Running a climactic one-on-one fight -- what could I have done better?

First, some background: Last session, the two PCs in my AW game rode into the desert to face down Dremmer, a warlord who is uniting the clans of nomadic raiders for an attack on the PC's home, a ruined city containing a handful of hardholds. Through some cultural finagling, they were able to challenge him to ritual combat to dispute his leadership of his band of nomads. Here's how the ritual challenges go down:

The two duelists are in the center of a ring drawn in the sand, say 15 meters across. They each have a melee weapon of their choice, or a firearm with a single bullet. Each of them have two seconds fort he duel, their right-and-left-hand guys. The seconds mount up on their offroad motorcycles, the conveyance of choice for nomad raider scum. They're armed as well, with the traditional spear of the nomads, or other melee weapons like chain lengths, morning stars, etc. These spears are often tipped with grenades, but for the purposes of these ritual combats, they're just sharp as fuck. The spears get stuck into the ground at the quarters of the circle. Each rider idles next to his. When the presiding priest gives the signal, they begin to ride around in a circle. As they're passing their spear for the third time, they pull it out of the sand and the duel begins. The riders form the ring of the duel, and are allowed to interfere to help their principle -- part of the strategy is to lure your opponent towards your seconds and avoid the enemy seconds. The seconds are also allowed to interfere with one another, killing or otherwise forcing them out of the circle.

Here's basically how the fight went down, as best I can remember:

-Dremmer had a spear, Shieldbearer had a hand axe, each of which do 3-harm. Each are wearing 2-armor gear. Dremmer has a custom move -- when he deals harm to you, you also take s-harm. His blows keep his opponents reeling and off-balance. He also is tougher than the average mook -- he will go down after 3 harm, not 1-2.

-Dremmer tries to keep Shieldbearer at bay with his superior reach. Shieldbearer uses his axe to splinter the haft of the spear. I rule it a Seize By Force, Shieldbearer gets 10+, I rule the spear is split in two -- haft and point -- and he deals 3-harm to Dremmer, reduced to 1-harm by armor.

-Dremmer rushes forward to get inside hand range with a grapple, striking with his fists at the Shieldbearer's unprotected face. Shieldbearer responds by trying to counter-grapple Dremmer and throw him to the sand. I rule it Act Under Fire (the fire is Dremmer's assault), Shieldbearer gets a 7-9. I rule Dremmer gets a shot in, 1-harm AP, but the Shieldbearer successfully throws him to the ground, and is on top of him. Shieldbearer is now also reeling from Dremmer's strike, which has cracked his cheekbone (s-harm). I forget to make him make the harm move. Derp.

-Shieldbearer now tries to choke Dremmer out with the axe handle. Acting Under Fire (because of the s-harm), gets a 7-9. I rule he chokes him a bit, but then Dremmer throws him off and rolls away. 1-harm AP to Dremmer for the choke.

-At this point, the Shieldbearer's player says "I read a sitch." Technically, not supposed to do that, since you're not supposed to name your moves. I let him roll, though, and he gets a 7-9. Spends a hold to ask "What should I watch out for." I say "Well, while you were getting your bearings, Dremmer picked up the head of his broken spear and threw it right at you, so you should probably watch out for the razor-sharp blade spinning towards your chest." 3-harm to the Shieldbearer, dropped down to 1-harm by armor. He makes the harm move with a 6-. But he has s-harm again.

-Next up, Dremmer charges at the Shieldbearer, trying to push him into the ring, into one of his henchmen. Acting under fire, the Shieldbearer misses entirely, and is shoved in front of a speeding ATV (one of Dremmer's seconds is riding an ATV rather than a motorbike). One of his seconds, The Driver (the other PC), attempts to aid him by stabbing the ATV driver to slow him down or drive him off-course. He succeeds, and the ATV driver swerves at the last minute, clipping the shieldbearer rather than running him down, and dropping his weapon, a length of chain. I rule it 2-harm AP, since being rammed by things is generally AP. He fails the harm move with a 10+, I choose that he looses his footing and drops his axe.

