Limits to help?

[Redoid]

This is more an opinion question that a hard rule question... Are you actively limiting the amount of helping dice given? By the rule as written, a group of twenty high school students with Physics B1 can all help each other to have one of them discover Relativity.

What kinds of limits do you place on helping? Realistically, no more than 6-8 persons can help to lock someone in a fight, for example...

[Kublai]

Gee! That student example is a toughie!

When doing Physical stuff, common sense limits Helpers. For instance, I can see a max of 4 people trying to heal someone. But for research based stuff like your example? Zoiks!

Perhaps a cap could be determined by the lead roller's Will? Coordination of Help is a leadership-dependent ability after all. Too many chef's spoil the kitchen and all that, eh, wot?

[Drozdal]

This is more an opinion question that a hard rule question... Are you actively limiting the amount of helping dice given? By the rule as written, a group of twenty high school students with Physics B1 can all help each other to have one of them discover Relativity.

What kinds of limits do you place on helping? Realistically, no more than 6-8 persons can help to lock someone in a fight, for example...

I thnik that no more than 3-4 people can help each other in locking someone up during a fight. As for Relativity theory - why not? If those people will be working together I can't see why they can't eventually discover it, of course time will be a major factor in this case. Let's say 50 years of constant research? By the end of the preocess i'm sure that their skills will advance significantly :)

[Angaros]

True, but I can't see students helping their professor much either. Sure they can check the basics of his calculations and do logic examinations of what he's saying, but still... there has to be some sort of limit. A physicist with B7 isn't likely to get much aid from his five high school students whose skill is B1. A more logical limit would be that the total (base + help) can't exceed twice the lowest exponent of those that cooperate. There are some people whose abilities will only slow you down.

Using this method the students mentioned above wouldn't achieve more than a B2 through participation. Three B3's would get to roll 5 dice on the other hand. The physics professor with a B7 would need to enlist competent people in order to get stuff done (B4's or preferrably B5's). It does seem plausible that a group of Nobel nominees working together can get mean dice pools.

[Redoid]

That's may be the way, great replies. I had toyed with the idea, for complex tasks, to have a requirement to help, like having a skill not less than 5 under the obstacle to be met, because in some case, you simply don't know enough to help, but in some case, one can help simply by freeing the time of the main contender to concentrate on imporant things, so a little helping dice could come from everything... Though I admit I'll always double-check work made by other, unless I totally trust their ability, so maybe the help is not that useful.

[Mickeroo]

SImilair to what Droz said, I think that it would just take a long time. Personally, i woudl do it in steps, maybe the final discovery being step 25 or something. Using this method, it gives each student (if we use that example) a number of tests to raise thier skill, 24 in this case.

[stormsweeper]

Personally, i woudl do it in steps, maybe the final discovery being step 25 or something. Using this method, it gives each student (if we use that example) a number of tests to raise thier skill, 24 in this case.

I think this could be said in general about any ab initio check. We didn't go from Pythagoreas to Einstein very easily, there were many steps and backtracks along the way. It's not really something that can be boiled down to a single skill use. (Besides, I feel that I should point out Einstein was a mathematician, not a physicist :P )

I think the Will limit is a good idea - the double exponent thing breaks down if the helpers have a higher exponent than the main person performing the action. It also has the advantage of being simpler to keep track of.

[luke]

funny how things go. There were detailed rules for such limits in the original edition. And I don't think one person ever used them.

-L

[Redoid]

funny how things go. There were detailed rules for such limits in the original edition. And I don't think one person ever used them.


Err, I missed them in that case, I just remember that in the academic field, the task could be slowed by disagreeing helpers, but that it was explicitely mentionned that an unlimited number of characters could help. Anyway, my question was only theoretical, just to know how other GM did this, and apparently you answered: this is an infrequent situation that can be handled on a case-by-case basis.

[Paka]

Eff limits.

If I am gaming, I want my players to discover relativity and realize tehy can make a terrible bomb that can destroy the world. Then I want them to figure out what to do with it.

This isn't a game about realistic physics research. It is a game about fantasy adventure.

[Drozdal]

Eff limits.

If I am gaming, I want my players to discover relativity and realize tehy can make a terrible bomb that can destroy the world. Then I want them to figure out what to do with it.

This isn't a game about realistic physics research. It is a game about fantasy adventure.
Amen! Brother.

[stormsweeper]

Besides, last time I checked only players have dice. :lol:

[Redoid]

Eff limits.

If I am gaming, I want my players to discover relativity and realize tehy can make a terrible bomb that can destroy the world. Then I want them to figure out what to do with it.

This isn't a game about realistic physics research. It is a game about fantasy adventure.

Limits would apply to NPC, too. In fact, mainly, since players tend not to be numerous to share the same skill.

[Wuxing]

My big assumption is that this "discovery" is directly related to the story. If it isn't than ignore it. If it is then I say this, the players better get on top of this or the bomb goes BOOOM!!! This screams climax of a story.

To be a bit more general, I want players to set things of consequence in motion. That can mean a million different things and all of them good in my opinion. I guess since I'm not trying to mimic reality I just don't see the problem.