Re: Who is starting the fight?

From: Roderick and Ellen Robertson <rjremr_at_...>
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 18:01:35 -0800


> If one person "attacks" another in what will become an extended contest,
> then that person has initiated the contest and goes first.
>
> Roderick: Is there any official ruling on the use of AP totals to
determine
> initiative in two-participant extended contests? (This was going to be on
> my FAQ suggestion list anyway.)

The rule is that the person who initiates the contest bids first. Bidding then moves back & forth between the contestants in alternate rounds. I suppose you could cobble up some sort of "High AP controls the contest" mechanism, but it's currently not the way things work.

RR the Editor

For a contest of Fast-draw (either Old-West High Noon types, or Japanese Ia-jitsu), I might run it as a simple contest against a "speed"-type ability (to see who moves fastest), but possibly as an extended test of wills (close-ups of eyes narrowing and hands twitching) with the winner getting an Ability test to resolve the stroke/draw, followed by the loser of the extended contest (if the winner failed his ability test). I'd do it this way because these types of contest are about psyching out your opponent and winning the fight before the blade is drawn (at least for what I understand of Iajistu), with the actual strike being almost secondary. Also, these are (usually) tense and dramatic moments, and (at least in the movies...) resolved in one shot - you don't empty your revolvers at each other (although that seems to have been the standard practice, with abysmal hit ratios in the real west)

RR the Narrator

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