A Question About Simple Contest Stalemates -- The Giant Tick

[Scripty]

This question should be easy to answer, but (for me) it isn't. In fact, I don't much have an answer to it. It is most likely that I am thinking about it incorrectly or, perhaps, have the wrong take on the situation. But it has come up before in a couple of contests, and I think now I have the vocabulary to at least identify it as a cognitive speedbump for me.

Take a normal warrior facing off against a Giant Tick. The warrior wants to either kill or drive off the Tick. Now take the Giant Tick. It wants to suck the blood out of the warrior. A simple contests ensues and the Tick gets a Minor Victory.

Now, under the rules, the warrior takes a Hurt. But the Tick hasn't *really* succeeded at its goal and neither, really, has the warrior. Should another contest be attempted? Should I rule that the Tick fed until it was full and then left (while the warrior laid there paralyzed) and now the paralysis has worn off? Should I have ruled that, since the Tick was intending to *kill* its opponent that it needed a Major or Complete Victory and, therefore, failed? What about the warrior, then? Should the same stipulation apply to him? Further, what would I do if both sides required a "Complete Victory" to succeed at their stated objectives and then neither obtained one?

This type of Simple Contest Stalemate has come up only a couple of times. I have identified it, but honestly don't know much how to handle it. As evident from my flood of posts and questions, I'm fairly new to this system. This is one bug (pardon the pun) that has me sort of perplexed. Has anyone else come across this? How have you handled it?

Thanks in advance for any advice you might could give. I am also posting this to the Yahoo-hwrules group to see what they have to say.

[Peter Nordstrand]

Hi Scripty,

Actually you already answered your own question.

If the Tick gets a Minor Victory, then it is victorious. It is not a tie or a stalemate, but a victory. If it tried to suck blood from the warrior it succeeded. The warrior suffers a Minor Defeat, and is Impaired, meaning that he suffers a 10% penalty to all appropriate abilities for a week or so unless healed with appropriate magic or skill.

That's the rulesey bit. What really happens is up to you to decide.

What you *do* know is that the warior is Impaired and the Tick managed to draw blood. That is the only part not open for interpretation.

Finally, I'm going to cut and paste a bit when quoting you. I hope I'm not misrepresenting what you are trying to say.

Now, under the rules, the warrior takes a Hurt.

Well, no. He is Impaired, as stated above.

But the Tick hasn't *really* succeeded at its goal and neither, really, has the warrior.

(snip)

Should I have ruled that, since the Tick was intending to *kill* its opponent that it needed a Major or Complete Victory and, therefore, failed?

The goal of the Tick was to kill? (I don't buy that, but that's a different matter. Clearly the Tick's goal is to feed, not to kill, but ... well ... never mind. That's not the point here.) Anyway, the Tick does not suceed in killing his opponent, but he *does* wound him.

All you have to do now is to decide how that happened. You know the result in rules terms, now what could have happened during the contest that lead to that result?

Should I rule that the Tick fed until it was full and then left (while the warrior laid there paralyzed) and now the paralysis has worn off?

Sounds reasonable. You've got it!

Should another contest be attempted?

Absolutely not! Remember that a Simple Contest represents the entire contest. How long did the fight between the warrior and the Tick take? That is up to you and your group. Half a minute? Half an hour? You decide.

Should I have ruled that, since the Tick was intending to *kill* its opponent that it needed a Major or Complete Victory and, therefore, failed?

(snip)

What about the warrior, then? Should the same stipulation apply to him? Further, what would I do if both sides required a "Complete Victory" to succeed at their stated objectives and then neither obtained one?

A Minor Victory is at least a partial success. Yes, some contests are obviously all or nothing contests, requiring nothing but a Complete Victory, but these are *very* rare. If you can think of a reasonable way for someone to be partially successful, then you should allow that to happen.

To summarize the Simple Contest:

1. Determine what the contest is about.

2. Roll dice. Determine outcome in rules terms.

3. Interpret the outcome. What happens in the game world? (This interpretation does affect what abilities, if any, that the penalty for losing applies to.)

The last step is important.

I hope this helps.

Cheers,

/Peter Nordstrand

[Scripty]

Thanks, Peter. That does help a bit. Sorry that I got the Minor Victory thing mixed up. I meant to say Marginal Victory (oops!), hence my whole -1 tangent.

I guess my mental disconnect is occuring in step 3. A large part of this is due to not having *played* HeroQuest ever. HQ is one of those games that I'd really like to play first and then attempt to run. But, as is so often the case, I'm the first one on the boat in my area...

