DURF minus [PART 2]

04 Apr, 2026

The nuance of the Decision Matrix from DURF minus [PART 1] I think will be fantastic for solo play, but will probably slow down combat too much in group play

Here is the streamlined version—but first let me summarize the standard rules found in DURF Expanded…

STANDARD COMBAT SUMMARY

To keep things simple, I’m only going to explain how mele attacks work:

The attacker and defender make opposing strength rolls...

…The winner the deals their weapon damage to the loser…

…If the loser has armor points, they may spend those points to reduce the incoming damage. Any remaining damage is then converted into wounds…

…For example, if a sword wielding goblin wins an opposing strength roll against a hero clad in leather armor; 3 damage would be dealt to the hero’s armor, and then the hero would take 1 wound, adding it to her total wounds.

In DURF Expanded, the hero would then consult her level to determine the size of her Hit Die Pool (the higher the level, the more dice the hero rolls)

This is our hero’s first adventure, so every single time she takes a wound she will roll a single 1D6 attempting to roll above her total wounds. If she rolls equal to, or lower than her total wounds, our brave hero will die…

[PART 1] SUMMARY

To summarize the adjustments I made in DURF minus [PART 1]:

“WOUNDS” will now be referred to as “BAD LUCK.” Mechanically this changes nothing, but narratively is a better fit in my opinion

Also, I completely removed the leveling system in favor of a situational hit dice risk assessment

ALTERNATIVE HIT DIE MATRIX

[Y] Severity

In DURF, all weapons have a fixed damage score. The Y-Axis on this matrix is simply the damage value of the winner’s weapon

[X] Likelihood

The loser may subtract damage if they have the armor points to do so

The X-Axis on this matrix is the amount of damage that was not blocked, and converted into BAD LUCK (Bad Luck received this turn only! Do not mistake with with Total Bad Luck)

RESULT

In the same scenario with the hero and the goblin, how many Hit Dice will vary:

After spending her armor points to reduce the goblin’s sword attack, she will take +1 BL and then roll 3HD. Luckily she didn’t have any Bad Luck before this attack, so with the sum of 3D6 she has to roll over 1–which is a guarantee

Let’s say she fails a second opposed strength roll: In both “DURF Expanded” and “DURF minus” rulesets, she would not have any armor points to reduce the incoming 4 damage, resulting in her rolling 1D6 to beat a total of 5 wounds/bad luck

Whereas both “Expanded” and “minus” reach the same result with her second failed opposed strength roll—my “DURF minus” modifications reduced the likelihood of death to zero when she damaged her armor with the first failed opposed strength roll, while still retaining the lasting +1 wound/bad luck

Factoring in likelihood becomes more present when dealing with weapons that deal less damage:

The obvious difference between “Expanded” and “minus” presents itself with campaign play. In DURF Expanded player characters can theoretically reach level 10 (meaning 10D6 Hit Dice), where in “minus” the most Hit Dice a player could roll is 4D6

Leveling systems are ideal for many sessions with the same character—but I’m more interested in one shots that use expendable characters


Let me know what you think HERE!