A difficulty is that calling the outcome 'marginal' (and even, 'minor') defeat and victory implies that nothing much happens. OK for a simple contest, in which the players have not invested much effort, but sometimes a little disappointing for an extended contest.
Bryan writes:
> To me it seems that a higher level of victory
> should be simply a better thing than a lower level one. So I could
> see [success bringing a complication]
> the result of a marginal victory, especially in something that is
> hard to judge marginal status on, to have a side effect like this.
Which is one way to make 'marginal' and 'minor' outcomes more entertaining.
Bryan continues:
> Would you want the result of a critical success to be that your brain
> gets eaten? No. In general should doing really well be worse than
> doing sort of well? I don't think so.
I agree. Is the purpose of a contest to resolve some undecided question about the game world, or to decide which player(s) get to decide the answer to that question? Its a bit of both, but the more of the latter, the more Bryan's point is valid ('would YOU want', he asks).
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