Editing Samsara:Contests (section)

==Full Contest Resolution==
However a contest is conceived in story-terms, it plays out the same way mechanically: the protagonist adds up his relevant modifiers, subtracts the antagonist’s relevant modifiers, and adds that to the roll of a single [[d12]].  The number that results is compared to the chart below.  A total of 7 or greater results in checks beings delivered to the opponent.  A total of 6 or less results in checks being delivered to the protagonist.

This means that an actor can, in some sense, hurt himself by acting just as he could hurt his opponent.  An action taken in a contest is a gamble: do you win or lose?  Move closer to success or failure?  This means that the basic roll is not a “to hit” roll, as is more usually seen in RPGs.   Rolling low doesn’t mean that you missed.  It means that you swung your sword and it was parried and now you’re a little off-balance.  Or you hurt your wrist.  Or maybe that your execution was perfect, but suddenly your opponent’s man-servant threw himself in front of you.  It means something—<i>anything</i>—but always something more interesting than “you missed”.

Contests are goal-oriented, rather than task-oriented and each roll of the die represents an attempt to achieve the actor’s goal.  <b>SAMSARA’s</b> system of contest resolution is thus abstract, rather than action-specific.  How that goal is furthered or hindered, achieved or not, must be interpreted from the die result.  A high result means that the actor has come closer to achieving his goal, while a low result means that his attempt has been hampered.  That is all it means, but it does mean that.  The specifics of those meanings must be brought out be player and GM to suit the narrative style and needs of the story being told.