So two questions:
1) Is trying to pick a lock Face Adversity or Access?
2) I’m confused about combat. If there are three players in the group and they come up against bad guys they want to shoot, do each of them Open Fire separately on their targets? Or does one and the other assist?
1) Access is not a general move. It only covers the specific case of accessing a computer system.
That said, trying to pick a lock isn’t inherently a roll. If there is no danger, there’s no adversity to face. What’s the danger? Someone finding out? The door exploding? You don’t need to roll to pick the lock to your bathroom door in your own house when you have hours to do it.
UW and other PbtA games do not resolve tasks by rolling dice, they resolve risks.
2) It is going to depend on the specifics and permission in the moment. If one guy has a rapid fire plasma cannon made to take out a tank, then he’s probably the only one to roll, and can easily take out a group. If everyone has crappy pea shooters, then maybe the all roll against a single opponent.
Make sure you think about how the specifics in the world play out.
1) What kind of lock? How are they getting into it? Popping off the panel and messing around with probes and clips? It might be Face Adversity if there’s an actual danger involved, something to deal with it (whether its Time because guards are coming, or Alarms because the door is rigged, or Gunfire because you’re being shot at, etc). Just picking a lock is not Facing Adversity, as long as the character has any sensible ability to do it (pretty much any Scoundrel, or Technocrat, or Infiltratory kind of character should be able to just do this without any time even spent on it unless there’s a real danger). Are they plugging their computer into the digital lock and bypassing its systems to make it grant “legitimate” passage? Yeah, that’s Access. It all depends on how it’s being done. Follow the fiction.
2) If they come up against badguys, sure, they could all Open Fire. It depends on what is going on in the fiction! Who are these generic bad guys? Are we talking three fire-teams with laser rifles? One fire-team, a sniper on a roof, and an officer calling for backup? A single unit but its a bunch of power armor wearing space marines? Six deadly assassins trained in Martian aikido and armed with high-frequency swords? When there’s a fight, figure out the individual Threats! If its six deadly assassins, then they might all be individual Threats. If it’s six guys with guns, it might be three fireteams, and so on. Figure out how the enemy is arranged, how they’re coordinating their efforts.
Each instance of Open Fire has the chance to put a Threat down or otherwise make them unable to participate any further (maybe they’re shot up, maybe the break off and retreat, it really depends on who they are and what their deal is). Players can each do their own Open Fire, targeting different Threats — Player A targets the fire team, Player B goes after the officer, and Player C goes after the sniper — and this is usually a solid plan. Sometimes this isn’t possible (like if no one has a rifle with which to target that sniper over there). Again, it’s going to all depend on looking at the fiction and determining what exactly is happening.
Sometimes, yes, one person will Open Fire and the others will Assist. That’s what you do in the situations where everyone is targeting one Threat (example: that Sniper is out of range, so PCA and PCB team up on the fire team, rolling Open Fire & Assist while PCC goes after the Officer). I would not advise doing multiple Open Fires on a single Threat when, really, the other people participating are assisting whoever is on point… probably whoever is playing the gunbunny of the party.
I’m pretty new to PbtA games – UW is the only one I’ve played – so someone else might have a better answer, but I believe the short answer for both is that it’s subjective, based on group taste and GM fiat. The jerk’s answer, I know, sorry.
Slightly longer version would ask, does it matter fictionally? For the former, if there’s no dramatic tension and no story benefit to picked lock failing other than styming forward progress of the plot, don’t bother rolling. Just let the players do it. If there is something cool about failure, you probably pick the move based on whether there is danger/pressure (and what hard move you’d want to react with) vs. whether the open door provides them information or control. I’d imagine there are situations where both apply a bit, so that’s why I said it’s really just a judgement call, not a hard and fast rule.
For the combat question, the thing it says is one move per threat, so there’s a judgement call there. It again comes down to how much it matters, but also fictional positioning, which I find to be the pretentious but succinct way of saying what circumstances have the players created in the story. Do they have the drop on the bad guys and a well planned ambush? Just let it work.
Are the bad guys a single threat, a small challenge with a basic impact on story? Maybe a single Open Fire move from one person, maybe with a Face Adversity from the second PC of the bad guys started the firefight or if the PCs are positioned to their disadvantage; and/or a Get Involved if the PCs are providing cover fire for a primary gun. And a partial success or failure from the first PC is what sets the stage for the next PC’s action.
If each of the opposing bad guys is a threat in their own right, if you as gm are narrating each one’s separate actions instead of describing their effect as a team, or if they are all name level NPCs, then yeah, each one probably deserves to get take out with their own Open Fire or Assault and might cause the group to Face Adiversity or go straight to Brace For Impact based on the actions you narrate.
So long answer: it’s all judgement call.
Taejas Kudva Your sense of UW and PbtA is pretty right, except that it never matters how “dramatic” something is. You follow the move triggers, not someone’s internal sense of storytelling. It’s not a matter of “is it interesting to roll for this door?” its a matter of “is there adversity to be faced here? are they accessing? are any of the moves being triggered?” Otherwise, you’ve got it pretty much right.
I think I’m still in an How-Other-RPGs-Do-It mindset. Aaron Griffin, your comment “UW and other PbtA games do not resolve tasks by rolling dice, they resolve risks” is the key thing I need to keep in mind. And for some reason I wasn’t thinking about the individual bad guys being individual threats and so resolving one Open Fire (or whichever) potentially resolves/removes one threat. On a failed roll, I can see the character takes whatever the result is and the bad guy remains (if it fits the fiction).
Thanks all! Very, very helpful 🙂
Yep, it’s super easy to get sucked back into rolling-per-task, and there’s nothing really WRONG with that in the grand scheme of things. The game is just better when you only roll for risky things.