Mere Sapnon Ki Rani: Conflict System

See the original MSkR post for the introduction to this game. This system remains incomplete; another option for the failed klesha transfers is to have them act as simple success, but generate collateral suffering as well. I have strong doubts about the klesha transfers that reduce total threat weight.

Conflicts

Insert conflict trigger and outside-SIS resolution here

To begin you need to define each character's goals. Characters may continue participating in a conflict as long as they are able; prior to being disabled, they may surrender. The last character remaining in a conflict achieves his goal.

A conflict consists of a series of successive turns. In each turn, the character of highest-ranking Caste acts first; among characters of the same Caste, compare their talent score in that Caste, and proceed in order of decreasing talent.

What You Can Do

During a turn, you may take one of the following actions:

Attack

You use one of your skills to injure another character. Roll a number of dice equal to the relevant skill (with some dice mechanic that rewards high talent); said dice mechanic generates three outcomes: failure (infrequent), injury (frequent) and severe injury (frequent).

Injury inflicts a one-die penalty on the victim's use of the skill you attacked with. Severe injury has two possible effects on the victim; it can either reveal a Vel, one of the overhanging dooms that threatens a character engaging in confrontation, or it may increase the klesha of that Vel. See The Elephants of Four Quarters for more details on the Vel.

Failure sets you off-balance. When none of your Vels are visible, this isn't actually an issue; you just didn't get to do something interesting this turn. However, if the appropriate Vel is visible, then it becomes exposed. See See The Elephants of Four Quarters for more details on what exposure means.

Lament

You tell a sympathetic listener of your troubles. Your family will always listen to your troubles; you may also invite player characters to listen, but they may decline. For each listener, you transform one die of injury into a sympathy die; all the injuries you transform in this manner must be against skills associated with a single Caste. You choose a character to accuse, and then give each listener one of the newly created sympathy dice. The possessor of a sympathy die may spend it to roll an extra die in in an attack against the accused.

The possessor of a sympathy die may also spend it when the accused makes an attack; for each sympathy die spent, reduce the accused's attack pool by one.

The Elephants of Four Quarters

Each character exposes himself to four dooms when he engages in conflict; these are the Vels. When Vels begin to appear, you are able to perform several new actions during your turn in a conflict.

There are four Vels, each corresponding to a Caste. A Vel is first revealed when a character takes a severe injury to a skill in a Caste; further severe injuries in that Caste increment that Vel, while injuries to other Castes concern themselves with their corresponding Vels. When a Vel is revealed, the character inflicting the injury specifies the doom that will visit itself upon the victim, should that Vel fall. Its initial klesha is 1.

Klesha, weight, describes how threatening a Vel is. A Vel with low klesha is one that is light; it isn't putting a great deal of stress on the strings of destiny, and it's not likely to fall. As klesha increases, so does the danger of the Vel's falling. (Some inversion of the dice mechanic makes it such that any attack tempts the Vel at the same time.)

Exposure of a Vel indicates that a character's enemies have observed a temporary gap in his defences. When a Vel is exposed, it makes it drastically easier insert dice mechanic here to inflict simple and severe injuries on the character, within that Caste's field of influence.

??

A ?? is a tactical adjustment you may make when your opponent is under two or more Vels; the object is to lure him into shifting position. Roll an Air-skill (any Brahmana skill, Archery, Smithy, or Horse); on success, transfer klesha equal to your appropriate Talent (relative to the skill rolled) from one Vel to another of that opponent's Vels. On failure, you suffer one points' worth of the same adjustment; on severe success, the target's klesha increases by the appropriate amount, but the source's reduces by half that amount.

??

A ?? is a tactical adjustment you may make with your own threats when you are under three or four Vels. The object is to move closer or farther from a particular threat. Roll a Fire-skill (any Kshatriya skill, Prayer, Ornament, or Speech); on success, you may do one of two things. Either transfer one point from a source Vel to all your other Vels, or transfer one point from all your other Vels to a target Vel. On failure, either the target increases by the appropriate amount, but only one other Vel is decreased; or else all the other Vels are incremented, but the source is only decremented by one. On severe success, increment the target by one but reduce all the others, or else decrease the source by the appropriate amount but only increase one other.

??

A ?? is a tactical adjustment you may make when you are under two or more Vels; the object is to move into a more advantageous position yourself. Roll a Water-skill (any Shudra skill, Scripture, Battle, or Mystery); on success, transfer (some number of klesha) from one Vel to another of your Vels. On failure, you suffer one points' worth of the opposite adjustment; on severe success, the target's klesha increases by the appropriate amount, but the source's reduces by half that amount.

??

A ?? is a tactical adjustment you may make when two of your opponents are under Vels; the object is to shift the position of two characters relative to yourself. Roll an Earth-skill (any Vaishya skill, Celebration, Kingship, or Theft); results are as (Air adjustment) but with transfer magnitudes for successes reduced by half.

Vel: Tamil, spear. Klesha: Skt., weight.