There's a couple of ways I think this could be handled, depending on
its importance. I'm talking off the top of my head here, so bear with
me:
- I'd set up maybe a seven-place chart - seven vertical boxes.
Everyone in the contest would start in the center box, and it would be
a simple contest vs. the task's difficulty. Each "leg" of the race
would be a round of rolls. Critical Victory would move that contestant
up 3 spaces, Major: up 2, Minor: up 1, and the defeats would be down by
similar amounts. Winner is the first one to exit the chart past the
top, or at the end of the race, the highest on the chart. Watching
people climb/descend the chart would provide some drama, as well as
desperate players spending points for bump-ups.
- Alternately, maybe there's a way to run it as an extended contest
with everyone against the race, and as the course gets harder, the race
bids successively more AP each round. I dunno if that would work, but
intuitively, it sounds interesting...