Your statement that my interpretation (the tick's bite paralyzes the warrior, the warrior is left Hurt or Impaired after the paralysis wears off...) is a valid approach helps a great deal. However, I guess I'm mining here for a "How would you do it?" answer in order to get an idea of how others might approach the situation. For purposes of the example, please disregard my statement on Minor Victory and, instead, consider the Tick to have gotten a Marginal Victory.

As a side question, how do you adjudicate this contest (and others in HQ) and maintain dramatic or rising tension? It seems to me that the result is already done and the description here is left the task of narrative tension. For example, here's how it plays out thus far with my group:

Me: "You're lying still with your hand on your weapon, thinking that this rummaging noise might be a raccoon. But it's not. It's a Giant Tick. And it's out for blood..."
Player: "I hit it."
Me: "With your weapon?"
Player: "Yeah, with my battle axe..."
Me: (with a nod to Mike Holmes) "So, you want to kill it?"
Player: "Oh Yeah! I have a 4W..."
Me: "M'kay. It's up to a 9W with all its augments..."

(dice rolls)

Player: "Yes! I have an 4. That's a success bumped to a crit!"
Me: "You both have masteries, so they cancel out."
Player: "Oh."
Me: "It rolls a 3. A success it has a Marginal Victory..."
Player: "Bummer. I still try to whack it."
Me: "You try to whack it, but flail weakly. Your blow is deflected off of its hard chitinous shell. You have succumbed to its Paralyzing bite..."
Player: "That sucks!"
Me: "Ah, but it only drinks its fill..."
Player: "It only had, like, a Marginal or something. I should've gotten to whack at it again."
Me: "But that's not how this works..."

---------------------------------------------------------

Is this how everyone else does it? It seems to me like there should be a bit more in regards to guidelines for narrative rights here. Often, I'm left to interpret the rolls. What if the player had rolled a Major Victory instead? Could he have narrated events? To use Forge terminology, I'm often at a loss to determine who "has the ball" and when to pass it. I think I'm up to a point of familiarity where I can run the game okay, but I know I'm not at my best. I'm only at about 82% or so. I want to be at 120%.

Now, do people ever do it like this...

Me: "You're lying still with your hand on your weapon, thinking that this rummaging noise might be a rat. But it's not. It's a Giant Tick. And it's out for blood..."
Player: "I hit it with my battle axe..."
Me: (repetition is key) "So, you want to kill it?"
Player: "Oh Yeah! And I have a 4W..."
Me: "M'kay. It's up to a 9W with all its augments..."

(dice rolls)

Player: "Yes! I have an 4. That's a success bumped to a crit!"
Me: "You both have masteries, so they cancel out."
Player: "Oh."
Me: "You try to whack it, but flail weakly. Your blow is deflected off of its hard chitinous shell. You have succumbed to its Paralyzing bite..."
Player: "That sucks!"
Me: "Ah, but it only drinks its fill...it had a Marginal Victory. You're at -1. You awake the next morning sore and groggy, but otherwise fine."
Player: "What did it roll?"
Me: "A three." (shows player) "Now, let's roll a contest to see if you've contracted any diseases..."

--------------------------------------------------

Conversely, has anyone done this...

Me: "You're lying still with your hand on your weapon, thinking that this rummaging noise might be a wombat. But it's not. It's a Giant Tick. And it's out for blood..."
Player: "I hate those. The last one left me paralyzed, like, all night. I'm going to kill that sucker with my battle axe. I'm at 4W..."
Me: "M'kay. It's up to a 9W with all its augments..."

(dice rolls)

Player: "Yes! I have an 4. That's a success bumped to a crit!"
Me: "You both have masteries, so they cancel out."
Player: "Oh yeah. I forgot. Damn, I always roll fours!"
Me: "It rolled a 12... "
Player: "Woohoo! Die bloodsucker!"
Me: "You impair it..."
Player: "I don't just impair it. I impale that sucker, yelling "Take this back to your family!" the whole time! I'm sick of these things always sneaking up on me when I'm in my sleeping bag. I chop it and splatter it all over..."
Me: "...and it limps away weakly, crawling under the nearest crevice in the rockwall behind it."

Alternately, I would've probably just let the player kill the tick if it had no further impact on the storyline (i.e. the Tick wasn't a Big Bad shapechanged into a Tick or something). For instance, if it's a mook, I have no problem with dusting it, if that's the direction the player *really* wants to go.

