Well, good question, and I think, good answer. To sound must unlike myself, I'm not proposing any quick mechanical fix, I'm really just suggesting that there many on occasion arise situations which aren't necessarily best covered by (rerere)rereading pp70-71, and applying 'em mechanistically. There's the small matter of p7, too, after all.
> Using Alex's "nut the lawspeaker" example, I have meandered to the following
> whilst typing:
>
> The attack is made as part of the same contest requiring a desperation stake
> level AP bid: you are about to break all social conventions by offering
> violence and is nutting the lawspeaker really going to help your position in
> the debate. The attack is made using "relationship to clan" or similar,
> versus the lawspeakers equivalent: the physical effects of the attack are
> (possibly) less important than the social consequences of your action.
That's a very plausible construction, actually; certainly it'll kill or cure that contest, chances are... OTOH, it doesn't completely tidy things up, since we may want to run the (new, physical) contest as an EC too (assuming the old geezer is 'a bit handy' himself, and this becomes part of the evening's entertainment, let us suppose). And if the result of the one depends on the result of the other, then we're perilously close to The Dreaded Contest Nesting (gasps of horror from the audience).
> The physical effects of the attack could be resolved as a (simultaneous)
> unrelated action: this may mean that one or other party may be in no fit
> state to continue the debate.
Well, for that reason it's not strictly speaking unrelated...
> I guess what I'm trying to say is that whilst you may perform an action
> which you perceive as attempting to change the goal of a contest, it's
> important to look at the action in the light of the original contest.
That's exactly what I'm struggling to say myself; thank you.
Cheers,
Alex.
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