Swords, Spells, & Shields

A quick conflict resolution system for fantasy roleplaying with a friend or loved one when you’re somewhere without dice and your cell phones are dead!

To play, the referee describes a scene and the player describes what action their character takes to achieve a goal. If the player character tries something dangerous, or a referee-controlled opponent resists them, the referee calls for a contest of Swords, Spells, & Shields to resolve the conflict.

If you’ve ever played Rock-Paper-Scissors, you already know how a basic test of SS&S goes. The player and the referee each choose one of the weapons secretly and “throws” their chosen weapon at the same time with a hand signal.

Shields (✊) overcome Swords (👆)
Swords (👆) overcome Sorcery (🖐)
Sorcery (🖐) overcomes Shields (✊)

If the player and referee both throw the same weapon, they continue to throw weapons until one overcomes the other. This is one complete round of SS&S.

If the player character has an advantage over the referee opponent, the player and referee play up to two complete rounds of SS&S, but the player need win only one round to emerge victorious in the contest.

(Advantage can mean the player character is significantly stronger than a weak opponent, or that the player character has some edge over an equal opponent such as surprise or when aided by allies.)

Similarly, if the referee opponent has an advantage over the player character (such as through surprise or superior strength and numbers), the player and referee play two complete rounds of SS&S, and the referee opponent need win only one round to emerge victorious.

If one side has a significant advantage over the other, the referee may add an additional third round of SS&S — for overwhelming advantage, a fourth. The side with the advantage will always emerge victorious if they win one round.

Advantage is an easy way to accommodate several players or opponents engaging in conflict at once. If the sides are equally matched in strength and number, simply run one round of SS&S as usual. If one side has a strength or numerical advantage, add another round. For a significant advantage, add a third round, and so on.

And that’s it! You’re ready to resolve dangerous fantasy conflicts with Swords, Spells, & Shields. Like classic Rock-Paper-Scissors, this mechanic is highly flexible and can also be used to resolve social conflicts (SS&S can be treated as “Argument, Resolve, and Emotion”), survive environmental hazards (“Brave, Block, and Dodge”), and even simulate a complex magical duel between mages (“Spell, Counterspell, and Transform”).

For grittier adventures and more granular conflict resolution, you’re encouraged to make use of resources like Health, Supplies, and even Spells (prepared and expended in the Vancian style). Resources can be depleted as a natural result of the fiction when the referee rules so, or expended to avoid consequences as a result of lost SS&S contests.

For instance, a player character might ordinarily die when they lose an SS&S contest against a hungry ghoul. But if the Health resource is in use, the player could instead expend 1 Health (out of a recommended max 3) to take a wound from the ghoul bite instead of immediately dying.

Similarly, and more abstractly, a player character might ordinarily die when they lose an SS&S contest to evade a landslide, but the referee might allow them instead to expend a prepared Spell to create a protective barrier, or expend Supplies as food and torches to survive trapped in the darkness beneath the rubble.

If player characters are making use of resources, referees are encouraged to track opponent resources as well. This will provide many opportunities for creative player problem-solving and offer more tactical variance during conflict.

Swords, Spells, & Shields can be combined with resource management to simulate just about any roleplaying game genre you can think of. Who needs dice when you’ve got friends around to lend a hand?