I love FIST but I also found it frustrating to run combat loosely as a conversation as the book suggests. I came up with a turn based combat system on top which turned out pretty effective. I know that pbta does not encourage such things but I also know that pbta is fairly controversial in the community.
My system is essentially: everyone gets a "main action" fighting (FOR/REF), command(TAC), distracting(CRE), escaping, etc) and a "minor action" (moving, grabbing items, etc); a partial success or failure means you get attacked; a failure in a defense test means you get full damage, a partial means half damage.
I discovered the Strong/Weak Hit while playing Solo Mörk Borg. Coming up with caveats is challenging but it blows Pass/Fail out of the water and helps drive the game away from stalemates and wasted turns.
True! A failure but with a boon can make a failure sting less, because the circumstances have changed and there’s a new opportunity. Not just miss, try again.
Ironsworn’s resources make partial successes really easy to rule too. Whenever the consequence of a partial success isn’t immediately apparent in the fiction I just lower either Supply or Spirit or Health.
I love FIST but I also found it frustrating to run combat loosely as a conversation as the book suggests. I came up with a turn based combat system on top which turned out pretty effective. I know that pbta does not encourage such things but I also know that pbta is fairly controversial in the community.
My system is essentially: everyone gets a "main action" fighting (FOR/REF), command(TAC), distracting(CRE), escaping, etc) and a "minor action" (moving, grabbing items, etc); a partial success or failure means you get attacked; a failure in a defense test means you get full damage, a partial means half damage.
I discovered the Strong/Weak Hit while playing Solo Mörk Borg. Coming up with caveats is challenging but it blows Pass/Fail out of the water and helps drive the game away from stalemates and wasted turns.
True! A failure but with a boon can make a failure sting less, because the circumstances have changed and there’s a new opportunity. Not just miss, try again.
Ironsworn’s resources make partial successes really easy to rule too. Whenever the consequence of a partial success isn’t immediately apparent in the fiction I just lower either Supply or Spirit or Health.
Yeah, I also do the same with the Stress in Daggerheart. It’s equally vague enough for me to use it to contextualize almost anything.