Sounds like you all had fun, which is the main aim, after all. As to how to handle a full scale brawl, I'd do it pretty much the way you did it but add a segment at the end of each round giving a quick overview of what's going on elsewhere. You can either make this up on the fly, tailoring it according to how well (or badly) the PCs are doing or come up with a few 'set pieces' beforehand - these can be a good way of introducing plot elements or patrons.
Hope that helps,
David Shaw
PS You can tell they're not seasoned Traveller players, yet. They'd gone to the rather rough and ready bar to meet a contact who was selling them weapons and armour (illegally on Regina). Offered pretty much *anything* TL10 or less, they chose two body pistols and a snub pistol. Great for hiding I guess, but I'd better scale back the warehouse guards they're (unknowingly) going to have to fight later.tcIn short, there was a lot of humour, a lot of fun and they want to do it again! I certainly learned more about combat in 60 minutes than any amount of reading the rules and 'simulations' in preparation might offer. I dread to think what happens when we add weapons.... :-)We decided NOT to implement the optional Knock Out Blow rule as the 'muscle' of the party (low in the initiative order and with only average END) would have been taken out on the first NPC swing!- does anyone have any advice on how to run a mass brawl? I decided in the end I could forget about everyone except those actually interacting with the PCs but it seemed to lose something of the flavour of a tv brawl with people all over the shop and NOT just lining up against one opponent- (oh, and if she'd really used her brooch pin (!) as a weapon, is a damage of "2" reasonable, or should I have a die roll in there?)- we generally stuck to fisticuffs but one lady tried a grapple. Lots of options if it works, but what happens if it fails? Is it just 'nothing' as I read the rules?- am I doing it right? With an 8 "to hit" the PCs and the other pub denizens often completely missed (all had skill 1 or 0 and many had DEX or STR DM+1 but it wasn't enough). While this gave a very funny "how many drinks have you all had?" vibe, I was beginning to wonder if I was doing it rightBut some questions, if I may (Mongoose 1st edition rules):My nascent lunchtime work group of newbies (have just met for the fourth one hour session) really wanted to try combat. As they were trying to find rumours in the local city centre a bar room brawl seemed the obvious order of the day. I was quite pleased with the way I (think) I worked it into the story and also gave them some clues for later.(Indeed it was only my second combat ever as referee after the noble sword fight I ran at the end of _The Second Scions' Society_ several years back!)Hi there,Thought you might be interested/amused to hear about my first ever bar fight!- is healing *really* that slow? How does anyone handle it AND continue the adventure afterwards (as I'm assuming continuing the adventure does not count as "rest"!)What became very very funny was the fact that I think we were really running the first bar pillowfight ever. On the sixth (consecutive barring one roll of '4') roll of '1' for damage it was a good job you add the Effect or we'd still be there now...----- The Traveller Mailing List Archives at http://archives.simplelists.com/tml Report problems to xxxxxx@simplelists.com To unsubscribe from this list please goto http://www.simplelists.com/confirm.php?u=H87t22adToNV4xl9Px5FezeVzgYCXZC8