Group assists?

[Simlasa]

This came up during last weekend's game, while trying to lift a heavy lid off of a sarcaphagus.

We had one strong PC, one of medium strength, and one puny guy with a gimpy hand.

How would you run all of them lifting together? (we couldn't see any specific mention in the MW rules).

[NickMiddleton]

Decide how many can actually contribute to the task, and whom is the primary participant. The others make effort rolls - if they succeed they get to add their chance of a special success to the primary participants effort score for their roll. Once all the assisting characters have rolled, the primary participant rolls.

One could look at refining things further based on the specific outcomes of the assisting characters rolls - my feeling is that is too much faffing / detail on something that should be quick and is peripheral to the main action / drama (does the overall TASK succeed or fail) so I'd say only the Primary participants roll can produce a result other than Success or failure.

Cheers,

Nick

[Nick J.]

As the aformentioned GM that had to adjudicate this, I like your solution @NickMiddleton. Thanks!

If I recall I think my solution was kind of close. I allowed characters to add their Strength score to the roll of the strongest character making the effort roll, but I like the idea that characters have to succeed on their effort roll to add that amount.

Edited March 1, 2017 by Nick J.

[NickMiddleton]

On 3/1/2017 at 5:46 PM, Nick J. said:

As the aformentioned GM that had to adjudicate this, I like your solution @NickMiddleton. Thanks!

If I recall I think my solution was kind of close. I allowed characters to add their Strength score to the roll of the strongest character making the effort roll, but I like the idea that characters have to succeed on their effort roll to add that amount.

Well, on an Effort roll, a character's chance of a Special Success IS their Strength score. I use "chance of special" as the bonus as it makes this assist rule easily applicable to any skill roll.  That value is something that is so frequently used in BRP / Magic World that is easily calculated and there's a handy table showing the values for skills up to 100.

Two characters fighting one opponent - the two can "assist" each other (either boost one another's attack or defense skill). Characters assessing what happened at the scene of an ambush (One tracker assisting another) etc etc.

To be honest, depending on the situation the roll could be optional - if the group are trying to open the stone door together at the start of the adventure, does the game benefit from everybody rolling for what is a fairly minor detail? Whereas if the group have killed the Lava Demon and its death throes have unleashed a lava surge, and that stone door is blocking the parties ONLY escape route, then getting everyone one involved via an active contribution (rolling dice etc) does to my mind enhance the game.

Cheers,

Nick

[Nick J.]

I'm already thinking of how to take it one step further, so there's some additional skin in the game.

"If the assisting character fumbles then they subtract their governing characteristic from the active character's skill or characteristic roll."