I think the examples in the HeroQuest book were great, but I felt I could've used a few more. Is it okay to reveal the results of the dice roll through narration? Is it okay to allow the players narrative rights when they succeed? Is it okay to pull the reins when they've gone too far? Using the second example above, could I have extended the scene through Narration describing in detail to the player the effects of paralysis and how the tick slowly crawls on top of him and sucks blood out of him? With the contests being so short, we seem to breeze through and gloss over so much. It seems that, for us, the end result had always been the die roll. That's obviously not the case in HeroQuest.

How do you guys do it? It's not so much a question of understanding how it's supposed to be done (which I think I do). For me, it's more of a question of conceptualizing its application at the table. Sometimes, it's easy. Other times, I'm at a loss... I realize I'm sort of searching here, but I'm just really concerned about "getting it right" I suppose. Hence, I'm concerned that approach X might be better than approach Y, but approach Z is how Lael said he does it, etc., etc.

Barring the obvious and near comic absurdity of my next question, is this normal?? Do any (or all) of the examples above reflect what you guys actually do with HeroQuest?

EDIT: Added more questions. Typical for me...

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

I suggest that everyone in the group gets to look at all the dice, all the time. And that the concept that, in most cases, a Simple Contest is over when it's over, has to get articulated. This is quite hard for many role-players and represents the usual squint-eyed attention on task resolution rather than conflict resolution.

But the point is to get that concept across through example and necessary exercise of authority very consistently during play. When they see that you don't have your NPCs keep fightin' after they've been Marginally Defeated, then they'll accept that it's a fair way to conduct a game.

So once that understanding has been internalized, the player doesn't run ahead narrating his victory like a Pool player on speed, because he - just like you, the GM - is looking at the dice too, and knows what a Marginal Victory is.

Now for the squishy part. I should point out that it wouldn't be entirely unreasonable to permit the player to attack the tick again in a new Simple Contest, if he demonstrates that kind of enthusiasm. Why not, after all? The point is that he has beaten the tick, marginally, but now why not go to town? So that his ravings aren't narration of the Marginal Victory, but themselves a new announced action.

That's a tricky wicket, and I suggest considering it to be a "bend" on your part. As I said before, it's best when everyone knows that once the dice have hit the table, and once all the bumping and Hero Pointing is done, that the conflict is over. If that's the default understanding, then a little bending to permit a new Simple Contest once in a while is OK.

Finally, about your normality ... I suggest that most if not all people who consider themselves "experienced role-players" are actually terribly marred in their ability to role-play, compared to newcomers. By which I mean, not the ability to depict a character, but in their ability to establish what happens in the imaginary situation without all sorts of weird self-imposed stumbling blocks. So, normal? Normal for a role-player, which is to say, in playing HeroQuest, at least on the road to recovery.

Best,
Ron

[kalyptein]

Your discussion touches on something I'm still trying to grasp.  I've read in several threads the exhortation to have the players state the goal of their actions, the "I hit it" vs "I hit it with my axe and slice its head off".  In addition there is the advice to let the roll stand as the conflict resolution, so if you win the contest and your goal was to slice its head off, you did.

But if you get a marginal victory, or heck, anything short of a complete victory, how can you have cut its head off?  I don't think decapitation can be considered a Hurt in anyone's book (I'm assuming an opponent like a human or something, no automatons or undead).

So either you honor the intent, and any degree of victory means death, in which case the degree of victory becomes irrelevant, or you tone down the result from the intent.  But if you do that ("Um...your axe clips his neck as he hurls himself back, he's bleeding and injured"), then the contest isn't over because the player hasn't reached his goal, and logically enough he wants to keep going and finish the job.  In which case its not conflict resolution anymore, its something more like a traditional round of combat.

This seeming paradox is to me the biggest stumbling block to my understanding of conflict resolution mechanics.  On the one hand, mechanics that inply degree of success in a stated goal, on the other, stated goals that do not admit degrees of success.

Is the solution just to ask for intentions but require them to permit varying degrees of success?

Alex

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Alex,

Is the solution just to ask for intentions but require them to permit varying degrees of success?

In a word, yes. It seems to me that in articulating your question, the answer appeared to you right there in the post.

More specifically, it's worth thinking of the term conflict as clearly as possible. Changing "I hit it" to "I cut off its head" is actually not quite on target for defining conflict. The player is now shifting to discussion of outcomes rather than resolution, which has its problematic aspects. As a GM, if I were to hear that, I'd edit it in my mind to "end this conflict by killing it." The cutting-off-head-business is then a matter of degrees of success in doing so.

