On Thursday 24 Mar 2005 8:44 am, Sam Elliot wrote:
> > ...why fix the duration at five rounds?
>
> Three reasons (conflated in my earlier posts - sorry)...
>
> 1. Fix the number of rounds (or fix the bid proportions) pre-hoc...if
> (big if) that gamist element somehow contributes to the drama
> 2. To model something in the narration which is linear (for the sake
> of argument) like the contribution of the rising sun, if (big if
> again) this contributes dramatically.
I've already commented why I don't think that fiddling with the Extended Contest mechanics will help in these cases (but YECMV).
>
> 3. If the narrative so far does include something which is fixed - a
> series of contests at a fair with a winner declared at the end.
> Perhaps best done with the carryover rules (I was mistaken earlier -
> I did understand those rules, but had been confused by the HQ stages
> and so on, but the rules didn't grab me as fabulous). As I said, I'm
> not a big fan of contests at a fair, perhaps as I've never partaken,
> but I feel I'm missing a trick.
>
Time, I think, to step back a moment and consider what Extended Contests are essentially about. ECs are all about the decisions the actors make in each exchange. Those decisions concern the risks the actor will take (represented by the AP bid), balanced against the potential reward (based on everyone's current APs). If there are no choices available to an EC participant about different risks to take, that participant should not be making bids. (Read that last sentence again: it's important.)
So, take your fair example. Let's make it more specific, and make the contest throwing balls at a coconut shy. Most coconuts knocked off is the winner. If I'm taking part in that contest, what meaningful decisions can I take about the amount of risk I'm running from throw to throw? Surely, with each throw, I'm doing my best to knock off a coconut? Every one of my actions, each throw, is identical. As there are no decisions to make, there are no bids to be made, so there's no Extended Contest. You could make each throw a Simple Contest or just have a single SC for the whole lot of them.
But, I hear you say, what about cheating on the throws? What about gamesmanship? What about making loud comments that question the parentage of my opponent in an attempt to get him rattled? Surely these all involve making decisions about risk and reward, and so make suitable EC fodder? And I agree, all those things are suitable for an EC. *But*, you've now made the focus of the contest not throwing balls at coconuts, but hampering my opponent. The contest will involve abilities like 'Insult' and 'Stay Calm'; many exchanges in the EC can take place between two successive throws; and defeat for one actor means that they're rattled enough that they can't throw straight enough to win. It's also probably more fun to do.
Now, the symmetry of EC exchange outcomes means that not all participants in an EC need to be actors that make decisions and propose bids. Either side can gain or lose APs as a result of an exchange, so it doesn't matter if only one side is bidding the APs.
One of the first ECs I ran involved a bunch of PCs having to climb a mountain. This was an important event, so we did it as an EC. The mountain had a bunch of APs, so did the heroes. But the mountain, as a lump of rock, can't make decisions and so can't make any AP bids. But as a narrator, I can use the mountain to present interesting decisions to the players, so that they can make the bids. For instance, they could have a choice between going straight up the cliff (difficult, so high resistance; risky, so large AP bid) or taking a longer but safer sheep trail (low resistance, and small AP bid). If the contest was 'get to the top before noon' as opposed to 'get to the top safely', I'd probably make the sheep trail the higher resistance due to the time it would take. At each exchange, the heroes get to make a choice, APs are bid, and the result determined.
None of this is new: I said essentially this when Hero Wars first came out (see http://home.freeuk.com/wimp/roleplaying/narrator-tips.html#3 ).
On Thursday 24 Mar 2005 10:13 am, Ashley Munday wrote:
> Another thing the clock gives you is a greater variety
> of outcomes.
This is a reasonable point: having multiple participants in a contest can give the poor, harassed narrator some support in narrating an interesting outcome. I'm not sure it's worth all the hassle of trying to channel the innermost thoughts of a mechanical device to determine how risky the next 'tick' will be.
> I'd like to stress again that this is only
> "necessary"* if there's a reason for an external agent
> to become involved. For example you wouldn't need it
> for defusing a bomb (the actors aims are "go bang" and
> "stop it going bang"), being chased by a boulder
> ("flatten the intruder" and "run away!") or almost any
> sort of combat ("Kill 'em" or "kill 'em").
The bomb and the boulder can't make decisions, so can't be bid-making actors in an EC. And in those cases, the defuser and the chasee aren't making too many interesting decisions either, so there's a strong case for saying both contests should be resolved with simple contests.
Neil.
-- Neil Smith Milton Keynes Roleplaying Games Club neil_at_... http://www.mkrpg.org.uk http://home.freeuk.com/wimp/ Honorary Life Member www.SADWargamers.com
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