[UA] Strike that Pose

[Chris Cooper]

Hey all.

I have redone my rules for the samurai stand-off.

you WILL discuss! 

Well, if you want to. 

Cheers,

Chris.

Poseurs and Postering 

In the day of the cowboy sorcerer there are many young
punks swigging back Dutch Courage or carving druid
marks around their arms. It is the time that the world
skips back two hundred years and two dukes stand off
like gunslingers. What can I say; the Los Angeles
occult street scene acts as if it’s two centuries
out-of-date.

John Fist is the Devil himself, how many punk wizards
do you think he has to slap them across the mojo
everyday? Not that many. Fist has hard core street
cred: he didn’t get to be the Devil by taking
disrespect.

But every so often some mojomofo mashed on too much
jujujuice reckons he has the Chernobyls to nuke the
big boys.  

And outside the Whiskey Nickel, John Fist sees the
wizard bobbing with rat-tails braided into his
dreadlocks, the circumcised cocks of Legba and Jesus
tattooed into his arms, and the old scabs of wins
scarred into his flesh. With a cocky grin, cheap
Polaroid shades on his face, and some easy coke up his
nose, the punk wizard stands waiting.

But John Fist is the Devil. He gives the kid a glance
when he exits his favourite bar and puts his bags and
gear into his car.

In a wizard duel there isn’t much that shows off as
conventional weapons: spitting into your hand, and
then saying your enemies name will punching said
spittle isn’t classified as assault with intent to
kill. So these call-puts generate about as much
attention as belligerent drunks.

So the punk wizard stands flexing his fingers,
cracking his knuckles, everyone can see he’s getting
doubts. Fist is currently speaking on the phone,
hoping the kid will go away. It’s not the Fist has no
sorcerous protections (he’s got too many) he just
doesn’t need to waste it on trash trickery.

The kid hasn’t wised up to the fact that Fist is
letting the kid rethink his call-out while he makes
time on his cell phone.

Eventually the kid can’t run ‘cause his friends will
know he chickened out, but he needs to keep face so he
walks up to the Devil with his drug-bravery burned
out. And asks the Devil what the time is and then
walks off.

This is how most wizards duels work. Sure everyone
hears about the flash fights between stupid twerps or
the volleys of a Pinball War thrown across town by
smarter dukes. Most bad blood is curing by good old
drive-by shootings with hot lead.

Showdown: The Face Off in the Underground
The showdown is using an appropriate skill like Adept,
Magick, Bad-ass Avatar, Sex-&-Hex, Trick Stick, Saucy
Wrangler, Magic Murker, etc

Both mages roll their skill as a Significant Check.
The success of the check determines the appearance of
threat rather than actual threat. This is measured as
a chosen Stress Gauge threat the duellist is trying to
work, by torque the potential damage the duellist can
do to his opponent.

Choose a Stress Check you wish to torque. The Default
stress check is violence. If the players are smart
they can manipulate the duel with careful speech

Successful Check
The duellist radiates a Stress Gauge threat with a
rank equal to the tens of the roll. The opponent must
roll the relevant Stress check in the gauge. If you
fail the check you chicken out of the duel. You do not
gain notches for this roll unless the threat was
significant 3 or more ranks above your hardened
notches.

Failed Check, Under Stat
You effectively portray a Rank-1 Stress Gauge threat.
Fuck off and scare children for Halloween candy.

Failed Check, Over Stat
Although you still show-off a rank-1 threat, you have
grossly miss-estimated your opponent who has his
threat level doubled for the duel.

Example: 
John Fist targets the punk wizard’s Helplessness, and
rolls his OU Reputation: the Devil 60% and rolls 53%.
The punk wizard effectively faces a Rank-5
Helplessness check. Since he only has two failed and
three hardened in Helplessness, the punk wizard stress
checks.

The punk wizard chooses Violence and rolls a 32% off
his Ckaos Magick 30%, a fail under his Soul Stat, he
comes off as having some sort of magical competence,
but he’s still very unsure facing the bad boys.

The punk wizard rolls and fails his Helplessness
Stress Check, and chickens out of the duel.

Modifiers
The GM can modify the final dice roll with conditions.
Significant check involved.

Secretly standing behind the punk wizard is his mate
Scab Shaman. Scab Shaman has a blessed gun (it lay in
the light of the full moon’s Three Days of
Perfection).

He flips his raw-stitched buckskin jacket so the
rust-spotted gun-grip can be seen.

Standing next to the car is Gray Moscow. Scab Shaman
slips his hand around the hilt of his trick gun. He is
going for the Violence check with his skill Magickized
Gun Tit 15%. He gets a roll of 14%. Because the gun
has been charged with a minor (but bogus ritual), the
sly Scab Shaman gets a +10% to his roll, making it 24%
or a successful rank-2 Violence threat.

Moscow sees this, aims for Unnatural; and calls Polly
his own gun out of its holster and into his hand Jedi
mind-trick style. He rolls his Old Magick 55% skill
with a 35%, a rank-3 Unnatural check. Because
Murderer’s Crow is a significant artefact-ritual he
gets a +20% for a total of 55%, a Rank-5 Unnatural
check.

Scab Shaman lets go of the pistols handle and pulls
the jacket back across. He spends the time trying not
to look at Moscow squinting at him like Dirty Harry
checking out street trash.

And that’s Posturing and Posing: using machismo
psychic violence at home and on the job.




=====
The little bird that is the song in my heart
is too tired to be carried
by its battered wings.

It falls, crashes...
... and is still in its bone cage...

Dead Inside from Atomic Sock Monkey press.


                                      www.atomicsockmonkey.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Get better spam protection with Yahoo! Mail.
http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools