I'm guilty of this as a player, but it does get my goat a bit.

To explain what i mean here, i'll take you to the accident & emergency ward. A group of doctors are trying to 'heal' a patient. The best doctor fails his heal roll. All the other people there (some of whom are just folk that have seen Casualty on t.v) put their hands up and shout, "i'll try!"

Same thing happens when searching rooms, picking locks, perception rolls, bartering, diplomacy etc etc.

I know it's nice every now and then as a player to succeed at something that isn't your charcater's forte, but a lot of the time you only have the skill in the first place as a 'back-up' for the specialist in case he fails.

At the end of the day, in most of the cases where "i'll try!" crops up, it just isn't important who succeeds, just that someone does.

How about making these kinds of skill attempts group rolls? Take the highest skill chance present in the party and maybe add a small bonus to it for other people helping out (i know there are help other actions in a lot of games, but i'n not talking about that here) and roll the dice. Success or failure.

I guess it falls down on tests where you can't advance in the adventure without success, but really if that is present, you're not doing it right anyhow.

Quote from: One Horse Town;535691How about making these kinds of skill attempts group rolls? Take the highest skill chance present in the party and maybe add a small bonus to it for other people helping out (i know there are help other actions in a lot of games, but i'n not talking about that here) and roll the dice. Success or failure.

I guess it falls down on tests where you can't advance in the adventure without success, but really if that is present, you're not doing it right anyhow.

Great idea, Dan!

-clash

I guess it depends on the situation for me on whether or not it is appropriate for more than one character to attempt the action.  

Example #1:

The party is confronted by a stuck door.  The fighter has already attempted to force the door open and failed.  The slender mage steps up and throws his shoulder against the door hoping to budge it.  

I don't really have an issue with this situation because it seems natural and organic to me.  If you need to get past the door and someone else was unable to force it open, then you take a shot and maybe the strong fighter loosened it just enough for you little mage hands to force it open finally.

Now, I would also just be fine with the fighter and mage working together off the bat to force the stuck door open as well.  In this case, I would do as OHT suggests and offer some Bennie to the fighter's roll to force the door open.

Example #2:

The party is confronted with a locked door.  The thief has already attempted to pick the lock and failed.  The mage steps up and takes the thieves' tools from the thief's hands and attempts to pick the lock with the tools.

Unless the mage some kind of skill with lock picking, then I would probably not even allow a roll for the mage at all.  

If the situation at hand is something that any person would have a reasonable chance to accomplish, then anyone should be allowed to try it.  Now, whether or not they combine their efforts into a single attempt really comes down the personality of the character/player.  Some players want to 'protect their niche' and make the primary attempt solo, and then only consent to help from other characters is their primary attempt fails.  Some other players may be more cooperative from the get go and just combine their efforts and make a combined attempt on the first try.

Quote from: One Horse Town;535691(i know there are help other actions in a lot of games, but i'n not talking about that here)

I'm not sure I understand how this is different from d20's Aid Another.

Just building on Drohem's examples, why doesn't this all just boil down to common sense?

The problem with this is that if you systematically roll the highest skill for the group and call it a day, you basically have a super character representing "the group" that is made up of all the best scores of the individual PCs, which is (1) super easy to optimize and abuse, and (2) makes the group rack autowins as long as they're doing stuff together.

Naturally, players are going to try and stack the deck in their favor.  

I'll continue with the stuck door, fighter, and mage example:

More than likely, the fighter will have the better chance to open the stuck door.

Personally, I don't care which character makes the attempt and which character assists the attempt, and I would base the roll and possible Bennie based upon which character is the primary and which is the assistant.

So if the fighter attempts to open the stuck door with the assistance of the mage, then the fighter makes his good roll with a slight Bennie from the mage's efforts.

If the mage attempts to open the stuck door with the assistance of the fighter, then the mage makes his mediocre/bad roll with a good/great Bennie from the fighter's effort.

This seems like common sense to me.... *shrug*

Quote from: Drohem;535697Example #2:

The party is confronted with a locked door.  The thief has already attempted to pick the lock and failed.  The mage steps up and takes the thieves' tools from the thief's hands and attempts to pick the lock with the tools.

The only time I allow this kind of situation is for untrained skills, or for skills where the "I'll try" character has taken ranks in that skill. If it is a trained skill and they have no ranks, forget it. If the thief failed, you have no chance at all.

Perception checks are decided by me before I ask for the roll. I'll name the characters that I want to make the roll and tell them to make a check (spot, listen, etc.) There is no "I'll try" in this case.

I think that most tasks will naturally limit the number of players that can try them at the same time, due to time or space constraints. Usually it can be solved with common sense, I think.

