trooper versus cavalryman
There are three actors, the trooper (swear like a trooper 2W), cavalryman (ride horse 2W, pigheaded 17, big horse 10W) and the bridge (hard to cross 5, i.e. not particularly narrow or high).
The trooper acts first. He could just take an action against the
bridge to cross it, which would automatically suceed if unopposed,
as thats something no hero should ever fail at.
But he is smart, and realises the cavalryman will just block him
with his big horse (fast 14 versus horse's large 10W, small chance
of winning).
So instead he insults the cavalryman, winning a few AP. The
cavalryman is starting to look a bit foolish.
The cavalryman responds in kind, but loses again, and the trooper continues taunting him (cavalryman now down to 8AP).
At this point, the cavalryman finally realises he should be playing
the game on his own terms.
He bids 5AP to cross the bridge, again an automatic success if
unopposed.
At this point, the trooper could try something to oppose the
cavalryman. If he tries 'swear like a trooper' now, a W2 (2
masteries) penalty sounds about right, only truly heroic swearing
could stop a cavalry charge.
Assuming he does something else that plausibly could work
(e.g. 'dirty fighting' to cause the horse to rear up, 'relationship
to unit' to get his friends to block the bridge, or something
magic), then he has a chance of winning.
So assign applicability penalties, roll, handle AP transfer as
normal.
Trooper wins: cavalryman still on far side and very nearly defeated.
Cavalryman wins: bridge out of contest (i.e. crossed), but trooper
still in it
Alternatively (amd IMHO this is the smart move) the trooper just lets the cavalryman across. Unopposed action, no AP transfer, bridge out of contest.
Now if there was a specific reason for the bridge being important (e.g. a bet), then the cavalryman wins that bet. But in any case, _the trooper is still in the contest_, his action points are not 0.
So he carries on mocking the cavalryman. He wins, the cavalryman bursts into tears, is humiliated, and loses the contest.
In short, with a group extended contest you don't win when you beat one opponent, but when there are no opponents left. There is no 'win', there is just making everyone else lose. And the consequences of losing come from the thing that made you lose, whether it was humilation, a magic curse or a sword through the guts.
nutting the lawspeaker
There are 3 actors, the plaintiff (sword and shield 4WW, intimidate 1W, debate 16 after augments), the lawspeaker (debate 2W, fight like an old man 8) and everyone else present (horde of heortlings 5WWW).
The lawspeaker acts first, makes his point, makes his roll.
Cut and thrust for a bit, but soon the plaintiff is down to his last APs.
So, desperation stakes, he draws his sword and swings. He gets the usual penalty for not having a shield, but othewise full skill value. Violence is, after all, always an option, and debate can rarely stop it. If someone such as a court guard is present and close enough, they might get to oppose that action.
Otherwise, roll and the poor lawspeaker very likely loses. If so, he is out of the contest. Losing the contest by physical means he is wounded or dieing. Sucks to be him, should have stood further away. Either case, the rest of the court has to decide what to do now.
horde of heortlings 5WWW versus intimidate 1W (narrator rules he can plausibly intimidate everyone at once, so avoids the massive multiple attackers penalty he would get if he tried to fight them all) and only a few APs left, I know which way to bet. So likely the 'hero' gets chopped into small pieces. Again, the thing that caused him to lose the contest was physical, so he takes physical consequences.
But just conceivably he intimidates the whole court (maybe he has a lot of followers present), in which case the tribe takes the loss, and suffers the penalty of being intimidated by him. I guess thats one way to become a de facto tribal king, although I doubt it would end well...
For both of those cases, this way of handling things makes narrative sense. I can see the first one happenning in a Richard Sharpe novel, and the second is practically a cliche in cop movies (unmask villian, he makes a final futile attempt at violence that very rarely takes more than a few seconds of screen time). From this viewpoint, the APs 'really' represent the page count the author has assigned to the conflict scene, if he spent a lot of time detailing the verbal humiliation of the officer then the actual fight could be dealt with in a sentence, whereas if they met and started fighting immediately the battle would probably be more detailed.
>From a gaming viewpoint, it also works because you want the conflict
to take the amount of time it should take and then be resolved, not
drag on at the expense of the rest of the game. In addtion, everyone
gets to make strategic choices, and there are no artificial limits
on what they can do, just penalties and bonuses to the roll.
Finally, from a simulationist viewpoint, APs usually works out ok, representing fatigue, positional advantage, running out of mana/ammo, etc. Sometimes it all makes perfect simulationist sense, sometimes less so. In the lawspeaker case, maybe the plaintiff only has a 90% chance of killing the lawspeaker when 'realistically' they would have 99%. But if it comes down to a choice, give me a fun game telling a coherent story over an accurate simulation any day.
There is only one thing I would change about the rules in this area as written, which is that instead of starting an AP total from the first skill used and subtracting from it, I would start an 'AP lost' count from 0 and subtract that from the active skill value to get current AP. This avoids the current massive penalty for, say, trying a bit of diplomacy before the fighting starts. You still may lose a bit of face, say 5 AP, but when the combat starts you are at your combat skill value minus 5 instead of your diplomacy skill minus 5.
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