A duel is a contest using deadly weapons between to combatants over some perceived wrong or loss of face or honor. “I demand satisfaction!” is often the code phrase used by the injured party to request a duel.
The usual goal of a duel wasn’t so much as a desire to kill one’s opponent as to have the offended party gain "satisfaction" over their enemy. “Satisfaction” itself usually defined as restoring one's honor by demonstrating a willingness to risk one's life for it.
Thereby winning the duel is thereby one means of righting this perceived wrong, but simply showing a willingness to fight may be another. If a duel isn’t fought to the death, it is fought to the satisfaction of the one demanding the duel until honor is deemed to have been restored. This could mean First Blood, or at some other pre-determined point, FREX until at least one person is incapacitated or rendered unable to fight (i.e. unconsciousness).
Sometimes “Satisfaction” means simply showing up and surviving unscathed a pre-determined set of conditions (i.e. being shot at three times by a pistol/wand/cross-bow). There have been odd duels in the past, where combatants didn’t use conventional (and lethal) weapons, but fought with bladders full of manure or ink, with “Satisfaction” achieved by the one making the first visible mark. There have even been duels with persons aloft in balloons using pistols at the other’s aerostat.
This is all a very long-winded preamble to my point that it should be the combatants, and not the GM who needs to set the bar to what constitutes “Satisfaction” to the injured party demanding the duel.
If the player/PC demanding that they duel to “First Blood” (meaning literally the first strike that draws a visible injury) as the point at which Satisfaction occurs (and for which Initiative means so much), then re-defining First Blood to be 1/3 of hit points is simply redefining the meaning of this term and cheats the person who thinks that First Blood means exactly that.
However, if the two combatants wish to change the level of desired and formalized lethality so that the duel ends with “Satisfaction” being defined as the first injury that requires magical healing (i.e. beyond 8 HP) or the first that requires the intervention of a high level cleric (say 1/3 to ½ total HP) that could be another possibility for to the two duelists and their seconds to consider.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2007-02-15 04:43 am (UTC)The usual goal of a duel wasn’t so much as a desire to kill one’s opponent as to have the offended party gain "satisfaction" over their enemy. “Satisfaction” itself usually defined as restoring one's honor by demonstrating a willingness to risk one's life for it.
Thereby winning the duel is thereby one means of righting this perceived wrong, but simply showing a willingness to fight may be another. If a duel isn’t fought to the death, it is fought to the satisfaction of the one demanding the duel until honor is deemed to have been restored. This could mean First Blood, or at some other pre-determined point, FREX until at least one person is incapacitated or rendered unable to fight (i.e. unconsciousness).
Sometimes “Satisfaction” means simply showing up and surviving unscathed a pre-determined set of conditions (i.e. being shot at three times by a pistol/wand/cross-bow). There have been odd duels in the past, where combatants didn’t use conventional (and lethal) weapons, but fought with bladders full of manure or ink, with “Satisfaction” achieved by the one making the first visible mark. There have even been duels with persons aloft in balloons using pistols at the other’s aerostat.
This is all a very long-winded preamble to my point that it should be the combatants, and not the GM who needs to set the bar to what constitutes “Satisfaction” to the injured party demanding the duel.
If the player/PC demanding that they duel to “First Blood” (meaning literally the first strike that draws a visible injury) as the point at which Satisfaction occurs (and for which Initiative means so much), then re-defining First Blood to be 1/3 of hit points is simply redefining the meaning of this term and cheats the person who thinks that First Blood means exactly that.
However, if the two combatants wish to change the level of desired and formalized lethality so that the duel ends with “Satisfaction” being defined as the first injury that requires magical healing (i.e. beyond 8 HP) or the first that requires the intervention of a high level cleric (say 1/3 to ½ total HP) that could be another possibility for to the two duelists and their seconds to consider.
::B::