I've just had another look at the rules for them and it seems I've gotten them all wrong. Until now I've been having both parties roll once and see who does the best, pass or fail. That person wins by however many degrees their results are separated by. Looking at the rules, though, it says that if both parties fail they should both roll again. If they both fail again then they roll again. And again. And so on until one of them passes, which for low attribute characters could be several rolls. Is it just me or does all this rerolling seem a bit pointless, especially given that an opposed roll isn't about success or failure but who does better than their opponent? Even if both parties fail whoever has failed by more has clearly done worse than the other guy and should be beaten. Or is there something I'm not seeing that justifies a series of rerolls?

I was using those rules for a while but then I moved over to using degrees of failure instead. It is quicker as you said.

Another bonus of doing this is that if a character has an unatural characteristic you can divide the failures. But obviously that isn't going to happen often.

It does require a bit more maths which may have been why they didn't go with it but I like that you can decide it in one roll.