An alternative to Extended contests

[Vaxalon]

I just got the book a little while ago (after playing in Mike's IRC game for months) and I can't see why anyone would want to run an extended contest.  They're way too "mathy" if you get my drift.  I just don't get what AP are supposed to measure.

So here's my alternative...

"Staged" conflicts.

Let's say you have a chase scene.  The PC is on a city street, being chased by the local constabulary.

The GM sets up the following stages:

1> Market Square
There's no room to really run, this contest is about one's ability to shove or intimidate their way through the crowd.

2> Main street
A straight sprint

3> Dark alley
The PC uses stealth to try to lose the constables.

In stages 1 and 2, unless the guardsmen or the PC get a complete success in the contest, they merely set up modifiers for later stages, according to the consequences chart on p. 74.  Only in the last stage is the final outcome determined.

Alternately, stages can continue until someone at the table says, "Okay, this has gone on far enough, this one's the final stage."

The GM can make all the stages, or all the participants can take turns.

Fights can have these stages too.  Imagine a samurai duel:

1> Preparation
Each samurai spends the night before in quiet meditation, preparing his weapons and armor for the duel at dawn.

2> Staredown.
Each swordsman focuses his will and attempts to make the other samurai back down from sheer grim determination.

3> Iai!
Each swordsman draws his blade with a shout. The better technique gets an advantageous position.

4> Clash
Blows are exchanged and wounds are traded.

5> Finish him!
The climactic final moment, when everything is on the line.

If you look carefully at most any conflict situation, you can create at least three or four stages if you look closely.

[Mike Holmes]

I just got the book a little while ago (after playing in Mike's IRC game for months) and I can't see why anyone would want to run an extended contest.  They're way too "mathy" if you get my drift.  I just don't get what AP are supposed to measure.

They measure relative dramatic potential of the involved characters. Given that you can bid pretty much any amount of AP, it's all about players controling the pacing of the resolution.

I don't say it's perfect, but I think they work OK.

Anyhow, I've seen systems proposed like your Staged Conflict system, and there's nothing fundamentally wrong with them. But I have some concerns (in fact, I've given just this subject quite a lot of thought). The first is with flexibility. At first you say the GM sets up the stages, and then you say that the players do, or that they take turns...which is it? If, in fact, the players are making up the stages as they go, then how is this really any different than the current simple contest method?

That is, take your samurai showdown example. Player says, "I prepare the night before for the duel." The narrator says roll, and a mechanical result occurs. Cool, that's the normal simple contest method in action.

(I will say, however, that the way the rules work, it's a stretch to get the mechanical result work here, since something has to be penalized. That is, if both characters prepare, then you could compare their preparation abilities against each other, and penalize the loser as being relatively unprepared. But if the contest is just against a default difficulty for preparation, then is it really kosher to penalize the opponent? There are no rules for getting bonuses. See my thread on "Penalizing the World" for an option that allows this explicitly.)

But, worse than this, you may inform players that it's OK to do "task resolution." I mean, if you're in a swordfight, then why not allow "I swing at him" as the action? To be clear, even actions inside of ECs are actually task resolution - by definition you're only concluding the conflict when somebody gets to zero. But that's the point. When do we establish the goal in this system? When do we know that we're going for conflict resolution, and not some partial task resolution?

In an EC, you can change your goals and tactics and such, and the AP remind you that there's still an overall conflict that's pending. What's to remind you in the staged contest thing that this is the case? If you want to retain the flexibility to change goals and such, then isn't it possible to simply go about task to task and never reach a conflict goal?

What I think this demands is, at the very least, some sort of declaration step each "round." Where the player declares if he's closing out the overal contest, or changing his goals.

By the way, if you do this, this collapses the two systems into one. That is, a Simple Contest is simply a Staged Contest where the player declares that he's closing out the contest for the conflict resolution on the first round, correct? I like that elegance.

But, again, I think you need to have something rigorous in place to ensure that players don't lose track of whether a particular step is a conflict resolution, or a task resolution, and also something to produce bonuses or allow penalizing the world.

Note, too, that a system to provide bonuses could be, in fact, a replacement for the Variable augment system. Or, from the other perspective, you could use the variable augmenting (fixed, of course, I think it's problematic as is), to gain bonuses. So that samurai preparation contest, is simply testing his meditation ability to see how much it augments in this contest. You can stop and have a strength contest to see how much it's helping (instead of using just the standard augment). Again, this would streamline things nicely.

