Re: Re: Self-sacrifice contests: successful but wounded

From: Benedict Adamson <yahoo_at_...>
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2003 00:37:54 +0100

mikaelraaterova wrote:
...
> Imagine that Argol and
> his little sister are attacked by a pack of wolves, and Argol fights
> to save her. Your blanket statement [failure=wounds] makes two dramatically potent
> outcomes impossible.
>
> (a) Success: Argol fought the wolves off and saved his sister even
> though he himself was injured by numerous bites.

If the contest is an extended contest,
a possible outcome is that Argol is defeated (ends the contest with negative APs)
but his sister is not.

> (b) Failure: the wolves manage to get between Argol and his sister.
> Two wolves bring her down, while the rest attack Argol, who isn't
> strong enough to fight off the wolves and get to his sister, but
> strong enough to defend himself.

... or vice versa.

Extended contests work well for self sacrifice: Argol's player could use AP transfers and augmentations to represent action that help his sister but not himself.

The difficulty is if you want to use a Simple Contest for this kind of situation, because the same victory/defeat level applies to Argol and his sister (let's call her Bevara).

Clearly, the worst possible outcome is that both Argol and Bevara are killed. That must correspond to Complete Defeat.

Similarly, the best possible outcome is that Argol and Bevara are unscathed. That must correspond to Complete Victory.

Now consider the outcome (1) that Argol is killed and Bevara is unscathed. That is midway between the two extreme outcomes, so would seem to correspond to a Tie. But the HW rules require Complete Defeat for a death. Worse still, the following cases are midway too, but the rules provide no way of allowing them for Ties or distinguishing between them:

2) Bevara is killed and Argol is unscathed.
3) Bevara and Argol are both moderately wounded.
4) Argol is severely wounded and Bevara is slightly wounded.
5) Argol is slightly wounded and Bevara is severely wounded.

The rules for Simple Contests poorly support mixed outcomes like these. It could be argued that Simple Contests are intended for simple outcomes, so this is not a real problem. Also, a situation in which self sacrifice is likely to be necessary is the kind of highly dramatic situation that ought to use an Extended Contest. I'm therefore inclined to regard this as a non-problem. Do you have an example from actual play in which this was a problem?

I think the fundamental culprit for preventing mixed outcomes for Simple Contests is the Ordinary Consequences Chart (HW:RiG pg.125). If we abandon it, we can say those outcomes are all Ties. We would then need a way of deciding which of the five outcomes actually happens for a Tie. The Narrator could simply ask the player(s) which they wanted.