Goodman Games

Jenkins and Ragged Rob stand back in awe as the secret door opens.
"Sally forth!" shouts the jester.

[OOC: same marching order . . . ]

OOC: Agreed, same marching order.

Marvin clutches his sword, gulping quietly to himself. Xim strides toward the door. "Sally? Sally's here? I... uh, oh. Right, let's go."

Honest John: "OK, let's get this done. I'm starting to get really hungry."

Ok, you move into the revealed corridor toward the door at the far end.

Please give me an INT check for each character as you proceed forward.

[Int Checks: Ragged Rob 9, Joseph 18, Jester Jenkins 18]

OOC: Honest John rolls a 15 and Red Robert rolls a 4.

OOC: Intelligence rolls: Marvin 19 [it's a d20 plus/minus the modifier, yes? rolled a nat 20 and he has a -1.], Xim 4.

"Hold on, folks," Jester Jenkins whispers. "Look at those scratches." Jenkins begins peering at the wall and roof. Is there a visible gap, crack or hole where something might come out to cause such scratches?

doddwaco wrote:Is there a visible gap, crack or hole where something might come out to cause such scratches?

It looks, again, like this 10' section of wall has moved back and forth.

"Ah hah!" cries the jester. Then he looks back the way they came and shrugs.

OOC: Wait, just to be clear, you are saying that this is a different section of wall than the one we entered through, 20 feet away, right?

Max_The_Judge wrote:OOC: Wait, just to be clear, you are saying that this is a different section of wall than the one we entered through, 20 feet away, right?

Yes. A different section of the wall, this time in the corridor.

After walking about 15', some of you notice out of the corner of your eyes the same type of scratches around the edges of the wall, floor and ceiling in front of a 10' section of the north (right) wall of the corridor, 20' from where you entered it.

OOC: OK, thank you for the clarification.

Honest John: "Hey, I think we can move this wall like we did the other one. Who wants to help me?"

Marvin nods. "Let's get to it then." He carefully sticks his sword in his belt, and tries to help to move the section of wall.

OOC: Marvin has a STR mod of 0, right Chthonicthul? Honest John has a STR mod of +2. This is one of the reasons why I don't care for the mod system for combined effort. Or do we get to move up the die chain?

OOC: Yep, Marvin has a zero strength modifier.

Max_The_Judge wrote:Or do we get to move up the die chain?

OOC: Good question! Indulge me for a moment. Opinions vary on this.

Alternatives I have seen include:

This is left vague, officially. But the way I remember JG doing this, is we just added our roll totals together.

Use this example from Doom of the Savage Kings:

To gain entrance to the tomb, the PCs must roll the stone aside—a Herculean task requiring a DC 25 Strength check (up to 5 PCs can add their Strength modifiers to the total).[Or fewer as space allows]

If someone's helping you, you get to roll a d24. Nice and fast. We got that big nice funky die chain, might as well use it.

Bump the die size up the chain by one and use the stronger person's modifier.

I usually give +2 or so for each helper.



One person: Straight roll
Two: +4
Three: +8
Four: +16

Reduce the DC by the combined Strength modifiers of the extra hands.

OR if I want them to move the stone..... I say "cool you guys work together and then move it". If I don't want them to move it I say "it seems too heavy for a man to move , do you have any other ideas?" I like the players to come up with ideas.

I have my preference, but which of these do you guys like the most?

OOC: Wow, them's a lot of options. I would prefer to go with your preference, but my favorite would be the last, if it is something that we'd probably be able to do eventually with no penalty for failure.

OOC: Personally, I try to limit the number of dice rolls in my game. But I also think players should get to use their character's strenghts (and weaknesses). If it's one of those things where the plot basically stops if the players DON'T succeed in forcing the door, picking the lock, finding the secret, etc., then I just DM fiat the thing as successful and give a good reason why. If it's a bonus like treasure or plot flavor then heck yes I make them roll! In which case I'd keep it simple and lower the DC & use the highest modifier. I trust you as a Judge, let's go with your call.

OOC: BTW, THIS is why I love OSR! I vastly prefer to have the Judge have total discretionary power in cases like this. Common sense and good role playing beat out "feats" and overly detailed rules systems every time.

I'm fine with whatever.

Ok, let's go with

Bump the die size up the chain by one and use each additional person's modifier.

So somebody give me a d24 roll and add each person's modifier. Up to 4 people can push on the 10' wall.

OOC: Wow. I rolled a 6 on a d24. Honest John adds +2 for a total of 8.