Re: "Quantity" and "Contest" Ratings

From: BEThexton <bethexton_at_...>
Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2003 14:00:29 -0000

Perhaps the appropriate advice to a games
> master is to let players know whether their abilities are
“contest”
> or “quantity” ratings, and to be aware there treasured multiple
> masteries will suddenly collapse into a more meagre rating if the
> contest is suddenly against a quantity. T

Your terminology helped to clarify a thought that has been bouncing around in my head for a while, so thank you.

To use your terms, when one side of a contest is using a quantity ability that can be expected to deviate noticeably from the other party's quantity in that same ability, then contest abilities can only be used to augment.

So, if a base human "run" quantity ability is 12, when faced with a horses "run" of perhaps 2W, a hero may not use his various "run fast" type abilities except to augment his default 12. Note that truly heroic character, with a 10W2 in running, would have an auto augment of +10, and hence would be able to match the horse. Perhaps this seems silly in earth terms, but it seems about right in heroic terms.

The underlying assumption here is that contest abilities are all meant to be used when the related quantities are about equal.

However, this means that you have to be very careful when to allow quantity abilities to be used as the defining ability in a contest. Except when it is very clear, they should be forced to be used as an augment. For example, in an auction it is fair to pit wealth against wealth. In trying to bribe someone, it would be inappropriate to say "the briber is using wealth, so the bribee must use their wealth as their main skill." More appropriate to use wealth as an augment on some other (contest) skill. In the case of running, in a straight race, using the quantities is reasonable. However, if say a horse with rider is trying to catch someone on foot, and the footman is trying to dodge and avoid, it would be inappropriate to force the contest to go to quanities.

Finally, I'd love to see your thoughts on many to one combat. Different views are always valuable.

--Bryan