So like I think there should be a third potential outcome for contests beyond “one character wins” and “the two characters tie” being “both characters fail”
Imagine a situation where two characters are trying to grab a magic orb from a pedestal before the other. An opposed Dexterity check, right? The potential results are that one character wins, grabbing the orb first, or that the characters tie, grabbing the orb at the same time and now wrestling for it.
But what if there was a magical threshold that the characters had to beat to succeed at all? Like, if both characters fail it they fumble around with the orb and it falls on the floor. The situation has changed now, albeit slightly.
This was in part inspired by a game of my own design that I’m currently working on where I actually want stuff like “both characters in a contest can succeed to a degree” and so on to be a part of the basic mechanic