Talent

I've been thinking about the Islanders again, and slowly noodling through a hexcrawl set in that region. This is for that. 

There are plenty of regional contests of strength and skill; the Baronials enjoy wrestling, boxing, and racing on foot, and skilled mercenaries are expected, in a social context, to be good at these things. The White City has enormous municipal gymnasium stadia, where the citizens train callisthenics together in public - they even have standardised sets of training weights, and 'classes' of physical fitness, which translate into perks and honours during military service. The nomads of the steppe hold regular competitions inside extended family groups to determine the best rider, the best swordsman, the best archer, and the best calculator, with prizes in marriage prospects, livestock, and cash raised by the family head, and stinginess looked down on.

The islanders of the Lantern Berth play Talent. Talent is something like baseball and something like rugby. There are two teams, and they line up facing one another at a fixed distance. Each team nominates a champion - for the the defence, this is the pitcher, and for the offence the batter. The batter retrieves a bat and the pitcher a ball, and they both advance in front of the 'line'. The pitcher pitches (there are rules that determine a legitimate or illegitimate throw), often with intent to injure the batter, and the batter hits the ball, hopefully past the defenders' line - then the offensive team run forward in a mob trying to make ground, and the defensive team tries to stop them. Talent is full contact and very rough. The defence end the offensive run by retrieving the ball and bringing it back past the original offensive line. When this happens, the position of the offensive batter on the pitch is marked, and the teams switch sides, with the new offence trying to advance further than their opponent.

Two plays (one for each team in each position) is a round, and Talent is usually played best of three rounds. For particularly important games it might be played best of five, and for ritual or jurisprudential purposes to seven, nine, or even more, as decided by the courts. 

For the islanders, Talent is part of their religious observance, their legal system, and their cultural understanding of public face and standing. In the most direct sense, the game is thought to make good sailors and good whalers. Teams that communicate well do better; teams made up of people who are fit, strong, and violent do much better. The Harpooners are known to scout their candidates from the Talent ground, although Harpooners themselves are legally barred from taking part in the game.

An informal game of Talent is played as and when, with whatever and whoever is to hand, and there are unspoken understandings about the appropriate level of violence and intensity in a friendly game of this type. A formal game of Talent is played on a marked pitch, in uniform, and with picked teams. This can also be friendly; an exhibition match, or two families marrying together, a way for the men and women of the house to display grit and canniness, or, more usually, to get shitfaced and knock one another around laughing like idiots. It can also be very serious. Talent is often played as a stand-in for a feud between families that might otherwise turn murderous, or to settle disputes between ship crews with grievances. It is also sometimes used as a sort of trial-by-combat stand-in by the courts, to determine guilt and innocence in a public arena. When played this way, the court provides a set of ritual implements - a metal bat, light and very hard, and one of many different balls, one of which the presiding judge will decide is appropriate, and which can favour the pitcher or batter depending on who the judge feels deserves a handicap based on evidence given to this point. In a court case, or in a game organised between aggrieved families, the teams are not necessarily equally picked - you simply show up with your people and they show up with theirs. People don't usually die, but it's not unheard of. 

During a serious game, a percussion band will play for the entire length of the game, from beginning to end. The music is repetitive and atonal, and skilled musicians are able to naturally ramp up the intensity when appropriate in-game. Islander percussion sounds a bit like this. 

The uniform for a game of talent is a loose, one-piece cotton costume, similar to the boiler suits of the White City, which is typically tied-off at the waist, wrists or above the elbow, and ankles or above the knee, with strips of material, to allow the limbs to work unimpeded. They are brightly dyed all one colour (the whole team will wear the same colour), and then embroidered with designs that represent the family, crew, profession, and achievements of the one wearing them. The outfit usually includes a cloth cap with a peaked brim, which is tied off under the chin, and which keeps the island sun out of the eyes of the player. Not all adults have a suit of their own, but they will usually have one made for an important game or a trial, roughly analogous to someone in our world buying themselves a suit for a court appearance. 

