Take that, rules monster!

 I've been thinking about how I can adapt my homebrew system for a solo-style game. Since solo gamers seem to prefer especially light rule systems, I think I've been able to largely replicate the results of the current system while cutting the number of rolls down to 1/3 or less of those originally required-- as well as provide for some additional results

New Combat rules

• Attacker and Defender each roll 1d6
• If the result is over 3 their opponent takes a wound.

• Subtract the Attacker's result from the Defender's result.
• If it is positive, the attacker will have Advantage in the next action.
• If it is negative, the defender will have Advantage in the next action.
• If the difference is 0, neither side will have the advantage.
• If the difference is greater than +2, then the attacker gets a +2 advantage.
• If the difference is less than -2, then the defender gets a +2 advantage.

If combat continues, the advantage can be used to reroll any 1 die roll in the next action. Unused advantage disappears after the next exchange. (*)

Attacker's chance...

TO HIT		FOR ADVANTAGE
1 2 3 4 5 6 1 MISS HIT 2 3 4 WOUND WOUND & HIT 5 6		1 2 3 4 5 6 1 0 +1 +1 +2 +2 +2 2 -1 0 +1 +1 +2 +2 3 -1 -1 0 +1 +1 +2 4 -2 -1 -1 0 +1 +1 5 -2 -2 -1 -1 0 +1 6 -2 -2 -2 -1 -1 0

This seems to combine elements of my current d2 dice pool system with elements of my earlier VS6 system (**). 

While the second table may seem a little complex at first glance, the whole thing boils down to 2 simple rules:

1. If the difference between the 2 rolls is not 0, give the highest roller an advantage.
2. If the result is greater than 2, give them an extra advantage.

 What I like about this overall approach is that it provides for the possibility that one side or the other can fail to hit and still gain Avantage. They can even take the hit and still gain Avantageas if making a sacrifice play. This approach can even allow for both combatants to simultaneously hit each other... all with 1 roll of 2 dice and 2 simple comparisons.

 Although the side that hits is much more likely to gain Avantage, it is not guaranteed. 

Want a little more detail?

One of the purposes of this design is to reduce the number of rolls where nothing happens. If, however, you need to know if an attack occurred that might have hit but was simply blocked, Considered that all doubles are blocked attacks. The Advantage system already takes into account situations where an attacker failed so miserably that the defender didn't have to defend, or where a defender was tricked into an unnecessary defense through a feint. In both cases (the failed attack or unnecessary defense) the other combatant receives an Advantage bonus even though no one was actually wounded.

 

 On a side note... I've read a couple of papers challenging Panksepp's list of primary emotions on a number of grounds. I already knew that lexical studies show that we have many more words for negative emotion than positive emotions despite there not necessarily being an imbalance in the emotions actually experienced. This is disappointing because I had hoped to limit the list to 6 primary emotions (for game reasons). While I might not be able to reproduce the full OCC model of emotions, I should be able to come up with a decent revised list shortly.

 

 (*) An optional rule might be to allow the player to use the +2 to automatically turn a wound into a miss or a miss into a hit.

 

 (**) VS6 was a d6-d6 mechanic with straight adds for modifiers. The nice thing about it is that one could avoid the math by simply declaring one die as the positive die and one as the negative, roll both, and take the lowest value. This would produce results in the range from -5 to +5 without subtracting and produce results similar to FUDGE but without adding.

 

 In this current implementation, I've limited the advantage results to +/-2 because of the limited range of values.