> This holds no water whatsoever as an explanation of AP. No matter
> how many AP you have, so long as it's positive, you have the same
> skill you started with, unless your opponent has inflicted some
Yes.
> either 7 AP exchange Penalties or Grievous Wounds. We know what
> 'Hurts', 'Penalties' and 'Injuries' do, they are in the rules. And
Yes
> AP loss does not do anything like the same. Two minutes (or however
Not MECHANICALLY, but they can be use narratively for that purpose.
> you require for PCs to recover AP) after a battle, the winner could
> walk away unscathed no matter how many AP he lost, no matter how
They would not be at a mechanical penalty; but that does not meant they were unscathed.
> the fight, or how lucky he was to win. And as for 'you could give
> wounds to people who WIN contests or exchanges if you felt it was
> dramatically appropriate', that just proves how unrealistic the
> situation is, when the solution is yet more arbitrary decisions
No, it just means you reverse the process of looking at what the mechanics tell you. Imagine a scene where a fighter with a knife was in combat against a man with a sword. We fast forward to the deciseve exchange; the man with the sword loses, and is knifed. However - the GM, as part of the description (an in conjunction with the player) might interpret this event as "you press close as his blade flickers out, carving a line down your arm as you shove the blade up under his sternum". The swordsman lost, but the character can still be injured. However, this injury would NOT constitute a mechanical penalty; its there for colour, for drama.
Now, I'm quite aware that there are difficulties; there will be a tendency to try to "model" that injury in later conflicts. But I think that the solution to the problem of the "clean" fight, where the winner remains unscratched, can be solved this way. All the GM needs to do is limit themselves to the kind of minor injury that doesn't scream "action penalty". This allows the narration of all sorts of minor things that are usually left out of RPG's - like the fact that your knuckles hurt after punching someone (if you can feel it), or you acquired a massive bruise thats going to be quite painful tomorrow, but which does not hamper you now. With the right approach to narration and scene setting, I think, you can make players feel they had a tough fight and got roughed up, even if they won without accruing mechanical penalties.
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