I'm about to start running my First genesys game soon. wondering how some of you are handing group skill check. the book has a way to combine two or more players but it seems to be for skills only the best person matters( like pick locks ). not something like stealth where if one person fails everyone does. how is this handled at your tables?

what I was thinking about this I would have highest skill dice in the group + lowest sat in the group for the roll.

( skilled person telling everyone else what they are doing (or selecting a path, so on) wrong but it up to there sats to internalize how it happening)

also when you guy are having people search a room would everyone roll or just have a group check with high skill + high sat?

With certain group checks, you could pool Successes together (so if a person got extra success pips, they could give them to their allies to keep them from failing). That makes sense if they're all traveling together for a good distance. Or, if they're trying to sneak across a small distance, you could have the sneakiest guy go first and then have him do Assisted checks for each of the other characters—maybe the Advantage/Triumph he rolls with his own check can also improve their chances.

You could roll one check for the whole group, but I wouldn't mess around with the lowest stat. Just add Setback dice, one per each extra person—it's harder to sneak a large group of people somewhere than it is to just sneak one or two people in

As for searching, it depends on what they're looking for. But if it's something like clues to a mystery, or hidden objects, or secret doors, etc, you determine how many people could possibly benefit the check, let them use skilled assistance, and then just add a Boost die for everyone else who's assisting in the searching (as if they were offering unskilled assistance). If the area is too small and more people would just get in the way, tell the players they can only benefit from 1 or 2 people helping on the check.

20 minutes ago, awayputurwpn said:

You could roll one check for the whole group, but I wouldn't mess around with the lowest stat. Just add Setback dice, one per each extra person—it's harder to sneak a large group of people somewhere than it is to just sneak one or two people in

This is what I do.

While you may have the whole group doing a stealth check, it is really an individual thing to be quiet and hide. If you prefer a single result I would recommend the combined group net total as mentioned above.

Well, you can use the worst stat and skill, but adding 1 boost per ally doing the same test.

Or pick up the best stat and skill among them and few boost.

On 4/23/2018 at 3:08 PM, Doomgrin75 said:

While you may have the whole group doing a stealth check, it is really an individual thing to be quiet and hide.

I would disagree on this, philosophically. I'd argue that skilled assistance checks exist precisely for reasons such as this.

Someone who's trained can help someone who's not trained walk more quietly, or choose better spots to stop and hide. Yes, the trained person might be slowed down or hampered slightly by the untrained person, BUT that untrained person will have a much better chance at sneaking around if he's following the lead of someone who is more skilled.

Also sometimes it’s fun and in character if a person who isn’t the best tries a skill check. They may think they’re the most perceptive person in the world... with a Cunning of 2 and no ranks!

“You guys search the abandoned houses, I’ll check the inn!” Finds nothing, then 5 minuets later the group is ambushed by the 10 bandits in the inn ?

Im just saying don’t always have the conversation “well she is the best at this so she should roll” before the group does anything.

Also don’t ask for a skill check where Failure is a road block, it should just be a speed bump to slow them down or complicate things. Failure can just as easily be “you took a long time searching, hours pass of sifting through the ashes, eventually finding the broach right at the front door” instead of “you find nothing”

If there is no limit to how many can join the check, set the check based on the difficulty of what they are trying to do. Add a number of boost per person, but if unskilled, they also add a setback.

Just think outside the box a bit.

Skill Challenges work really well too.

15 hours ago, awayputurwpn said:

I would disagree on this, philosophically. I'd argue that skilled assistance checks exist precisely for reasons such as this.

Someone who's trained can help someone who's not trained walk more quietly, or choose better spots to stop and hide. Yes, the trained person might be slowed down or hampered slightly by the untrained person, BUT that untrained person will have a much better chance at sneaking around if he's following the lead of someone who is more skilled.

What you describe still results in individual check with a boost. Assisted still means one check as in an activity performed by many for a single result.

GM Hooly above has a good take on it as well. The leader of the stealth group makes a check, unskilled people add setbacks.

On 4/24/2018 at 8:10 AM, Doomgrin75 said:

What you describe still results in individual check with a boost. Assisted still means one check as in an activity performed by many for a single result.

If you take my comment in a vacuum, I can understand this interpretation, but I meant to include it as a thought that is part of the larger conversation. Please see my earlier comments to get a clearer picture of my reasoning. Also, I only meant to reply to your first sentence (the philosophical part) rather than the entire method you proscribed.

I'd even make an unskilled piggybacker upgrade the Difficulty, so you have a chance of a Despair.

8 minutes ago, player966703 said:

I'd even make an unskilled piggybacker upgrade the Difficulty, so you have a chance of a Despair.

I wouldn't...it's a sloppy GM overreach, IMO. There are a few considerations to make here:

1. Stealth is almost always going to be an Opposed check, so most of the time you're already going to have
2. In lieu of Opposed skill checks, difficulty should be upgraded because of inherent danger in the situation, not just because there's someone untrained. That's what setbacks are for: complications.
   1. That being said, if a member of your group is acting particularly buffoonish, or is trying something particularly risky while the group is trying to steal across a bridge or something, sure, upgrade the difficulty.
3. If you're tempted to upgrade the check simply because you think Despair could be interesting, then that's what Story Points are for.

One mechanically fun thing to do in group checks, is parcel the dice out to each player. A) rolling dice is fun! and B) you get to know which PC fouled up the sneak test.

I expanded on the Assisted checks in RAW to use it for group checks. All of my "expanded checks" house rules are summarized in the PDF below. It's in FFG Star Wars format but translates directly:

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxzdHVybnNzdHVmZnxneDo0M2Q1ZTVlNWQ4ZDljYmUy