Does this matter? How did the contest arise anyway?
If I've included the presence of Harrek as part of the background colour, and a player says that his character is going to charge out and attack him, I'd give him one chance to back down and then say 'you lost' by narrator fiat. Defeating such people is a task that 'no self-respecting superhero would ever fail at' and does not require a roll. In fact, you would probably get barged flat by some of his retinue before you even got near him.
If the contest is part of the story, the player character's objective is hardly going to be 'kill Harrek'. It might be 'make a political point by having Harrek kill me' or 'make Harrek break a geas by raising a sword against me'. In this case the contest is not with any combat ability of Harrek's - what you need to do is
(1) get close to him (probably the hard part)
(2) somehow get him to draw and use a weapon without thinking
Andrew
Powered by hypermail