Thoughts?

Mike

[Vaxalon]

Anyhow, I've seen systems proposed like your Staged Conflict system, and there's nothing fundamentally wrong with them. But I have some concerns (in fact, I've given just this subject quite a lot of thought). The first is with flexibility. At first you say the GM sets up the stages, and then you say that the players do, or that they take turns...which is it? If, in fact, the players are making up the stages as they go, then how is this really any different than the current simple contest method?

Good point.  Who sets up the stages DOES need to be straightened out.

(I will say, however, that the way the rules work, it's a stretch to get the mechanical result work here, since something has to be penalized. That is, if both characters prepare, then you could compare their preparation abilities against each other, and penalize the loser as being relatively unprepared. But if the contest is just against a default difficulty for preparation, then is it really kosher to penalize the opponent? There are no rules for getting bonuses. See my thread on "Penalizing the World" for an option that allows this explicitly.)

But, worse than this, you may inform players that it's OK to do "task resolution." I mean, if you're in a swordfight, then why not allow "I swing at him" as the action? To be clear, even actions inside of ECs are actually task resolution - by definition you're only concluding the conflict when somebody gets to zero. But that's the point. When do we establish the goal in this system? When do we know that we're going for conflict resolution, and not some partial task resolution?

First, each stage has to be fundamentally different from the one before.  That separates it from "I swing at him again" which sucks.

In an EC, you can change your goals and tactics and such, and the AP remind you that there's still an overall conflict that's pending. What's to remind you in the staged contest thing that this is the case? If you want to retain the flexibility to change goals and such, then isn't it possible to simply go about task to task and never reach a conflict goal?

I hadn't thought about changing goals.  That does make a difference.  I'll have to think about that.

What I think this demands is, at the very least, some sort of declaration step each "round." Where the player declares if he's closing out the overal contest, or changing his goals.

By the way, if you do this, this collapses the two systems into one. That is, a Simple Contest is simply a Staged Contest where the player declares that he's closing out the contest for the conflict resolution on the first round, correct? I like that elegance. /quote]

That elegance is what I was getting at.

Note, too, that a system to provide bonuses could be, in fact, a replacement for the Variable augment system. Or, from the other perspective, you could use the variable augmenting (fixed, of course, I think it's problematic as is), to gain bonuses. So that samurai preparation contest, is simply testing his meditation ability to see how much it augments in this contest. You can stop and have a strength contest to see how much it's helping (instead of using just the standard augment). Again, this would streamline things nicely.

Thoughts?

Mike

I'm going to have a look and come up with a more refined version.

[Mike Holmes]

First, each stage has to be fundamentally different from the one before.  That separates it from "I swing at him again" which sucks.

That certainly follows Robin Laws' design theory. "No repeat attempts" and the Feng Shui "boring description penalty." I'd be tempted to simply make this an improv mod sort of thing.

How about:
1. Player A declares his goal, or change of goal, and whether or not he's closing out the contest for that goal.
2. Player A declares his character's action that will lead to either the task resolution, or the conflict resolution.
3. Generate TNs based on the action(applying modifiers from the previous round), and roll.
4. If it's a close out, then determine the stakes results as usual. If it's not, then apply the appropriate penalty.
5. Go to the next player or the narrator for a turn starting with number 1 above. Continue to go around for each character who is participating directly (characters augmenting do not get their own round).

That look about right?

Other things Mike likes about this sort of concept:
1. Characters can get penalties along the way to victory, without resorting to the 7AP for a -1 Hurt kludge. With an EC, if you win, you come out unscathed with no concessions at all.
2. AP lending goes out the window, which simplifies things (no double whammy for outnumbered penalites, and for facing higher AP). This does raise the question what happens to augmenting parties. In ECs, nothing happens. It could be as simple as, "depends on what action is taken" meaning that the character is only hurt when lending if they're specifically targetted. Or, alternatively, augmenting characters could suffer along with those they augment.
3. This solves the "unrelated action" question. That is, it's basically the solution that I've suggested before. This does imply potential nested contests, however. Which I think is problematic in theory, but which I think we'd see little of in practice (and which could be cool when it is seen and appropriate).
4. Players have more dramatic control (like they do with ECs). That is, instead of closing out when it's unlikely to come to a Complete Victory, a player can push for penalties to pile up until bigger victories are possible. One thing that's not covered so far is the idea of Parting Shots and Distraction comebacks. Basically escalations. Using this system, how do you model, say, a villain who is beaten, but who tries to make a tricky diversion and backstab the victor (which, in the EC system can put him back in play, or worsen his overall condition)? Simply have an additional contest with the same modifiers? Might work. Same with players pushing for worsening the condition of a down character. Does this require a bump in stakes - like the rule you have above implies? Might make for good escalation mechanics (note that somebody else suggested this method to me, not my original idea).

