>From: "L.Castellucci" <lightcastle_at_...>
>
>The "limited to opening AP" has bugged me as well. (Especially as it
>determines the amount you can use in a desperation strike. )
>
>Now, I am given to understand that amount of AP isn't nearly as important
>as
>target number (and that has been my limited experience) but it still
>sometimes seems odd.
It's simply a rule for dramatic pacing. If you're going into an EC, you're committing to at least a couple of rounds. Else why bother with the EC? If you wanted to resolve the contest in one roll... use the Simple Contest rules.
>In addition, if you don't believe that rolls are always against an ability
>of
>the opponent (which - I think - is the position of the book) does that
>mean
>that the AP is determined by the resistance? (I've thought so.)
I extrapolate this from the notion of having ECs against things like Forests, Crypts, High Towers that Need Climbing, etc. They don't get ability ratings. So they shouldn't be ECs? If doing ECs with them is OK, then what else do you use for an AP pool?
>Now, I have not ever had chained simple contests adequately explained to
>me. I
>understand the logic in principle - you carry over successes in some way,
>but
>no one has presented me with mechanics for it. (Since the system only gives
>out penalties and not bonuses, how does that work? Do you use something
>like
>the Hero Questing rules, with carryover bonuses? Is it like a series of
>variable augments? How do you decide when it ends? )
As Jane says, you can just use the normal rules for this. That is, if you lose a "round" of dealing blows back and forth with a minor defeat, perhaps your character has been slightly injured. The resulting -10% is applied to the next contest. And so on and so forth until somebody "gives" (to use the term from Dogs in the Vinyard).
To me, there's a danger with using "Chained Simple Contests" this way. And that's that it'll tend to put one back into "Task Resolution" mode. They may assume that, in all cases, if they fail at something, they can simply take another shot at it, perhaps with a penalty. "I swung my sword, but missed, so now I swing again." This voids the very important concept of "no repeat attempts."
ECs do not void "No repeat attempts" because, in fact, they are just one contest with one goal that in the end produces a final result that stands.
The problem with a chained contest allowing repeat attempts is complex. But one part seems easy to understand. Let's say that your character is fighting a Broo. You get a minor defeat from the broo. This could be narrated as you being wounded, as above, and you could declare another "attack" and continue on. But, let's say that you get a minor victory...
What does the narrator do?
Does the Broo fight on? This would be the traditional approach, the Broo keeps fighting on until a Complete Victory result. This is great if you want traditional gaming where every fight has to result in death. But it also means that every lock picked will result in the lock being picked, or the character getting some sort of obverse "dying" level damage. It's a step backward for people who want the resolution system to resolve conflicts, not just individual tasks.
There are other issues, too. But when the narrator should have the Broo cease fighting is the most obvious case. Stopping short, when the player will probably press until the Broo gets a Complete Defeat will just feel odd. It's like the narrator is letting the player off light. Again, this leads to the "swing away until dead" paradigm.
Now, that said, if the goal of the contest really is changing in some way, you can "get away" with a something like a "chained contest." That is, let's say that the player declares a goal of "I'm trying to injure him." OK, he gets a Minor defeat, and the narrator says that the opponent is injured and fleeing. OK, now if the player declares that his character is attempting to run down his opponent and kill him - he was hoping that the oppnent would surrender - then we have a new contest with new goals.
The key is in identifying accurately the stakes of the first contest, such that we can know what's a valid new contest for the next.
As I mentioned, in Dogs in the Vinyard, this is called "Escallation." If the player is willing to accept more or different failure conditions, then the narrator should feel free to allow a new contest, even one that leverages off of the penalties that occured in one just previous.
It's all about a sense of dramatic importance. Each contest (simple or extended), should resolve something important to the players. Not the characters, the players. If the players are truely invested in several stages escalating up to somebody potentially dying, then that's great, go for it. Just don't let things go that way by the "accident" of thinking that one can just get multiple bites at the same apple. That's dull, and what the system is designed to avoid (IMHO).
Mike
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