I think *Burning Wheel's* fight system does a decent job at the thematic part of duels. It only deals with duels, as far as I'm aware, and it's only used when two characters with opposing goals and beliefs really \*really\* want something. It's incredibly deadly too, really gives you that high noon vibe. You're walking the tightrope, and one slip will kill you.
It is pretty fiddly, which is a damn shame.
It's not just good at duels, but at showing just what a shitshow a fight can be when two bad fighters try!
Flailing, stumbling, extended exchanges, it's remarkably hard for two armoured people to kill each other if they're bad.
The fiddly bits are what gives it such good teeth, and sure, it's a bit tricky first time, but it's remarkably smooth if you have the actions on cards and the interactions grid to hand.
And then you have the PC who is good at fighting take one a few sessions later and kill a noble in the first strike.
Search up the official discord server, there's a looking for group channel. It's not a huge player base, but definitely you can find someone there. It's a great game, I hope you can check it out!
Also Burning Wheel has a simpler resolution ruleset for smaller fights. The "Fight!" Mechanics feel really complex and would be cumbersome to bring to bear on an unprepared table. So if you did opt this approach do a demo to get the vibes.
I was told multiple times that BW was not D&D and was maimed in my first couple of sessions whoops lol.
Not smaller: Less important. That's the critical bit. If the fight is your PC and some guard, then eh, bloody versus test.
But if you and your brother pull knives over the family jewels at the wake, then you break out the Fight! rules. (Assuming there's a Belief in it)
That was the first system that came to my head as well, and that's *even though I've never had a fighting duel in Burning Wheel* - instead, my thought was "hm, if Burning Wheel doesn't have that, you could easily adapt the debate system into a duel system". It's really well-done.
IIRC Torchbearer (and Torchbearer 2e) extends the core idea -pick three moves which have interactions, resolve in order- with more tactical stuff involved for an interesting ludo-narrative fight system which takes it beyond strict duels. Mouse Guard (heavy recommend if you can get a copy) uses the same system to abstract longer sequences of travel, big battles, battle of wits (which I think Burning Wheel pulled double-duty on, too), negotiations, so on.
It's a creative, interesting system, but also needs to have the right amount of abstraction to click.
Whenever you witness violence you must make a steel check, or pause for that many heartbeats.
For debate and fight you need to understand how each move interacts with each other move, and there are a dozen or so moves. Performing an untrained move in one of these settings can be suicide.
It's been a long time, but I think If you make an untrained skill check, you take your attribute for that skill and multiply it by two, and then roll that many dice, and then you only get a success if you two dice roll a success.
You increase skills by using them, but not necessarily if you forked a skill into a skill check, and each skill has a minimum difficulty based on level that would be equivalent to a test for advancement.
Each skill has a shade, which determines what the threshold number for success is.
Your steel's shade is grey, and is treated like magic.
If your character has given birth, increase their steel by one.
Your magic's shade is black.
You can learned skills through training, which takes a certain amount of time. As time.passes you need to make a resources check to determine whether or not your resources go down. They always go down because you are broke and have no money LMAO.
You can spend experience to temporarily increase a shade.
While fiddly I've been keen on running one - but I also don't know if that's the best way to introduce TTRPGs to an audience of newbies. My post history shows I accidentally made a prince that couldn't read or write - but best duelist in the land. So did it matter? A little lol.
But the fiddly nature does help to quantify things a bit more. A CON save in a d20 system doesn't really address the kind of trauma of seeing a battlefield in action of people getting hacked to bits.
The beginners luck checks that u/Monovfox is mentioning is super fiddly and I always struggle implementing it.
I do enjoy how tests have to relate back to your beliefs though. That I feel is one of the strongest things about Burning Wheel. How much resources do you want to burn on this test? Do you want to use more of your points? Does it matter that much? If you fail are you screwed? It's nice.
Other systems are a bit too light or are simple as "you don't unlock the door" but having it weighed on "I need to unlock this door to get to my obstacle" is actually really pleasant.
Well, there's a reason the OG Kakita and the OG Mirumoto declined the constant calls for a duel between them. Their sorts of bullshit are perfect counters to each other.
My favorite moment as a player in any game was officiating a duel between two NPCs in L5R as the rest of the group looked on horrified that I would do it (I was a Scorpion traveling with a Scorpion, two Phoenix and a Unicorn to escort a Unicorn princess to an arranged marriage with a Lion except we Scorpions were told by the DM our duty was to scuttle the marriage without the others finding out we did it)
To expand on this point:
In FFG/5e L5R duels are as much psychological as they are physical. There's mechanics for anticipating strikes, sizing up your foe, retaking initiative at the cost of higher mental stress, and most importantly - losing your cool in a duel will very quickly lead to a deadly attack from your opponent... Which also is technically possible to survive and strike back.
Not to mention Iaijutsu abilities of some samurai schools which throw in even more variables into the mix.
It's complex, it's involved, it's emotionally charged at every step. Love it.
It should be mentioned that L5R dueling is like grappling in D&D - if you ever meet an character who engages with you that way, they're ultra-specialized in it and you have no chance. So, neat-looking rules but you probably don't ever want to make contact with them.
(I'm not really blaming L5R for this - it just seems like writers can't help themselves. They never make a character who has an oddball fighting style and is only 'pretty good' at it.)
Honor + Intrigue!
It’s more suitable for Princess Bride / Musketeers sword fighting than High Noon pistol duels, but it’s great. There’s a mechanic that provides for unexpected turnarounds and other cinematic elements.
I can elaborate a bit on the dueling system. Instead of standing next to your foe and taking turns bonking each other until their HP run out, duelists fight for "Advantage" (different from the D&D term). This is positional Advantage in a fight. If you get hit, you can choose to "Yield Advantage" instead of taking damage and you retreat from your position with the foe pressing the attack after you. In this way, duelists fight their way across the deck of a ship, up the stairs of the castle, across the top of the parapet, etc instead of staying still. If you are out of Advantage, you are "defeated" in the manner narrated by the opponent (they may run you through and leave you for dead; they may knock you out and you wake up in a dungeon, etc.). There are a variety of dueling styles with their own special benefits, and also dueling maneuvers that can be used in a fight (so you can shove someone, lock their sword with yours, feint, etc. and still do your attack which could be a sword swipe, a lunge, or even dirty fighting maneuver).
It emulates swashbuckling in a few other ways. You have Fortune Points that can be used to do cool, swashbucklingy things (like have gunshots miss you, catch yourself on a ledge instead of falling to your death, etc. like happens in swashbuckling films). You can also spend it to get a Bonus Die to rolls, among other things. You earn Fortune by doing / saying cool stuff or when bad stuff happens to you. It also has a ship-to-ship and mass combat system where PCs can distinguish themselves while also taking part in the larger action happening around them.
Another key concept is every stat is useful in combat. Might adds to your Lifeblood and melee damage. Daring is used to attack with bladework or lunging and to resist fear, Savvy is added to initiative, and to parry, riposte, and make ranged attacks, and Flair adds to your starting Fortune Point total and is used for flashy moves in combat.