-Shieldbearer gets up, sees that Dremmer has his axe, and has moved near the center of the ring. He picks up the chain length, wraps it around his hand as a gauntlet. Having learned his lesson from last time, he says "I crounch into a fighting stance, move away from the edge of the ring, and get my bearings," triggering Read a Sitch. He gets 1-hold, and asks what he should watch out for. I tell him that Dremmer, in addition to getting the axe, has stuck the spearpoint in the sand and may intend to use it as a surprise weapon if it comes to another grapple.

-Shieldbearer wants to make an end of it, and charges, saying he's going to snatch up the spearpoint as his weapon, and parry Dremmer's axe stroke with his chain gauntlet as he strikes. I call it Act Under Fire, the firing being Dremmer's counter-attack. He hits a 10+, and deals his 3-harm to Dremmer, killing him, and recieving no harm in return. Shieldbearer ends the fight having taking 4-harm.

Overall, everyone was happy with the fight -- it was exciting and dramatic with some twists and turns. The Shieldbearer PC felt a little cheated at two points:

-He felt he should've gotten more advantage from having Dremmer grappled early in the fight, and that Dremmer escaped too easily.
-He was a little put out by the result of his first 'read a sitch,' when he got hit with the thrown spearpoint because he was too busy getting his bearings.

Thoughts on that? Anything else I did that doesn't give with your GMing style? Any advice for stuff like this?

I wouldn't have dealt a hard move on a Successful read a sitch. How was he supposed to use the +1 hold from acting on the MC's answer if you don't allow him to act?

I think you could probably have done more with the grappling situation, given him a hard bargain or a difficult choice. I would not have negated the player's takedown so quickly after a single successful roll. The NPC can still be a threat on the ground grappling with the dude who is choking him.

Overall though, sounds like a great game. Good job!

Thanks!

I definitely had second thoughts about the read a sitch move. But he didn't say his character was doing anything else than looking around, in the middle of a intense one-on-one combat. I thought it couldn't pass, but I might do it differently if I did it again.

You're right about the grapple. I could've given him the chance to deal more damage, but say one of Dremmer's seconds was about to hit him, or something like that. I feel like that was my biggest error.

I definitely had second thoughts about the read a sitch move. But he didn't say his character was doing anything else than looking around, in the middle of a intense one-on-one combat.

That would have been a good reason to make a hard move on a failed roll, for sure. But this part definitely also stood out to me; succeed at a move, get a literally-no-longer-useful answer and take 3 harm? Not the best.

In general it sounds like you did your best to pretend like it was a fair fight, mostly by finding a seemingly indefinite number of reasons for the PC to be rolling Act Under Fire. (The part where you actually make the player roll Act Under Fire with 'the counterstrike' being the Fire is by far the most egregious.) If I was the player at some point I would probably have started to wonder how it is that the only thing I ever get to do is react to Dremmer's actions, but it sounds like everything mostly flowed within the fiction. Certainly this would be more or less reasonable depending on how experienced the PC was at fighting; if I had to guess the playbook of the PC based on this fight I would assume they were a Hocus or non-violent Savvyhead or something.

But I mean, the truth of it is that if a PC with a decent Hard decides to kill an NPC, and gets that NPC in a fair fight, the NPC is going to die. Usually very quickly, unless the circumstances are quite unusual; which these circumstances did not really seem to be. I understand the desire as an MC to make the fight climactic, but if it gets to the point where you are pretending an extraordinarily clear Seize by Force move is Act Under Fire, just so you can avoid letting the PC do harm to your NPC, it is probably time to remember the crosshairs.

In an attempt to curtail my massive posts, I'll just touch on the following:

When a seize by force roll is made, the opponents exchange harm. Right off the bat you let an attack on the opponents weapon not deliver harm to the PC. This is a good sign that you've zoomed too far into the action. AW tends to handle these sorts of evens in a more macro level, not *round by round*. AW does not do turn based combat, it does combat based on actions and the snowball.

