The Dever Deviation

Lone Wolf style single-roll combat rounds for Quarrel + Fable, Troika!, and Advanced Fighting Fantasy

Joe Dever, from https://www.staynerd.com/lucca-comics-2015-interview-with-joe-dever/

As a child, I obsessively collected gamebooks and the Lone Wolf series were some of my favourites: I’d often get them for Xmes or my birthday. One year, Joe Dever was the first person to wish me a happy birthday — thanks Facebook! His ENDURANCE fell to nil in November of 2016. These rules are in his honour.

Requirements

• Combatants have a SKILL score — preferably around 9 +/– 3
• You have 1D6
• No-one can gain life from an attack: if you’d take negative damage, instead you take none

Process

1. Determine the combat correspondence: deduct enemy SKILL from player SKILL
2. Roll D6+combat correspondence. The enemy loses that much STAMINA
3. The player loses STAMINA equal to 5 minus the result of the roll
4. If any combatant took 8+ damage in this exchange, they are killed outright. Players can test LUCK to be saved from this

Example of play

Romulone (SKILL 9 STAMINA 7) faces off against a giak warrior (SKILL 6 STAMINA 9). The combat correspondence is +3.

In the first round, Romulone rolls 1+3 for a total of 4. The giak loses 4 STAMINA — it’s now at five. Romulone takes 5–4 = 1 damage.

In the second round, Romulone rolls 5+3 = 8. This is enough to kill the giak, though it would also kill the beast outright if it were at full health. Deducting 8 from 5 brings a negative answer, so Romulone takes no damage here.

Later, Romulone comes across a helghast (SKILL 11 STAMINA 11). The combat correspondence is –2.

In the first round, Romulone rolls 5–2 = 3. The helghast would lose 3 STAMINA, though our hero does not have a magic weapon! Romulone takes 5–3 = 2 damage. He’ll test his LUCK to flee next round.

Credits

The mathematical specifics were developed by Brian Ashford and have been tweaked by me. These rules are licensed under a Creative Commons 4.0 attribution share-alike license. This is an independent production of Chitin Press and is not affiliated with Melsonian Arts Council, Arion Games, nor Holmgard Press.

Not sure where to start with Quarrel + Fable? Check out this collection.