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This was an eye-opener and a game changer for me. I also have some suggestions.
I used to consider Fate contests a minor game mechanic that might come up every once in a while. After digesting "Hacking Contests," I came to realize they offered a solution to a problem I had: combats that took up too much session time and that devolved into unexciting dice rolls back and forth until one side was taken out. Contests could let combat take on a more cinematic, narrative feel. The classic sword fight between the Man in Black and Inigo Montoya lasts only 3 minutes, for example; it would have been boring if it had lasted half an hour.
Then, after some further thinking and usage, I realized that Fate contests can serve as scene frameworks in general. If traversing the forest is a scene on its own, make it a contest. If hacking into the computer system is a scene, make it a contest. If questioning the prisoner is a scene, make it a contest. If any of those aren't worth turning into full scenes, resolve them narratively or with a dice roll or two. If traversing the forest is a rich adventure environment, don't make it a single contest. Break it up into a series of scenes (planned in advance or established on the fly according to your style), and then you can turn each scene into a contest as needed.
As a scene framework, the contest gives everyone a scene goal. With only two competitors, there are six possible scores in the end: "Red Team" wins 3 to 2, 3 to 1, or 3 to 0, or "Blue Team" wins 3 to 2, 3 to 1, or 3 to 0. That's six different ways the contest could end, and that's if there are only two competitors. A contest, therefore, enables and encourages variety while also converging toward an ending instead of letting things drag on.
This highlights a shortcoming in Fate contests: Victories are an abstraction. The "fiction first" principle tells me that each victory should mean something concrete in the game world. To create a scene goal, ask yourself what success looks like, in world. That's what happens when you score your third victory. Then ask yourself what two things should happen before you're successful. Those things happen when you score your first and second victories. This fits neatly into the "Rule of Three" for story-telling. Maybe you'll know those intermediate stages in advance, or maybe you'll figure them out on the fly.
Sometimes, the intermediate stages are a matter of inflicting bad luck on the opposition; if you're sneaking up on a guard, the guard's victories could mean your sleeve gets caught on something or you drop something important without realizing it or the guard becomes more alert. The guard's third point means you've been spotted and the "sneaking up" scene transitions to something else.
I eventually concluded that the variants in "Hacking Contests" are all really the same thing: someone or something pursuing a scene goal in stages. Maybe it's the whole PC party traversing the forest as a group. Maybe it's everyone out for themselves as they race for escape pods before the ship self-destructs. Maybe it's one PC hacking the computer system while the others hold off the guards. Instead of distinguishing contests under fire from timed events from whether you're doing a conflict phase or a contest phase, it's all one thing: Everyone is striving toward a goal. When you score a victory, you're making concrete progress toward whatever goal your action was serving. When you score your third victory, you achieve your goal, and that might or might not end the contest.
With a little help from the Bronze Rule, sometimes the environment is a competitor with a goal: the time bomb that wants to blow up, the burning building that wants to collapse, the forest that wants to repel or trap intruders, the security system that wants to set off alarms. Each intermediate victory gives visible, tangible, or audible in-world effects that ratchet up the tension.
If a contest feels like it has too many competitors, break it up into concurrent contests, such as the struggle to disable the security system as one contest, and holding off the guards as another.
"Hacking Contests" shows how powerful Fate contests can be. I suspect it could be streamlined, and I'd give more emphasis to making each victory meaningful in world instead of leaving them as abstract counts.
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