Why don;t we stick to the examples given? It's complicated enought without beginning to worry about how we fit origami magic into the mix! :-)
We have just been talking about a common circumstance that the players might find themselves in. An argument turning into a fight. In this circumstance you are saying that the players could try to blag their way in and, if losing, abandon the blag attempt and draw their swords, taking them back to parity - you pointed out that it might be difficult to justify limiting their combat abilities based on their previous social interaction.
Alex wrote in another thread! :-)
> if you start off disadvantaged in the verbal conflict, does it
> necessarily disadvantage you in the subsequent physical one, simply
> due to the game-mechanical convenience of it being the 'same contest'
It isn't that difficult, if you have been sufficiently browbeaten you may be less confident that you will win, less motivated to push the contest to a successful conclusion. If we are going to accept that social contests are as valid as physical ones then I think we have to accept that the effects on the mind will be as consequential as the effects on the body.
If it is possible to abandon a previous contest in such situations do you honestly believe that a group of players will accept a social defeat unless they are certain that the physical option wouldn't have a chance of success?? And if you've done it once under such situations how do you avoid it - if not less choice then definitely no more. I'd also think twice about making social interactions anything but simple contests to avoid that kind of problem.
Less interesting for me.
> I think it can occur legitimately; to stick to the 'running away'
> example, say, it's quite possible said NPC has been narrated into a
> position where they're at a considerable disadvantage to winning the
> fight, but are far from 'cornered'. You potentially then have a choice
> of how to model this: fiat (he runs away); same contest, maybe with
> some ad hoc sit-mods to 'compensate' for his (now frankly
> inappropriate) AP position; or new contest (very possibly just a simple
> one). The last seems to me to be the least frustrating, done right,
> not the most so.
You say that the AP situation is inappropriate but turning your back and fleeing combat isn't a real good way of preserving your life - maybe slightly better than staying in a fight you're losing but in now way similar to a normal foot race (that a resetting of AP would imply).
> For me, I'd try to confine it to same contest with new sit-mods, or new
> contest with carry-over/wounds, but the how and which I'm not making
> any 'written down' suggestions regarding, no.
That's a shame - I was hoping you might persuade me! :-) Reading your post my mind was wondering how you could do it. It could be a "yes, but" situation. What if you said to the players "yes we can start another contest but you convert all of your lost AP into hurts for the purpose of the next contest"??
That might be worth considering or might not and it keeps the value of the previous contest...worth considering?? Even if you made it a simple contest to run away then there would be one roll to see whether the man escaped though his attempt would be hindered by the bumps, bruises and possibly real damage in the fight that preceded it.
To properly model this you would also have to convert the AP lost by the pursuing forces into hurts?
> > APs are nothing to do with the narrative - they are metagame stuff
> > that helps me decide how two competing visions of the future of the
> > narrative might be resolved.
>
> Which is to say, they're everything to do with the narrative. The AP
Perhaps not as clear cut as I implied but I think problems arise when you link them too closely to the narrative.
> totals as-is correspond (in an inexact way, obviously) with existing
> established past events of the narrative; if those past events have
They correspond to previous actions that 'appear' to have established past events. Slight difference but one consistent with the difference between 'it feels like the troll has broken your arm' and 'the blow from the troll broke your arm'. If it only feels like it then it isn't an established fact - that is only revealed after the contest is over. Nothing in a contest is established until the end.
Percieved advantages appear and disappear and are only proved true or percieved once the contest is over. As such they have an impact on the narrative only after the contest is over and show how far an action might cvontribute to bringing the contest to an end.
> But AP totals in a contest don't measure decontextualised Overness.
I'm not sure I understand that but I applaud your use of decontextualised in the converrsation! :-) I don't think I've ever used the word...
> They measure how close one or other side is to achieving a _particular_
> goal, as explicit or implicit in the course of the contest. A change
I think another problem here is that if you too closely define what a contest is then it throws up problems when, quite naturally, players wriggle on the hook! :-)
I'd say they measure how closely one or other side is to achieving an advantage over an opponent. Given that, the goals might switch depending on the actions and indicated goals.
> in goal may be essentially consistent with the previous one (abandon
> current sub-goal in favour of a new way of doing what you actually want
> to achieve overall), in which case fair enough. But if that's not the
> case, why are those AP totals still relevant, except to the degree they
> happen to correspond to past events that'd facilitate or hinder the new
> goal? What are they actually now measuring?
They are measuring how much advantage one party has over another. Past events give some measure of how successful immediate changes of goal might be given the current level of advantage or disadvantage they are at.
Stephen
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