I'm with Nic in that I think that if it's important, that you'll make it an extended contest. Note that something I said previously is getting glossed over (no surprise given the rambling nature of the post in which it was written). I think that all contests can be thought of as extended contests. It's just that less important ones will end after only one roll. The ramifications are that, instead of doing Simple Contests at all, you always make an AP bid. A gamble if you will (I like that idea a lot). It's just that if the contest would have been simple, it ends after that roll (I gave my rationales for why I think that doesn't actually contradict the current system in any way - both sides can always simultaneously retreat).
The point is that, with this system, you only have one system, and it always results in some measurable outcome in terms of a created Ability. This is what I've been trying to get at all along. I don't want to have any results that aren't rated as some Ability potentially. Note that many of these Abilities would "fade" almost instantly - in any case whenever appropriate. What's neat is that "unrelated actions" in combat just become nested single roll conflicts using this same system.
The only detail that I'm missing at this point is whether or not a player in the midst of an extended conflict needs to state before hand whether or not the action they're taking is "unrelated" or not. If they don't, then, like the current Hurt rule, the disposition of the lost AP can be decided afterwards in terms of whether they add to the current AP loss total for the opponent, or if they add to some other ability (see the other post for methods of disposition, some of which make the question of declaration moot). If they are allowed to state that an action is unrelated, then we know that the result will not add to the total of the current conflict, but instead to an Ability related to that particular action. Both seem to have advantages.
For those of you symbolic learners at home who need an example of where I'm currently at (using the loser decides option): Brog wants to cross the bridge, but Nori is blocking him. First round Brog charges, and causes Nori some AP loss narrated as losing ground. On Nori's turn he decides to strike at Brog's feet with his hammer. He bids 15, and gets a defender forfiets result. Brog now has a choice, according to the GM, he can give back the ground he gained and more, 15 AP worth, or he can take a Smashed Toes 15 result. Brog considers the ramifications of a fall off the bridge and the increased liklihood of that happening with smashed toes, and decides to give ground this time. Later Brog makes a comeback, and reduces Nori to -12 AP, which comes to a total of 30 for Nori's Ability with his hammer, and 6 more for the negative AP for a result of "Defeated by Brog" Ability of 16w for Nori. If, say, Nori decides to institure a new conflict on the other side of the bridge, one of killing Brog for dishonoring him so, then he'll have a -4 for having been defeated so recently. Outside of this, however, this Ability will probably fade quickly. Instantly if he can take it out with a contest of his Self-Confidence vs. the Defeated resistance. Or maybe Nori's character thinks this was a really important conflict, and asks to keep the Ability permenantly as a flaw - which is up to the GM to accept or decline.
Note that I like how we've all made the assumption that any non-permenant Ability can be eliminated with a roll. What this means in combat is that if you take an unrelated action to gain an Elevated Ability for a bonus, I can get rid of that with another appropriate conflict. What I'd do, however, is require the appropriate AP bid to do so. That is, if I'm eliminating a wound, for instance, I have to bid AP equal to the wound to do so, buying it down to zero (or, from another perspective, buying an equal and opposite Ability to cancel it out - this could be done in extended fashion of course with several smaller AP bids). The ramifications of which are that failuire will impart a flaw on somebody of the same AP size. Which is really cool because it adds tension to what are normally administrative die rolls.
Is my intent starting to become more clear here? Again, there's an implicit currency to the system that I'm trying to draw out and make evident in one fairly simple clear system. Because I think that the ramifications are more than interesting.
Mike
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