>From: Brian Curley <bkcurley_at_...>
>But if you're losing a contest, unless you switch to a goal and an ability
>which gives you a very good shot of taking your opponent out with a single
>action, then you're probably still going to lose the contest because when
>it comes to the opponent's turn, they're going to go back to the ability
>they were kicking your butt with to try and finish you off. Your APs don't
>change. You're still losing the contest and if you have an ability that's
>so much of a sure thing, then why weren't you using it before your APs got
>so low?
Three points:
1. Some players don't play to win, but to have their character do what seems
sensible or is interesting. So some people just start with less than their
optimum ability. In this case, the player knows that he'd be better off with
seduction, but starts with debate maybe because he knows it'll be fun to
switch abilities in the middle of the contest to seduction. I mean it sounds
like fun. I try to engineer things like this all the time myself in play.
2. Sometimes shifting to a new ability will give an improv mod. If the player was uncertain at the start what such a mod would be, then perhaps changing is a somewhat desperate attempt to get a better roll. So in this case, he starts with debate thinking that it's highest in this case, but then switches over to seduction because he hopes that the narrator will give him a low improv mod and improve his situation.
3. In any case, to switch, the character has to give up his original goal. It is a "failure" from that POV. That is, if he's trying at the beginning to convince the princess of something (or an audience), he's going to not do that by switching goals to seducing her. He, instead, is only going to seduce her if he wins. So the player might be loathe to start out with seduction, because he wants to try to convince her. He switches because he's settling for this other, more likely to succeed perhaps, goal.
In play I've seen players take on all sorts of new goals in the middle of contests, for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes inspiration just hits them.
In any case, even if the "one big shot" doesn't work, and the character is still likely to go down because the other character is still going with their primary winning tactic, that still won't stop players from trying these things. Heck, it's even interesting if you know you're going to lose. I mean, again, kissing the princess in the midst of the debate is fun to do even if it means certain defeat.
Mike
Powered by hypermail