Re: heroic defense; animal followers; patrons

From: t.s.baguley_at_...
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 10:56:06 +0100

> From: David Dunham <dunham_at_...>
>Alex asks
>
>> it's the actor who chooses how many APs are
>> bidden each round, and the defender can't alter it, right? This means that
>> how the defender choose to defend has no weight on how much he can lose
>> and/or win. This seems quite strange, doesn't it?
>
>Correct. Except that it doesn't seem that strange. As a fencer, I can
>suddenly make an a risky attack like a fleche. As a defender, I do
>have choices, but I have a lot less control over the degree of risk.

I remember being taught how to immediately follow a fleche with a second fleche by one competition fencer. The reasoning being that if someone had retreated and fended off the first one they'd almost certainly be off balance for the second.

>I think too the game would be slower and not work as well if both
>sides got to participate in every bet. Especially if a superior
>opponent could always up the bets against him -- wouldn't be any fun
>if you were on the inferior side (never a fun side to be on anyway).

It could slow the game down, and by-and-large not influence outcomes too much. If I always bid low I'll always just add "1" to my opponent's bid and they'll always add a high bid to my low bid.

For heroic defense you could always add an optional rule like "if you forgo your attack you ignore the penalty for second defense in an exchange" (not sure it is needed, though).

Thom