Distraction can be used by a character to mislead an enemy into dropping their guard. Distracting an opponent requires a Willpower task roll against the Willpower of the opponent. If the distraction is successful, the next attack against the distracted opponent on the following round receives a +3 attack bonus.

Using Willpower for distracting an opponent may seem counterintuitive. Wouldn’t Prowess or Perception seem more appropriate? Not at all. Distracting an opponent — whether in physical combat (such as a gunfight), psychic combat (such as a battle of wills), or in a social conflict (such as a marital dispute) — isn’t about how good you are in a fight or how good you are at noticing things. Anyone who has ever seen a talented stage magician at work knows that the real “trick” to most illusions is getting the audience to look where the magician wants them to look. In game system terms, that’s a classic Willpower vs. Willpower task roll.

Additionally, one of the main reasons we added the distraction maneuver to Bulletproof Blues was to help characters with low physical attributes cope with combat. Characters with high physical attributes don’t usually need to resort to distraction. Characters with high Willpower, on the other hand, are exactly the type of characters that need to use tactics like distraction.