> Donald Oddy:
> Thinking about it, isn't this a case of unrelated actions. If
> the barbarian wins the simple contest with a complete victory
> the princess collapses in his arms whispering "you're wonderful"
> and gives up on the contest she was winning. Other victories
> will produce "I like you to, but you're still wrong." with the
> extended contest continuing. Defeats of course produce results
> like you describe.
I believe what your suggesting is nesting a contest within another contest in an attempt to invalidate the other, which is expressly disallowed under the HQ rules.
Rather, think of it this way that, as Mike said, you have the said Barbarian coming unstuck with a debate against a Princess. The narrator will have determined how the Princess feels about said barbarian according to narrative logic and the needs of the story. So the Barbarian tries the kiss. The narrator may give a bonus, let the ability chosne by the barbarian remain the same or issue an improv modification. The Princess will then have to choose an ability to resist the kiss, or the narrator (due to his private knowledge) will declare the Pricess melts into the barbarians arms.
Whatever happens, the contest has remained the same even though aims may have changed. The reason is that although he has tried to kiss her, its not as radical a change of tac as say, stopping trying to flee the chaser, and turn and commence a melee. Even under that I would rule that the contest continues, but with different abilities (i.e. melee rather than running.
If, the player said that he wanted to augment his debate with a kiss (maybe to ruffle the feathers of the Princess and knock her off her high horse), then I would certainly call that an unrelated action and ask in that situation for a rolled augment, not an automatic augment, becasue there is IMO a significant chance of the attempted kiss turning out to be a negative augment!
Regards
Rob
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