>Last night's game (in which I was a player) had an extended contest
>in which our canoe full of young warriors was up against a similar
>canoe of bad guys, as part of a large naval battle. (This was a local
>event, over 100 years ago.)
Canoes!!!
(Sorry, in Montreal, and fond of canoes.)
>Meanwhile, the warriors were fighting. Loss here probably would have
>meant that the captain would be captured, since there'd be no
>defenders. We began with arrows.
I guess that can work as a goal. I'm not sure about taking a PC out by a different PC group losing a contest, though. That seems odd.
>After a couple rounds, the Narrator said our arrows were expended
>(since this had historically happened).
So nothing in the ebb and flow of the actual mechanics to back this up, it was just a fiat from the Narrator?
> So we closed, and of course
>could no longer use our bow abilities. The canoe captain was still
>doing the same thing, but the warriors switched to using new
>abilities (with different ratings) to attain the same goal.
*nod*
>>Does a victory in an extended contest exchange only
>>give you a move toward resolution (RP or AP), or does it also give a
>>mechanical advantage? (We now have higher ground, we have the backing
>>of the court, you have been pantsed in the courtyard) Is it possible or
>>desirable to have one and not the other, and if so does the system give
>>any guidance for how that works?
>Without knowing the circumstances, the rules don't provide for
>mechanical advantages. That's up to the story as described.
That does seem to be the interpretation implied in the rules, although never made very clear. If the narration chosen to interpret a given exchange leads to a change in status that implies new situational modifiers or credibility tests, ten they should apply. That's not in keeping with the "lots of trust and collaborative social contract is needed to make this work" style of HQ2, but it would have been nice if it was clearer.
>And I'm pretty sure we had this come up last night, though I'm not
>remembering the detail. Situational modifiers are one possibility.
>Another is to constrain ability use -- your enemy used Disarming
>Strike, so for a round you can't use your Sword ability.
Right. The question is whether this is just a bonus accrued for being colourful/strategic in your thinking or whether there is any other mechanical underpinnings. Messing with the credibility tests inherent in the contest during the contest is pretty dramatic, after all. A major victory with your disarming strike and you are 1 point from victory AND you've removed my greatest combat ability.
>(I think the
>enemy ability rating also changed when they had to switch from bow
>combat -- I believe the Narrator was guided by the pass/fail cycle,
>but not slavishly following it.)
*nod* I actually like using the pass/fail in the switch there.
LC
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