This came up in a game last night. There are two guys fighting each in melee combat. Guy A attacks Guy B. Neither gets any successes. What happens?

A. Tie goes to the attacker; base damage as if zero net successes.

B. They flail ineffectually at each other; nothing happens.

Just wanted to keep the game moving then and didn't bother to look it up.

B. You always need at least one success to successfully do anything. They both flail ineffectually at each other.

I say B.

My thought as well. However, I ruled A at the time, in part to keep things moving along, and because it evoked the sheer bloody-minded literality that SR rules sometimes have.

I like the image of B. Two cybered sammies getting into a slap and tickle fight...

I wouldn't go to the extreme of saying slapping and the like... However, I would say that neither got a hit in that did any appreciable damage.

Yeah, if no sucesses then it's ineffctual flailing and weaving. If tied sucesses, then attacker gets the nod.

Least that's my interpretation of it.

That is my take in it too, boxers often do this by jabbing to find weaknesses in their opponents defenses. And considering there are hundreds of jabs thrown in a boxing match there is no way they can be damage inducing (or even have the potential to damage) all the time.

Speaking from my experiance (9 years kenpo, 3 muy thai kickboxxing) jabs aren't usually to find weaknesses in their defense. Its to make them create an opening by reacting to it. Also, even in a straight fist fight, if you've seen any videotaped (they're all over the net) look at how many punches actually connect well, and land, with anything behind them, enough to do some damage. Not many. It could be any shots that connected were glancing, or the more skilled opponent tripped on a rock, but the lesser skilled one didn't take advantage. Whatever.

In the world of SR, you need at least *one* success to do anything.

B sounds about right to me.

From a decades worth of fencing, re-enacting swordfighting and larp sword fighting (three very differant things) it is infact very possible for the time represented in an SR initiavtive pass or a complete turn to go by with little more than sword blade meeting sword blade occuring.

I'd say B, with the two each not connecting any shots if they have some skill in hand-to-hand combat. If they're unskilled, then they throw chick punches and probably have their heads tilted back and eyes closed as well.

now that's an picture. Two cybered Sams flailing at each other, the assault rifles slung over their shoulder.

Or better yet, two trolls flailing girlie punches at each other with a horde of people around them chanting "Cat fight! Cat fight!"

More realistically, I've seen this happen many times in my games - usually it my NPC who's had a spirit maintain Confusion power on them flailing at the PCs who has a serious wound.

Both are funny images if you think about it tho.