You may have learned that your Shield was preparing to go for Dremmer, by first attacking his ability to deal harm. In other words, he is going to charge a guy with a spear and hope to kill him, making a point to get his spear in the process. Dremmer of course is going to try to stab the shit out of him with this spear.  Roll Hard. This point is key, this roll is deciding how the fight goes. If the player wants to definitely get a hit in on that axe, he should choose seize hold to achieve his strategic goal. If he wants to get stabbed less while doing so, he best suffer less harm or else be prepared to get hit with 3-harm right now. If he wants to just kill the guy and get it over with, there is always Do more harm. And if he's playing to the crowd, making them feel his presence, being intimidating as possible is a very good strategy. Either way, the ACTION happens, they BOTH do harm to the other person right then, and you flavor the scene based on the actions taken by the move, and the resulting harm roll. You'll find that after this, Dremmer is probably almost dead, certainly limping, and will not be able to get hit like that again. Meanwhile the player is probably fine, if maybe scratched. If you want to play up an ability like, the enemy hit hard. Use descriptors like, when he hits you, it knocks you through the air. When he roars to the crowd, he gets them all going, maybe suggest the player isn't sure they're not going to break the lines and just go for him here. Basically, I'm suggesting your +s harm is probably NOT stunning, its probably more like the flavor in the 4th choice for Seize by Force. The terror factor. Use that in your RP, but ultimately, I would've probably just had his damage interfere with the players harm roll (they suffer +2 to their roll) rather then s harm which might disable them. The harm roll should do that, not the *any attack* preformed by this guy. But thats just my take.

If you want more deadly combat, with more impactful harm on the player: there are some blood and guts hacks out there. My favorite was one that turned armor into a +roll against harm, and harm was categorized into (generally): That hurt. That might kill me. and I'm probably definitely Dead Meat. Being hurt helped me untrivialize suffering harm, which was important to my style of DMing and my players sense of danger. Others do this differently. We got rid of harm entirely, and just used the three category rule. generally roudning to... 1 harm 2-3 harm 4+ harm respectively.

Mostly. I suspect a fight like this should not have taken more then two or three rolls by the player to resolve, for better or for worse.

on your two points.
1. Already covered.
2. If he didnt have time to read a sitch, he cant do it. Maybe he has to run away for awhile to get that insight, back off, circle around. if the guys coming at him with a spear and he isnt avoiding it, he doesnt need to roll read a stich, he needs to be asked, are you sure, this guy will gut you if you dont either get away or fight back? If he doesnt move, then he gets gutted. Being gutted spares little time to read a sitch, ie to do it, you must do it. 

======= tips
1. violence should be sudden, resolve quickly, and have permanent/enduring repercussions regardless of the outcome.
2. if violence always goes the pc's way even when they miss, consider hitting more then just harm. Hit reputation, hit confidence, hit their morale. Hit them where it hurts. On a miss push where they're not in control.
3. consider that AW's cinematics thrive on the tension both before and after the fight. Maybe winning isn't as simple as killing the guy, maybe that just takes one monster and makes many smaller ones.
4. I've also had entire fight scenes play out when me and the other player agree not to roll, and to RP the whole fight. A bar fight can be RP without ever pulling out the harm chart. The lack of permanence to this exchange, meant some of the other players loosened up and played a bit in the fight too, even when they would have run from a gun fight. I did resolve the end of the fight with a go aggro by the player, to see if he was on the ground or standing over the throng, but it was just to capstone a fun rp.
5. A seize by force can be made against several guys with guns in a room. It can also be made against the entire complex filled with a gang. A single roll could be made against a gang to cover an hour long fight in a town routing some violent squatters. The scale matters because the harm is delivered to both groups once per roll, so if they're less likely to fight to the death, some dying at the start will cause the rest to flee.

Thanks everyone for the advice. Appreciate you taking the time to read all this.

@Ebok Yeah, I really agree screwing up the initial Seize by Force arbitration was unfortunate -- that had a chance to change the direction of the fight in an interesting way.

As for your tips #2 and #3, that's taken care of. I didn't provide additional story context around the fight itself, but suffice to say they were conflicted going into the fight as to whether it was the right thing to do, and that conflict will carry forward into interesting outcomes, along with the fact that Dremmer's faction is just as dangerous in its collapse.

