>Once again, I've done this a lot in actual play, and nobody ever bats
an eyelash.
You have different players than I. ^_^
>All I can say is that it's a pacing mechanic, as far as I can tell,
and it's not supposed to make any in-game sense.
Well, if that's the case, I'll ignore it when I feel it is dramatically stupid.
Also, I think this is a case of something that may work differently in HQ2 vs 1 given the different nature of the extended contest pools.
>Now, I can see how you might find this odd in some ways. Like, OK,
we've fought back and forth with swords for a while, and now I'm running
away, and all of my progress in the fight counts towards >running away.
How can it, if the effort was put into simply standing still?
See, THAT one seems completely easy as one flows into the other.
>But, again, it's simply a dramatic timing mechanism. Put it this
way... we could have resolved the entire conflict with just a simple
conflict, right? Where there was no pool of points at all being bandied
about. >So if I did that, would that have been an abrogation of the
meaning of the points?
Um.. no. But if you did the whole contest with a simple contest, then as
a result of what happened, started a new contest with new goals (I lost
the fight. So now I run away.)
Part of the point of an extended contest is to focus in and allow new
decisions, right?
I suppose you can say "once a contest is started, it must be played out until someone wins or disengages" and that might make some consistent sense. In order to change goals, you need to disengage and start a new contest.
>No, it's a dramatic tool, in my view. You use it or you don't, based
on drama, and changing your goals even after "progress" has been made,
is just as appropriately dramatic. Take a look at examples from >movies
or literature, and character changing their minds last second about what
they're about is a common feature. The action doesn't necessarily reset
to extend the conflict just because a choice was made.
>In fact, often when such a choice is made, that's immediately when the
conflict ends.
Often. And sometimes not. And sometimes it is the same contest, and sometimes it is setting a new contest up that moots the original contest.
>Luke puts down his light-sabre. And suddenly it's no longer a physical
fight with his father, to defend himself, but a fight for his father's
soul on mental territory. Yeah, even with his AP down by three >quarters...
Ok
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