At least two other people also said they did too. The point is only now being defined I guess.
> From re-reading bits of the conversation, one of the
> things he'd like to run a contest bound by something
> external to the main protagonists in the contest.
>
> One of the ways of handling this is to add another
> side to the contest. To complete the football theme,
> you'd have three sides in the contest: Team A, Team B
> and the clock.
That's a neat idea, unless it deprotagonizes the players or doesn't work dramatically as Neil suggests.
> lock picking example. The clock would generally have a
> far greater "tick" ability than the other
> protagonists, as it allows the GM to pace the contest.
> If it's dragging on too long, the clock can get more
> aggressive in it's AP bids 'til one or both teams
> loose.
A heads up to the players in advance that the clock will be bidding a greater proportion of its AP each round could work in this then, giving the exact proportions - 10%, 20% etc. That would get across the lifeless, mechanical, steadily advancing nature of the opponent; it could act against the characters' Steady Nerves and so on, AP changes narrated purely in terms of the PC's - you drop the pick and can't see it for the life of you, and time is running out vs. your nerves steady and your hear a comfoirting click from within the barrel.
> Dunno if this is sort of thing Sam was looking for: If
> anyone's interested I can post an example.
Yes I think it is (my original post had several things in, this seems to answer one of them without forcing the constraint into the fixed number of rounds idea which may not have been great). The lock and the time element could be blended into a single opponent, though, to keep it simple.
Complete transparency and rigidness about the escalating bid proportions would work in this context, always allowing for the players to take it in a completely diffrent direction.
> Cheers,
> Ash
Think I'm getting somewhere here - thanks. Sam.
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