Les Petites Bêtes Soyeuses

Points Arising for October 1664

Players' deadline for the next turn is
Friday 10th February 2012

Welcome

We have five new players who will be trying out LPBS for a few turns and started with this turn. Welcome to Bob Bost, Joey Browning, Ken Ditto, Carl Olson and Mark Wardell. Enjoy the game, guys.

Seconds

There still seems to be a problem with seconds in duels and I don’t see how I can explain it more clearly. Can anyone suggest a better way?

Let me repeat, then: once a duel has been announced (in the “Grudges to be settled next month” list), the seconds (and weapons) cannot be changed. Hence you must nominate your seconds (and preferred weapon) before you get into any duels.

Secondly, only the listed seconds can attend a duel. If you have been nominated as a second, you will get a note about each duel on your character sheet. If it doesn’t say anything on your character sheet, you cannot attend the duel.

Optional duelling routines

Tim Macaire asked how the optional routines are used in duels. To start with, these are never included in the sequences of duelling actions you write. They are only introduced when the duel takes place – and these actions are executed. Hence, to use optional routines, you need conditional orders (as part of your orders for the duels) that say when you will use them.

Take the Riposte as an example. You start your duel with P-P-X-L-X (two parries and a lunge) and specify “Riposte if Parry succeeds”.

Now let’s say your opponent starts with L-X-X-C-X-X-X (Furious Lunge). The first actions of the duel are L against P. The Parry succeeds in stopping the Lunge, so no damage is done.

Because the Parry is successful, your next routine (the second Parry) is changed to R. Your opponent does X and the Riposte does some damage.

The duel sequences that actually take place are P-R-X-L-X from you and L-X-X-C-X… from your opponent.

Note that the optional routine replaces the whole of the original routine (and pad with Rests as required). Say your opponent’s sequence starts X-L-X-X-S.

Resolving the first action gives a P from you against an X. The second actions are then P versus L. The Parry succeeds and the next routine (the Lunge) is changed to a Riposte. In this case, the duel sequences that actually take place are P-P-R-X-X from you and X-L-X-X-S from your adversary. As the Riposte does less damage than the Lunge it replaces, this is less effective. So use the Riposte with caution!

The most important optional routine is the Surrender. You should always include a conditional order for when you will surrender as part of your orders for a duel. If you don’t, your character will fight until he wins or dies – as Donkey Hotay did this month!

The other optional routines – Optional Block and Optional Parry – are only useful in very specific circumstances. These are when you can tell what your opponent’s next few actions are going to be (most obviously when they’ve just started a Furious Lunge or Furious Slash) and it’s worth replacing your routine to block an attack. They work a bit better when fighting a duel face-to-face, but I would ignore them in a postal game.

Absent friends

The following didn’t get their orders in on time (“No Move Received”) and suffered the consequences.
JB Jacques Blanc (Dominic Howlett) has NMR'd. Total now 1

X2 (Derek Brister), X4 (Joey Browning) and X5 (Mark Wardell) got the benefit of the doubt and were floated

Notes

There’s a Yahoo! group for En Garde! players that provides a forum for players of different games to swap stories and ideas. Follow the link to sign up and get talking.

Reminders: It is worth sending orders in even if they're a day or two late: I October be able to action the orders and will probably be able to use any press. It also reassures me that you're still out there.

Orders (and press) should be e-mailed to the LPBS orders e-mail address - you'll get an automated response when the message arrives in my mailbox. Please give your name and your character's name and specify actions in full (since it's without your character sheet). If you want queries answered before the deadline, e-mail the main LPBS e-mail address.

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