How Would Your Favorite Game System Handle This?

[Reynard]

There were a lot of parts to the original question, but I'll focus on the part(s) about how to handle separated parties and compartmentalized knowledge.

Here I've learned a lot from @iserith, who unfortunately seems to no longer be part of this community (not surprising, considering the savagery of the responses to his contributions). In a nutshell, I make zero attempt to police players on this. If Character A gets into trouble, and Character B's player wants to go rushing to help, I don't have a problem with that. I could ask them to rationalize their decision, but I leave it up to them to offer that rationalization if they want to.

The only real objection I ever hear to this approach is "but that's metagaming!" (Using the specific/narrow definition that it means conflating player knowledge with character knowledge). But if you don't really care about that, then it's not a problem.

(Also, in my experience, some/much/most of the time Player B will roleplay ignorance and not go rushing off, anyway, even though they know that it would be totally kosher to do so.)

A related objection would be something about the believability of the fiction. But in my opinion that's a pretty predictable, mechanistic definition of believable fiction. Unlikely coincidence appears in good fiction all the time.

The last objection I can think of is that splitting the party is supposed to be a risky decision, not to be taken lightly. But there's no guarantee that Character B will actually get to Character A's location easily or quickly. And rushing there might cause even more complications. (E.g., now they are BOTH in solo combat! Yay!). I don't know exactly what those complications might be...it would depend on the scenario. But, yeah, splitting the party is still a meaningful decision. And really that's all I care about: players making meaningful decisions.

I am more interested in game design answers to the questions. How does initiative or action economy work in this circumstance, based on your specific preferred game?

 

[Celebrim]

I mean, it wouldn't. I don't know of a game that can handle this well. Some of them foresee the problem and try to head it off at the pass, but there isn't a way to handle the actual situation well given the limitations of the GM as a simulator. I try to avoid these sorts of situations the same way I try to avoid "ballroom scenes" where there are 50 NPCs talking at once. A certain amount of GM fiat and railroading to get out of this situation gracefully might be in order, which is really what something like FitD is doing by eschewing any sort of naturalism.

The underlying problem here is "too much to describe" The GM can't reasonably convey information to that many points of view in a timely fashion, nor can the GM do so in a way that avoids passing information between groups except by physical separation, and the situation is further complicated by the slow pacing means failure to share spotlight becomes even a bigger concern.

To a certain extent, this gets worse if the players aren't fully split up. If they do fully split up, I can use some fiat to try to make something interesting happen to each of them, but if we have some groups of 1's and 2's or whatever, or even just "rogue out on his own and everyone else together" there is no guarantee that I can make everyone useful without twisting the narrative structure so much the strings on the puppets are obvious.

 

[HaroldTheHobbit]

In how I GM Savage Worlds it would be all skill rolls and roleplaying, except for the social stuff where I let the roleplay heavily impact target numbers, we love some actual fasttalk at our table. The Heavy will be occupied with roleplaying, perhaps to the point where I make him roll to not mess things up.

 

[billd91]

So glad you asked hehe...

the situation was "You walk into a tavern and a noble mocks you. What do you do?"

So I thought that I didn't want to kill anyone, or unsheath my sword, so I would just kick the leg of his chair to either unseat him, break the leg/chair, or in he least get him to spill is ale all over himself... DC was 14, I rolled a 12... nothing happened.

Is there a particular reason this absolutely could not be a move in a PBtA game? There wouldn't be moves to goad, provoke, or otherwise wrongfoot an NPC that the PC could attempt but then fail in any PBtA game? Because it seems to me that your PC attempted to embarrass(?) or otherwise knock down the noble for mocking him, something for which the results could be uncertain and thus be worth a die roll - particularly since this could lead to a response or even an enmity even greater than just mocking. And, by failing, your PC ended up just looking even more pathetic to the crowd.
I mean, I could certainly see something like this come up in a Masks game where a teen hero is being mocked by some class bully (like a Flash Thompson kind of character to Peter Parker), try the Provoke Someone move, roll a 6 or under, and as a responding GM move I'd probably have that bully take influence over the PC and shift their labels (superior down, mundane up).
Is this really some kind of deficiency with a "pass/fail" system like D&D? Or is it just a DM who didn't frame things creatively?

 

[Gorgon Zee]

The underlying problem here is "too much to describe" The GM can't reasonably convey information to that many points of view in a timely fashion,

If you are giving two sentences of info to 4 players, it doesn't seem that is any less interesting, fun or informative than giving eight pieces of information to one group. This is the same as if you have four players searching a room -- you don't go into huge detail about everything each of them looks at, you just give each a small bit of info.

Of course, if you are a high prep GM, it helps as you can give them a ton of info. Or if you are running in a modern game, and you can just point them to the internet. I did a lot of that running Night's Black Agents.

nor can the GM do so in a way that avoids passing information between groups except by physical separation,

If your players cannot separate in-character and out-of-character knowledge, then OK, yes, you are going to have problems with many kinds of scene. But can we assume players who can do this? I tend to think most can, but maybe I'm just blessed with good players?

 

[RenleyRenfield]

Is there a particular reason this absolutely could not be a move in a PBtA game?

It absolutely can not be a response in PBTA.

