Editing Unwritten: System Reference Document/Playing a Scene (section)

===Contests===

Whenever two or more characters have mutually exclusive goals they are attempting to resolve at the same time, they’re in a contest. Races or other sports competitions, and public debates are all good examples of contests.

GMs, answer the following questions when you’re setting up a contest:
* What are the “sides”? Is every character in the contest in it for herself, or are there groups of people opposing other groups? If you have multiple characters on a side, they roll together using the Teamwork rules.
* What environment does the contest take place in? Are there any significant or notable features of that environment you want to define as situation aspects?
* How are the participants opposing each other? Are they rolling against each other directly (like in a straight sprint race or a poker match), or are they trying to overcome something in the environment (like an obstacle course or a panel of judges)?

Now you can get started.

A contest proceeds in a series of exchanges. In an exchange, every participant gets to make one action roll to determine how well they do in that leg of the contest. This is basically an overcome action. If you are rolling against each other, you will be comparing your rolls to each other’s. If you are rolling against an environmental factor, you will be each be rolling against a passive opposition.

Players, when you make a contest roll, compare your result to everyone else’s. If you have the highest result, you win the exchange. 
* If you’re rolling directly against the other participants, then that means you have beat the result of everyone involved, and you win by how much you beat the next highest opponent.
* If you’re all rolling against something in the environment, it means you have the most shifts out of everyone after rolling against passive resistance. If no one succeeded in the exchange, this exchange is over.  

Winning the exchange means you gain a point of progress (which you can just represent with a tally mark or check mark on scratch paper) and describe how you take the lead.

* If you excel and no one else does, then you get to mark two points of progress.
* If there’s a tie for the highest result, no one gets any progress, and an unexpected twist occurs. This could mean several things depending on the situation—the terrain or environment shifts somehow, the parameters of the contest change, or an unanticipated variable shows up and affects all the participants. GMs, you should create a new situation aspect reflecting this change.
* The first participant to achieve three points of progress wins the contest and describes achieving their goal.

====Advantages in a Contest====

During any exchange, you can try an advantage action before you make your contest roll. If you’re targeting another participant or someone can interfere, they get to oppose normally. 

Doing this carries an additional risk—fumbling an advantage action means you forfeit your contest roll, which means there’s no way you can make progress in the current exchange. If you at least tie, you get to make your contest roll normally.