My personal approach, then, in the case of a Marginal Victory, would likely be as follows: the character wins - the fight is over. It is clear to any observer that the character employed lethal force/intent. But the decapitation did not wholly occur; it is marginal - that is, a wound on the neck. The opponent stops fighting for whatever reason makes most sense at the moment, whether it's fear after experiencing a potentially-fatal strike, or whatever. If it were an animal, I would probably have it flee; a human(oid) foe might flee or beg for mercy, or simply yield, depending.

Best,
Ron

[Ian Cooper]

Ron and Peter have it right here, but just want to add that once players become used to the results as conflict resolution, not task resolution, they often direct their efforts to improve the level of victory. The simplest example is the parting shot in an extended contest, which allows the player to try and drive the opponent to a worse defeat. If a player questions why he could not just run though his opponent before he fled (because this is how you are describing the marginal victory), explain that the parting shot was his opportunity to do this. In addition players in our game, often bid high even when close to winning, with an eye to the final position not just driving someone below 0. In addition it is not uncommon for someone with hero points to use them, even when they would win without them, to make sure their opponent is driven to the desired level of defeat.

[Valamir]

That's really a key concept.

The confict is "a physical engagement in which I intend to use lethal force to end the engagement"

Anything beyond that (like the how "I chop his head off") is wholly dependent on whether the roll was sufficiently high enough to permit that level of narration.

With a minor victory, its not.  But regardless of what actually happened...the fight is over.  Its done.  There is no additional roll (for this conflict).  So now what remains is to decide on what a suitable description for the events are.  What actually happened that the character would deem a victory but not the victory he was hoping for.

Well, he won the fight, that's the victory part.  But the enemy was not killed...he didn't achieve that part of his goals.  The enemy may have surrendered or been knocked unconcious or the like, leaving the character (and more importantly the player) with an important choice.  He wanted to kill him in combat...is he willing to kill him in cold blood?

Lets say the narration is something along the lines of "you were mostly in control of this fight the entire time and managed to land a solid blow creasing his ribs.  Thinking better of his choice to cross swords with you, he disengages and breaks for the woods".


THIS is the meaty "takes some practice" part.  Many a player would say "hey wait, I wouldn't let him get away like that"

This is where the GM must interpret 2 things.  First the original statement of Conflict and second how to apply the degree of success to that.  See in the statement of conflict as I summarized it above, the key statement of the conflict was "ending the engagement".  There for anything that ends the engagement without the PC being defeated would be appropriate.  

If the player REALLY wanted to make sure this particular opponent didn't escape to warn others (or whatever) than the statement of conflict should have been along the lines of "I'm willing to use lethal force to prevent the escape of this individual".  See, now the key qualifier for what constitutes a victory includes not letting the individual escape.

How the conflict is defined is also what the GM will use to 1) assign improv penelties or other modifiers, and 2) determine what abilities might be most useful for augmentations and which don't apply.


I strongly recommend new players to actually take the extra step of defining out a formal conflict statement.  Most experienced roleplayers have a set of assumptions about "but what I meant was..." when they make statements about what they are doing.  These assumptions are almost always firmly rooted in "task" based resolution.  The player may have really wanted to prevent the guy from escaping but in "task mentality" saw no reason to announce that until the escape attempt happened and needed to be thwarted.  By practiceing with a formal conflict statement it can help players enter that "ok, if everything went absolutely perfectly, what would I want to happen" state which usually gets right to the heart of what the conflict is about.

[Ron Edwards]

Beautifully stated, Ralph.

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

It's funny, but this is all just another example of the same ability to narrate that we all practice in other games. But, as Ron says, because of tradition, player expectation makes it difficult. When it's really no more difficult than coming up with anything else on the fly.


There's another subtle thing going on here that people are sorta glossing over. Sometimes there is no "winner". In fact, in HQ, that's normally the case. From a certain POV anyhow.

What do we know about the conflict in question?
1. The player wanted to kill or run off the tick
2. The tick wanted to kill the player
3. The tick came out with a marginal victory.
4. The conflict is over.

How can we make that all stand up via narration.

Well, the effect of a mariginal victory can't be made to match the tick's goal. Marginal victory means that he got some positive effect, but not that it accomplished 100% of the goal. This is important, IMO. Only Complete Success means that the goal was completely achieved. Anything less means less than perfection.

