"Down and Dirty" Combat Doesn't Get Enough Love in The Chronicles of Darkness

Combat is the main event in a lot of roleplaying games, but there are times where a fight just feels inconsequential for the player characters, or it's just going to eat up a massive amount of the time you had planned for the story that night. This can be an issue in games that take a more cinematic approach to combat, such as the Chronicles of Darkness, but the Down and Dirty Combat mechanic that's listed on page 87 can solve this problem neatly and elegantly for those who want to go to narration for those fights that might be necessary, but which aren't super important.

You got this kid! Come on, one roll, and this bum's going down!

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Not Every Fight Is Supposed To Be Do-Or-Die

I've made the comparison before, but consider the first John Wick film. The scene where Vigo tasks a crew of assassins to go kill John before he can come after Iosef to get revenge. There's 11 or so assassins in black suits and ski masks, making them literal faceless goons who are all dispatched to our main character's house. John, of course, kills them all with the only damage being to his house, and his composure, just to let the audience know the kind of badass we're dealing with.

This is what I mean when I talk about thinking of combat cinematically. I'm not just talking about what it would look like, and the ebb and flow of a brawl or a shoot out. But ask where it fits in the narrative arc you're telling, and if this is an important, meaningful fight that should be slugged out round-for-round and pound-for-pound, or is this an interim fight with goons who aren't important in the grand scheme of things?

Because if you're running a Hunter game, and your cell of trigger-happy monster hunters are going after a vampire, then absolutely that fight in the vampire's lair should be a pulse-pounding scene where you dedicate a lot of screen time to the action, and you pull out all the weird powers and hail-Mary weapons for your mortals to try to eke out a victory. However, you probably don't want to dedicate that same time and attention to the fight with some club bouncers that are guarding the first layer of access to that vampire's lair, three sub-basements below The Red Circle.

You want to fight the counter guy who got your order wrong? Fine, but this is the last time...

The way this simple mechanic works is that you, as the ST, offer the chance to the players to run this with Down and Dirty rules. Because it should always be their choice. After all, regular combat mechanics and Down and Dirty mechanics both offer risks. If the players say yes, they want the D&D rules, it's fairly simple.

First, you determine which characters have what goals in this scene. For example, your bruiser might be trying to beat a combination to a locked door out of a flunky, while the shooter is just picking off as many other targets as she can. If there are distinct, different goals at-work, then these characters each make separate rolls. However, if multiple characters are all in sync with their goals (say all four members of a cell are rushing the two guards on a door, and looking to pummel them into submission), then they can use the Teamwork mechanic in order to combine their efforts together for a better chance of success.

Once you know who is trying to do what, you put together the combat pool for the player characters (Strength or Dexterity + Brawl, Firearms, or Weaponry), and then the NPCs will either roll that same pool if they're opposing the PCs, or they'll roll something like (Strength or Dexterity + Athletics) if they're trying to get away. Once both sides have rolled, count the successes, and the difference between them.

If the players get an exceptional success (5 or more on their side) they achieve their goal, and get a point of Willpower from the rush. A regular success (1-4 more on their side) and they achieve their stated goal, dealing damage equal to their weapon modifier + successes, killing enemies if that was the goal. If they fail then the opponent deals them damage equal to the number of successes they achieved over the PCs, and they escape unless they want to press things. Dramatic failure is the same as a regular failure, except the PCs are Stunned as a result of how badly things went.

Just be careful who you start a fight with... it might go badly for you.

This mechanic does a lot of heavy lifting for you as a Storyteller. On the one hand, it allows player characters who are built for fights to still contribute to the story and the game, but you don't have to eat up half (or more) of a given session making sure they get their fights in. On the other hand, it puts control into your players' hands, so they can decide what they think an important fight is, versus one they're willing to let a single roll of the dice settle.

With that said, though, as a Storyteller you should consider a couple of things before allowing the Down and Dirty rules to resolve a given combat.

- Should This Be Do Or Die? - The Chronicles of Darkness is a vicious system when it comes to combat, and the more combatants and weapons involved only ups that ante. If you want to avoid a serious risk of PC death, then this is a good time for the D&D option.

- Are These Combatants Named? - Think of your chronicle as if it were a movie. Are the people your characters fighting Named Characters, like the current villain, their lieutenant, or important characters to the plot? Or are they Gangster #1, #2, and #3? Even if you gave them names, histories, and personalities in your notes, ask if they are Important. If not, D&D is probably an acceptable way to solve things.

These two questions make a great guide as to when these rules should be invoked. Because once you have the necessary results, you can narrate what happened, and dictate what the fight accomplished, or what resources it used (how many rounds did they fire, did they manage to keep things quiet, and so on) without interrupting the flow of the current arc too much.

And if things go REALLY terribly, you can always invoke the Chase rules... but I think I'll talk about those next time if folks are interested in hearing more about this setting?

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