[Contenders] Confused by the only connection

[Moreno R.]

Hi!

I am going to play CONTENDERS this saturday, and I am confused by the rules for the "connection scenes" at page 23.

Previously (page 13) the manual says that every contender begin play with a single connection.

Then, at page 23, it's written that:
"estabilishing a new connection is fairly straighforward, the SPOTLIGHT player sets the scene and describe who/what the new CONNECTION is and their hopes and fears regarding the CONNECTION

The player then role-plays a scene to show their CONTENDERS'S involvement with the CONNECTION. If this is their only connection , then the contender gains a point of hope, increase their connection pool by one

Visiting and estabilished connection is slightly different, in order to provide hope, the connection need cash..."  (then the book explain the rule about using cash to get hope)

I find the wording rather confusing. First, it appears that if the contenders has only a single connection, he gets the point of hope by default without spending cash, then than you have to spend cash for existing connection...  anyway, reading the old actual play in this forum, I found an explanation about this rule, that said:
- if you frame a connection scene with a new connection, you get the connection with zero hope.
- then, when you frame other scenes with that connection, you have to spend cash to try to get hope.
- There is a single exception: is the new connection is your only one connection, you get 1 point of hope for free.

Is this right? But in this case... when the third rule apply, if every contender starts with an already-estabilished connection?

The various hypothesis I thought of are:
1) when you frame the first connection scene with your only connection, you get a point of hope free, even if you already put hope in that connection at character creation, if you didn't acquire another connection first.
2) as (1), but only if you didn't put no hope in that connection at character creation.
3) this rules is used only when a contenders remains without any connection and try to get one again (but losing the last connection don't trigger the endgame?)

What do you think?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Moreno,

This is my understanding: that a Connection may be lost. That explains the possibility that a contender may begin a new Connection and get a point of Hope for free in doing so.

Or to put it differently, if a contender gets a new Connection while the old one is still there, the new one does not bring a new point of Hope with it, and must build up Hope (for the contender) from 0. But if the old Connection has been lost, then when the new one is established, a point of Hope is immediately gained.

It's been a while since I played the game, so I'm working from memory. Check the rules about how Connections may be lost (killed or whatever); if it's possible for that to happen, then my explanation accounts for all the rules without having to create more complications.

Best, Ron

[Yokiboy]

Hello,

Ron is right Moreno. Remember that Threat Scenes can get rid of one of the threatened Contender's Connections.

I will be happy to share a rules summary PDF that I created for Contenders, it might help you run the game. PM me if you're interested.

TTFN,

Yoki

[Moreno R.]

Hi!

Thanks for the help! I re-checked the rules on losing connections and I found where I misread them the first time. The endgame is not triggered by losing all the connections, but by a connection threat against a contenders with no connections left. So it's possible to have a contender with no connection left that try to create a new connection.

Yoki, I am very interested in that rule summary (seeing that I was about to create one myself), thanks.