> I'd run a situation like this in this way: [...]
> GM: "Ok, you're walkign off down the alley feeling dejected."
> Player "I draw my sword and go back to attack the bouncer."
> GM: "But the bouncer persuaded you that it wasn't worth it and to
> peaceably go on your way."
Well, that might as well have been posed as an _actual_ loss of the contest, the way you phrase both examples, so it's not really the case in point. If the contest is over, it's over, and we apply consequences as appropriate, and see what happens next. And your suggested difference between the way you suppose I'd narrate it, and the way you suppose you would, is that I seemingly fail to impose any consequences at the end of a contest, on the self-described defeated party -- a curious lapse on my part! I feel I must flame myself for lax GMing at once. Though hopefully someone will save me the trouble. ;-)
> Note if the player had wanted to change to a combat part way through,
> he would have had to do so retaining the orriginal AP total.
No, this is where we're actually in disagreement. Firstly, notice you're constructing the examples in terms of whether the first contest is 'over' or merely 'part-way through' -- which is the very point at issue. The player ought not to be concerned about that at all -- he ought to be determining what his character does in narrative terms, not second- guessing the best mechanism to resolve it. (Though sure, I'm well aware of the gap between 'oughta' and 'gonna' here.) In both cases the PC is going essentially the same thing, just couching it in different mechanical terms (or in the case of your version, spiking his guns before he gets the chance to fire them). Whether the first contest has been conceded, and whether the new thing the player wants to try is a different contest, is something the narrator has to judge for herself.
i.e., what I'm supposing is that the player says something like, "This conversation is getting me nowhere, I attack him", leaving whether this is a concession and/or a new contest and/or a valid thing to do anyway, essentially up to the ref.
> The bouncer is trying to pacify and cool him down, and has done very
> well so far, so the player's character won't have his heart fully in
> the combat.
But that's pure supposition about how the first contest was actually narrated, _not_ something that can be supposed from the mere fact that it was lost/about to be lost/conceded. If it was such a situation, fair enough, I'd resolve it that way too. But we might equally well suppose the first contest was conducted on a "yer no' ge'in' in" (apologies for Scottishness of bouncer)/failure to persuade him to let me in basis that does _not_ leave the PC calm-yet-disspiritted in such a way as to forestall or render ineffective followup violence. (This'd be pretty clear one way or the other from how that contest actually went, of course, and goes back to the eternal question of goals -- what it this contest going to actually resolve, from the _doorman's_ pov, is it "calm the punter down", or is it "haughtily and aggressively keep out the riff/raff"?)
Cheers,
Alex.
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