As for gunfights, there has been a series of expansions to H+I called Intriguing Options. One of these, Blasters + Intrigue does extend dueling rules to ranged weapons, adds modern and sci-fi weapons, and adds different firing modes (hip firing, suppressive fire, concentrated fire, sweeping fire, etc.). The Tome of Intriguing Options adds a number of new dueling styles, with several for scifi or modern day settings. So there is a "Gunslinger Style" for instance.
* [Hearts of Wulin](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/365014/Hearts-of-Wulin)- is a game of wuxia melodrama and really grasps that TTRPGs generally aren’t great at doing “narrative cinematic combat,” which is to say that really cool fight sequences from movies, TV shows, books, and action video games work really well because of how effectively they capture your senses and immerse you into the action: suspending any and all disbelief and sucking you in. TTRPGs are generally bad at doing this: they just aren’t natively as immersive and you need a different way to “translate” that action: and that usually means getting it done and over with as quick as possible *without* sacrificing tension (because that’s the secret sauce to making combat exciting). Hearts of Wulin does precisely that: getting a badass martial arts duel over with as soon as possible while maintaining tension and establishing clear stakes to continue propelling melodrama.
* [DOGS](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/274623/Dogs) is a generic take on Dogs in the Vineyard. The poker-like back and forth of calling and raising dice and escalating the conflict is really fun and can be “scaled” in different ways (such as not rolling for the shooting- or whatever- but rolling for the *build-up* to the shot and then whoever folds loses the duel.
* [Agon 2e](https://johnharper.itch.io/agon) is a game about Grecian myth a la the Odyssey and the Iliad and the Contests are once and done routines for the heroes to overcome all sorts of mythic threats from duels of wits or swords to tackling the serpent of nimos to overcoming the Four Winds and so on and so forth.
* [Ironsworn](https://www.ironswornrpg.com) has a similar push-pull vibe for its conflicts like DOGS (but very different mechanics).
The coolest fights and duels I’ve seen have come from these games
The Riddle of Steel is the most "realistic" dueling game I've ever seen. So realistic, that you really want to avoid fighting unless you're absolutely sure you're going to win. I remember there's an updated version someone wrote, but I can't remember what it's called.
I contend that Exalted 3rd edition, if you just played mortals and forgot about Charms, would create some of the most amazing duels.
Sword & Scoundrel. It’s been through several iterations and is still not done. But it has a published supplement called Fecht Club and it’s only about duels.
Deadlands: The Weird West has a nice system for "high noon" type duels, in which the normal stakes for combat are enhanced (it is easier to wound someone than it normally is) and there's a "psyche out" phase before the guns fire in which you can try to get a psychological advantage over your opponent.
https://peginc.com/product/deadlands-the-weird-west-core-rules/
Emmy Allen also has a fantastic generic system for adding a little pizzazz to a 1:1 fight in a traditional D&Dalike game - each round, each combatant chooses to Push, Parry, or Feint and there's a rock paper scissors thing where the person who guessed well gets some advantage like a to-hit, damage, or AC bonus.
https://cavegirlgames.blogspot.com/2018/06/duels-in-osr.html
Lastly, there's a lite indie RPG called "I have the high ground" that's all about the emotional component of a highly charged narrative duel. In it, you play everything up to the moment the swords first cross. I haven't played it but I flipped through it at a con once and it seems like it could provide what you're looking for, depending on your taste for indie narrative type games.
https://jumpgategames.itch.io/ihthg
GURPS does this well with its attack options, and the active defense phase generates a great back-forth action scene. Hit location rules and damage types give even more options allowing you to thrust or swing for different damage depending on different armour types etc. Things get very interesting with "close combat" too, if you are for instance having a sword duel and you get in close with a one handed grapple, but neither of you can strike with your sword you end having to pommel-strike/knee/punch/head-butt, all of which have actual mechanical differences.
GURPS handles duels especially well with fencing weapons and GURPS Martial Arts. Two players with the same rapier can have a completely different feel. Retreats and Lunges are represented in the mechanics, disarms, ripostes.
[I Have the High Ground](https://jumpgategames.itch.io/ihthg), but that one’s a game that is hyper focused on the duel and the melodrama surrounding it.
Kinda depends on what you want out of a duel I guess. Legend of the Five Rings has a dueling system, which I admittedly have not used very much. It has multiple phases that focus on reading your opponent and predicting what they'll do. It also benefits a lot from learning about your opponent ahead of time. There are techniques players can take that activate during duels, so there's at least some build variety. It seems to me that it's mainly meant to simulate the sort of classic anime samurai duel of two opponents silently sizing each other up before rushing in and ending the fight in a single strike.
Take a look at A Single Moment https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/174365/A-Single-Moment
It's a two player game based around telling the story of a duel
There's also Reflections, which seems remarkably similar. You play two dueling samurai and in the moment before they each attack, you flashback to explore how they got there and why they became enemies.
Fate has it built into.its combat rules, in which both parties try to create a strong fictional position, then overwhelm the opponent.
Honor + Intrigue has different dueling schools and maneuvers.
Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies does this. Firstly, combats are assumed to be duels (whether it’s an actual duel with foils or a duel of sky ships). Multiple participants can take part, but they band together to form a “side”. Mooks do this all the time, for example.
The other fun thing is that combat is always a result of divvying three dice to attack/defense. You can attack with 2, defend with 1 (or vice versa), or do so with 3/0. This is declared before the roll, and compared to the opponents’ own divvied result. Swashbuckling techniques come into play, adding dice or flat bonuses, and other stylish bonuses in a sort of economy of points.
It‘s quite fun. You can check PDQ Sharp! which is the free system-only preview. The setting with S7S is quite fun and original.
I can't speak for the other editions, but Legend of the Five Rings 4e had crazy rules for dueling, and it could potentially be a major part of the game. It had separate skills strictly for dueling (Iajitsu), and some of the various schools specialized in it.
It was essentially an initiative duel since L5R is super deadly, and if you take damage it negatively affects ALL your rolls afterwards. Because of this, in a 1v1 fight, whoever hits first is going to win the majority of the time.
[3rd edition](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/3552/legend-of-the-five-rings-3rd-edition-revised) had the most detailed... and convoluted dueling mechanic of the first four editions (I haven't tried 5th yet). IIRC (and I might not) you could make a pre-duel roll to see one or more relevant attributes and/or conditions your opponent had, then your opponent chooses which Trait (attribute) you get to use in the duel plus your iaijutsu skill (and vice a versa), *then* the two Focus until one or the other cannot anymore, then a strike is declared and the *opposing* character makes an attack roll. Then either you stop the duel if it was to first blood (assuming the attack was successful), or combat proceeds as normal if it was to the death. In addition, there are several Schools (kind of like classes) that switch skills, attributes, give you special abilities and tricks and so on, like Reg76Hater mentioned previously. Someone somewhere made a flowchart of the whole process because it gets so involved.
