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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7341084" data-attributes="member: 29398">OK, we're all good up to here.  But then you add...  ...and right there I start thinking you've got the challenge bit wrong.The challenge, from the PCs' perspective, isn't to poison the king.  That's eventually to be the assassin's challenge, in which the PCs (and by extension the players) are not involved at all.  The PCs' challenge is to convince someone else to try to poison the king, success in which provides them a hired field operative committed to that mission.Yes, these could happen during the recruiting/hiring process - on a failure a prospective operative turns the PCs in, for example.  But it's less likely to happen at this stage than during the actual assassination attempt.But now you're jumping ahead to the assassination attempt itself, which is a different challenge and out of the players/PCs' hands.A 12-0 success run means they've hired the best and most loyal operative they could ever hope to find.  Still doesn't at all speak to whether said operative is going to be able to pull it off or not, though it might influence the odds somewhat.I guess in short I see the players dealing with what's in their PCs' range to be involved with (in this case the hiring and equipping of an assassin) and then not being involved in what their PCs are not involved in (here, the actual infiltration and assassination attempt).I don't do this very often*, but in a case like this I think I'd have to - there's just too many variables.  It'd end up working more like a flowchart; in that both successes and failures could be mitigated or overcome by other factors arising then or later.  There's no way I could beat this down to just one die roll, even if I wanted to, without really shortchanging the game.* - most common occurrence is during 3-way combats where the PCs are fighting two opposing groups who are also fighting each other - if someone from foe group A is fighting someone from foe group B I'll play out their initiatives, swings etc. right along with the rest of the combat, mostly so I know what will be left of either or both should one or more PCs end up fighting them later.True, only here they've conceded the ability to do very much of anything other than wait for developments; developments which they neither get to author nor influence.Lanefan</blockquote>

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