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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8137276" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't know what your point is. As has come out over the past 10 or so pages of this thread, in the discussion of success-with-complications, different systems approach action resolution in different ways. There is nothing particularly striking or complicated about your example, at least that I can see.In Dungeon World the action you describe sounds like Defy Danger based on DEX. From DW p 62,✴On a 10+, you do what you set out to, the threat doesn’t come to bear. ✴On a 7–9, you stumble, hesitate, or flinch: the GM will offer you a worse outcome, hard bargain, or ugly choice.And of course the default applies for a 6-: "A 6 or lower is trouble" and "The GM says what happens" (p 19).So in the context you describe, if the result is 10+ the halfling gets through as desired; if the result is 7 to 9 the GM will present some sort of trade off (the first thing I thought of is "a bit of passage looks like it's going to collapse; you can brace it, but you'll have to drop the rope"); if the result is 6 down the GM can go to town.In Burning Wheel the action you describe would probably be a Speed check against an obstacle set by the GM to reflect the fictional circumstances; if the character has something like Tunnels-wise or Cave-ins-wise or Rescue-wise then they would be able to study the situation to get a sense of it (ie on a successful check adding a bonus die to their main check). If the check succeeds, the hobbit gets through with the rope; if the check fails, then the adverse consequences follow (which may be pre-established if the canonical process is being followed; or may have been left implicit if the GM's sense is that it's clear to everyone at the table). The lowest-hanging fruit I can see would be that the tunnel collapses and the hobbit avoids being crushed only by ending up trapped with those s/he was hoping to rescue.In Prince Valiant this would play very similarly to BW (with Brawn being the relevant stat, boosted by Agility of the PC has that skill).In 4e D&D the action would normally be part of a skill challenge to rescue the trapped people. The relevant skill looks like Acrobatics. If successful, the supply line is established and a successful rescue is one step closer. If failed, the GM can impose an immediate consequence (damage would be a default option here) as well as changing the fiction (if the damage is due to a cave-in that tells us how the fiction has changed!); and if the skill challenge fails altogether then it seems pretty bad for the trapped people.In Cortex+ Heroic it's a bit more complicated and I won't try and spell it all out: but the short version is that the rescuees would be mechanically represented as a People Trapped in a Mostly-Collapsed Mine scene distinction; the action would be taken against the Doom Pool, and would have as its goal to either reduce/eliminate that distinction, or create a Lifeline to the Trapped people asset (there is a lot of plurality in the Cortex+ Heroic resolution framework, and so these details would have to be worked out by players and GM through further conversation); if the action were successful then the goal would be achieved in the fiction, with the concomitant mechanical effect; if the action failed then the GM would be entitled to spend a die from the Doom Pool to create an adverse consequence (eg a Trapped complication on the Hobbit, or physical stress from a cave-in, or maybe turning the Scene Distinction into something more serious like Trapped People Dying from Lack of Air, with an associated timer).I have no real idea how the action declaration you describe would be resolved in AD&D.</blockquote>

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