Wulf responded:
>Real world example: If you haven't got a spanner, use a pair of
>pliers & brute force... how many ways can THAT backfire?
I don't see how this example applies since we are not talking about improvised feats but using a skill exactly as it was met to be... e.g. augmenting Close Combat with Dodge.
After thinking about this more over the past few days I've come up with a few ideas myself. Example: I have dodge of 3w (possibly spending all of my HP's from 2 or 3 entire gaming sessions to raise it from 17!) and am seeking to get a bonus of +2 (or edge of +4) to my Close Combat ability. I roll a 12 (failure bumped to success) and the 'environment' rolls an 8 (success). The environment rolled lower so I get a penalty -2 or handicap of -4. What happened? The only explaination that makes sense to me at all here after some thought is that the environment of the contest was strong enough to not only stop me from dodging during the entire contest but actually make me extra clumsy. It would have to be that the ground was really rough, I had a headache, I had trouble sleeping the night before, etc.. I'd have to be careful here since another contest happening 10 minutes later could easily give me a +2 bonus so I'd better be able to recover quickly from whatever was giving me problems. Therefore the bumpy ground makes more sense since the ground is more likely to change for the next (soon after) contest than my headache.
This mechanic seems very central to the entire game and yet is so little discussed while obtuse points about heroquests and such seem to be such hot topics... I'm not sure if most narrators just ignore the description and say, "you get a penalty of -2 during this contest" and forget describing what is happening e.g. "because I (or the rules) say so" or if they are using something similiar to the above best explaination in the case of using appropriate skills and ending up with large penalties via a bad roll.
It almost seems as if it would make much more sense to cap how high a bonus/edge players can go for and have minor defeats count as 'no effect' since explaining that a player doesn't dodge effectively during the contest is much easier to narrate than a penalty. It seems to make more sense in terms of mastering something also since trying to do something and failing is MUCH more common than an attempt screwing you up if you are half decent at it.
A.K. Berner
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