Situation came up last night: PC is dueling and has a Complication come up - Constricted (from Core) - so, is in a disadvantageous position now in the fight. PC wanted to maneuver such that the Complication could be removed.
Played it out that the PC would enter a contest to move since, naturally, the enemy always gets a vote and would like to keep the Trait applied. PC won, spun out of the position, removed Trait, and re-engaged.
However, wondering if ruling a Contest was overkill and whether a standard move is all that was needed. Not wanting to take agency away from the player.
Question(s): assuming a PC can use a standard move to move away, even out, of conflict, is this a Contest or a simple Move action?
Follow-on: What is the impact on Personal Zones? My thought was (and, Movement rules imply, at least to me) that it would be a one zone movement and Asset positions would therefore shift one zone as well, e.g. if a crysknife was in Target Zone, it was now shifted to Guard Zone and would need a subsequent move to re-enter Target.
Granted, I recognize that movement might not always need to be away from combat, i.e. a PC could shift positioning, I suppose without moving any farther away from the enemy and not incur the one zone shift (although, I may be overthinking it).
Sounds like that worked out ok.
The simplest way to use a complication is just as a negative trait,
so it either restricts actions or imposes a difficulty penalty.
But the GM is free to apply them in different ways if they think it warranted so you are within the rules.
In a duel, moving away would probably constitute surrender or yielding. While the zones are static it is assumed they are simply the relative positions of the combatants, who are moving all the time. Moving the assets represents some of that movement as they close in or retreat.
So a PC could leave a duel but that would probably mean its over. Otherwise their movement is already considered part of what is going on. As such it wouldn’t change the zones as they are either still engaged with the opponent or not. While they might be keeping the opponent at a distance, they’d still be using the same zones. Those zones could get larger or smaller, but they’d still work the same way.
Understand.
Constricted was definitely a difficulty penalty and I thought I was being clever in giving the PC an active way to remove it (vs. just making it a one or more round malus).
To your point about a move constituting a surrender, I was also entertaining the thought that I may have needed the Skirmish rules rather than Dueling since the name implies a more formal affair akin to Paul and Jamis (than say a hit-and-run ambush).
Appreciate the clarification on Zones. Will file that one.
Yup, the duelling conflict is designed for a one on one where you want to do something more blow by blow.
For a street fight or the like Skirmish is the one you want.
A follow-up here for confirmation: in Dune 2d20 re: NPCs, there is no mechanical distinction in number of dice rolled by Major, Notable, and Minor NPCs, they are all given a base 2d20 to roll in contests? Or, do Minor NPCs get 1d20?
I’m thinking here of the mechanical differences by NPC type, e.g. Nemeses, Elites, and Troopers or Nemeses, Toughened, and Minions in Infinity and Conan respectively.