Clay Luther wrote:
...
> 3) On our first night, combat proved quite exhausting for us and a
> little tedious. First, let's talk about the tediousness. Because the
> players were closely matched to the opposition, they were NOT willing to
> wager extravagent AP bids in combat;
...
> This tediousness lead to
> exhaustion because we were trying to describe the combat vividly --
> being good "story-tellers"
...
> rules advise. After a while, with our mental stores of creatively
> describing minor combat results were exhausted, combat descriptions
> degenerated to "I swing using 3AP -- oh, you win, he forfeits 3AP".
If you know that the two sides will be cautious, you could resolve
the entire combat as a simple contest rather than an extended
contest. The rules do say that the Narrator should decide the type of
contest on how dramatic it should be.
But that still leaves the problem of unexpected caution during an
extended contest. Perhaps we need some rules for contracting extended
contests (that is, converting the remainder or an extended contest to
a simple contest).