and my experience is use a simple contest for combat if there is a
clear mastery advantage between the player character and an
opponent, and your story does not demand an extended contest.
You have to be slightly careful with simple contests though, as they
can throw up freaky results.
I have played in a game where we rolled a one and the narrator
rolled a 20! (remember that Ashley?)
And then describe it in Victors terms as he is spot on in my book.
Thats how I do it.
Simple contests are great for mooks. But then I don't tend to put
fights in my games unless there is a very good reason. In fact I
was delighted that it took 6 months of real time before a player
killed a person! Absolutely fascinating.
Regards
Rob
wrote:
> charlesmacateer wrote:
>
> >Could some of you share with me your expierences using a the
simple
> >(one roll) contest, particularly regarding combat, with new
players.
> >I would especially be interested in expiernce's you have had with
D&D
> >players.
> >
> >
>
> Something I learned the hard way is how to describe the contests.
The
> first couple times I used simple contests for fights, I described
the
> action like "He stabs at you, you block, attack back. Now roll a
simple
> contest." It was far to short and had the loser going down after
only
> one hit. This didn't work to well, for me or the players.
>
> After talking to people over at The Forge (http://indie-rpgs.com/)
I
> realized what I should be doing is describing things more like
this: "He
> runs at you, screaming madly. The fight goes on for sometime as
you jump
> around the clearing, onto tree stumps and rocks. Ok, roll a simple
> contest. You won! After many minutes of hard fighting, you bring
him to
> his knees."
>
> Because simple contests for combats are short rolls that usually
> describe a longer action (the fight), you have to describe that
action
> in much more broad terms then you would in D&D.
>
> --Victor