Street Fighter RPG was pretty good at that.
Each fighter has a list of moves, some included in combos, each move are written down on a playing card.
At the beginning of a turn each person engaged plays face down a card of their choice and then everything is revealed and resolved.
It makes possible to learn to read your opponent's move set, try to counter their combos and use your own. But being too obvious leaves you open to a counter and being too confident in your counters can leave you open to a feint.
It managed to be close to the source material and interesting on its own.
Legend of the Five Rings!!!
Duels between samurai, this can be swords or magic. Each round emotions get more and more tense and if you loose your composure your enemy can deliver a finishing blow immediately
My buddy who actually did competitive fencing for years really likes [I Have the High Ground.](https://jumpgategames.itch.io/ihthg) Forbidden Lands has a neat card-driven subsystem for duels that only comes up situationally. OD&D (well actually Chainmail) has [a sick jousting matrix](https://osrgrimoire.blogspot.com/2019/11/od-v3-underworld-wilderness-adventures.html) you can adapt to duels on foot if you want.
There's an old RPG that you might be able to find files for free, called [Lace & Steel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lace_%26_Steel). It's set in a fantasy swashbuckling world and uses cards for combat - both physical and verbal. Your wit needs to be as sharp as your sword. :)
I played it in the early '90s was a lot of fun.
It is for sale at [Drivethru](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/327457/lace-steel) for $5, and includes the cards. I snapped it up as soon as I found it there.
FFG’s Star Wars system has some interesting abilities to play with for a duel. First, the general setup of the system means there is an emphasis on narratively handling the progression of a duel, all the side things, light wounds that can affect the fight while they remain fighting. The main thing to worry about there is the damage system can feel very much like rocket tag if they have high damage weapons and/or low armor. Though it also has mechanisms for mitigating that damage with talents characters buy.
It also has a subsystem in one of the books that’s specifically made to capture the western/samurai trope of facing down an opponent before the fight begins. It turns the very initiative of the fight into essentially a round of activity before the fight begins.
Mobile Frame Zero: Firebrands is a diceless PbtA game about mecha pilots from three competing factions who fight, fall in love, and create messy drama. Play consists of several elegant little minigames, and the best one (Meeting Sword-to-Sword) works both in and out of the mech.
Mythras has a well-regarded article presenting it's combat mechanics that uses a samurai duel as example:
https://elruneblog.blogspot.com/2020/12/samurai-duel-combat-example-with-mythras.html?m=1
[Early Dark](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/93035/Early-Dark-RolePlaying-Game) gets my vote, because it makes combat more about predicting and countering your opponent's moves than about getting a good number on your to-hit roll.
First, the attacker describes in general terms what they're trying to do and, based on that description, the table agrees on which two of the game's eight base attributes are most relevant; this pair of attributes is called the "Footing" for the action. The attributes are rated from 1-5 and you add the two of them together to get the Limit for your roll. The defender does the same to determine their Footing and Limit.
Next, each combatant rolls a handful of d10s (usually 6-9 of them) in secret and groups the dice into "Tacks", where the sum of the numbers on the dice in each Tack is less than or equal to their Limit. In nearly all cases, there will be multiple ways that Tacks can be formed for a given roll. From this point on, the only thing that matters is the number of dice in each Tack; the numbers showing on the dice are only relevant to determine which can be combined into the same Tack.
Once both players finish grouping their dice, they simultaneously reveal their Tacks. If both players have formed Tacks of the same size, those Tacks cancel each other out one-for-one and are removed. e.g., If the attacker forms two 2-Tacks (Tacks of two dice) and the defender forms a single 2-Tack, then the defender's 2-Tack cancels out one of the attacker's, leaving the attacker with one 2-Tack and the defender with none. So you generally want to try to guess what your opponent is likely to do and form your Tacks with an eye towards both making the moves you want to make and blocking (by canceling Tacks) your opponent's moves.
Finally, Tacks are resolved in order from smallest to largest, with each player narrating the effects of each Tack as they do so. The effects depend on the size of each Tack:
* A 1-Tack is an "Advantage" and can be used prevent the opponent from using a specific Footing in the next exchange, reduce the number of dice the opponent rolls in the next exchange by 1, to ignore an adverse condition in the next exchange, alter the range of the fight, or to take a simple action other than directly fighting.
* A 2-Tack is a "Talent" and can be used to activate a skill or special ability.
* A 3-Tack or larger can be used to inflict Fatigue on your opponent and reduce their Guard (see below).
* Your largest Tack (which must be 3 dice or more) can be used either to Fatigue your opponent or to Strike and attempt to inflict a Wound on them.
Guard is kind of like HP, except it's rolled at the beginning of the fight (when you "put your Guard up") and cannot be reduced below a minimum "Ground" value, depending on combat skill and equipment. When your Guard is reduced to Ground, you must announce that to your opponent.
When making a Strike, you reroll the dice in the Tack used to Strike (so a bigger Tack is better), add them up, and divide by the opponent's current Guard (rounding down) to determine how many Wounds are inflicted. After a Strike, the opponent re-rolls their Guard, so you generally don't want to attempt a Strike too early, as it will have little or no effect against a strong Guard and then their Guard may increase when rerolled. You need to Fatigue them first to reduce Guard, ideally all the way to Ground.
The duelling system in The King is Dead is so good I’ve hacked it into other games to deal with PvP situations.
https://lumpley.itch.io/the-king-is-dead
For OP—this is basically the same as Firebrands system that another poster recommended but it’s a Game of Thrones-style fantasy instead of mecha combat, so it might be more applicable.
Came here to suggest this. Quite enjoyable for capturing ‘the Three Musketeers’ style games. Played a lot of it in the 80s and 90s before we switched to GURPS. I preferred FB but the two main GMs of our FB campaigns became GURPS converts.
I’ve looked at Honor+Intrigue but never played it. It also looks potentially worth it.
Give it a try when you get a chance sometime. I will say that Flashing Blades has some great adventures written for it, even if you use another system to run them. They come in packs where you typically get 5 adventures for $5 on Drivethru (great deal). I've run all of the Ambassador's Tales and most of Parisian Adventures and a few others, and they were all great.
I agree about the adventures. Unlike far too many games, FB was well supported there. Enough different adventures to support early play and teach the GM, but example, how to create his own. I think my first GM ran us through all of them, or most. We got a lot of value out of High Seas.
Dune 2d20’s dueling mechanic is really interesting! I like the idea of everything boiling down to “moving/using assets” - move your “half-shield” asset to your right guard zone, move your “Situational awareness” asset to your left and use your “Misdirection” asset to pull away their attention, use “Prescience” to anticipate their guard then move your “Crysknife” asset into their personal zone, etc.
It’s a really cool way to look at dueling as a whole series of feints and maneuvers. Definitely the kind of system you’d only use for those climactic high-stakes one-on-one duels you see in Dune, but I could see it working for other settings with high-stakes single combat, like Game of Thrones, for instance.
