Yes.
When we go to rolling dice in Burning Wheel we pause. We bicker and argue. We cadge for dice and we set the lines on Intent.
As GM I try and do two things: I describe what failure will look like and I make certain what success will look like. I also adjudicate the ability to be tested, Help, and FoRKs.
As a player I do my own things: I try and make sure my Intent is clear, I aim to ensure my Task is adequate to it, and if I feel the GM’s failure consequence is too kind I warn them (or if it’s a little inappropriate or could be done easier: I had a GM go into a complicated penalty for failing a Resources roll and asked them to just Tax me like the rules say instead, and they agreed that that would be basically the same without extra steps). I then try and convince the GM that the abilities I am good at are the right ones for the Task, and that my ally’s exponent 5 abilities are also appropriate, without being stupid or unreasonable about it.
But we always try and pause. I really threw my group one time when I didn’t, actually. The GM announced an Ob 5 test and I basically yelled “yippee” with 4 dice and chalked up a Challenging. They all paused shocked when I failed, and it wasn’t until a bit later we all understood what had happened. It also caused some other issues: I’d thought the test was for the whole fight but it was actually for a small part of the fight, and we should have definitely paused but I just wanted that advancement bump so bad.
I think you’re correct but not necessarily. I think it “can” he accomplished in one Test, but that doesn’t mean it has to be, and it doesn’t mean that it always would be. In your example, I’d definitely be wanting to carve battle lines and make them as clear as possible. If this Ritual is super important and easy to disrupt, then I’d be drawing out how it can be disrupted, how this cultist is disrupting it, and how you are stopping them.
I might want to look at using Fight! for example. Or I might say that the difficulty isn’t subduing the cultist, it’s getting to them before they get to the Ritual (Speed Vs). If the Ritual is going to be rolled afterwards, I might consider breaking it up to a Speed Test to get to the Cultist before they disrupt the propitations and then a Brawling test to subdue them and capture them, both Linked to the Ritual but having their own failure consequences (increased ritual cost by disrupting preparations, cultist escaping after being prevented from ruining the ritual).
On the other hand, I might just Say Yes, especially if I want the cultist to be able to try and run away this scene with information on what’s happened. If you haven’t rolled, your Intent isn’t sacrosanct.
Screen time is fluid: in the Coffee Game we spent 3 hours on the particulars of how the party were renovating an establishment and encouraging locals to partake of coffee there whilst discussing philosophy and doctrine, involving Coffee-wise, Circles, Resources and Estate Management (and possibly more), but when there was a fight threatened it was a five minute description in the lead-up and then a single Firearms test. Travelling is broken up by descriptions of small encounters on the way, meant to challenge odd beliefs and add light; the well-worn paths and hired guides mean that the journey itself is Said Yes to.
In Channeling Wheel, fights are given room to breathe, often threatening to become Fight!s, and travel begins with descriptions of the harshness of the Forest and ends with a (usually quite difficult) test, with the interim only being expanded on, usually, as the result of failed tests or as embellished things avoided with successful ones.