I think of of the largest problems that I have with this system is that I think it'll see even less use than the EC system. Oh, as the "variable augment" mechanic, perhaps. But not in terms of breaking up larger simple contests into smaller sub-tasks. Basically, once you've discovered that you can skip the task parts, it becomes very attractive to do so. Only #4 above combats this, I think.

Uh, like I said, been thiking a lot about this idea of late.

Mike

[CCW]

A while ago Brand came up with another approach to extended / simple contests:

http://games.spaceanddeath.com/yudhishthirasdice/55

[Vaxalon]

I think Brand's idea and mine might be fusable.

Still thinking.

[Lorenzo Rubbo-Ferraro]

I've been pondering this a bit lately too – in between playing Shadows and very basic D&D with my 5 year old son. HQ is way to math heavy and conceptually harder to grasp than the aforementioned games for a child his age, but something akin to Brands idea did cross my mind. It's crude and unthought out but this is what I was thinking:

Since there is usually none or one difference in masteries in a contest why not use numbers instead of fractions to make it even easier. Run simple contests as per rules and add penalties and bonuses to the narrator character only – this means the player doesn't have to mess around with changing his abilities (especially good for kids).

PLAYER GETS:        OPPONENT GETS:   
Complete Victory        Complete Defeat
Major Victory              -10 to ability
Minor Victory              -5 to ability
Marginal Victory          -1 to ability
Marginal Defeat           +1 to ability
Minor Defeat               +5 to ability
Major Defeat               +10 to ability
Complete Defeat         Complete Victory

Now there are two ways to win a contest: by Complete Victory or by reducing your opponent to 0. As the contest unfolds you simply inform the player of what he is up against each round.

The only problem with this is that if the opponent starts winning considerably, it could be a long contest until a Complete Victory is attained.

Like I said, it's just off the top of my head. Thoughts?

Lorenzo.

[Mike Holmes]

Two things.

At first I was going to complain that the method was bad because it would take forever for high ability beings to get whittled down, but that's not true, since the odds shift, and eventually you'll get the Complete Victory. I still think it's a problem, however, in that, unless you get to a complete victory, that a guy with a 10W4 losing only -10 doesn't compare to his normal -45 for a major defeat (and at 5W2, a hero is still pretty good at that level).

Second, when playing FTF, if a player is slow, I do all the math for them anyhow. So I've never run into that problem in play. That is, I've run HQ for my 5 year old, and it went fine. He just told me what he thought pertained to the situation, and I didn't even tell him the numbers, but just the outcomes.

Mike

[Lorenzo Rubbo-Ferraro]

I'm not sure I get you. Firstly, I mean the final ability score (after augments) and also should say the effect is only temporary, after the final contest the ability is restored.

But in your example of the Hero with 5W2 against an Opponent 10W4, the masteries cancel each other so there is only a difference of two masteries. With a difference of two masteries above your opponent you have a 95% chance of victory – hardly worth a contest; wouldn't it be better to declare an automatic success/failure?

So, seeing the difference of masteries will usually only be one at the most, there shouldn't be much more than 20 points difference in most contests. Or am I missing something?

[Vaxalon]

Okay, here's another crack at the idea.

Let's call it the "Before that..." rule.

Someone proposes a conflict:  "That sounds like a conflict." or "I'd like to roll on that." or "Oh no you don't..."  and proposes stakes.  "What's at stake is whether Okhfels catches Bubert."

Before that roll is made, the proposal can be made to make it a Staged Contest.  There are three main reasons to do this.  First, is to allow someone to pull in traits that otherwise might be hard to explain.

"But first, Bubert has set confederates along the route, to get in Okhfels' way and trip him up."  Note that Bubert's "but first" speaks to a time BEFORE the present moment of play!  If Okhfels' player accedes, then Bubert gets the augment for his confederates to the main conflict with no roll necessary.  But if Okhfels says, "Okhfels has his own informants and agents in the camp... he might have found out about Bubert's confederates beforehand."   New sub-stakes are set, having to do with pitting the two organizations against each other, to see which one can better prepare for the chase. 

