, which makes things easier for your next opponent.
The difficulty is one die for each match you have fought so far. If the tournament goes long enough to exceed 5 difficulty dice, start upgrading to challenge dice.
Cost | Result Options |
---|---|
Success | nothing |
2 Advantages | add a boost die to your own next Fight roll |
Triumph | upgrade your ability on your own next Fight roll |
Failure | upgrade skill of next opponent’s Fight roll |
2 Threats | add a setback die on your own next Fight roll |
Despair | upgrade the difficulty of your own next Fight roll or suffer a Critical Injury |