Accumulator Contests

From: simon_hibbs2 <simon.hibbs_at_...>
Date: Wed, 05 Jun 2002 15:12:25 -0000

I've been planning on writing this up for ages, but never got round to it. That's one reason why I was asking about Benedict's Extended Simple contests previously - they sounded similar and I wanted to check if they are the same thing, but they aren't quite.

It occured to me that there are 9 possible outcomes of a contest - 4 levels of victory for each participant, and a draw. The four levels of victory are : Marginal, Minor, Major and Complete.

Suppose we assign each a numerical value as follows :

Marginal Victory = 1; Minor Victory = 2; Major Victroy = 3; Complete Victory = 4.

To win an Accumulator Contest, you need to rack up a total of 4 'Victory Points' (VPs) over a series of simple contests, each scored as above.

Obviously it is possible to win such a contest in the first round, but more usualy it will take several rounds, perhaps with each participant racking up a few VPs. This suggests a few variations on the theme.

  1. First Past the Post - The first participant to get 4 VPs wins, regardless of how many VPs their opponent got.
  2. Win Some, Lose Some - VPs cancel each other out. If you have 1 VP and I win 3 VPs, one of mine cancels yours out so you have 0 VPs, and I retain my remaining 2 VPs. To win, you have to score 4 more VPs over the contest than your opponent does. This could take quite a while, so I have my doubts about it.
  3. Knockabout - The first to 4 points wins, but you can choose to use points you've won to cancel out your opponent's points, if you choose.

I think some variation on a Knockabout Accumulator might be interesting. An alternative to each participant gaining Victory Points might be to inflict Defeat Points on the opponent instead - like wounds.

On favoured variant of mine is that you can choose to either try and gain Victory points in a round, or try to inflict wounds, in the form of ability penalties. That's a bit clumsy though, as surely it should be possible to win a contest by wounding your opponent?

One consequence of all this, is that it removes the aspect of the riskiness of a manoeuvre measured by APs.

Suggestions welcome.

Simon Hibbs

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