Manuevers

## **Maneuvers**

You can use maneuversto gain momentary, situational advantages in a conflict. A maneuver can change the environment in some way or it can directly affect the opponent your character is facing. It’s different from an attack in that it doesn’t have a lasting effect on an opponent, but it sets up a condition that will make a future attack more effective. Here are some examples of maneuvers:

* Knocking an opponent off-balance for a moment
* Disarming an opponent
* Kicking over a table for cover
* Setting a fire as distraction
* Taking careful aim at a target

 Against an opponent, a maneuver is performed much like an attack—you roll an appropriate skill against the opponent and try to beat the opponent’s defense roll. In an exchange, characters can defend against as many maneuvers as they want as a free action.

Against the environment, the maneuver is performed as a simple action against a fixed difficulty set by the GM, which is usually very context-dependent. For instance, knocking over a table in a bar would probably be Average, but finding cover in a barren desert could be Great or more. Athletics and Might are used most often to perform maneuvers in physical conflicts, but nearly any skill might apply. If you can clearly demonstrate to the satisfaction of the group how the skill’s use can create the advantage, then it’s a legal move.

In either case, succeeding on the roll allows you to place an aspect on the target or on the scene temporarily, representing your situational advantage. You can then tag that aspect once on a subsequent roll against that target while the maneuver is in effect, saving the fate point you would normally need to spend to invoke the aspect. (If you want, and it makes sense to the group, you can pass the tag to someone else instead.)

Exact success on a maneuver (as in, one that garners no shifts) creates a one-shot temporary aspect (also called a fragile aspect) that fades after it is tagged. If you generate one or more shifts on the maneuver, the aspect created is stickyand lasts longer, allowing it to be used more than once (see “*Resolving Maneuvers*”) for more details). Of course, after you have tagged a sticky aspect, subsequent invocations require a fate point.

 You can also maneuver to *remove* a temporary aspect from yourself or the scene. The aspect removed can’t be a consequence; it must be a scene aspect or a temporary aspect that resulted from a maneuver. More information about this can be found in *Resolving Maneuvers*.

### **Maneuvers and the Death of Situational Modifiers**

So, if you’ve played other roleplaying games before, you might be used to seeing some large chart in the conflict rules covering situational modifiers: target is moving faster than such and- such, target is prone, target is flanked, target has cover over X percentage of its body, etc. You’re not going to find that here because, for all practical intents and purposes, maneuvers and temporary aspects have replaced all of those. This allows for maximum freedom in developing the scene and makes the conflict system more adaptable to social conflicts. But if you’re finding it hard to decide what would make a good maneuver, crib one of those charts from other games and use it as inspiration.

### **Navel-Gazing Maneuvers**

When a character acts on the environment or an opponent to change circumstances and gain an advantage, it can be a pretty exciting moment— something about the situation changes, at least for a few moments, and everyone can see it happen.

Players can also perform maneuvers on themselves, though, to create more “internal” changes. Most of the time, this is going to happen because they want to establish a situational modifier— they want to go for cover or find an ideal position in a room, take the high ground, or something else of that nature. It might also represent an attempt to make sure their efforts are optimized. Someone trying to pick a lock during a firefight might use Discipline to put a Deep in Concentration aspect on himself so he get can get it done more quickly.

This shouldn’t really be an issue most of the time—an unopposed maneuver roll is pretty easy anyway, and keep in mind that another character in the scene might be in a position to “defend” against the maneuver attempt or take advantage of the aspect somehow. If you’re trying to put yourself Deep in Concentration so you can pick a lock, an opponent might “defend” against that by rolling Guns to send some hot lead your way, keeping you distracted. Or, even better, an opponent might invoke the aspect during the next exchange, claiming that you’re so deep in concentration that it’s easier to shoot you.

### **Teamwork**

You can also use maneuvers (even outside of conflict) to coordinate on an action with several people. To do this, one main character is chosen to make the final action roll (usually the one with the highest skill), and everyone else makes a maneuver roll with a skill that could potentially be used to assist. The difficulty for the assisting roll should be one or two less than the difficulty for the main action. Each helper who makes the maneuver roll places an aspect on the main character, something like Assistance from X. The main character can then tag all of those aspects when he actually makes his action roll (so he can take advantage of the help without spending a bucket load of fate points). Enough people coordinating can often lead to herculean success— many hands, after all, make light work.