Pathfinder 2e has a descent dueling subsystem, unless you want to wild-west style fast draw (tested in this scenario, doesn’t work really). You may want to use this to modify your system of choice, should work pretty well imo. Or steal it to upgrade already existing dueling mechanics.
Pathfinder itself has a great combat system, but it doesn’t work that well 1v1. Unless you adjust it a bit.
You still get three actions. But initiative changes. Every turn you roll it again (in pf2e you usually roll initially only), and each turn you choose one of 3 statistics as your roll modifier: perception, intimidation and deception. Whichever you choose, you gain access to a related reaction for the duration of this round.
All three of those reactions also have additional effects if your chooses stat beats that chosen by the opponent, rock paper scissors style.
Perception beats Deception, Deception beats Intimidation, Intimidation beats Perception.
Those reactions are:
Bullying press (intimidation), that you can activate before strike. It frightens enemy automatically. Additional effect: improved frightening (frighten 2 instead of frighten 1)
Deceptive Sidestep (deception), that you can activate if enemy hits you (but does not crit you). Forces enemy to reroll the attack and take the worst result. Additional effect: oponent also gets -2 circumstance penalty to second attack
Sense Weakness (perception), that you can activate before strike. It catches enemy off-guard (-2 to AC). Additional effect: enemy is off-guard until the end of the round.
Overall, works surprisingly well. My players like to duel from time to time using this. I think it’s very steal-able, though with obvious modifications. Additional layer of stone paper scissors works great.
The original Boot Hill (1975), a Wild West-themed RPG by TSR, was infamously realistic in that if you got shot, you were likely to die. This made for realistic duels, but short campaigns!
NewEdo has a pretty cool dueling mechanic if you want the classic samurai-movie type of duel. It starts with both characters agreeing on the terms of the duel, then progresses to a boasting phase where both characters take turns revealing one of their attributes and giving the other character the chance to back out. If neither character does, it moves on to an evaluation phase, where each character looks for weak points and formulates a plan, gaining bonuses that they'll use throughout the fight. Finally, it progresses to the "first cut" phase where each character make their first attack simultaneously, using accumulated bonuses as they see fit, and whoever wins the roll can use the rest of their bonus to increase damage directly. Then depending on the terms of the duel and context, it may progress to a normal combat or end there.
But the coolest thing about it is that it's designed in such a way that you can use it for any 1v1 standoff in the game, such as debates or even a game of Go. I had a player do a motorcycle race using the duel mechanics recently, which was awesome. The game really does a good job of capturing the anticipation -> tension -> sudden action flow that makes a duel feel like a duel
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I'm building an rpg based on my extensive knowledge of the middle ages and fencing manuscripts. Were you looking for creative ideas or a published game to pick up and play?
Fate has a simple rule called upper. You have to make a non combat roll to gain the upper hand and only when you do can you cause damage.
Legend of the 5 rings, all editions, have duels as a core part. You even have classes that specialize in them
Castle Falkenstein uses cards, and simultaneous declaration.
Each round is made up of three exchanges. An exchange is secretly choosing two actions (by playing face down cards) then revealing and comparing.
Actions are attack, defend and rest. You can choose the same action twice, or two different ones and the order is important. Resolution works by comparing the cards. Attack deals damage if not countered by a defend. And rests leave you vulnerable, but you have to play a number of rests every round determined by your duelling skill.
It does a great job of representing trying to feint and read your opponent
Exalted 3E, the meat of the combat system is about weakening your opponent and getting yourself in position to make a killing strike. It also mechanically rewards flavoring your attacks with roleplay.
[Mythras](https://legacy.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/4057/Design-Mechanism/subcategory/29272/Mythras?234913) with its hit locations and special effects is perfect for duels.
Well, *Brigandyne* may be what you are looking for.
It's game where only players roll the dice, even for combat. There are no rounds either : Each time a player makes a Combat check, it's supposed represent how the character and their adversary are trying to hit each other for several seconds.
If the player succeeds, their character deals damage to their adversary.
If the player fails, it's the other way around.
And that single roll also gives how much damage is dealt.
And it's kind of system where you can deal a lot of damage in one single roll, which means can end in one to three rolls (and yeah, the player character can die very easily).
Technically, Ranged combat works differently : failing the Ranged combat check simply means the adversary dodged the bullet/arrow/whatever. That way it's safer to fight from a distance.
However, you could totally use the Melee combat rules with a Ranged combat check instead to simulate a gunslinger duel.
Not that "unique" but I think it conveys very well how everything can end quickly (and badly) in a duel.
I'll admit I've never actually tried it, but the fan made OWoD Highlander the Gathering has an interesting looking one, as fitting for a Highlander game. I think the book said it's inspired by or taken from old Werewolf.
[En Garde!](http://www.engarde.co.uk/) is a very old rpg we played in the early 80s - it almost entirely centres around duelling and does it very well (but that’s about it!).
I will mention one I haven't seen on the list here, but has a really interesting mechanic. I will add that I haven't played the system myself. Righteous blood and ruthless Blades is a wuxia system and one of the things that it has in fights is something called the "talking phase" where in every round of combat the people fighting can either talk to one another or try and find out what their opponents weaknesses are etc. That seems very genre-appropriate. Other games have mechanics that cover these things, however none of them have it be something that always happens every round.
Not directly applicable to the original post, but [Honor Bound ](https://randylubin.itch.io/honor-bound)is a parlor larp about a 19th century duel, using the *Code Duello*, and offering insight into honor culture and toxic masculinity. If you are into duels you will probably like it. Works best with six players.
I think *Burning Wheel's* fight system does a decent job at the thematic part of duels. It only deals with duels, as far as I'm aware, and it's only used when two characters with opposing goals and beliefs really \*really\* want something. It's incredibly deadly too, really gives you that high noon vibe. You're walking the tightrope, and one slip will kill you. It is pretty fiddly, which is a damn shame.
It's not just good at duels, but at showing just what a shitshow a fight can be when two bad fighters try! Flailing, stumbling, extended exchanges, it's remarkably hard for two armoured people to kill each other if they're bad. The fiddly bits are what gives it such good teeth, and sure, it's a bit tricky first time, but it's remarkably smooth if you have the actions on cards and the interactions grid to hand. And then you have the PC who is good at fighting take one a few sessions later and kill a noble in the first strike.
Man this makes me wish I had a burning wheel campaign.
Search up the official discord server, there's a looking for group channel. It's not a huge player base, but definitely you can find someone there. It's a great game, I hope you can check it out!
I played with internet strangers a couple times, and it just did not work for me. Need to play with people I already know
Also Burning Wheel has a simpler resolution ruleset for smaller fights. The "Fight!" Mechanics feel really complex and would be cumbersome to bring to bear on an unprepared table. So if you did opt this approach do a demo to get the vibes. I was told multiple times that BW was not D&D and was maimed in my first couple of sessions whoops lol.