The second reason to use a Staged conflict is when there are complex, interrelated stakes.  "Okhfels wants to win the fight, but first, he  wants to drag it out and make sure that Isadora gets away" is this kind of conflict.  They can't be rolled together in one conflict, because it's concievable that Okhfels could lose, and Isadora still get away.  Generally speaking, the stakes of this kind of conflict will suggest the stages that are necessary.

The third reason to have a staged conflict is to allow for more creative input for cinematic scenes, such as chases.  In this situation, I would have the entire table (those participating in the scene, and those not) take turns suggesting stages.  This helps keep folks at the table involved.

[Vaxalon]

... continued...

A conflict to bring in traits is handled on the following table:

Complete Victory — 1/3rd of the attribute as a bonus to you or penalty to them
Major Victory — 1/4th of the attribute as a bonus to you or penalty to them
Minor Victory — 1/10th of the attribute as a bonus to you or penalty to them
Marginal Victory — +1 to primary attribute or a -1 penalty them
Marginal Defeat — -1 to primary attribute for you or a +1 bonus to them
Minor Defeat — 1/10th of the attribute as a penalty to you or a bonus to them
Major Defeat — 1/4th of the attribute as a penalty to you or a bonus to them
Complete Defeat — 1/3rd of the attribute as a penalty to you or a bonus to them

NOTE: Brand's table makes the mistake of making 1/3 easier to get than 1/4!
NOTE: If you think you will be defeated badly in one of these contests, it is to your advantage to accede rather than get hit with a major or complete defeat

In complex, interrelated conflicts, early stages can modify later stages in strange ways.  Generally speaking, the question at hand is, "What is the price?"

Complete Victory — You achieve your goal with flair, and gain a bonus of 10%
Major Victory — You achieve your goal without significantly impairing your effort
Minor Victory — You achieve your goal but suffer an impairment in the next goal, penalty 10%
Marginal Victory — You succed at your goal but suffer a debilitating impairment in the next goal, penalty 50%
Marginal Defeat — You fail, but do not suffer a significant impairment in the second goal
Minor Defeat — You fail, and weaken your efforts by it, penalty 10%
Major Defeat — You fail, and suffer a debilitating impairment, penalty 50%
Complete Defeat — You fail utterly on both goals

[Mike Holmes]

Lorenzo, my example wasn't between two characters. It was the effects of your system vs. the normal system on one character. So I was agreeing with you in terms of it not being too bad for the initial contest.

What I've been thinking, however, is that these penalties are normal penalties and do not go away. As such, I think I'm going to miss the -50% reductions that suddenly make another 5W2 character a challenge to a formerly 10W4 character.


Fred, first, I don't think that there's any need, again, for a rule about multiple sets of stakes. It already exists. You do the first simple contest, and then do the second simple contest. Your version has the added depth over a simple contest that a character can get a victory and yet also aquire a penalty, true. But with these EC rules we're hashing out, I think you can do each of these separately too. That is, hold em off long enough till Isadora gets away can be it's own EC - which can result in failure or success and penalties or bonuses for the future situation - and then the contest to win the fight can be an entirely second EC.

Basically I think that the idea of keeping one set of stakes per EC is a good idea. I also don't mind combining stakes much, but I feel that if you feel it's worth splitting out, that it's worth two contests. The question of whether either merits an EC is dependent on the contest.


As for Brand's system, this is basically what we'd talked about in terms of incorporating the variable augments, simply using another system for the variable augmenting. Brand's system has the advantage that it's always balanced in terms of return. But it's imbalanced based on the narrator's contribution, the TN. I mean, let's say that I'm trying to simply find out how much impact my strength has on the situation. What do I test it against? If you're saying that this is not the sort of thing that's "brining in" an ability, then you're saying that I should only ever auto-augment with an ability in this case? Even if I can figure out a way that it's "bringing in" the ability, then what TN do I set as the Narrator? If it's not simply the ability against itself or something and I test my character's ability against, say, another's the problem is that I'm being doubly rewarded for having a high ability. That is, I'm more likely to gain a benefit, and if I do it's higher.

Also, Brand's system is such that there's no gambling. One thing I like about the variable augmenting system is that the player has to decide how far he's pushing the ability.

And, yet again, if it's worth a die roll then I'd think of it as comparable to stakes. That is, if you want a "lead in" contest like you explain, you can do that with the rules now as they are. I think that simply having a contest to push for a penalty to your opponent is quite kosher. From another perspective we're both simply saying that chaining contests together is fine is all.

