RE: Re: Tracking Multiple Actions within Extended Contests

From: Sam Elliot <samclau_at_...>
Date: Tue, 1 May 2007 18:07:38 -0300

>
> > Fair enough. I guess I'm just a bit surprised that people are so
> keen not to lose contests;
>
> At least two characters in our games ended up Dying after simple
> contests for what seemed like "minor" events, until the characters
> ended up Dying. Those incidents and other less serious ones over the
> course of many months seemed to influence the group.

I suspected there may be something like that going on but I didn't want to second-guess :)

> > and that they bothered to work those odds out
>
> I'll take the blame for that -- It's just something I was interested in.

I didn't specifically mean working the odds out actually. What I meant more was caring about what they were at the time. I can easily imagine, though, with tabletop sessions, wanting to work the odds out out of curiosity.

> I think the basic HeroQuest contest mechanic is fun and elegant, but
> simple contests appear to be a sucker bet for anything that could have
> serious negative consequences for a character. And if there is no
> possibility of serious negative consequences, why bother with a
> contest at all?

Well, as we've discussed here before, serious negative consequences to a character can be fun while the ultimate negative consequence (death)can be less so. Since you've been there, can I maybe ask a few simple questions?

• was failing contests ever a fun option?
• did you (if you narrated or played, doesn't matter) find finding fun ways to narrate defeats difficult (I do) if you tried?
• do you think the risk-aversion upon which you comment arose out of losses being less fun for players than they might have been (including character death)?
• do you think people would still have opted more for a particular type of contest if character death had not been a possible outcome?
• did the possibility of character death give a frisson to contests?

I'm just interested in that sort of empirical experience.

Cheers.

Sam.