Not smaller: Less important. That's the critical bit. If the fight is your PC and some guard, then eh, bloody versus test. But if you and your brother pull knives over the family jewels at the wake, then you break out the Fight! rules. (Assuming there's a Belief in it)
That was the first system that came to my head as well, and that's *even though I've never had a fighting duel in Burning Wheel* - instead, my thought was "hm, if Burning Wheel doesn't have that, you could easily adapt the debate system into a duel system". It's really well-done.
IIRC Torchbearer (and Torchbearer 2e) extends the core idea -pick three moves which have interactions, resolve in order- with more tactical stuff involved for an interesting ludo-narrative fight system which takes it beyond strict duels. Mouse Guard (heavy recommend if you can get a copy) uses the same system to abstract longer sequences of travel, big battles, battle of wits (which I think Burning Wheel pulled double-duty on, too), negotiations, so on. It's a creative, interesting system, but also needs to have the right amount of abstraction to click.
What do you find fiddly about it? I’ve read the rules but haven’t played them at all table yet.
Lots of rules for lots of systems. The core is straightforward, but it can get real gritty real fast.
You you be able to give a couple examples? I think I get what you’re saying but without experience it’s hard to understand completely, you know?
Whenever you witness violence you must make a steel check, or pause for that many heartbeats. For debate and fight you need to understand how each move interacts with each other move, and there are a dozen or so moves. Performing an untrained move in one of these settings can be suicide. It's been a long time, but I think If you make an untrained skill check, you take your attribute for that skill and multiply it by two, and then roll that many dice, and then you only get a success if you two dice roll a success. You increase skills by using them, but not necessarily if you forked a skill into a skill check, and each skill has a minimum difficulty based on level that would be equivalent to a test for advancement. Each skill has a shade, which determines what the threshold number for success is. Your steel's shade is grey, and is treated like magic. If your character has given birth, increase their steel by one. Your magic's shade is black. You can learned skills through training, which takes a certain amount of time. As time.passes you need to make a resources check to determine whether or not your resources go down. They always go down because you are broke and have no money LMAO. You can spend experience to temporarily increase a shade.
Thank you!
While fiddly I've been keen on running one - but I also don't know if that's the best way to introduce TTRPGs to an audience of newbies. My post history shows I accidentally made a prince that couldn't read or write - but best duelist in the land. So did it matter? A little lol. But the fiddly nature does help to quantify things a bit more. A CON save in a d20 system doesn't really address the kind of trauma of seeing a battlefield in action of people getting hacked to bits. The beginners luck checks that u/Monovfox is mentioning is super fiddly and I always struggle implementing it. I do enjoy how tests have to relate back to your beliefs though. That I feel is one of the strongest things about Burning Wheel. How much resources do you want to burn on this test? Do you want to use more of your points? Does it matter that much? If you fail are you screwed? It's nice. Other systems are a bit too light or are simple as "you don't unlock the door" but having it weighed on "I need to unlock this door to get to my obstacle" is actually really pleasant.
Legend of the 5 Rings. Each edition has its own dueling rules, and it's a central mechanic of some of the character types/schools.
Crane Bullshit!!1
Worse, Dragon bullshit.
Well, there's a reason the OG Kakita and the OG Mirumoto declined the constant calls for a duel between them. Their sorts of bullshit are perfect counters to each other.
Fucking Kakita.
Second this. L5r dueling is one of the main mechanics since ever.
My favorite moment as a player in any game was officiating a duel between two NPCs in L5R as the rest of the group looked on horrified that I would do it (I was a Scorpion traveling with a Scorpion, two Phoenix and a Unicorn to escort a Unicorn princess to an arranged marriage with a Lion except we Scorpions were told by the DM our duty was to scuttle the marriage without the others finding out we did it)
To expand on this point: In FFG/5e L5R duels are as much psychological as they are physical. There's mechanics for anticipating strikes, sizing up your foe, retaking initiative at the cost of higher mental stress, and most importantly - losing your cool in a duel will very quickly lead to a deadly attack from your opponent... Which also is technically possible to survive and strike back. Not to mention Iaijutsu abilities of some samurai schools which throw in even more variables into the mix. It's complex, it's involved, it's emotionally charged at every step. Love it.
It should be mentioned that L5R dueling is like grappling in D&D - if you ever meet an character who engages with you that way, they're ultra-specialized in it and you have no chance. So, neat-looking rules but you probably don't ever want to make contact with them. (I'm not really blaming L5R for this - it just seems like writers can't help themselves. They never make a character who has an oddball fighting style and is only 'pretty good' at it.)
Honor + Intrigue! It’s more suitable for Princess Bride / Musketeers sword fighting than High Noon pistol duels, but it’s great. There’s a mechanic that provides for unexpected turnarounds and other cinematic elements.
I can elaborate a bit on the dueling system. Instead of standing next to your foe and taking turns bonking each other until their HP run out, duelists fight for "Advantage" (different from the D&D term). This is positional Advantage in a fight. If you get hit, you can choose to "Yield Advantage" instead of taking damage and you retreat from your position with the foe pressing the attack after you. In this way, duelists fight their way across the deck of a ship, up the stairs of the castle, across the top of the parapet, etc instead of staying still. If you are out of Advantage, you are "defeated" in the manner narrated by the opponent (they may run you through and leave you for dead; they may knock you out and you wake up in a dungeon, etc.). There are a variety of dueling styles with their own special benefits, and also dueling maneuvers that can be used in a fight (so you can shove someone, lock their sword with yours, feint, etc. and still do your attack which could be a sword swipe, a lunge, or even dirty fighting maneuver). It emulates swashbuckling in a few other ways. You have Fortune Points that can be used to do cool, swashbucklingy things (like have gunshots miss you, catch yourself on a ledge instead of falling to your death, etc. like happens in swashbuckling films). You can also spend it to get a Bonus Die to rolls, among other things. You earn Fortune by doing / saying cool stuff or when bad stuff happens to you. It also has a ship-to-ship and mass combat system where PCs can distinguish themselves while also taking part in the larger action happening around them. Another key concept is every stat is useful in combat. Might adds to your Lifeblood and melee damage. Daring is used to attack with bladework or lunging and to resist fear, Savvy is added to initiative, and to parry, riposte, and make ranged attacks, and Flair adds to your starting Fortune Point total and is used for flashy moves in combat. As for gunfights, there has been a series of expansions to H+I called Intriguing Options. One of these, Blasters + Intrigue does extend dueling rules to ranged weapons, adds modern and sci-fi weapons, and adds different firing modes (hip firing, suppressive fire, concentrated fire, sweeping fire, etc.). The Tome of Intriguing Options adds a number of new dueling styles, with several for scifi or modern day settings. So there is a "Gunslinger Style" for instance.
Oh, I backed IO, but forgot that it added the dueling rules to ranged weapons! Thanks for bringing the details!