### **Resolving Maneuvers**

A successful maneuver places an aspect on the target—be that a person or the environment— representing the outcome of the maneuver. Anyone who wants to remove the maneuver aspect must take a maneuver action of his own to roll against it, taking up his main action for the turn. (Obviously, if you established the maneuver aspect, you can end it whenever you want without a roll.)

 When you roll to remove a maneuver, it’s treated like a normal maneuver roll. You roll against either an opponent or a fixed difficulty dictated by the GM and, if your roll succeeds, the maneuver aspect is removed. If an opponent is in a position to keep you from trying to remove the maneuver, he can defend against your attempt.

If an opponent places a maneuver on your character and the opponent’s attention changes (to another target, or if he changes zones, etc.), the roll against the maneuver is assumed to be a Mediocre (+0) difficulty.

### **Maneuver Examples**

This is by no means a comprehensive list, but the examples provided below should convey the general idea behind establishing and dealing with maneuvers in play.

#### **Blinding:**

Your character does something that temporarily blinds the target, such as throwing sand or salt in his face, smearing a chemical across his eyes, etc. This could be done with Athletics, Fists, or Weapons, and would probably be opposed by Athletics. If successful, this puts a Blinded aspect on the target which you can tag or invoke to make attacks easier and to boost defense against the blinded character’s attacks. It’s possible this aspect could also be compelled to make the target accidentally attack the wrong guy or change direction or something like that, or even to stumble headlong off a cliff if the group is open to it.

#### **Disarming:**

A successful maneuver knocks the target’s weapon away and places it some nebulous distance away from the target, as well as putting a Disarmed aspect on the target. Any attack skill could be used to do this (except maybe Guns, because that’s a bit silly). Invoking this represents the target’s disadvantage for having no weapon; the GM is well within her rights to rule that only a character with a weapon could invoke this to justify having an advantage over the unarmed target. It could be **compelled**  in situations where a weapon is absolutely necessary to be effective at all, like if the affected character is trying to get at someone who is in a car, for instance.

#### **Indirect Attacks:**

Sometimes you might want to do something like push a bookcase down on an opponent or scatter marbles across the floor to trip him up. While this can potentially be an attack, it’s usually meant as an inconvenience. If it’s an attack, it’s treated like any other attack— roll the appropriate skill and deal stress as appropriate. If it’s an inconvenience, you have two options. The first option is to make an opposed roll (such as Might to knock over the bookcase versus Athletics to dodge) and generate at least one shift, allowing a temporary aspect (such as Pinned) to be placed on the target. The other option is to create a block (such as using Might to knock over the bookcase, with the value of the roll representing the block strength created by the scattered books, causing an opponent to have to roll Athletics in order to move through the mess).

#### **Cover:**

Given the wide availability of guns to the kinds of people who are frequently unfriendly to PCs, perhaps one of the most frequent uses of maneuvers is diving for cover—a simple Athletics (or Fists, if the group allows) roll. You will be rolling against a fixed difficulty depending on the availability of cover (Average for most locales, Great or Superb in an absolutely barren place). Success allows you to put a Behind Cover aspect on your character, which you can tag or invoke to help defend against attacks. It is up to the group to decide if circumstances should allow someone to “defend” against the character’s maneuver (by pinning him in place with gunfire, for instance) or not.

#### **Aiming or Painting a Target:**

Sometimes, characters take the time to set a target up for a future shot that hits with greater effectiveness. This isn’t always the classic “aim, then fire” thing—there are tons of ways to set someone up for serious hurt. This is a classic way for PCs to cooperate in combat: one person uses Fists to put Dazed or something like that on a target, and his friend tags it immediately for +2 to his own Fists attack. Usually, the set-up action is done with the attack skill, and the target can roll appropriately to avoid the maneuver.

####  **Called Shots:**

Maneuvers can be used to represent the effects of special, targeted attacks made on a target. Kicking someone’s knee could place a Hurt Knee aspect on them, which the attacker could tag or invoke in a subsequent round. These aspects can never be as severe as consequences which might reflect similar conditions— the target can roll Endurance in order to shake off the disadvantage. Still, it’s a good option for a fighter who prefers to use pinpoint strikes to wear an opponent down, and then hit for a ton of stress in a later round when he brings all those maneuvers to bear.