Group Survival

Last post I wrote about trying to simplify the Survival Challenge system for groups. To expand on that thought, I feel like the system works just fine for one character and conceptually it works for a group, but tracking challenge points individually for each character is a pain. The other issue I have with the system is, while there is a way for characters to help each other, it’s not simple.

The easiest way to simplify the process is to handle the challenge points as a group. The problem is, to a simulationist (me) that doesn’t make sense. It could make some sense, since lowering the challenge as a group could signify the characters helping each other through the difficulty. The problem is, that in some situations like surviving a dessert trek, more people make the challenge harder.

The solution could lie in scaling certain challenges, like climbing a cliff, according to how many characters are going to take on the challenge. Even that solution is messy however. For one, the group could decide that only the good climbers in the group are going to attempt the climb and the rest will stay behind.

There is one other issue with the system. That is, tracking when certain events happen in the challenge

Now, midstream, the GM has to change the number of challenge points to match. That’s just annoying. The other problem is that the character’s strategy may be to have one character run through the challenge quickly while the others work through the challenge more slowly. Then the one pool system really doesn’t work.

The solution could lie in flipping the math. It’s mentally easier and possibly more enjoyable to have the players build up to the total number of challenge points. The players track their own progress, and because it’s a build up, the process is more interesting. It would also make sharing progress easier. If each player has a number of points built up, it’s easier to redistribute points among the player characters.

It would also make sense to track this kind of progress with a spin down d20, or in this case, a spin up d20. This would make the progress evident for each character. The players can distribute their points among themselves as they see fit.

The other advantage to this is, it’s easier to know when each character gets to each stage of a challenge. The GM can mark down at what stage each stage occurs.

One more thing

It came to my attention that at each stage of a challenge, the player should get a choice of two different “attacks” the environment can make. I think that would introduce more player agency and introduce choice.