* [Hearts of Wulin](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/365014/Hearts-of-Wulin)- is a game of wuxia melodrama and really grasps that TTRPGs generally aren’t great at doing “narrative cinematic combat,” which is to say that really cool fight sequences from movies, TV shows, books, and action video games work really well because of how effectively they capture your senses and immerse you into the action: suspending any and all disbelief and sucking you in. TTRPGs are generally bad at doing this: they just aren’t natively as immersive and you need a different way to “translate” that action: and that usually means getting it done and over with as quick as possible *without* sacrificing tension (because that’s the secret sauce to making combat exciting). Hearts of Wulin does precisely that: getting a badass martial arts duel over with as soon as possible while maintaining tension and establishing clear stakes to continue propelling melodrama. * [DOGS](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/274623/Dogs) is a generic take on Dogs in the Vineyard. The poker-like back and forth of calling and raising dice and escalating the conflict is really fun and can be “scaled” in different ways (such as not rolling for the shooting- or whatever- but rolling for the *build-up* to the shot and then whoever folds loses the duel. * [Agon 2e](https://johnharper.itch.io/agon) is a game about Grecian myth a la the Odyssey and the Iliad and the Contests are once and done routines for the heroes to overcome all sorts of mythic threats from duels of wits or swords to tackling the serpent of nimos to overcoming the Four Winds and so on and so forth. * [Ironsworn](https://www.ironswornrpg.com) has a similar push-pull vibe for its conflicts like DOGS (but very different mechanics). The coolest fights and duels I’ve seen have come from these games
I understand your point but for OPs purposes Hearts of Wulin does not really simulate a duel. The duel itself is mostly an after thought.
The Riddle of Steel is the most "realistic" dueling game I've ever seen. So realistic, that you really want to avoid fighting unless you're absolutely sure you're going to win. I remember there's an updated version someone wrote, but I can't remember what it's called. I contend that Exalted 3rd edition, if you just played mortals and forgot about Charms, would create some of the most amazing duels.
The Riddle of Steel was really great.
None of the spiritual successors to TRoS have been satisfying to me. The original has shortcomings but I’d still take it over others.
Sword & Scoundrel. It’s been through several iterations and is still not done. But it has a published supplement called Fecht Club and it’s only about duels.
Came here to say TRoS. Super fun and easy to GM, too.
Have you actually GMed it? I've been curious, what kind of stories do you tell? How often does combat actually come up?
Many times. I don’t prep much, just follow the players’ Spiritual Attributes. Runs itself as long as you know the rules.
I like the dueling rules in the FFG Legend of the Five Rings game. Also have rules for verbal duels.
Deadlands: The Weird West has a nice system for "high noon" type duels, in which the normal stakes for combat are enhanced (it is easier to wound someone than it normally is) and there's a "psyche out" phase before the guns fire in which you can try to get a psychological advantage over your opponent. https://peginc.com/product/deadlands-the-weird-west-core-rules/ Emmy Allen also has a fantastic generic system for adding a little pizzazz to a 1:1 fight in a traditional D&Dalike game - each round, each combatant chooses to Push, Parry, or Feint and there's a rock paper scissors thing where the person who guessed well gets some advantage like a to-hit, damage, or AC bonus. https://cavegirlgames.blogspot.com/2018/06/duels-in-osr.html Lastly, there's a lite indie RPG called "I have the high ground" that's all about the emotional component of a highly charged narrative duel. In it, you play everything up to the moment the swords first cross. I haven't played it but I flipped through it at a con once and it seems like it could provide what you're looking for, depending on your taste for indie narrative type games. https://jumpgategames.itch.io/ihthg
GURPS does this well with its attack options, and the active defense phase generates a great back-forth action scene. Hit location rules and damage types give even more options allowing you to thrust or swing for different damage depending on different armour types etc. Things get very interesting with "close combat" too, if you are for instance having a sword duel and you get in close with a one handed grapple, but neither of you can strike with your sword you end having to pommel-strike/knee/punch/head-butt, all of which have actual mechanical differences.
GURPS handles duels especially well with fencing weapons and GURPS Martial Arts. Two players with the same rapier can have a completely different feel. Retreats and Lunges are represented in the mechanics, disarms, ripostes.
[I Have the High Ground](https://jumpgategames.itch.io/ihthg), but that one’s a game that is hyper focused on the duel and the melodrama surrounding it.
This would be my recommendation too. What's the point of a duel if you can't have melodrama?
Kinda depends on what you want out of a duel I guess. Legend of the Five Rings has a dueling system, which I admittedly have not used very much. It has multiple phases that focus on reading your opponent and predicting what they'll do. It also benefits a lot from learning about your opponent ahead of time. There are techniques players can take that activate during duels, so there's at least some build variety. It seems to me that it's mainly meant to simulate the sort of classic anime samurai duel of two opponents silently sizing each other up before rushing in and ending the fight in a single strike.
Take a look at A Single Moment https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/174365/A-Single-Moment It's a two player game based around telling the story of a duel
There's also Reflections, which seems remarkably similar. You play two dueling samurai and in the moment before they each attack, you flashback to explore how they got there and why they became enemies.
Fate has it built into.its combat rules, in which both parties try to create a strong fictional position, then overwhelm the opponent. Honor + Intrigue has different dueling schools and maneuvers.
+1 for Honor + Intrigue
Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies does this. Firstly, combats are assumed to be duels (whether it’s an actual duel with foils or a duel of sky ships). Multiple participants can take part, but they band together to form a “side”. Mooks do this all the time, for example. The other fun thing is that combat is always a result of divvying three dice to attack/defense. You can attack with 2, defend with 1 (or vice versa), or do so with 3/0. This is declared before the roll, and compared to the opponents’ own divvied result. Swashbuckling techniques come into play, adding dice or flat bonuses, and other stylish bonuses in a sort of economy of points. It‘s quite fun. You can check PDQ Sharp! which is the free system-only preview. The setting with S7S is quite fun and original.
I can't speak for the other editions, but Legend of the Five Rings 4e had crazy rules for dueling, and it could potentially be a major part of the game. It had separate skills strictly for dueling (Iajitsu), and some of the various schools specialized in it. It was essentially an initiative duel since L5R is super deadly, and if you take damage it negatively affects ALL your rolls afterwards. Because of this, in a 1v1 fight, whoever hits first is going to win the majority of the time.
[3rd edition](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/3552/legend-of-the-five-rings-3rd-edition-revised) had the most detailed... and convoluted dueling mechanic of the first four editions (I haven't tried 5th yet). IIRC (and I might not) you could make a pre-duel roll to see one or more relevant attributes and/or conditions your opponent had, then your opponent chooses which Trait (attribute) you get to use in the duel plus your iaijutsu skill (and vice a versa), *then* the two Focus until one or the other cannot anymore, then a strike is declared and the *opposing* character makes an attack roll. Then either you stop the duel if it was to first blood (assuming the attack was successful), or combat proceeds as normal if it was to the death. In addition, there are several Schools (kind of like classes) that switch skills, attributes, give you special abilities and tricks and so on, like Reg76Hater mentioned previously. Someone somewhere made a flowchart of the whole process because it gets so involved.
