Team Actions

Over here Brendan is talking about how to model a total team effort in RPGs. Whereas a party is a group of individuals, there are times when teamwork is necessary. For instance, getting NPCs across a chasm or piloting an unfamiliar sailing ship through a storm. I don't know, there are a lot of things like that.

(Incidentally, I like reading Brendan's blog so I know what I'm going to be interested in in 2-3 years. He's always 2-3 years ahead of me.)

In the case of a modern skill-based system, there are specific procedures laid out on how some characters can help the main guy or whatever. Lame, I think, but reasonably simulationist.

But here, I want to talk about games without skill systems. Mythical Journeys is so dead simple that there are barely even stat bonuses let alone skills.

So this is what I was thinking. 

Make it a series of dice rolls simulating skill checks. You don't actually have to play in a skill-based system; you can just use ad hoc rolls.

For Mythical Journeys, where stat bonuses go from -1 to +1, it's best to use a 1d6 for the die. Then a bonus or penalty is about 17%.

For, say, B/X, use a 1d20 where each point of bonus is about 5%.

Then decide how hard it is to add a little bit of success to the team effort. That's how difficult the task is.

Then decide how complicated the task is. If it's got a lot of parts or takes a long time to complete, require the team to rack up a lot of success.

Then go around the table and have each player tell you how his character intends to assist with the team goal. Figure out what stat requires, apply the PC's modifier, and then have the player roll. If they make it, add a success.

Then if they make X successes before X failures (determined by how complicated the task is), they succeed. You might want to say each player can only try each idea to help one time and not repeat the same kind of attempt.

It will require a lot of finesse from you but that's true whenever we're talking rulings versus rules, too.  This sounds wonky but in practice it feels very good and simulates teamwork very well.