Here's a possible solution to all of this. Instead of using the opponent's TN for variable augmenting or something set by the narrator, put the gambling back in, and allow the player to set the resistance for the roll. Then, instead of using the character's ability to calculate the payoff, you use the resistance. So, for example, if I have a Strong 17, I can go against a 17 for even odds at getting a benefit or a penalty. If I get a Major victory, I'll get a +4. Instead, I can push my luck, and go up against a 7W, in which case, a Major victory will net me a +7 instead (or a -7 on a Major Defeat).

This is better than the current Variable Augment system in that it's balanced in terms of return, but still has the problem that at high levels of ability you can find sweet spots. For instance, if you lowball a 10W4 ability going for a 10W2 resistance, you're going to likely get a +12 or +17 augment as opposed to the normal +9. An easy way out of this problem is to say that the minimum resistance is equal to the ability rating. Note that I think that this will make doing so the optimal strategy. But people may find it fun to push anyhow for drama's sake.

Anyhow, I think this solves the long-running problem with the Variable Augment system being broken, but I don't see how it changes any of the other thoughts here.


As to the idea of passing around the rights to set up stages...that's intriguing, but I see the EC system as a way for the player to highlight his own character, especially in terms of getting to declare creatively how his character is advancing on his goals.

What I think we're running into here is that there seems to be a conflict between players chosing to have an EC in the first place, and then being incentivized to close it out immediately. That is, in saying we want an EC, we're saying that we want more than one round, where things are drawn out for dramatic reasons in getting to the stakes. If we don't want that, we do a simple contest. But the system seems to incentivize players to close out contests to avoid draining HP, and because in many cases (when you're behind, for instance) it's the tactically sound thing to do. Especially if you're trading arenas on each round, and want to get the largest effect from your own arena.

A simple solution for illustration's sake, would have us make all ECs four rounds long. We'd do this for the same reason that we might want to pass around control of "stages" for instance, because we want to make sure that an impartial third party is ensuring that the contest stays open as long as is dramatically important. The problem, however, where I protest, is that this takes away a player's input into how he's solving the problem by delineating the stages for him. Sure we can define the chase by segments down Broad Street, and then up Winding Way, but what if the player wants to take a short-cut through Rovir's tavern straight to the end of Winding Way? Do we really want to tell the player no? I don't.

So what we need to do is to have some way of monitoring the drama of a situation such that the contest is not "rushed," but which does not limit the actions a character can take. This is what AP do in the original system (though, I'd admit, not too well). One way to do this would be to penalize closing out early. Allow it, but make it the tactically unsound thing to do instead of incentivizing it. This could be as simple as giving the player a penalty to closing out early. It could follow the penalty track:

Round One - Like being under a Complete Defeat, you simply aren't allowed to close out on Round One. If you wanted to be able to do so, you should have gotten it to be a simple contest instead.
Round Two - Like a Major Defeat, you have a -50% penalty if you try to close out this early on. Find an action that gives you an advantage instead!
Round Three - Like a Minor Defeat, you have a -10% to closing out this round. Now you might be thinking about it, and might take it, especially if you got some advantages on round one or round two.
Round Four - like a Marginal Defeat, you have a -1 to close now. This is a nominal fee that says, "Think about going another round."
Round Five - Like a Tie, no modifier. Time to start thinking about ending this sucker.
Round Six - Like a marginal victory, you opponent suffers a -1 to his TN if you close out (take it before your opponent does!)
Round Seven - This must be an important contest for you to have stretched it out to the point where your opponent might take the bonus to close out. If he let you, you can close now and, like a Minor victory give him a -10% on his chances.
Round Eight - You're both crazy! OK, somebody's getting a -50% Like a Major Victory. You must close out now, unless you get to go first next round and you think your foe is suicidal because...
Round Nine - Like a Complete Victory, if your foe lets you get to this point, you can simply win...and since he doesn't have a TN, it's automatically a Complete Victory level of victory for you.


Eh, sounds like some fun, but it lacks elegance and has some of it's own potential problems. But you see what I'm getting at...give the player an incentive to risk staying in the contest.

You know, combined with Josh's reward system, if you gave a reward for every round (or even roll), that might do the trick.

Mike

[Vaxalon]

Good point... a reward for every round does give an incentive to keep the conflict open.

Still thinking...