Can a Producer Split his Budget for one Conflict?

[Judaicdiablo]

Here is the situation:

There is a conflict with multiple Protagonists.  The conflict is determined and the stakes have been set.  I am the Producer and I decide that I want to win one of these conflicts more than the other.  As I read the rules, I put forth my budget and that budget applies to all conflicts in that scene.  We flip and decide as normal.

Question 1:

Could I spend seperately on each Protagonist if I wanted to? 
I.E.  2 Budget for everyone but 2 extra budget for just one of the Protagonists. 

I know that Matt wrote this in another topic:

Oh, Matt did that for no good reason, they all think, and this way would be much more fun. Bah! Learn you nothing from Vincent's animated diagrams? Play as written or taste the whip (like in the Burning Wheel 'Deviant Play' lifepath)!

It was early in the first pilot and if I went too strong, the Protagonists would likely have all lost their stakes.

--Brandon

[John Harper]

The rules don't support this approach. I think you could do it without screwing things up too badly. The question is, do you ever really need to do this?

It was early in the first pilot and if I went too strong, the Protagonists would likely have all lost their stakes.

This makes me go hmmmmmmm. In PTA, losing stakes is always okay. A set of stakes is a fork in the road. You resolve them, and take one fork or the other. There should almost never be a time when a player must absolutely win the stakes in order to have fun. The characters want to win, of course, but the players should be interested in either outcome. If they're not, the stakes may not be the right ones to begin with.

[John Harper]

As a follow-up, here's an example of a conflict in which every protagonist fails. And it rocks the house.

From this AP of Tony's game on RPGnet: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=217509

Basically, we had a whole mess of conflicts:
Ivan: Control the situation
Miranda: Get to Ivan before anyone else
Johnny: No Petrovs get hurt (Sean? October? Screw 'em)
October: Control Ivan

Every single one of those failed simultaneously. The dice said S had to narrate. He came through with flying colors: Ivan totally lost it, shot Sean (as mentioned) got smacked by October but not controlled and then in the tousle S narrated that Ivan shot himself. Then Ivan escapes, leaving a blood trail out the back door.

Awesome.