So, in this case, I'd simply narrate that there's a fierce struggle, the tick grazed the character's arm trying to get at his blood, and then was driven off. Once you realize that almost all HQ Conflicts end like this, with nobody a complete victor, you quickly become adept at describing them, IMO.

Note that players are constantly telling you that their goal in these cases is simply to end the conflict. Well, that's not really saying anything. Because the conflict will be over after the dice are rolled. Now, that doesn't mean that it's a bad declaration, but it does mean that what they're really saying is that they're trying to make the conflict go away in such a way as to make it harder for it to come back again. Which is what the penalties represent in the case of a success (whether they be applied for injury or some other disability). The -31+ result on a "run off" Conflict would result, in my estimation, in the creature not having the will to ever face the character again (or death if that's what the player wants).

In this case the tick hasn't suffered any disability. Sure, it was run off momentarily, but it's still out there somewhere. It can't legitimately attack right away again*, but it can start a new conflict right off. I'd have it shadow him through the woods. So that later, at some really inappropriate time, it can attack from some angle that will give it a big bonus.

Once you know what the potential results of a contest are, then you can start to better see what makes for a good narration. What you want to do is stay away from invalidating the non-achieved results. But as long as you come up with a good in-game representation of the statistics, you're doing fine, IMO.


Now, the Tick is actually the easy case. Because in the example solution I have, I don't have to worry about the Tick being a protagonist, just the character. Take a harder case: PC v PC. In this case, if the Conflict entailed both characters having a goal of "Combat to the Death", then what does a partial success look like?

Well, this is something you always have to worry about. No matter what the nature of the conflict, there's always a chance of a tie. What do you do in that case? As long as you have an idea of what sort of things make for good interruptions for ties, you can always figure out what makes for the stoppage of a Conflict.

In the case of a Duel, it's easy, somebody intervenes, perhaps. Sure, it's to the death, but Lady Soinso, upon seeing Forgault get scratched, leaps between the two to stop the fight. Or the guard comes along. Or the rain becomes so torrential that one of the characters is carried off in a mudslide. Or a war breaks out. Or a monster comes along. Or their mutual arch-enemy arrives. Or they just fight so long that they both collapse in exhaustion - Forgault's scratch having been aquired in the first five minutes of an hour long battle.

All these things can be used to either indicate that the Conflict was interrupted or end it "prematurely" as an interperetation of a result. Note that if you use this bit, that most of the above present other Conflicts immediately. This is fun. If you do this a lot, your play can just turn into a series of Conflicts. And the fact that Complete Victory is rare becomes an asset.

Another way to "interrupt" is to do something that makes more of a protagonist of one of the characters. This does require you to take control of the PC in a fashion, so be careful. But if you do it right, nobody minds. In this case, the PC who wins the Conflict has a sudden change of heart or something. "Seeing that you've injured poor Forgault, you halt for a moment, and call for him to surrender, which he does, gracefully." Just as a "Dying" result imposes some involuntary reaction (bleeding out, or what have you) on the character, so, too, can any other results. In this case, all that you need to remember is to make both characters look as good as possible for the situation.

The point is that killing something, or any such permenant results are not easily available by the system. They're dramatic and only obtained rarely (often as a result of spending HP). But they don't need to be available for the character to have some related success, or partial success, and still look good. The advantage to partial successes is that the source of the Conflict doesn't go away. It just crawls off to fester for a while before trying again from another vantage. So your antagonists don't go away constantly. Protagonists, too. Let's not forget that what makes the antagonists dramatically durable is the same thing that makes the PCs so durable. Without which, PC death would be a constant problem - as it is in other games that use Task resolution instead of Conflict resolution.

Oh, and one more method, one that's not supported by the rules directly, but seems to be an extension of them, is to make unimportant opposition part of a larger whole. For example, if the character had won against the Tick with a marginal victory, that could be represented as him killing it. But what the character doesn't know (but the player might) is that there are more in the trees waiting for their chance - created by the GM on the spot to enable the narration. The -1 is applied to the next one to threaten him as it's going to be more tentative due to the ferocity of the character. So that one follows him to strike later. This way, you get all the blood you want, but the real success, defeating the ticks so that they don't attack again, is still in the offing.  

This all said, it's always the GM's right to declare that an encounter has been permenantly resolved by even a marginal victory. As he's the player who decides what other characters do, he perforce has the ability to decide that "they just never come back." So don't feel that if you have less than a Complete Victory that you have to bring antagonistic forces back again and again until permenantly defeated. Just do it if it seem like a good idea. IOW, even a marginal victory can mean the final end of an antagonist in terms of story.