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If you need to run a game of Talent in your game, do so as follows (complicated fiddly rules incoming):

Determine the teams, and their champions. You may declare a different champion each round, but every champion must play at least one full round (ie, one play batting, and one pitching) before being replaced. 

Pitching and batting are resolved as attacks.

The pitcher 'attacks' first, using their DEX or their WIS for the derived modifier.

They are looking to beat an 8 to throw a fair pitch - if they roll below this they foul and have to try again. If you foul three times, you forfeit the entire round (both the offensive and the defensive play), which is a total disaster. If you critically fail you do something embarrassing, and are jeered at and mocked by the rest of the players; you must save CHAR or roll at -1 on everything for the rest of the round. 

If you beat an 8, you pitch fairly, and the batter takes their attack. If you beat a 14, you pitch fairly and dangerously, and will 'bruise' the batter if they miss their attack. For every point of bruising, the batter rolls at -1 for the rest of the round (people are patched up between rounds like boxers). If you roll a crit on your pitch, the batter must roll a corresponding crit on their attack to defend it, or take bruising as above. 

The batter attacks next (they 'attack' the pitched ball coming at them), and may choose to use DEX or STR for their derived modifier. If DEX, roll normally and if STR, roll at -2. 

You are looking to beat 10 to bat a playable ball. If you fail to do this to three fair pitches, you forfeit the entire round, which is a disaster, as above. If you crit fail, you take a point of bruising as described above, regardless of whether the pitcher rolled well enough for the pitch to be dangerous. 

If you beat 18, you bat perfectly, and add +1 to the retrieval roll described below. If you crit, you add +2 to the roll. 

If your attack hits, roll d10 if you rolled DEX or 2d6 if you rolled STR on your 'attack'. This number is the retrieval score, and basically determines how long you have to run forward and scrum before the opposing team gets the ball back to your line and stops play. 

For the scrum itself, you have a few options: 

• You could run it simulationally, as a combat, in which no one is armed, and which stops after [retrieval] turns. I suspect this would take a long time and be quite boring. 
• You could run it as a mass combat, using whatever ruleset you favour. Everyone is unarmed, and teams are not necessarily equal in size. Run [retrieval] turns of combat, and tally up the damage that each side deals. Subtract the defender damage from the attacker damage, and make a note of the result. This is how far the attackers got. 
• Roll [retrieval] CON or STR saves for your batter champion. Roll +1 saves for every player you have over the enemy, -1 for every player they have over you, and a flat +2 either way if one team is obviously physically superior to the other. The defender pitching champion may save INT, WIS, or CHAR (they are directing their team's defence, and the efficient retrieval of the ball) to subtract a d4 from your total rolls. For each roll, you need to beat a 14. Tally your score. This is how far you got. Compare scores at the end of the round to see who won. 

At the end of each scrum, roll a d20 for everyone involved, or a d12 is the teams are playing with hatred in their hearts. One each result of a 1, that person is too injured to continue to the next play. If they are a PC they may save CON to avoid this fate. 

Misc notes:

• The ultralight metal bats kept by the Islander courts are made from asteroids that fall in the sea around the Lantern Berth, and are technically star weapons (+1 medium clubs outside of Talent play, +3 against anything roughly the size and shape of a baseball). They would be recognised as such by steppe nomads who saw them. The Islanders don't take kindly to being told this, and don't recognise or care about the Star People. 
• In a legal dispute, the judges will supply balls that give advantages and disadvantages to the pitcher or batter, depending on who they think is probably guilty. Nonetheless, the results of the match are legally binding.
• Islanders don't play Talent for all cases, and never for murder, arson, poisoning, or sabotage of a boat, because those crimes are the sole provenance of the Harpooners. A defendant has the right to demand a game, but there are circumstances in which the judges can deny this.
• Islander sailors are fond of bat tricks, and can teach them to YOUR character wouldn't that be so cool.

etc. etc. etc.