Contests

Contests are much like simple actions, except the action is directly opposed by someone else and is easily resolved one way or another. Rather than setting a difficulty, each party rolls the appropriate skill, and the outcome is resolved as if the high roll had beaten a difficulty equal to the low roll. This is called an opposed roll. A tie means both succeed, but the outcome could be a tie or it could be left up in the air, requiring another roll to resolve it. Some sample contests include:

·         An arm wrestling match

·         A footrace

·         A game of chance

Normally, getting shifts on a contest does not impart any additional benefit besides victory—although the margin certainly gives an idea of how close or lopsided the contest was, which can help describe how it happened. In some situations, however, when the outcome of the contest influences a future roll, the GM may offer a bonus to the winning player for the second roll, or even place a temporary aspect that the winning player can tag or invoke. In such an event, you could look at the contest as an isolated maneuver action

### **Consequential Contests**

Sometimes, the GM wants the result of a contest to have some real impact besides just winning and losing, but she doesn’t want to extend the moment out into a full conflict—either it doesn’t feel right for pacing and description, or the outcome is still simple despite the impact of the action. If this is the case, she may want to consider having the loser take a consequence in addition to his loss, depending on how much he was beaten by in the contest: mild for a two-shift loss, moderate for a four-shift loss, and severe for a six-shift loss or greater (round down in the case of in-between values). If the group agrees, a loss of 8 shifts or more could confer an extreme consequence, but it hasto be justified as per the usual rules.

### **Extended Contests**

Sometimes, the GM (or one of the players) wants to do something that takes a bit longer than a single roll, but doesn’t want to engage the detail of the conflict system to do it. That’s a good time to think about running an extended contest—a short series of rolls that add up to a final result.

 Drawing out a contest like this can create some additional drama, since “what happens?” isn’t answered in a single decisive stroke—a long footrace over a few hours (Athletics), a desperate car chase of a few minutes (Driving), or an investigative game of cat and mouse over a few days (Burglary and Investigation) can all fit the bill here. However you slice it, there should always be an element of time pressure to an extended contest. Whether we’re talking about someone winning the marathon or the art thief getting away (or not) with the painting, an extended contest is headed somewhere and has a winner, with interesting results proceeding from each possible outcome.

 There are two ways to set your time limit with an extended contest: The Race and Cat & Mouse.

#### **The Race**

This version of an extended contest handles multiple competitors well. A base difficulty is set for everyone—often simply Mediocre (+0)— and each competitor rolls an appropriate skill against that target, keeping a running tally of the number of shifts won (or lost, in the case of a failure). If a competitor chooses to use a less appropriate skill, the difficulty should increase minimally (1 to 2 steps harder).

 The time pressure here comes from how long it takes to get to the finish line—a number of shifts (usually somewhere between six and fifteen)—set by the GM or the group. To figure out where the finish line should be, take a look how many rolls it would take someone with Good skill, rolling the average (+0 on the dice), to hit it. Good vs. Mediocre is 3 shifts, so if you want a race that will resolve in 3 rolls or so, the finish line should be about 9 shifts. Someone might roll phenomenally and sew it up in fewer, or a run of bad luck might make it take a few rolls longer, but the feeling of time running out will be present throughout the race.

 The first person whose total number of shifts hits or exceeds the finish line is the winner. We call this a race because plenty of people can get involved, and there’s a way to rank the results at the end—you can look at everyone else’s tally once a winner is determined to see who comes in second, third, and so forth. Sometimes a race may be more about who comes in last—since he’s inevitably the one lagging behind as the monster closes in.

 Because you’re adding up shifts from many successive rolls, a race generally should not be combined with a consequential contest (see above) unless the finish line is close (low number of shifts). If combined, the difference between the winner’s and the losers’ totals would indicate the consequences inflicted. Given that it wouldn’t be unheard of to see differences of six shifts or more after rolling enough times, you might end up with a consequence that seems excessive for an action that wasn’t worth a full blown conflict. Keeping that in mind, if you like the idea of those kinds of results, by all means, have at.

#### **Cat & Mouse**

Unlike a race, this version of an extended contest is best used between two competitors (or two distinct groups). One party plays the mouse (or leader), and the other plays the cat (or follower), and the results of each opposed roll are added to a running total.

 A hard limit is set on the number of opposed rolls that will be made before the winner is determined—usually three to five opposed rolls. Shifts won by the leader add to the total, and shifts won by the follower subtract from the total.

 Once the hard limit on opposed rolls is met, the total is examined. If the total is a zero, the contest is a draw, indicating an unsatisfying resolution for both parties. If the total is positive, the mouse won; if it’s negative, the cat did. In the case of the mouse being an art thief rolling Burglary and Deceit, and the cat being a detective rolling Investigation and Empathy, a win for the mouse suggests the thief got away with the painting, a win for the cat suggests the detective caught the thief, while a draw suggests the detective prevented the theft but the thief got away.

 This method of extended contest can be combined with a consequential contest (see above) so long as there aren’t a great number of rolls to be made, with the winning tally indicating the severity of consequence. In some cases, the competitors may want to set arbitrary rules of engagement, such as “you can’t roll the same skill twice in a row,” or, if the competitors are groups rather than individuals, saying “each member of a team gets to make one roll.”