Paul King:
> > That's because your character *is* actually entangled. It would be
> > very confusing to have all sorts of "possible" results within a
> > contest.
Stephen McGinness wrote:
> OK. This is where we trip up all the time.
>
> Being entangled is a definite result that I would require a contest for. An
> exchange within a contest does not provide such a definite result.
I think we're tying ourselves in unnecessary logical knots, here. The implication of what you're saying is that either no-one is ever entangled (by anything, at all), unless we specifically had an 'entangling contest'. Which gets us right back into the 'too many contests'/'contests with too narrow a goal' type issues.
There's no real reason _not_ to have 'you're entangled by a tentacle' as the result of some suitable action; I think you're needlessly conflating this with action outcomes that are logically harder to reverse, come the eventual result. (e.g., you're shot in the arm; oops, you're all better again.) If you want to avoid this, fair enough, but I think the implication that this is "not the HQ way" is incorrect.
> In the abstract place where contests take place, the character being
> entangled is a narrative description that seems to be the case but is easily
> shrugged off by the next successful exchange by the character.
If that's how you ran all the contests in a game I was playing in, I'd seriously begin to think "why are we even bothering with the descriptions?", since your view of contests seems to be that they be not just wholly abstract, but in an effectively entirely dissociated state from the description.
> No, but like Simon said, the shifts in circumstances are reflected in the
> change in AP totals. In the game mechanics nothing else is required to
> reflect those changes - you don't need to add in additional penalties.
This is pretty dangerous logic. If all the 'applicability' decisions are made at the start of the contest (or might as well have been), then it very much begs the question of what one is actually playing out an extended contest for (other than getting to roll more dice, and play the AP bid min-maxing meta-game). Surely the point is to elaborate the details of the narrative, precisely _because_ the way it's elaborated may a difference to the outcome. (For penalties read bonuses, without loss of generality, lest we needlessly sound more swinging than generous, for all the difference it'd make.)
Cheers,
Alex.
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