Mike

*see Ron's caveat - a player might change his mind and go after the Tick, which seems to me to be totally different goals on his part (hunter become the hunted), and I'd allow in an instant.

[Scripty]

Beautifully stated, Ralph.

Best,
Ron

This is quite hard for many role-players and represents the usual squint-eyed attention on task resolution rather than conflict resolution.

Task resolution vs. conflict resolution. I think that certainly sums it up. Thinking in terms of conflict resolution is rather obviously where I'm having my biggest hang-ups. Any pointers on how you keep this straight when you're running a game? It seems more than just a statement of what a player wants to do at a given point, but rather a statement of the effect the player wants his actions (or what she does) to have in story terms. At this point, I'm having to decipher what that means on behalf of my players. My wife (who is not a roleplayer) is much easier to work with, but, then, she's often thinking more in terms of story than in focusing on the next action she wants to take and no further. When dealing with a new player, how do you keep them focused on conflict, rather than task? Further, how did you keep yourself focused on conflict in story terms as opposed to task when you first began running/playing HeroQuest (Hero Wars)?

But the point is to get that concept across through example and necessary exercise of authority very consistently during play.

I've been doing this, or trying to, rather. It seems a bit anti-climatic from the players' reactions. But, of course, they're focused on task resolution. Hence, I felt The Giant Tick example #2 above was a good compromise between the HeroQuest system and the sort of "Aha!" that they expect from the GM-Player exchange. Is it okay to give-and-take a bit before the actual dice rolls are revealed? I'm not saying that I'm interested in hiding the dice from the players. I don't really have a means to do this as I don't use a GM screen or anything. But I was wondering if allowing the players to determine the result of their actions via description/narration was a valid approach. For instance, after a dice roll and a brief narrative exchange the player states: "I lunge at him with my sword!" Knowing that the result of the contest is a Major Victory for the player, I then narrate how the henchman is skewered on the sword and seriously debilitated by the blow. I either mention afterwards that the result is a Major Victory for the player, or never have to mention it at all. The scene is resolved

So once that understanding has been internalized, the player doesn't run ahead narrating his victory like a Pool player on speed, because he - just like you, the GM - is looking at the dice too, and knows what a Marginal Victory is.

LOL, "Pool player on speed." I like that. One of the players in our group actually goes a bit far in that vein once in a while.

Now for the squishy part. I should point out that it wouldn't be entirely unreasonable to permit the player to attack the tick again in a new Simple Contest, if he demonstrates that kind of enthusiasm. Why not, after all? The point is that he has beaten the tick, marginally, but now why not go to town? So that his ravings aren't narration of the Marginal Victory, but themselves a new announced action.

But another question would be: if the Tick only had a Marginal Victory, would I then follow that with simple contests by the player to resist the Tick's paralyzing poison? It seems to me that the Simple Contests can either be condensed or extended to almost any level of detail. I could, for instance, call for the warrior to do a Simple Contest to maintain his balance on the uneven terrain (if that is truly a factor), then the combat itself, then either a killing blow or the Tick's paralysis, and then, possibly, a "parting shot" on the Tick's behalf. Examples in HeroQuest itself support this to a degree with rules on hordes in the Narrator's section giving examples of combats with one on many doing a roll for each combatant and, then again, doing one roll for the whole shebang.

By contrast, I could resolve all of it in one die roll. Primarily, I was/am interested in how others do it. Call it benchmarking if you will. I am interested in seeing how often these issues come up in other people's games, which approach experienced Narrators take most often and why. I can see where Dramatic Appropriateness can be the deciding factor for me. But I don't assume that it is so for everyone.

...a little bending to permit a new Simple Contest once in a while is OK.

Cool. That's what I'm fishing for. So you use the "one-roll and out" and make additional rolls the exception. You would most likely use Example #1 above, if the situation were to arise in your game. You wouldn't be apt to allow the warrior to fight off the Tick's poison and most likely would resolve it similarly to my own offering. Am I assuming too much here?

So, normal? Normal for a role-player, which is to say, in playing HeroQuest, at least on the road to recovery.

