Assuming the fiction allows, can a character get the benefit of Help or Interfere more than once (e.g. from more than one Helper) on a single roll?
Can everyone Help with Get the Job, for instance? Can everyone Help the Killer Mix it Up for massive bonuses?
I’ve played some Apocalypse World and Uncharted Worlds, and run and played even more of Dungeon World. In DW, the move explicitly states you can only get the Aid bonus once. I couldn’t find anywhere in The Sprawl that said you could only get the Aid bonus once.
I want to rule that you get the bonus just once, because I want to minimize extraneous die rolls. But I’d rather point to RAW, cite a a page, and say “yeah, it says so here on page XX” (problem is, it doesn’t seem to say that)
I don’t see that it specifies that multiple people cannot use Help at the same time on the same action. However it does lead to interesting things occurring with 9- rolls (implication and exposure) plus on 6- rolls bad things are going to happen to multiple characters. I can see clocks increasing suddenly if multiple Help actions have consequences and if the MC opts for hard moves I can see some TPK’s. Might want to warn them about the drawbacks.
True, a 6- on Help is as bad as a 6- on the original move. And most people are not going to have 3 Links with the acting character.
As long as the fiction supports it, I’d probably allow multiple assists, with one limitation – that the combined bonus from multiple PCs cannot exceed +3. That’s important, because by the rules, no individual PC stat (including Links) can exceed +3, and it wouldn’t be healthy for the game if the bonuses could stack to the point where rolling 6- was easily rendered impossible.
Of course, the fiction has to support it, so that’s going to depend on how the players describe their actions. Consider that a 10+ roll for Mix It Up means that a) you didn’t make too much noise, b) you managed to avoid harm, c) no allies took harm, and d) nothing of value was broken. If the PCs are just going to kick in the door and hose the place with guns and grenades, well… fictionally, that’s not going to make it easier to achieve those outcomes. On the other hand, if they’re describing how they overwhelm the guards with the threat of overwhelming force, then allowing them to stack numbers would seem reasonable.
Simon Geard that’s limit 1 Help, though.
3 stat
1 help
Snake eyes (2 on the dice)
Total is 6.
3 stat
1 help
1 more help
Snake eyes
Total is 7
Jon Lemich – you’re right… for all the thought I put into that, I obviously wasn’t thinking straight… forgot that the result of multiple Help actions is multiple Help bonuses on top of another stat, pushing it to 7+. And that’s no good.
Ok, so how about combining on the Help roll itself? One roll, but combining their individual Links up to the maximum of +3 – that would make it easier to get the Help bonus, but not allow the stack of multiple such bonuses.
But honestly, I don’t know if it’s worth the hassle. In my games, this kind of situation has never really come up as far as I recall – probably because with 3-4 PCs, it would be rare to have more than one other character in a position to assist the first…. they’re focused on their own roles in the operation (sure, the hacker would love to help you open that door, but he’s busy dodging ICE at the moment).
With the Soldier’s plan and skillwires, a character can be rolling +5 a whole lot, even without help from allies, so guaranteed hits can happen.
On the other hand, one thing I’ve seen used is giving a -2 to the main roll on a missed help roll, which means that more help isn’t always better.
I run into a similar problem with player rolling +5 at any given time. I’ve ruled that rolls cant be made with higher than plus five but how do you all address it?
I’ll be cautious with Skillwires. I’ll make sure any player that takes them is aware that the chip needs to be pretty specific. Here’s the Plan seems self-limiting. Just introduce complications that force them to Act under Pressure, make Moves that they’re not good at (likely to fail) or improvise and go off plan. I mean… I was going to do that stuff all the time ANYWAY. 🙂