Assistance vs. Group Action: what determines when a PC can utilize one vs. the other?
For context, if two of my PCs want to Gather Information from a contact, what is the distinction (or, is there one) between assistance and a group roll?
My point being, a group roll seems altogether preferable (all PCs present can roll, stress only on 1-3, etc.) to an Assist.
What am I missing? Is it the trade-off between the 1 stress for the Assistant and the potential for more stress for the Leader of the Group Action on a failure (balanced by the fact that you have more opportunity for success)?
I think that group action is meant to represent actions which are executed by the whole team as “one man”: of we’re all sneaking together, then we can roll prowl as a group action.
An assist is meant to represent an aid offered to a certain action: if you sneak and I’m on the lookout, then I can assist your prowl roll.
A couple things to factor in:
A group action means everyone enjoys the reward and suffers the consequences. If you don’t need the outcome for yourself personally than an assist can be safer than joining a group action.
Typically you can only get two bonus dice. One from either a push or devil’s bargain and one from an assist. So if one person wants a big pool (say they are hoping for a critical) assist may be preferable.
Finally, follow the fiction. With group action everyone does the same action. But if you have an idea for how to help that isn’t that action, then you’re doing an assist. Ye old rule of “to do a thing, do it”.
MisterTia86 Sean Nittner Very helpful – thanks for the replies.
So, in my example above, if one of the PCs is mainly running the dialogue and the other is listening, detecting body language, maybe asking a clarifying question – that’s an Assist.
If the PCs together are hot-boxing the contact, playing good cop/bad cop, or otherwise jointly interrogating their contact – that’s a Group Action.
Correct?
Again, really, REALLY like how the system both encourages and is driven by context. I find that skill usage can often boil down to a bland, “I use Survey” roll “How did I do?”
You can’t really do that here or, if you do, you’re missing most of the fun (and pretty much all of the context-driven possibilities of effects and consequences).
You got it!
Group actions seem best when all the participants have at least one dot in the Action. If you don’t have a dot in the Action, Assist is better, because you get a full die out of it. Otherwise, you’ll have to roll two and take the lowest.
The corollary o this is sometimes you have to do a group action (or everyone has to roll to do it independently). What to all sneak back stage at the Spiregarden to meet Maestro Helleren? You better all be rolling your prowl, otherwise some of you are staying behind!
Oh yeah, definitely. I was just referring to the mathematical justification for picking one or the other.
Sean Nittner Completely off-topic but, I’ve been having issues posting questions to the Community – I’ll hit send and see the post update to the Community, but always underneath the headline post then, when I hit refresh it completely goes away, as if I never posted. I’ll check my Profile and, for whatever reason, there it is but not on the BitD Community. I just joined the Community 7-10 days ago and I’m sure it’s user error.
Anything you suggest?
Bjorsa Brimrsson, possibly because you just join and John had to enable some spam blocking, you’re membership was a “limited member”. I changed you to a normal member. Mind trying again to see if it works now?
Sean Nittner Aha! Thanks, man. Yes, my message posted to the Community yesterday afternoon/evening.
Appreciate the clarification – I thought I had a Community setting set-up incorrectly and was trying to figure out what I had done.