Dork Stuff

Of interest to probably only me, but let us run with it.  This is stuff I figured out with Justin and Joe last night, and I don't want to forget.

This is notes for me, mostly.  So I am not explaining, I just want this in a place easy to find later.


Bouts by Time
The number of Bouts in a Fight is going to be determined by the amount of fictional time I think the Fight needs to cover.
1 Bout - near instantaneous (stop the bad guy from dropping the baby out the window).
2 Bouts - An old school "combat round"  that is to say, about a minute (slip out the window before your lover's guardian gets to the top of the stairs).  Note this is old school.  A new-school "combat round" would be a 1 Bout thing.
3 Bouts - The average confrontation (argument, altercation) scene.  It's enough bouts for a reversal or maybe two (send the person who just dropped the baby out the window after the baby, violently).  I expect this to be the default for most Fights.
4 Bouts - The average chase scene, also probably the average fight-involving-many-mooks scene.  
5 or more Bouts - An extended investigation, search or procedural scene.  A battle, something grueling, but also something where it is interesting to see how it goes beat by beat.  I'll leave 5+ available for myself and other GMs to use if they need to, but I know I am unlikely to use it very often.  Here's why:

The See-How-You-Go Roll is still in effect.  You will succeed at your stated goal, that's not in question, because failure just isn't interesting, but I want to know what state you're in when you succeed - that is interesting to me.  That's a single bout where the 3-Die Penalty does not exist and 3 hits is the threshold for making it through with no complications (I explained this more fully last time I did something like this).

Bringing the Pain: If a Fight is climactic and interesting enough, you or I can ask to do it D&D style, as a series of 1-Bout Fights.

Peril by Failure by Bout
To date, I have been figuring that the conditions and severity of those conditions you get from losing a Fight is dependent on my mercy alone, but let's put some rails on that.  
When you lose a Fight, I can step your peril die up 1 for losing the Fight, 1 as a 3-Die Penalty, and 1 for each Bout in which you whiffed.  I don't have to give you all of that.  Angel stipulations on failure cannot get you out of Peril, but they can get you out of a kind of Peril (e.g. I don't want to get hurt, so instead I end up frightened to the same amount - mechanically it's exactly the same, but if a certain peril makes a player feel deprotagonized, I have no problem with them using their Angel-ness to get out of it).

1-Die-Bonus, 3-Die-Penalty
You only get either once for a fight, so even on a 5-Bout Fight, if I roll 1 die five times or 3+ dice five times, I only get the bonus or the penalty once.  Likewise, it is possible to get both a bonus and a penalty.  They don't necessarily cancel, they can, if I do not feel like dealing, but don't count on or expect it every or even most times.