Oops, the skill system I talked about yesterday also works really well for representing Colonel Mustang's use of subordinates-as-resources.

A fight is 'generated' by the drawing of a card. That tells you the enemy's strong suit for this fight. So a Spade, representing tools and materials, might represent an enemy with powerful weapons or armor. Like a man with a philosopher's stone tattoo on his arm.

Round to round, you draw a card to tell you what suit is available to you for skills that turn. Hearts represents body, Diamonds represents mind, Clubs represents "the world".

For Mustang, the skills on his sheet under Clubs? His subordinates.

Each round, you take two tests: One to hit, and one to avoid being hit.

On your attack, can choose any skill from either the suit of the card you drew, or the suit of the enemy. The other suit you have to use for defense.

So Mustang steps out of the car and he draws a Club. The enemy is a Spade.

Mustang's Clubs are all high, because of course they are. But Mustang's favorite skill is a Spade: his flash gloves.

Scar, the guy with the tattoo on his arm, is Dangerous, meaning the Weaver is going to be rolling a d8 against Mustang's Flash Gloves skill. Mustang's skill is 2. (his Flame Alchemy skill is 6, but it's not often he gets to show off the gloves on their own merits.)

The roll: 7.

With a difference of 5 (7 - 2 = 5), we know that the gloves aren't going to help him here, and that he doesn't score a hit. That's what you get from a Severe complication.

The Weaver asks: "What did you forget, Colonel?"

Mustang looks down at his soaked gloves. "The rain."

But that's not the end of our fight. Because now Mustang has to defend himself against Scar, and he can't use the gloves to protect himself.

And then Lieutenant Hawkeye is right there with her dual pistols. And Hawkeye is a 5. Because of fucking course she is.

Mustang is gonna be fine here; Scar would have to roll an 8 to get past the lieutenant to hit him.

But there's always risk in that. Because when Mustang goes on the attack, he thinks he's protecting his friends. But he's not; he's just forcing them to save him from the mess.

Mustang's Clubs skill list is *full* of subordinate names. Probably a lot of them are crossed out, dropped to 0 as acceptable costs for keeping the Colonel safe.

Does Mustang sleep at night? How could he?

That's the question Ed might ask, if he were the Weaver.

Anyway, that's another tangent. I'm really enjoying the flexibility this system has for creating heavy narrative moments.

(also @raposabranca13 this was largely inspired by your FMA re-read thread )