>From: Light Castle <light_castle_at_...>
>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?
Yes, this is what I keep trying to get at. First, try to have the goals of each side indentified before the contest. This may or may not be explicit in the rules, but if it's not, make it an explicit part of your procedure. Now I'll be the first to admit that I don't always accomplish this before hand. In that case, if it becomes a problem, as soon as I see the spectre of such a problem coming up, I'll stop and ask what the goals are.
Because once you have these nailed down, as I've said, then it becomes pretty obvious what's going on. In fact, at that point, I think that the players start thinking in terms of whether they're changing their own goal, or acceding to the other character's goal. That is, they don't think, I'll kiss her, and see what happens, they think, "I'll alter my goal, so I can use some other abilities and try to beat her to the end of the race."
That is, if the players understand that it's about who gets what goal, then they will many times tell you what they're doing when they change goals, or admit defeat. No guessing. Those players in my game who really understand the system well do just this. Yes I have to serve as monitor, but I haven't seen anyone try to abuse this yet.
Mike
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