Thrust and Parry

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Thrust and Parry is a card game for 2 players, age 10 and up. Playing time is 30 minutes.

Theme

THRUST AND PARRY is a game of foil fencing. A foil is a lightweight dueling sword which has a sharp point but no sharp edges. Foil fencing is an exciting Olympic sport that happens at blinding speed, and is rich in subtle and complex maneuvers of hand and foot.

Overview

The deck is composed of Footwork and Bladework cards, along with a few Embellishments that may be used to enhance your Footwork and Bladework. Players alternate turns, playing cards from their hands and then drawing replacement cards. On each turn, the active player may play one Footwork and/or one Bladework card, and optionally add one Embellishment card to each of the first two cards, for a maximum of four cards played.

Players must use Footwork to get in striking range of their opponent, and Bladework to attempt a touch. The opponent can respond with Footwork to move back out of range, or Bladework to deflect the attack. A "phrase" can continue for several turns, as the attacker presses the attack by evading the defenses of the opponent, and the defender turns the tables with a riposte and mounts a counter-attack.

The bout (the game) is won by the first player to score five "touches" against his opponent.

Components

One deck of 79 cards, consisting of various Footwork, Bladework, and Embellishment cards.
One Distance card
Two Score cards

Players must provide three small markers (pennies work nicely) to track distance and score.

A sample card. The Double-Lunge card is a Footwork card, playable only when the active player is in lunge; its effect is to close the distance between players by one step.

Setup

Each player takes one scoring card, and sets a marker on the zero spot to indicate that no touches have been scored against them. When a player is touched, that player (that is, the one who lost the point) moves his marker to the next number on his scoring card. When a player has been touched five times, the bout is over and that player has lost.

Place the Distance card between the two players, at one side of the table. Place a marker on the "3" position on the Distance card.

Shuffle the deck and deal each player 12 cards. Each player then examines his hand and discards four cards, keeping eight. Players keep their hands hidden from their opponents at all times. The remaining cards are placed face-down to form the draw pile.

Players begin the bout in en garde position: the distance is three, both players are on target, neither player is in a lunge, and no one has right of way. (See below for explanations of these terms.) Players will often return to en garde during the course of a bout.

The Turn

Players alternate turns. On his turn, the active player may either play or discard.

To play, the active player plays one Footwork and/or one Bladework card, and may optionally also play one appropriate Embellishment card on each of the Footwork or Bladework cards. (Exception: a player may play two Bladework cards when riposting; see below.) He then refills his hand from the draw pile so that he finishes his turn with eight cards in hand.

To discard, the player selects one card from his hand and discards it, then draws one card from the draw pile. He may optionally repeat this once, for a maximum of two cards discarded and two drawn. The second card discarded may be the first one drawn.

Players alternate turns until the bout is over.

Scoring and Winning the Game

To score a touch, you must fulfill three conditions and your opponent must be unable to negate any of those conditions on his next turn. The three conditions are:

You must be at a distance of 1
You must be on target
You must have right of way

These conditions are all explained in the following sections.

The first player to score five touches against his opponent wins the bout.

Distance, Footwork, and the Lunge

Distance is a measure of how far apart the players are. Distance is measured in steps. Each player (who is not currently in lunge) may optionally advance one step closer to his opponent at the start of his move. Otherwise, changes in distance are accomplished by playing a Footwork card.

Whenever the distance between the players changes, move the marker on the distance card to match.

The Lunge Footwork card moves the players two steps closer, and is the most common way to close the distance for attacking. It also puts the active player in a lunge position, which persists until the player can play an appropriate Footwork card to recover, or until the players return to the en garde position. Certain Footwork cards (and the optional free advance) may not be used when in a lunge; others may only be used when in lunge. Some other Footwork cards allow recovering from the lunge and returning to a normal stance.

The minimum distance is one step apart, which is also the distance at which a touch may be scored. The starting distance (in the en garde position) is three. Whenever the distance is five or greater at the start of a player's turn, that player may choose to dictate a return to en garde, without the other player's consent.

Bladework and being On Target

To score a touch, the attacker must be on target. Both players are normally and automatically on target, and always return to the on target state whenever the distance between them is greater than one.

A player is only taken off target when, in response to an attack, the defender plays a Parry or Counter Bladework card. This deflects the attack by putting the attacker off target. The attacker can return to being on target by playing a Disengage Bladework card on his next turn; if he fails to do so, his attack is over and was unsuccessful.

Right of Way and Attack

Right of way is an important concept in fencing. It governs which fencer scores a touch when a fencer counter-attacks instead of defending against a prior attack. Basically the fencer whose arm is straightened first is the one who first began an attack, and that fencer is said to have right of way. The act of straightening your arm to launch an attack is called a thrust.

