The Duel as Pervasive Four-Player Game

If it wasn’t for the death at the end, duelling would have been a pretty fantastic street game.

You could be challenged at any time, for almost any reason. You couldn’t refuse, unless you wanted to risk losing the respect of society (”being disqualified”, perhaps, in game terms?) The legality was questionable; there were completely absurd rules (see, for example, John Lyde Wilson’s The Code of Honor, or this 1777 Irish ruleset); there were winners, and losers, and cheaters, and people who criticised the whole endeavour as frivolous and wasteful. So far, so good: pervasive games have managed all that.

The main difference — again, apart from the death thing — is that pervasive games just aren’t as popular as duels were. I’ve put a dozen of the most famous London duels, sword and pistol, on a map:

but they were everywhere: parks, pubs, city streets, other people’s houses. If word of a duel got out, people would gather to watch it; and if it was about something ridiculous (one gentleman issued a challenge because another had accidentally collided with him during a waltz) then so much the better. The fashionable went to Hyde Park, the considerate to Putney Heath, and they shot and died and shot and died. Estimates suggest that one in fourteen duels ended in a death; and that in France, where dueling was perhaps most popular, there were 40,000 deaths during the pastime’s 180-year peak.

Basic ruleset: The pistol duel, which took over from the sword duel during the eighteenth century, had four necessary participants, not two: each duelist would have a second, a friend who would negotiate the details of the duel and see that everything was done honourably. First the seconds would try to negotiate a non-violent settlement, but if that failed they would arrage the specific details. Usually this would involve the duelists standing ten or fifteen metres from each other, pistols lowered; at a given signal they would raise their arms and shoot. Sometimes they would take it in turns, giving the shot-at a chance to demonstrate their courage; more often, both would shoot at once. Aiming was discouraged.

The most interesting thing about this from a gameplay point of view is the way it comes in two stages. In the initial stage, it’s principals against seconds; the principals want to fight, the seconds want to settle the matter without recourse to violence (it’s not their honour that’s at stake, but their participation in the duel is still technically a crime, so preventing it from going ahead is, for them, the best possible outcome). At the same time, however, they would be aware of the impending second stage: if it does come to a fight, the teams are realigned, and it’s principal-and-second against principal-and-second.

Tactics: The wise duelist would stand sideways and suck his stomach in, to give his opponent less to hit, though portly Charles Fox declined with a cry of “Why man, I’m as thick one way as the other!”. Camouflage was unknown, but it was sensible to wear dark clothes that would blend into the murky dawn, without any visible white cuffs; though ex-surgeon Humphrey Howarth once turned up for a duel wearing only his underpants, having seen, during his medical career, many wounds infected by the threads carried into them by a bullet.

Beyond this, tactics were up to the second, who would try to arrange the duel to the advantage of his principal. Inexperienced duelists would benefit from standing nearer to their opponent, increasing the chance of a lucky shot; and any duelist would benefit from standing in front of dark trees, and be disadvantaged by standing outlined against the sky. The seconds would bear these factors in mind when negotiating where the principals would stand.

Cheating: The seconds weren’t always in favour of the duel, and their role included an attempt at negotiating a peaceful settlement. If this failed, they would sometimes conspire to undercharge the pistols, or to load them with mercury bullets that would vaporise harmlessly, cheating the principals of their chance at glory.

More often, though, cheating was unilateral, carried out by one of the principals: either by firing too soon, or coming up with something more original, like the duelist who bound thick sheaves of paper around himself under his clothes (he was hit and the bullet was stopped, but the force was enough to kill him anyway). Using a rifled pistol was also against the rules (the accuracy was greater than that of a smooth-bore pistol), and some gun manufacturers catered to the cheating duelist market by producing rifled pistols that looked smooth-bore from the muzzle.

Variants: The American Duel: Americans certainly did duel — so much that elected officials in Kentucky are still required to swear that they haven’t participated in a duel, either as principal or second. The “American Duel”, however, was a late nineteenth-century European phenomenon. The duelists would draw lots; and whoever lost would set his affairs in order, withdraw to another room, and shoot himself.

The Barrier Duel: The duelists would stand on either side of a barrier marked out by sticks or rope. They would start some distance from the barrier, too far for an accurate shot, and walk towards it; at any time they could raise their pistol and shoot. Once a duelist had shot, however, he would drop his pistol and stand perfectly still while his opponent (if he had survived) was permitted to continue to advance to the barrier and shoot from there.

The duel au mouchoir: The participants would each take a pistol, only one of which had been loaded. They would each take hold of opposite corners of a handkerchief, level their pistol (not knowing whether it was loaded), and fire.

Sources and further reading:

Andrew Steinmetz. “Duels with the Sword” from The Romance of Duelling in all Times & Countries. 1868.

Barbara Holland. “Bang! Bang! You’re Dead”. The Smithsonian, October 1 1997.

James Landale. Duel: A True History of Death and Honour. Canongate Books Ltd, 2005.

James R. Keane. “Dueling Doctors”. Southern Medical Journal, 2000. 868-872.

The Complete Newgate Calendar, Volume 5. “FRANCIS LIONEL ELIOT, EDWARD DELVES BROUGHTON, JOHN YOUNG AND HENRY WEBBER Indicted for a Murder committed in a Duel on Wimbledon Common on 22nd of August, 1838.”