There's no question to me that it makes some amount of sense to use skills or chances of success in that sense*, and that, as noted above, if you are very selective and use this on a case by case basis, there's little chance that the game will implode. I'm following you here, Drohem.

My remark is more an objection to the effects that principle would have if it was, say, enshrined in the letter of the rules in some game somewhere and taken to its natural extreme by overzealous GMs, or those who'd cave in to players who'd constantly push to play it that way.

* Now that I think about it though, I'm not sure this principle of taking the highest score makes that much sense either. When you have a situation where people cooperate towards a goal, in practice, I don't notice the best guy performing somehow even better with the help of laymen. There's time wasted to explain stuff to the laymen, some efforts from those who don't know what they are doing are going to hinder the expert "stop stop. Don't carry the log that way, all the weight's on me!", the laymen make mistakes the expert has to correct in the process of completing the task, some of which might not be corrected in time at all, especially in stress situations... so I don't know if it makes that much sense to use the highest score on a regular basis. See what I mean?

Quote from: Benoist;535712There's no question to me that it makes sense some amount of sense to use skills or chances of success in that sense*, and that, as noted above, if you are very selective and use this on a case by case basis, there's little chance that the game will implode. I'm following you here, Drohem.

My remark is more an objection to the effects that principle would have if it was, say, enshrined in the letter of the rules in some game somewhere and taken to its natural extreme by overzealous GMs, or those who'd cave in to players who'd constantly push to play it that way.

* Now that I think about it though, I'm not sure this principle of taking the highest score makes that much sense either. When you have a situation where people cooperate towards a goal, in practice, I don't notice the best guy performing somehow even better with the help of laymen. There's time wasted to explain stuff to the laymen, some efforts from those who don't know what they are doing are going to hinder the expert "stop stop. Don't carry the log that way, all the weight's on me!", the laymen make mistakes the expert has to correct in the process of completing the task, some of which might not be corrected in time at all, especially in stress situations... so I don't if it makes that much sense to use the highest score on a regular basis. See what I mean?

Dude, I with you here.

I see what you are saying that if the highest roll is only used then it's slippery slope to min/maxing all these situations and breeze through them.  I can see this being abused easily by players too.

I completely agree with the above, and that's why I would vary the who rolls the task based upon which character is the primary attempting the task and not soley on which character has the best roll for the task at hand.

Yeah agreed. I really think that a case-by-case, common sense approach is sensible here.

Quote from: One Horse Town;535691I'm guilty of this as a player, but it does get my goat a bit.

To explain what i mean here, i'll take you to the accident & emergency ward. A group of doctors are trying to 'heal' a patient. The best doctor fails his heal roll. All the other people there (some of whom are just folk that have seen Casualty on t.v) put their hands up and shout, "i'll try!"

Same thing happens when searching rooms, picking locks, perception rolls, bartering, diplomacy etc etc.

I know it's nice every now and then as a player to succeed at something that isn't your charcater's forte, but a lot of the time you only have the skill in the first place as a 'back-up' for the specialist in case he fails.

At the end of the day, in most of the cases where "i'll try!" crops up, it just isn't important who succeeds, just that someone does.

How about making these kinds of skill attempts group rolls? Take the highest skill chance present in the party and maybe add a small bonus to it for other people helping out (i know there are help other actions in a lot of games, but i'n not talking about that here) and roll the dice. Success or failure.

I guess it falls down on tests where you can't advance in the adventure without success, but really if that is present, you're not doing it right anyhow.

I think the problem here is the heal skill itself (depending on the game). Sunds like this is more than simple first aid and requires the performance of an actual procedure. The heal skill alone (if the aim is realism) probably shouldn't let you perform an appendectomy. Presumably in the hypothetical saving the person requires a procedure at that level of skill. So i might just flat out say to those with no medical training in the group, sorry this is much more than cpr or binding a wound, the guy needs a life saving procedure you simply don't have the skill to perform (lots of games have more involved healing skills that get into stuff like surgery).

Quote from: Benoist;535716Yeah agreed. I really think that a case-by-case, common sense approach is sensible here.

That's my opinion as well.

Then again, in cases like OHT described - if there are no consequences of failure, why even bother rolling? Just give the guy with highest skill the chance to discover it.

Quote from: Benoist;535704The problem with this is that if you systematically roll the highest skill for the group and call it a day, you basically have a super character representing "the group" that is made up of all the best scores of the individual PCs, which is (1) super easy to optimize and abuse, and (2) makes the group rack autowins as long as they're doing stuff together.

We call it division of labour via exchange of goods and favours. Or more correctly: civilization.