I have to confess, though, that I disagree with some of your guidance about how to represent violence overall in the game -- I think if I had made this fight last 2-3 rolls, the players would've been really disappointed. This Threat has been in play since the second session of the game, and this is the second-to-last session (I'm moving cross-country, so we're wrapping up). I agree that most violence should be resolved in a couple of rolls, per your tips #1 and #5. But I stipulated that this was a climactic fight, rather than the constant violence that characterizes life in the Apocalypse. The system is equipped to zoom in fairly granularly, so why not take that opportunity once in a while/campaign?

@Daniel Wood -- I think I agree that at least one of the AUF moves should've been SBF or Go Aggro instead, but I also think that the text off the rules supports a broader reading of the AUF move than you are taking. In the book in the example fight between the Brainer and three goons, on page 158, the MC is about to rule that her attempting to grab the last goon with her Violation Glove is acting under fire (the fire presumably being a counterattack), but then opts to let the In-Brain Puppet Strings move proceed per normal, remembering that the NPC is incapable of counterattacking at that moment. This is mentioned again on page 167 under "When an NPC Attacks" -- "Usually what you'll do instead is put someone in a spot: 'Fisty opens fire on you. What do you do?' If the character does anything much, she's doing it under fire." I think a counterattack can absolutely be the Fire for AUF. You're right about my out-of-game motivations, though -- I did it to draw out the fight. AUF allows for the NPC to avoid harm if the player fails, but it also allows the PC to avoid harm if they succeed, whereas SBF does not -- by default, everyone takes harm.

Trying to grab someone at all when they are trying to violently avoid being grabbed is at the far side of the spectrum from launching a concerted attack attempting to deliver lethal harm to an opponent. There is a clear possibility that the Brainer will not succesfully use the glove; there is no possibility that Shieldbearer and Dremmer will somehow not actually fight each other. The situation described seemed like a climactic moment where the PC finally was able to read the situation, put together a plan, and take definite, proactive action -- it is the opposite of the 'an NPC opens fire on you, what do you do?' example.

I mean, you are right, Act Under Fire can be used for almost anything; its secondary role is as the catch-all fallback move, and I certainly support it being used as such when necessary. But it plays that role only when you do not have another, far more specific move that clearly applies.

Anyways, there's no need to nitpick about it, since we seem to agree on the main thing I was saying. I think giving Dremmer a custom move, extra harm, and 2 armour was probably about as much as you could reasonably do, and I agree that deciding to zoom in a little bit on an important fight is a legit approach. But as soon as those advantages have been revealed and addressed, and the tenor and detail of the fight has been made clear, you still have to be looking through crosshairs -- and that means if the PC is like 'I seize his life by force' and rolls a hit, it's up to THEM if they are just going to end it then and there.

Removing the PCs' agency by not letting them take advantage of the situation they have made for themselves, or by fudging towards moves that do not actually let them move towards their clear goal -- all in the name of drama or climax -- is, I think, a pretty common pitfall. I am sure I have done it myself. But ultimately AW is a game about what the PCs choose to do, not whether they can do it at all; postponing the consequences is just as likely to rob the game of its momentum as build it up.

Removing the PCs' agency by not letting them take advantage of the situation they have made for themselves, or by fudging towards moves that do not actually let them move towards their clear goal -- all in the name of drama or climax -- is, I think, a pretty common pitfall. I am sure I have done it myself. But ultimately AW is a game about what the PCs choose to do, not whether they can do it at all; postponing the consequences is just as likely to rob the game of its momentum as build it up.

Totally agree here, and I think everyone around the table knew that Dremmer was going to die once they got toe-to-toe with him. I think everybody at the table just wanted the fight to feel like more than a stomp, and I don't think they would've felt satisfied if all the back-and-forth of the fight was purely narrated, as the suggestion from Ebok, with the all-narrated barfight with one roll at the end.

Hold on. I was giving generalized tips, not specific in this case you should have done X. I also quite explicitly said that the bar fight, without rolls, was designed as RP rather then to cause permanent harm or violence on the target. Since no one was going to die unless someone "upped" the threat during the bar fight, the fight itself could be narrative and without rolls.