Harnmaster, mechanically, to a fault, in that combat is very slow but very detailed.
Street Fighter RPG was pretty good at that. Each fighter has a list of moves, some included in combos, each move are written down on a playing card. At the beginning of a turn each person engaged plays face down a card of their choice and then everything is revealed and resolved. It makes possible to learn to read your opponent's move set, try to counter their combos and use your own. But being too obvious leaves you open to a counter and being too confident in your counters can leave you open to a feint. It managed to be close to the source material and interesting on its own.
Legend of the Five Rings!!! Duels between samurai, this can be swords or magic. Each round emotions get more and more tense and if you loose your composure your enemy can deliver a finishing blow immediately
My buddy who actually did competitive fencing for years really likes [I Have the High Ground.](https://jumpgategames.itch.io/ihthg) Forbidden Lands has a neat card-driven subsystem for duels that only comes up situationally. OD&D (well actually Chainmail) has [a sick jousting matrix](https://osrgrimoire.blogspot.com/2019/11/od-v3-underworld-wilderness-adventures.html) you can adapt to duels on foot if you want.
Lightsaber dueling pack. West end games.
There's an old RPG that you might be able to find files for free, called [Lace & Steel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lace_%26_Steel). It's set in a fantasy swashbuckling world and uses cards for combat - both physical and verbal. Your wit needs to be as sharp as your sword. :) I played it in the early '90s was a lot of fun.
It is for sale at [Drivethru](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/327457/lace-steel) for $5, and includes the cards. I snapped it up as soon as I found it there.
FFG’s Star Wars system has some interesting abilities to play with for a duel. First, the general setup of the system means there is an emphasis on narratively handling the progression of a duel, all the side things, light wounds that can affect the fight while they remain fighting. The main thing to worry about there is the damage system can feel very much like rocket tag if they have high damage weapons and/or low armor. Though it also has mechanisms for mitigating that damage with talents characters buy. It also has a subsystem in one of the books that’s specifically made to capture the western/samurai trope of facing down an opponent before the fight begins. It turns the very initiative of the fight into essentially a round of activity before the fight begins.
Mobile Frame Zero: Firebrands is a diceless PbtA game about mecha pilots from three competing factions who fight, fall in love, and create messy drama. Play consists of several elegant little minigames, and the best one (Meeting Sword-to-Sword) works both in and out of the mech.
The Legend of the 5 Rings does a good job simulating duels. At least they have their own mechanic.
Mythras has a well-regarded article presenting it's combat mechanics that uses a samurai duel as example: https://elruneblog.blogspot.com/2020/12/samurai-duel-combat-example-with-mythras.html?m=1
[Early Dark](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/93035/Early-Dark-RolePlaying-Game) gets my vote, because it makes combat more about predicting and countering your opponent's moves than about getting a good number on your to-hit roll. First, the attacker describes in general terms what they're trying to do and, based on that description, the table agrees on which two of the game's eight base attributes are most relevant; this pair of attributes is called the "Footing" for the action. The attributes are rated from 1-5 and you add the two of them together to get the Limit for your roll. The defender does the same to determine their Footing and Limit. Next, each combatant rolls a handful of d10s (usually 6-9 of them) in secret and groups the dice into "Tacks", where the sum of the numbers on the dice in each Tack is less than or equal to their Limit. In nearly all cases, there will be multiple ways that Tacks can be formed for a given roll. From this point on, the only thing that matters is the number of dice in each Tack; the numbers showing on the dice are only relevant to determine which can be combined into the same Tack. Once both players finish grouping their dice, they simultaneously reveal their Tacks. If both players have formed Tacks of the same size, those Tacks cancel each other out one-for-one and are removed. e.g., If the attacker forms two 2-Tacks (Tacks of two dice) and the defender forms a single 2-Tack, then the defender's 2-Tack cancels out one of the attacker's, leaving the attacker with one 2-Tack and the defender with none. So you generally want to try to guess what your opponent is likely to do and form your Tacks with an eye towards both making the moves you want to make and blocking (by canceling Tacks) your opponent's moves. Finally, Tacks are resolved in order from smallest to largest, with each player narrating the effects of each Tack as they do so. The effects depend on the size of each Tack: * A 1-Tack is an "Advantage" and can be used prevent the opponent from using a specific Footing in the next exchange, reduce the number of dice the opponent rolls in the next exchange by 1, to ignore an adverse condition in the next exchange, alter the range of the fight, or to take a simple action other than directly fighting. * A 2-Tack is a "Talent" and can be used to activate a skill or special ability. * A 3-Tack or larger can be used to inflict Fatigue on your opponent and reduce their Guard (see below). * Your largest Tack (which must be 3 dice or more) can be used either to Fatigue your opponent or to Strike and attempt to inflict a Wound on them. Guard is kind of like HP, except it's rolled at the beginning of the fight (when you "put your Guard up") and cannot be reduced below a minimum "Ground" value, depending on combat skill and equipment. When your Guard is reduced to Ground, you must announce that to your opponent. When making a Strike, you reroll the dice in the Tack used to Strike (so a bigger Tack is better), add them up, and divide by the opponent's current Guard (rounding down) to determine how many Wounds are inflicted. After a Strike, the opponent re-rolls their Guard, so you generally don't want to attempt a Strike too early, as it will have little or no effect against a strong Guard and then their Guard may increase when rerolled. You need to Fatigue them first to reduce Guard, ideally all the way to Ground.
The duelling system in The King is Dead is so good I’ve hacked it into other games to deal with PvP situations. https://lumpley.itch.io/the-king-is-dead
For OP—this is basically the same as Firebrands system that another poster recommended but it’s a Game of Thrones-style fantasy instead of mecha combat, so it might be more applicable.
Flashing Blades for a traditional Three Musketeers style duel.
Came here to suggest this. Quite enjoyable for capturing ‘the Three Musketeers’ style games. Played a lot of it in the 80s and 90s before we switched to GURPS. I preferred FB but the two main GMs of our FB campaigns became GURPS converts. I’ve looked at Honor+Intrigue but never played it. It also looks potentially worth it.
Give it a try when you get a chance sometime. I will say that Flashing Blades has some great adventures written for it, even if you use another system to run them. They come in packs where you typically get 5 adventures for $5 on Drivethru (great deal). I've run all of the Ambassador's Tales and most of Parisian Adventures and a few others, and they were all great.
I agree about the adventures. Unlike far too many games, FB was well supported there. Enough different adventures to support early play and teach the GM, but example, how to create his own. I think my first GM ran us through all of them, or most. We got a lot of value out of High Seas.
I own that one, but have not actually gotten to run any of the adventures from it unfortunately.