There wouldn't be moves to goad, provoke, or otherwise wrongfoot an NPC that the PC could attempt but then fail in any PBtA game? Because it seems to me that your PC attempted to embarrass(?) or otherwise knock down the noble for mocking him, something for which the results could be uncertain and thus be worth a die roll - particularly since this could lead to a response or even an enmity even greater than just mocking. And, by failing, your PC ended up just looking even more pathetic to the crowd.

PBTA and D&D don't map to same roll results but if we were to try we have a few possibilities...

option A: a D&D result of 12 against DC 14 could mean a PBTA result of 7-9, in which case there are explicit move results listed (such as "They do it, but it costs you extra, or they do it but they protect their agenda, etc etc = success "I did it" + complication)

Option B: a D&D result of 12 against DC 14 could mean a PBTA result of 6-, in which case the GM has a list of "MC Moves" they are to pick from. It's a wishy washy list, but its still an explicit response of "The GM now states what thing happens in the fiction as a response to the roll." = this GM statement and advancement of the scene is required. There is a lost of MC moves in every PBTA book. (Remember, the thing about PBTA is that it has 'rules' for GM too.... this can often be why some gamers struggle with PBTA, as they try to run it like D&D... the core concepts are just so different)

I mean, I could certainly see something like this come up in a Masks game where a teen hero is being mocked by some class bully (like a Flash Thompson kind of character to Peter Parker), try the Provoke Someone move, roll a 6 or under, and as a responding GM move I'd probably have that bully take influence over the PC and shift their labels (superior down, mundane up).

Again, shifting labels comes as a "Narrative response" MC move. So its not just "Joe, shift your labels." , its = "The man mocks you as you foot fails to break the chair, your are feeling less powerful, shift label to X"... which is not at all what D&D would ever do.... (but is a cool response!)

Is this really some kind of deficiency with a "pass/fail" system like D&D? Or is it just a DM who didn't frame things creatively?

100% Yes it is a specific failing of pass-fail. There is no rule, nor is there any guidance on how to handle failed rolls in pass fail games like D&D (and if I recall, not in GURPS, Pathfinder or most all big brands...) all just state very explicitly "the character failed." nothing happens or is expected to happen
**(except in cases of damage, where it applies damage to a failed roll). Almost no pass fail system has a concept of "success with complications if the character failed the roll" or "the GM should muck up drama on failed rolls" in non-damage situations.

 

[billd91]

100% Yes it is a specific failing of pass-fail. There is no rule, nor is there any guidance on how to handle failed rolls in pass fail games like D&D (and if I recall, not in GURPS, Pathfinder or most all big brands...) all just state very explicitly "the character failed." nothing happens or is expected to happen

There's no game rule structured requirement for anything to happen... but did your knight and the noble just awkwardly look at each other with the failure to kick out his chair? Or did something happen?

 

[Tonguez]

In terms of history, note that the Cortex-based Leverage RPG was running heists back in 2010, while BitD was published in 2017.

The two games have very different approaches to the challenges of the genre, but BitD didn't invent the idea of getting to the action quickly.

good point, and if you want to really get down to it FATE Core uses the Burglary Skill which explicit says:

Create an Advantage: You can case a location with Burglary, to determine how hard it will be to break into and what kind of security you’re dealing with, as well as discover any vulnerabilities you might exploit. You can also examine the work of other burglars to determine how a particular heist was done, and create or discover aspects related to whatever evidence they may have left behind.

it contains a heist mechanic in a single skill within a wider framework

still Fates already been mentioned ...

 

[Theory of Games]

I am more interested in game design answers to the questions. How does initiative or action economy work in this circumstance, based on your specific preferred game?

Mutants & Masterminds 3e:

• Initiative is a combat thing and wouldn't come into play unless things go FUBAR. Then all involved roll and it's worked out as normal. If combat occurs in multiple scenes where maybe PCs 2&3 have to neutralize security agents, then we run simultaneous, alternating scenes
• Skill-use normally takes a round (6 seconds), but in PC3's case, it's a long conversation covering consecutive rounds, while PC2 is executing a skill challenge (Stealth + Acrobatics) that takes consecutive rounds, and PC1 is performing their own multi-round Skill challenge (Technology + a related Expertise). PC4 is binge-watching The Wheel of Time

It's each player getting one minute of spotlight at a time to make decisions and roll dice - then on to the next player. Done right, it can be very cinematic (if you like that kinda thing).

 

[Kannik]

Using Cortex Prime's Challenges mechanic (introduced in Tales of Xadia) might work well here. It's not quite the typical scenario used for the mechanic, but it still ought to work. It is explicitly is round-robin, which avoids too much downtime for each player. Each character in turn creates how they are overcoming the obstacle, so in this case participating in their aspect of the heist, working to tick down the challenge's pool (and on a failure, consequences are applied to the character). Once per round, the GM also gets to either bolster the pool or have the challenge do actively something against one of the characters. If a character gets taken out, there could be all sorts of consequences, including being captured (leading to a new set of goals later on in the adventure to rescue them/break out). If the challenge pool is depleted, the characters have pulled off their heist. All in all, it allows each character to be doing their own thing, focusing on their strengths and schtick, whittling down the challenge, all with ways to inject new complications/threats, neatly take out characters without disrupting the flow, and also while ensuring there's no long 'waiting around' for certain characters to finish up their things.

(I'll also have to revisit how Leverage did it!)