To address your Specific climatic fight, I would not have had it become a duel. Not unless the challenge was getting the duel. The PC is stronger, better, and scarier then the NPC. I likely would have made it a battle, had the pcs either together or individually needing to do certain things to get the upper hand, probably fighting their way into the gangwar. Maybe just long enough until they did enough harm to get the gangs to back down, or retreat to their base. Then as the PC crawl up to the base, initiate another more dogged fight that had remaining vs remaining fight it out,  with the boss an capstone after they busted down the doors to the base.

Individual instances of violence should be sudden and brutal. They should resolve quickly. You can build up the risk and challenge, as well as the feel of accomplishment, by letting them smash their way all the way. Even if Most of the gangs stand down and let the fight play out after the first big defeat (probably cause the charming pcs talked them down), you can have the core group of loyalists be a bit more die hard.

This is all supposition. I didn't see the actual game. I know for a fact that my players would love nothing more then to bust down the door to the NPC they hated, walk up, grab his head and snap the fuckers neck with a vicious roundabout. They would talk about that for years, because I never let them get anything easily. So when they got what they wanted, they loved it, because it was all theirs. If they have to roll to make that happen, and they HIT that roll to avoid some badness or failure creeping in, I'm going to let them do it. The challenge they had to overcome wasn't the guy, it was the getting to the guy. Navigating the violence and tensions prior to the main fight, in order to maintain their advantage.

I have the same logic even for the Badasses on the other side. I make them scary due to the permanence their harm triggers, or just through sheer magnitude of presence. The PCs are the biggest and badest around, it's not your job to inflate the npcs to be their equals. They arent. If they believed they were (individually), they weren't really that much of a threat to begin with.

Rolls: I normally try to provide an opportunity for characters to roll at least once in each scene.

The battle looms, the masses descend on part of the town the PC want to protect.
1 HARD roll to resolve the battle at the town, army vs army. Way zoomed out: Strategic.
The splintered nature of the gangs equates to weakened leadership, the army backs off if they lose.
I provide an opportunity. Some of the splinters could be chased down before they regroup.
1 HOT rolls to have the pcs to try to talk them down. 1 Hard roll if things go sideways. Zoomed in: Familial
They move to the next group. Maybe they can try to recruit these guys?
1 HOT roll to determine if they do. 1 Hard roll if things go sideways. Zoomed in: Familial
Maybe at this point they've got the location of the BASE. They move up with their gangs and and I give some description.
1 Cool roll to try to sneak towards the base without warning them.
1 Sharp roll when they're finally seen to react to the new challenges they face
1 Hard roll to bust into the main yard and take the outer defenses. Maybe innocents in between. Zoomed out: Tactical
1 Hard roll to breach the fortress and fight the "Bosses Guard". Maybe innocents desperately fighting too. Zoomed in: Familial
1-3 rolls to handle the final showdown. Way Zoomed in: Personal

By this point, the PCs will have suffered tremendous gang losses, with many many opportunities for things to have gone wrong. I enable the series of rolls by not including the entire gang size in each battle, so when a group gets devastated, or hurt enough they dont want to fight more, they leave. By letting fights leave off like this, I can stage them across an entire war, while the pcs have to use their resources to overcome the challenges. Plus things like this widdle down the PCs action hero HP.


Again. This cannot be "this is what you shouldve done!" I didnt even see what you did. This is a This is what I would have done.

Seems like a fine way to run it. Nice and cinematic.

I think you were find for the grapple. If it had of been a 10+ I'd understand, but it's much more interesting the way you played it. The character is still awesome, just going against a particularly trying foe.

The read a sitch does seem unduly harsh though. I think it's fine for a player to do that, especially if they are more a thinking fighter than an all out brawler. Breaking the grapple would have been the perfect break to quickly scan for weaknesses. The move was way too harsh. If you wanted to stick with the spinning blade, he got a partial success, at the very least, he should have gotten 1 forward to acting under fire and dodging.

Thinking of how a situation would have been played out in a movie. I could see the hero getting into a grapple with the villain, choking him a bit before getting thrown off. I couldn't see them getting suckered with a blade like that out of nowhere.

Generally for something like that, a brutal fight with a brutal opponent, you want the pcs to come out victorious, but quite a bit bruised and bloodied. Like winning a tough race. Exhausted, battered, but high on adrenaline and feeling like a total badass.