maybe you know the game ZWEIHÄNDER - a award winning old-school rpg that I found quite entertaining while reading the rules. The developers published several tarot-sized cards for their system that contain all of the necessary informations about spells, monsters and so on. I was thinking about the same for the Maneuvers in S&S, since especially for beginners it will be quite hard to remember all the Maneuvers in the game. I find it very tedious to review the pages of the PDF every time I want to know how to execute a certain Maneuver. This may be because I haven't really played S&S yet, but I can imagine that a quick access stack of cards could come in handy. What do you think: Maneuver Cards for S&S - yes or no?
I'm actually very familiar with Zweihander. The developer and I have had a few chats over the years.
As for the cards, we've planned something like that from the very beginning. I'm relatively certain if you go back far enough on the dev blog we even talked about releasing them. The trouble, of course, is that the maneuvers are one of the trickiest things in the entire game to balance. Thus, we've been holding off on the planned play-aids for combat until combat has been settled. Fortunately, our discord duelists have been making a lot of headway in that direction.
Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife — chopping off what’s incomplete and saying: "Now it’s complete because it’s ended here."
Collected Sayings of Muad’Dib, the Princess Irulan
Physical cards definitely help a lot. I've made my own set out of notecards, and it's been a lifesaver for teaching the game gradually and for quick reference of maneuvers.
I've personally turned all the maneuver text into a shortened programmer-like notation, which I find more readable and easier to compare than a paragraph.
Deflect | AC 0
Defend
Disadvantage if Close weapon w/o guard or basket hilt
OR 1h hafted weapon
OR Unarmed
Advantage if Medium or Large Shield
+2 AC: Counter
Success: Gain Init
Counter: + Opponent's successes as bonus dice
Unarmed: Take MoS 0 hit to arms.
Note: Standard defensive option. Use Counter if opponent makes large attack, otherwise Expulsion is better.
