HP Transference

[Mike Holmes]

If I understood the numeric result level system correctly, it would need to be modified for extended contests, I'll certainly give it some thought though.

I'd probably use this with something like a chained simple contest system, instead of extended contests. At the moment, I just switch to the chart for ECs. But you could do a simple one like this:

Level 0 - Lower roller loses AP Bid
Level 1 - Lower success level loses double AP Bid
Level 2 - Transfer double bid from lower to higher
Level 3 - Transfer triple bid from lower to higher.

Might make bumping too valuable, I'm not sure. But it's doable.

Mike

[Mandrake]

I'm running a playtest of a possible convention scenario, I'll try some of this out then, see what happens

[Mike Holmes]

"This" in this case meaning allowing bumping down of the opponent when you roll a crit? Or the extended contest table I posted? Or other stuff earlier in the thread? :-)

Mike

[Mandrake]

bumping crits and numerical success levels. I think there is a way of using numeric success and the full extended table, might take me a few mins with a spreddie though

[Tim Ellis]

I'm not particularly keen on Multiple HP spend, although it's not a major problem - It does potentially mean a player can "force" a result without really trying, just by throwing HP at the dice roll until it becomes a success.  Also even when failure might be interesting the competitive element will often mean the player "wants to win" - and while they will accept the dice dictating otherwise, given the opportunity not to lose may choose to take it anyway.

Players spending HP to Bump other players does sound mostly reasonable, though you may want to require them to be participating in the contest to start with (possibly by augmenting, or by loaning AP, or because it is some sort of group contest anyway) rather than just popping up to affect the result out of nowhere.  You might also want them to narrate something to explain the way that fortune smiles on their chosen party. (In some cases the player may be chosing to spend HP to bump another player down...)

Concerning a player not wanting to have their result bumped - either always allow a player to refuse to accept the bump (cancelling the bump to avoid penalisng the "bumping" player) or allow them to spend their own HP to cancel the bump (this depends on whether you consider the "active" player should have primacy over the group in deciding the issue or not) - You may wantr to allow a player to spend multiple HP's in this case, to prevent player A failing a roll, Player B bumping him to a success, Player A bumping down then Player C bumping back up (is the rule 1HP per player, or on HP per side?)

I'd sooner not have trading of HP's, it's all a bit "Meta-game-y". 

[Mike Holmes]

Well HP are a metagame currency. Or, at least that's how I view them. So, from that POV, it really doesn't matter if a player has a character involved either (even from an in-game view, I could argue that it's fate or something). So, for my purposes at least, that drops out of the equation.

I like the counterbumping idea you have. In fact, it brings something up. Can a player bump down? Let's say that they decide that they want their character to fail. Should we stop them from bumping down?

This gets quite messy in terms of what the player is an advocate for. That is, from one POV, contests in HQ occur when a player wants X to happen, but it might be dramatic if Y happens. Put another way, to date if a player has said that he wants his character to fail, then his character fails. There's no drama in the contest, and nobody is going to be satisfied with a win, so why roll?

But allowing bumping down would alter that slightly saying that the player was an advocate for drama alone, not just the character's well-being. Might have far-reaching effects on other parts of the game.

Mike

[Jane]

. For one, I'm going to assume that players can have contests with other players (though by one reading of the rules this can't happen).

Just so you know - in a game at Continuum that Neil ran, almost all contests were between players. Some were internal to a PC, between two of his personality traits. And every PC ended up dead :). This was one of those games where what was provided wasn't so much a scenario as a set of pregen characters with "issues" - the GM then lighted the blue touch paper and stood back.

In terms of HP, what happened was that we never bothered to bump, because after quick discussion the first time, we realised that the other player would counter-bump, so why bother?

[Mike Holmes]

We refer to that as "Blood Opera."

Most of my play resembles this in that we have tons of contests between the player heroes. Here's the thing. Yeah, most of the time nobody bumps, because of the potential to be countered. But sometimes what happens is that a player will say to the other that he will not counter bump if the other does bump. Because sometimes it's just more fun for your character to lose, or you don't want to win at as high a level, or whatever. Basically such contests are even more fun, IMO, because together the players have even more control jointly of how the contest may turn out.

Three options: Neither bumps (or both do for emphasis), Side A bumps uncountered, or Side B bumps uncountered. That's one more option that the pair of players have than if they were alone in the contest.

Mike