Ok, so here are the new revised proposed experimental conflict resolution rules. The goal here is to get conflicts that are both significant (in the sense that they accomplish something meaningful) and colorful (in the sense that they look cool).

Terms

Here are the basic elements in the system: The degree of success of the roll determines the success of the action, which determines the resolution of the conflict, which decides who gets their stakes.

Rules for rolling

The GM can assign penalties/bonuses based on the coolness of the action, the state of the character, that kind of thing, but the three standard rules for actions in conflicts are as follows:

How rolls determine actions

This is pretty straightforward: if there's a tie, nobody's action succeeds, and at the GM's discretion, the overall situation changes in some way; otherwise, whoever the degree of success is in favor of is the one who succeeds. The other people's actions don't succeed, which can be explained by any number of things: they did it wrong, they did it right but were blocked, they did it right but something else interceded, they did it right but it didn't have the expected effect, etc.

How actions resolve conflicts

After the stakes are nailed down, we decide if this is going to be a simple (one-step) or complex (multi-step) conflict. The way we decide is, if anyone wants to do a complex conflict, we do one, otherwise we do a simple one.

If it's a simple one, people pick an action and roll. Whoever the degree of success is in favor of wins the conflict and gets their stakes. If it's a tie, nobody wins, and people can forget the whole thing or rechoose stakes.

The complex resolution system uses a track with a number of spaces. There's a marker that starts in the middle and moves back and forth; when it gets to one end, the corresponding player wins the conflict. To move the marker, everyone involved in the conflict picks an action and rolls. If it's a tie, nothing happens. Otherwise, the person who won has two choices: apply a penalty to their opponent based on the degree of success, or move the marker that many spaces. After this happens, then either player may take a penalty based on the marker's current distance from the center to move the marker back to the center. If the marker isn't at one end, then the players roll again and repeat the process. Anyone in the conflict can concede at any time.

The penalty mentioned depends on the length of the track, but a good standard mapping is: 1 = -1 penalty to next roll only, 2 = -1 penalty to rolls for the future, 3 = -2 penalty to rolls for the future, 4 = -3 penalty to rolls for the future. The duration of "for the future" and which rolls it applies to are up to the GM; usually it'll be some subset of rolls and just for the scene ("Your leg is injured, -1 for actions where you have to move it until you get it bandaged").

The standard conflict track has a zero point in the middle and five boxes to either side, but it can be a different length to make longer or shorter conflicts, and the two sides can be different lengths to make it easier or harder for one person (a major character in a conflict with a random nobodies might have 5 boxes versus their 2). The starting point can also be something other than zero, to reflect an advantage for one person at the start of the conflict.

Unresolved rules issues

Some stuff that it's not clear how to handle yet:

Ludography

This isn't original, although the specific combination of rules is, I think. Sources I can point to directly: