Re: Extended Contest - Argument Overridden

From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_...>
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 16:00:12 +0100

On Mon, Oct 13, 2003 at 04:50:31PM -0400, Alexander G. M. Smith wrote:
> What should happen then? He runs down the soldier but loses the argument?
> Runs past the trooper and gets out of the contest before it is ended,
> though running past makes him win the overall bridge crossing situation?
> Should I have discarded the contest and started another one? Or have the
> horse injure the trooper, giving him a penalty to his swearing (or would
> that be a bonus)? Or have the trooper attempt to scare the horse when
> it charges?

You ought to ask the player what his intent is, if it's not clear from his description of his action. Is he trying to 'win' the original contest, by means of intimidation (or otherwise)? Is in effect now trying to achieve some clearly distinct objective, like escaping, or beating up the trooper? That's the key thing to keep in mind, the contest mechanism is just a tool to help you resolve a given 'question at issue' -- the most important thing is to be reasonably clear what that question *is*.

(i.e., in the first instance, you'd keep the same contest going, calculating how applicable the new ability is; in the second, you'd start a new (simple or extended) contest with the new objective, maybe with a carryover from the first as to who was the better prepared for it to 'turn ugly'. ("I could tell be was starting to get squirrely, boss, so I stuck him before he could get the drop on me...")

Cheers,
Alex.