>On the subject of talking past each other... I think this makes you at
>least the third person to mention this idea that the player would use
>this as a game-mechanical 'tactic' (in disjunct with any possible game-
>world validity of changes of tactic). I'd have thought it would have
>flowed fairly naturally from the choice of contest mechanism being the
>narrator's in HQ, and not to mention having said it myself a couple of
>times: but the point is that whether/when a contest would be
>'restarted' in this manner is, I'm suggesting, *entirely* up to the
>narrator.
Great in theory - somehow, in practice, I suspect that players will work out how to either wheedle a new contest or work out which buttons to push to justify a new contest. Personally, I don't see this as a big objection, though. That one is :
> > As far as I see it, once you enter a contest then you have to finish
> > it and determine the consequences of that contest before entering a
> > second one.
>
>I can see why that's game-mechanically clean and convenient; I think
>it's something of a awkward fit to the twists and turns of actual
>storytelling (and actual playerly ass-preserving wangling), however.
So why bother with extended contests at all? If your story is sufficiently twisty and turny for this to be a genuine issue, stick to simple contests. As far as I can see, allowing extended contests to be interruptable is a recipe for an enormous can of worms, and little better than nesting them.
Cheers,
Graham
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