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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RangerWickett" data-source="post: 8412643" data-attributes="member: 63">(Pardon the 6-page-too-late response.)I devised a system to use 'skill challenge' style mechanics for "Secret Missions" in the upcoming Adventures in ZEITGEIST book (which I think will be coming out for Level Up near the end of this year or early next year). You'd use this mechanic for things like Mission: Impossible spycraft montages, especially in situations when the PCs would be split up. It speeds up the resolution of those scenes and lets you get to the parts where the whole party is together.The basic gist is that there are three phases, one for the Narrator, two for the players:1. Design the Mission.The Narrator comes up with a list of obstacles (at least two, and no more than the number of PCs). Some obstacles may be known, others may be hidden. 2. Before the Mission.Each PC gets to provide one effort. The player narrates what they're doing and makes a check to try to either surveil or prepare. The Narrator sets the DC based on how good the match of plan and skill is for the particular situation. Surveilling can discover hidden obstacles and grant advantage to another character's check to actually overcome the obstacle. If you fail, you provide no benefit, and might miss something important.Preparing attempts to overcome an obstacle before the mission even starts. You roll in secret, so you won't know whether you succeeded until in the middle of the mission.3. During the Mission.For each obstacle, the party chooses one PC to provide an effort to overcome it. Sometimes a situation might have multiple characters working simultaneously (like something out of Ocean's 11). Other times there might be only one person going point (like Mission Impossible).The PC narrates what they're doing and makes a skill check. Previous surveillance might grant advantage. Previous preparation might overcome the obstacle without needing to make a check. If you succeed, great. If you fail, you can come up with a different plan and make a new check, increasing the DC by 5. If you fail that second time, you suffer a complication, which might be a quick fight, a trap causing damage, you leaving a clue that'll let someone identify you later, or something else. If you cannot deal with the complication, the mission fails.---This framework could work with spycraft, but also with stuff like "fortifying a town for a siege" or "acquiring components for a curse-breaking ritual" or "arranging a peace treaty" or "throwing a really nice surprise party."It's important to keep the DCs pretty low (usually 8 + proficiency bonus), and to not call for multiple rolls to deal with a given obstacle, so that the laws of probability don't make failure a near certainty.There's more to it than that, but I think it gets the job done for 5e-style game complexity.</blockquote>

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