So to begin an attack, a player must play a Thrust bladework card to seize the right of way. Thrust can only be played if the distance is one at the end of the turn (that is, it may be played in combination with a Footwork card that closes the distance) and only if neither player currently has right of way.

Once right of way has been seized, the player (who is now the attacker) can maintain right of way for up to three turns (and longer in some circumstances) by ensuring that every subsquent turn also ends in a valid attack: that is, on target and with distance of one. There can therefore be a sequence of turns (called, in fencing parlance, a phrase, in which player A attacks, B parries or retreats to hold off the attack, A presses the attack (retaining right of way) by closing the distance and/or returning on target, and the alternation of attack/defense continues until B is touched or A is unable to continue the assault and loses right of way.

Right of Way and Riposte

Right of way is normally lost after the third unsuccessful attack move. In a real fencing bout, this is about the time that the attacker's blade point is so close to his opponent that there is no time for further bladework: the attack has either hit or missed. At this time, if the defender has successfully held off the attack, the defender can riposte. A riposte is a counter-attack which takes right of way from the (former) attacker and gives it to the (former) defender.

In Thrust and Parry, riposte is allowed only if the attacker's right of way has expired: that is, after the third unsuccessful attack. The defender in this situation may play a Parry or Counter card to foil the final attack, and then may immediately play a Thrust card (announcing "Riposte!") to seize right of way and counter-attack. This is the only time in Thrust and Parry when it is legal to play two Bladework cards in a single turn.

After the riposte, the roles of attacker and defender have switched, and the former defender (player B) now has three turns in which to try to score his own touch. If player A can successfully defend for those three turns, he may be able to riposte after the third turn and again seize right of way for himself, and so on.

Embellishments and Startling

Up to two Embellishment cards may be played per turn, one each for the Bladework and Footwork cards played. (If no Bladework card is played, no Bladework Embellishment may be played, and the same for Footwork.)

An Embellishment card enhances the effect of its Footwork or Bladework card, as explained on the Embellishment card. For example, playing a Stamp Embellishment during an attack enhances your Footwork by startling the defender. (Several other Embellishments can also startle.) A startled player must draw one card from the draw pile; if it is a Footwork card, the player can respond to the attack only by playing a Footwork card from his own hand. If it is a Bladework card, he may respond only with a Bladework card. If the drawn card is another Embellishment, he cannot respond at all and the attack succeeds. The drawn card is always discarded immediately and is not played or kept in the hand.

Design Discussion

This was the first game I ever designed. I can now see that it is lacking in strategy: once a player understands the game, it is mostly a matter of hoping to draw the right cards. But the game succeeds in several other important areas: it does have at least some strategy, it conveys its theme strongly, it is well balanced, it has periods of tension followed by climaxes of triumph and disappointment. Although it is not deep, it is also not long and takes almost no time to set up and clean up, so it makes a good "filler" game to play in between the longer and more significant games. Most importantly to me, it was a great learning experience.

Balance was difficult to achieve and took most of the effort of design, once I had the basic outline of the game. It was a continual source of astonishment to me how the character of the game would change if I added or took away just a few copies of one kind of card or another. I wanted play to be well-balanced between attack and defense, so that the outcome of any attack would be uncertain; and I wanted a player who was down a couple of touches to feel that he still had a decent chance of making a comeback.

I had one persistent problem during most of the development period, and that was turtling and stagnation. "Turtling" happens when a player perceives that his best approach is to concentrate solely on defense, because attack is too risky. Stagnation happens when both players decide to turtle. I solved this problem as follows.

During most of the game's development, the only way to change distance was to play a Footwork card. There was an Advance card whose effect was to move the players one step closer. Stagnation would result whenever the distance between the players was four. This was because the active player could close the distance with an Advance card (one step closer) or a Lunge card (two steps closer) but could not get close enough to attack. Yet closing the distance in any way would allow the other player to attack on the next turn.

I tried for a long time to solve this problem by balancing the deck in various ways, but this was futile (and I should have realized it earlier than I did!). Eventually I realized that the rarity of cards in the deck was the mechanism by which the game simulates the difficulty or risk of a fencer's moves; but an advance from long range is something that any fencer does naturally and without risk or penalty. So I removed the Advance cards from the deck entirely, and replaced them with a rule that allowed any player to take an optional, free advance at the start of the turn. In combination with a rule that allows a free return to en garde if the starting distance is too great for meaningful action, it effectively became possible to launch an attack from any distance. This in turn made it actually safer to attack than defend: since only the attacker can score a touch, an attacker is safe for at least the next one to three moves. And that ended the turtling and stagnation, and made the game as lively as a good fencing match should be. While there can still be "quiet periods" as each player discards and tries to build a better hand, these generally do not last too long and don't bog down the game.

Last modified May 22, 2005 by rmh