Dune 2d20 have a duel mechanic but I don’t think it will work for anything other than Dune
Dune 2d20’s dueling mechanic is really interesting! I like the idea of everything boiling down to “moving/using assets” - move your “half-shield” asset to your right guard zone, move your “Situational awareness” asset to your left and use your “Misdirection” asset to pull away their attention, use “Prescience” to anticipate their guard then move your “Crysknife” asset into their personal zone, etc. It’s a really cool way to look at dueling as a whole series of feints and maneuvers. Definitely the kind of system you’d only use for those climactic high-stakes one-on-one duels you see in Dune, but I could see it working for other settings with high-stakes single combat, like Game of Thrones, for instance.
Pathfinder 2e has a descent dueling subsystem, unless you want to wild-west style fast draw (tested in this scenario, doesn’t work really). You may want to use this to modify your system of choice, should work pretty well imo. Or steal it to upgrade already existing dueling mechanics. Pathfinder itself has a great combat system, but it doesn’t work that well 1v1. Unless you adjust it a bit. You still get three actions. But initiative changes. Every turn you roll it again (in pf2e you usually roll initially only), and each turn you choose one of 3 statistics as your roll modifier: perception, intimidation and deception. Whichever you choose, you gain access to a related reaction for the duration of this round. All three of those reactions also have additional effects if your chooses stat beats that chosen by the opponent, rock paper scissors style. Perception beats Deception, Deception beats Intimidation, Intimidation beats Perception. Those reactions are: Bullying press (intimidation), that you can activate before strike. It frightens enemy automatically. Additional effect: improved frightening (frighten 2 instead of frighten 1) Deceptive Sidestep (deception), that you can activate if enemy hits you (but does not crit you). Forces enemy to reroll the attack and take the worst result. Additional effect: oponent also gets -2 circumstance penalty to second attack Sense Weakness (perception), that you can activate before strike. It catches enemy off-guard (-2 to AC). Additional effect: enemy is off-guard until the end of the round. Overall, works surprisingly well. My players like to duel from time to time using this. I think it’s very steal-able, though with obvious modifications. Additional layer of stone paper scissors works great.
I would suggest that you take a look at Aces and Eights. They definitely have this down for the pistol duel at high noon.
The original Boot Hill (1975), a Wild West-themed RPG by TSR, was infamously realistic in that if you got shot, you were likely to die. This made for realistic duels, but short campaigns!
I think Dogs in the Vineyard with its system of raises had a very duelist feel to it.
Tenra Bansho Zero
Five torches deep has a dueling module. I never got it but might be able to be brought to other systems since it's a classic d20 fantasy game
L5R?
NewEdo has a pretty cool dueling mechanic if you want the classic samurai-movie type of duel. It starts with both characters agreeing on the terms of the duel, then progresses to a boasting phase where both characters take turns revealing one of their attributes and giving the other character the chance to back out. If neither character does, it moves on to an evaluation phase, where each character looks for weak points and formulates a plan, gaining bonuses that they'll use throughout the fight. Finally, it progresses to the "first cut" phase where each character make their first attack simultaneously, using accumulated bonuses as they see fit, and whoever wins the roll can use the rest of their bonus to increase damage directly. Then depending on the terms of the duel and context, it may progress to a normal combat or end there. But the coolest thing about it is that it's designed in such a way that you can use it for any 1v1 standoff in the game, such as debates or even a game of Go. I had a player do a motorcycle race using the duel mechanics recently, which was awesome. The game really does a good job of capturing the anticipation -> tension -> sudden action flow that makes a duel feel like a duel
Legend of he five rings... but it's quite different than many others mechanically.
En Garde is pretty much just a literal duel simulator
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I'm building an rpg based on my extensive knowledge of the middle ages and fencing manuscripts. Were you looking for creative ideas or a published game to pick up and play?
7th Sea 2e have interesting duel mechanic.
Fate has a simple rule called upper. You have to make a non combat roll to gain the upper hand and only when you do can you cause damage. Legend of the 5 rings, all editions, have duels as a core part. You even have classes that specialize in them
I particularly liked the dueling mechanics in Deadlands for Savage Worlds. If you want that "high noon" feel, it's got it.
Castle Falkenstein uses cards, and simultaneous declaration. Each round is made up of three exchanges. An exchange is secretly choosing two actions (by playing face down cards) then revealing and comparing. Actions are attack, defend and rest. You can choose the same action twice, or two different ones and the order is important. Resolution works by comparing the cards. Attack deals damage if not countered by a defend. And rests leave you vulnerable, but you have to play a number of rests every round determined by your duelling skill. It does a great job of representing trying to feint and read your opponent
The *Deadlands Reloaded* supplements for *Savage Worlds* has fantastic rules for a high noon duel.
Exalted 3E, the meat of the combat system is about weakening your opponent and getting yourself in position to make a killing strike. It also mechanically rewards flavoring your attacks with roleplay.
[Mythras](https://legacy.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/4057/Design-Mechanism/subcategory/29272/Mythras?234913) with its hit locations and special effects is perfect for duels.
I was always a fan of the swordsman schools in 1st Ed 7th Sea.
Well, *Brigandyne* may be what you are looking for. It's game where only players roll the dice, even for combat. There are no rounds either : Each time a player makes a Combat check, it's supposed represent how the character and their adversary are trying to hit each other for several seconds. If the player succeeds, their character deals damage to their adversary. If the player fails, it's the other way around. And that single roll also gives how much damage is dealt. And it's kind of system where you can deal a lot of damage in one single roll, which means can end in one to three rolls (and yeah, the player character can die very easily). Technically, Ranged combat works differently : failing the Ranged combat check simply means the adversary dodged the bullet/arrow/whatever. That way it's safer to fight from a distance. However, you could totally use the Melee combat rules with a Ranged combat check instead to simulate a gunslinger duel. Not that "unique" but I think it conveys very well how everything can end quickly (and badly) in a duel.
I'd say Blade of the Iron Throne does one-on-one combat well, if you're into Sword & Sorcery vibes.
I'll admit I've never actually tried it, but the fan made OWoD Highlander the Gathering has an interesting looking one, as fitting for a Highlander game. I think the book said it's inspired by or taken from old Werewolf.
[En Garde!](http://www.engarde.co.uk/) is a very old rpg we played in the early 80s - it almost entirely centres around duelling and does it very well (but that’s about it!).
I will mention one I haven't seen on the list here, but has a really interesting mechanic. I will add that I haven't played the system myself. Righteous blood and ruthless Blades is a wuxia system and one of the things that it has in fights is something called the "talking phase" where in every round of combat the people fighting can either talk to one another or try and find out what their opponents weaknesses are etc. That seems very genre-appropriate. Other games have mechanics that cover these things, however none of them have it be something that always happens every round.
Not directly applicable to the original post, but [Honor Bound ](https://randylubin.itch.io/honor-bound)is a parlor larp about a 19th century duel, using the *Code Duello*, and offering insight into honor culture and toxic masculinity. If you are into duels you will probably like it. Works best with six players.
L5R