- 17 Dec, 2025 *
This isn’t what I’m supposed to be working on. I have a Zinequest project to prepare for February and I’m currently collaborating on another zine based on Over/Under (a topic I still find hard to think about without feeling profound sadness).
REGARDLESS, these ideas rattle around my head. Some old, some new. They must be freed. Today, I think once again about dueling.
A few years ago I got really into the concept of running a Free Kriegspel game. Never got around to it… but I loved thinking and reading about it. I spent a lot of time looking back at the roots of the hobby and at all these weird little systems I may choose to steal and graft …
- 17 Dec, 2025 *
This isn’t what I’m supposed to be working on. I have a Zinequest project to prepare for February and I’m currently collaborating on another zine based on Over/Under (a topic I still find hard to think about without feeling profound sadness).
REGARDLESS, these ideas rattle around my head. Some old, some new. They must be freed. Today, I think once again about dueling.
A few years ago I got really into the concept of running a Free Kriegspel game. Never got around to it… but I loved thinking and reading about it. I spent a lot of time looking back at the roots of the hobby and at all these weird little systems I may choose to steal and graft onto my game.
Now, adding a bunch of combat resolution mechanics to my FK game is kind of against the point but I was having fun researching so I didn’t care. I was first led to my dad’s copy of Chainmail. Honestly, the Man-To-Man Melee Table offers most of what I would need. An interesting 2d6 combat table that is easy to reference - besides the series of contingencies you have to check first to see who can attack who first AND what if you attack from their non-weapon handed flank AND how many blows you deal based on weapon class AND WHATEVER. All that needs to be cleaned up and modernized; maybe introduce ways for characters to gain abilities that manipulate the table too. Once again, not really FK at that point but I’ve already forgotten about that by now.
ALSO THE JOUSTING MATRIX FUCKING RULES. SOMEONE JOUST ME!!! 
Next, I found Chivlary. Released in White Dwarf 215, it was supposed to be part of some larger game that never happened. What they did put in the magazine were little cards you cut out and put into a deck to draw from and play to duel. There’s a lot of room there to add stuff: drawing and discarding abilities, playing multiple cards at once to activate abilities, adding and removing cards from your deck to specialize it, etc. But the world needs another deck builder like I need a hole in my head. 
Next again, someone in Over/Under made a system for the Bratva players to duel. It involved rolling a few d10 prior to the fight and taking turns revealing numbers with the objective of scoring higher. I never got to see it so I don’t know it too much but I like that it’s just dice instead of cards or tables.
This would be a better post if I actually expanded on a system. Or something. But fuck you its my blog to dump notes into. Have a good day :)
Honestly, I don’t even have a fond love of dueling. But I think about this topic often. I just needed to get this out of my head for now. Hopefully my next post can about vampires or something.