Thanks. What can I say? We are dah-mahj-duh pee-pull. What I'm trying to do here, though, is not re-insert those old stumbling blocks, at least in my eyes. I'm more interested in the presentation of the results of Simple Contests so they don't seem so "stalemated", even anti-climactic, at times. For me, Example 2 above was a good use of presentation. Not knowing how badly they had failed initially would have caught my players' interest. It's dramatic. It seems to me that HeroQuest draws more drama from areas outside of task resolution, which is good to a degree as opposed to games that draw ALL drama out of task resolution. HeroQuest seems to be a game that requires interaction with setting. It derives its drama not from the killing of Black Oak Clan members, but rather from the implications and consequences of those actions. For example, in Mutants & Masterminds, one could play a Spider-Man character without Mary Jane and Aunt May and have a rip-roaring time just beating up the bad guys via dice-rolling and power-tweaking. It's task focused, as you say, and draws the majority of its narrative momentum from these tasks. Using HeroQuest in a supers genre, just beating up badguys would get very stale after a while and you would practically HAVE to have an Aunt May, MJ or some dramatic tie to a villain in order to make the tasks presented meaningful through conflict. It definitely requires that conflicts be connected larger issues, IMO, and, furthermore, requires that conflicts be framed in terms of how they personally affect the character or his environment. A bank robbery on Main St. in HeroQuest isn't so interesting. A bank robbery where the villains are holding your girlfriend/wife/daughter hostage, that seems more likely to work well in HeroQuest.

At least, that's my take on it thus far. Am I close here or invading France via China?

This seeming paradox is to me the biggest stumbling block to my understanding of conflict resolution mechanics. On the one hand, mechanics that imply degree of success in a stated goal, on the other, stated goals that do not admit degrees of success.

Is the solution just to ask for intentions but require them to permit varying degrees of success?

Alex

Good point, Alex. I'm relieved that I'm not the only one taking something away from these discussions.

The opponent stops fighting for whatever reason makes most sense at the moment, whether it's fear after experiencing a potentially-fatal strike, or whatever. If it were an animal, I would probably have it flee; a human(oid) foe might flee or beg for mercy, or simply yield, depending.

Would you then hold an additional Simple Contest to see if the opponent was successful at fleeing or begging for mercy? I'm not trying to nitpick. I am really interested in the details of how you (and others) narrate the game and comparing to how I have been attempting the task myself. If you either would or wouldn't based on an objective criteria listed in the rules, then I obviously don't get it. If you would allow the dramatic flow of the game itself to determine whether or not you would allow another contest, then I am on your page and camping out (lucky you). I would, personally, say that if it were just another mook with no real effect on the story (i.e. he's not running to tell his master) then I would not allow, even describe much, the mook's flight. If it were one of the mook's main henchmen, I would probably introduce more contests, even (possibly) an Extended Contest based on the level of *hate* the group had for this particular baddie.

Lets say the narration is something along the lines of "you were mostly in control of this fight the entire time and managed to land a solid blow creasing his ribs. Thinking better of his choice to cross swords with you, he disengages and breaks for the woods".

THIS is the meaty "takes some practice" part. Many a player would say "hey wait, I wouldn't let him get away like that"

...

By practicing with a formal conflict statement it can help players enter that "ok, if everything went absolutely perfectly, what would I want to happen" state which usually gets right to the heart of what the conflict is about.
_________________
Ralph Mazza

Thanks, Ralph. That was a great post. I especially appreciated the bit where you explained how you would narrate the outcome. In your experience, would prompting the players for an "if everything went absolutely perfect" response help me in avoiding the concentration on task-based resolution? Would it also help me to determine degrees of success in these contests (or have the players do so)? What mental exercises do you use when running/playing the game to keep yourself, and your players, focused on conflicts, not tasks?

As a final note in this extremely long post, thanks to everyone for your responses. I feel I am getting at the heart of the matter, yet again. But this is the first time here or on the Yahoo groups that I've heard the terms task-based vs. conflict-based resolution discussed at this length. It really does sum up a lot in terms of how contests in HeroQuest differ from those in other RPGs to which I've been exposed. Having the vocabulary to document the difference has really helped me to understand what I did not before.

Also, the Yahoo rules group has not posted my question. After doing a search of their archives prior to posting (I'm not interested in covering well-worn ground), I did not find anything that really answered my questions about Simple Contests in practice. Oh well, I hope that those, like Andy and myself, who are new to this system and have similar questions will come to the Forge in the future and exhume our current discussion. Thanks for all the help and encouragement. I've got to go work on the game now.

Scott

[Scripty]

How can we make that all stand up via narration...

Wow. Thanks, Mike. That was an excellent post. Many of my questions were answered there. You rock. I would still be interested in any means whereby one might focus their own or their group's attention on conflict resolution instead of task resolution (akin to your advice about "prompting"). Beyond that, I'm pretty clear on the issues. I only wish I would've read your post before writing my last one...

