Re: Changing Goals in Extended Contests (Was:Digest Number 2198)

From: Light Castle <light_castle_at_...>
Date: Fri, 05 Aug 2005 17:46:33 -0400

Sorry to have asked a question and then vanished, but I had to go 1) actually play a session of my HQ game, and 2) Book a ticket to Ottawa for the weekend while scheduling a trip to Boston next week.

All to say this vanishing act of mine will continue for a while. :)

On Fri, 2005-05-08 at 14:51 -0500, Mike Holmes wrote:
> See, this is where the trouble starts. With the assumption that there's one
> goal in a contest. There are two. Usually these are diametrically opposed,
> and often established by assuming the opposite. But not always. Consider:

Exactly. And all my original question/comment was about was that sometimes figuring out when things have sufficiently changed enough to warrant a new contest is still not always obvious to me. I happen to not think there is a hard and fast rule for his, it is more a question of gradually improving judgement calls.

> Character A wants to kill B, and B wants to kill A. Typical.

And easy.

> But just as often Character A wants to kill B, and B wants to flee from A.

> In the second contest, if B changes his goal from flee to kill A (turns to
> face him, perhaps realizing he can't outrun A), then he hasn't allowed his
> opponent to obtain his goal. He's merely changed his goal. The character
> should only go to zero if/when he accepts his opponent's goal. Giving up on
> your own is not the same.

True. But there is also the question of whether or not this amounts to a new contest completely or not. By the laws of dramatics, you can argue that this just moves over B's tactics and goals. And, given that this change really has no change over A's goals, I would keep AP exactly where they were before B changed tactics.

Now, A and B are in a race. As B begins to slip ahead, A decides to kill B. Do the AP stay the same?

> Now there may be situations in which you can't reasonably change to a
> certain goal, without allowing your opponent to win. But the barbarian and
> princess situation is not one of them. Just because you kiss her, doesn't
> mean that you've accepted the premise of the original argument. You've just
> changed tactics and your goal.

Actually, it sort of depends on who you are trying to convince, right? IF there is an audience judging the debate, mightn't they conclude you've conceded?

LC