Sometimes a situation will arise in which two characters must compare attributes, skills, or other traits to settle a competition. The one with the highest score doesn’t always win . . . but that’s the way to bet. A “Contest” is a quick way to handle such a competitive situation without playing it out in detail.
In a Contest, each competitor attempts a success roll against the ability being tested – with all applicable modifiers – and then compares his result to his opponent’s. There are two different ways to make this comparison.
Quick Contests
A “Quick Contest” is a competition that is over in very little time – often in one second, perhaps even instantly. Examples include two enemies lunging for a gun, or two knife throwers seeing who gets closer to the bull’s-eye. Each competitor attempts his success roll. If one succeeds and the other fails, the winner is obvious. If both succeed, the winner is the one with the largest margin of success; if both fail, the winner is the one with the smallest margin of failure. A tie means nobody won (in the examples above, both fighters grabbed the weapon at once, or the knives hit the same distance from the bull’s-eye).
Margin of Victory
The amount by which the winner beat the loser is often important – success by 5 vs. failure by 5 generally means more than success by 2 vs. success by 1! The winner’s “margin of victory” is the difference between his margin of success and the loser’s margin of success if both succeeded, the sum of his margin of success and the loser’s margin of failure if he
succeeded and the loser failed, or the difference between the loser’s margin of failure and his margin of failure if both failed.
Resistance Rolls
Most abilities that can affect an unwilling subject offer the subject an attempt to resist using an attribute, skill, or supernatural ability. This is sometimes a Quick Contest between the attacking ability and the defender’s resistance, in which case two special rules apply:
1. The attacker must succeed to win. He cannot win by having the smallest margin of failure. If he fails his roll, he loses automatically and his subject does not need to attempt a resistance roll.
2. The attacker must win to affect the subject. All ties go to the defender.
Regular Contests
A “Regular Contest” is a slow competition with much give and take – for instance, arm wrestling.
Each character attempts his success roll. If one succeeds and the other fails, the winner is obvious. If both succeed or both fail, the competitors’ relative positions are unchanged and they roll again. Eventually, one character succeeds when the other fails. At this point, the one who made his roll is the winner.
The length of game time each attempt takes depends on the activity, and is up to the GM. In a combat situation, each attempt takes one second . . . but in a library-research contest, with the fate of the world hanging on who finds a certain obscure reference first, each attempt could represent days of time.
Extreme Scores
If both contestants have a score of 6 or less, a Regular Contest can bog down the game as both sides roll failure after failure. To keep the game moving, raise the lower score to 10 and add the same amount to the higher score.
Example: For a 5 vs. 3 Contest, add 7 to each score to make it 12 vs. 10.
Likewise, a Regular Contest can become deadlocked if both contestants have scores of 14 or more, because it can take a long time before anyone rolls a failure. To speed up the process, reduce the lower score to 10 and subtract the same amount from the higher score.
Example: For a 19 vs. 16 Contest, subtract 6 from each score to make it 13 vs. 10.
When both scores are greater than 20 – e.g., a Contest of ST between dinosaurs – even this will not suffice. Instead, reduce the lower score to 10 and multiply the higher score by (10/lower score), rounding down.
Example: For a 600 vs. 500 Contest, multiply the higher score by 10/500 and set the lower one to 10 to make it 12 vs. 10.