Thanks.

[Valamir]

Thanks, Ralph. That was a great post. I especially appreciated the bit where you explained how you would narrate the outcome. In your experience, would prompting the players for an "if everything went absolutely perfect" response help me in avoiding the concentration on task-based resolution?

That's how I finally figured it out anyway.  Something along the lines of "if your character had 1 wish to spend on this conflict to make it come out exactly the way they wanted it to...what would the final result look like".

But mostly that's just necessary to break them into the concept.  From there the GM can usually figure out what aspect of the "encounter" is most important.

For instance, take a duel between 2 people.  You might find, based on the character's description of what he REALLY wants to happen, that the most important thing in the conflict isn't winning the duel; its impressing the local chieftain.  The duel is just a means to that end.  The conflict statement then should be framed to indicate what the real conflict is.

Would it also help me to determine degrees of success in these contests (or have the players do so)? What mental exercises do you use when running/playing the game to keep yourself, and your players, focused on conflicts, not tasks?

Its usually a good idea to have some idea of what a "minor victory" would look like given the conflict statement in question.  Its not necessary to formally list them out and announce them to the players in advance in most cases, and room must be given to account for creative uses of augmentation and such that might indicate the conflict took on a different flavor than you originally anticipated.  But a quick thought in this direction is a helpful double check on the validity of you conflict statement.

If you absolutely positively can't think of what a "Minor Defeat" is, than you probably either 1) aren't yet thinking in terms of "conflict" over "task" or 2) don't have an effective (perhaps too specific) conflict statement.

[soru]

I'm going to deviate from the consensus here and say that this is not a suitable choice for a simple contest. If you really had to do it that way, a marginal victory for the tick means the pc managed to escape from the tick almost unharmed, but he certainly didn't drive it off. Possibly instead of being injured, he had to leave something behind when he ran away.

However, as described, it is a one-on-one fight by a solo pc against an opponent with superior combat skills and intent to kill. You were lucky the player rolled as well as they did, the expected outcome would have been a worse defeat for the player. Being left for dead was a distinct possibility - it's hard to die in HQ as part of a group, but solo with no followers you will be spending HP or living by narrator fudges all the time.

Heroquest, is, of course, not really designed to be played solo with no followers.

The point of a single contest is it gets something accepted as having happened quickly. But a lot of players players would never accept their character taking a serious defeat or dieing with one roll, so there is the temptation to allow them another, and then another, indefinitely.

In this case, an extended contest would have been a much easier and probably faster to narrate choice. After losing AP on the intial roll, the player would have been given the choice of staying to fight a superior opponent from a poor position or running away - hopefully giant ticks are sluggish and escaping would be a lot easier than beating it in battle.

If they did stay and fight, then they would know what they would be getting in for.

The fact that APs always trend downwards in an extended contest means it would soon be over, given appropriate bids, rather than dragging on indefinetely as a series of simple contests can. A 2 person extended contest very rarely goes beyond 3/4 exchanges, which is about proportional to the screen time the giant tick would have gotten in a movie.

Tick attacks sleeping hero, hero wakes and tries to ward off blow, gets a scratch, kicks out at it, realises it is pretty tough, tick advances menacingly, hero turns and runs, just makes it to safety.

Things the players attack can be simple contests, as thats just a fast way of removing an inconvenient obstacle. In a film, you can take out the guards in a single shot (either sense). But if you choose to have something attack the players, then it's either worth an extended contest or its rarely worth including in the first place.  A film where an assassin attacked and killed one of the protagonists half way through in a single shot as if they were a faceless mook would be deeply 'experimental'.

soru

[Scripty]

Things the players attack can be simple contests, as thats just a fast way of removing an inconvenient obstacle. In a film, you can take out the guards in a single shot (either sense). But if you choose to have something attack the players, then it's either worth an extended contest or its rarely worth including in the first place.  A film where an assassin attacked and killed one of the protagonists half way through in a single shot as if they were a faceless mook would be deeply 'experimental'.

soru

That's an interesting approach, Soru. If I am understanding your point, you are saying that anything that poses a serious threat to the lives of the players *should* be an Extended Contest.

But, in this situation at least, the Tick was the outclassed participant. There's no reason for the attack to be fatal to the PC unless they are unwilling to spend a Hero Point after rolling a fumble. At what point do you determine in your own games what type of conflict is a serious enough threat to PCs to warrant an Extended Contest? Is fatality the primary gauge or do you judge it by ratings in relevant abilities?