Handling action at a distance

[Drew Stevens]

Okay. A large portion of a game of intrigue is action at a distance- using your web of contacts and influences, allies and minions, to accomplish goals (wither arbitrary or not) against both the passive resistance of the world to change, and the active resistance of other, similiar intriguers.

However, I'm not aware of any game which has a good system for handling this; either you're advised to actually play out the minions at work (Ars Magicia, as I understand it, basically works like this), or the success or failure of the minions depends purely on the minion's master (IE, the PC makes a roll of their Political ability or whatever, irrespective of the minions and strategy being used, apart from possible stunt bonus equivelents), or the success or failure of the minions depends basically on GM fiat.

How do ya'll handle this aspect of games of intrigue? Anyone know of a good system for such that I am unawares of?

[John Harper]

I'm toying around with a version of Sorcerer that deals with the world of espionage. In it, a character's "demons" are actually people that you manipulate and control to achieve your goals. So, game play is about the intelligence agent (and his slipping humanity), but the abilites of the minions matter in the same way that demon abilities matter to any game of Sorcerer.

Since Sorcerer conflicts can happen at any scale of distance or time, the PCs can tackle any kind of problem by commanding their demons (like "discredit this political figure") while acting at a distance. Consequences of failure or success trickle back up to the agent based on conflict rolls, as usual.

Is that the kind of thing you're looking for?

[Shreyas Sampat]

It seems like you could adopt some mass combat mechanics to this effect - if I understand correctly, Exalted's mass combat system modifies a leader's ability (here this might represent the leader's ability to devise plans) with the minions' abilities (the ability to execute those?) to arrive at a final effectiveness value.

Heroquest seems to make this possible with Relationship abilities, which you could augment with your own intriguing abilities; following that, your minions might augment with their own relevant abilities. I'm not really clear on how it works, but it seems appropriate...

[M. J. Young]

In running Multiverser, I use the system's General Effects Rolls for this. It's a bit subjective and a bit abstract, but it has a reasonable foundation in the objectivity of the die roll.

In essence, there's a 3d10 roll against a chart that runs from the one in a thousand chance disaster to the one in a thousand chance success, with neutral results in the middle (sixteen and seventeen) and descriptors for each number, such as "good enough" and "worse than anticipated".

I consider the player character's desires, the plan, the resources at his disposal, the task that has to be accomplished, and the obstacles, and I look at the roll with that in mind to decide how that comes out, given the roll.

I've had a lot of luck with it in running mass combats, where I'm handling the specific actions of the player character and those he is directly commanding through direct combat mechanics, but the rest of the battle shifts according to the general effects rolls.

I also have no problem with rolling critical skill checks for distant NPCs to see whether they accomplish the task to which they are assigned. That can usually be done quickly. The trick there is to consider what the NPC will do, how he will do it, and where the critical skills are going to fall, and then just check them. If he has to stealthily enter the building, disable the alarm system, sneak up to the twentieth floor unseen, disable the guard, and break into the safe, which are the tasks that are most likely to be problematic? Roll a GE roll for everything else, and roll one or two skill checks for those critical moments. The whole thing can be resolved in a minute, and the outcome returned to the player.

--M. J. Young

[Drew Stevens]

Re: Harper and Sorcerer

Sounds interesting.  Talk about how it works out :)

Re: Shreyas and Exalted

While true, it's also not quite what I'm going for.  

Re: Young and GER

Mm... feels a little too close to fiat, for my tastes.  Also doesn't have a good way to take into account the master or minion's capabilities.

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Now, all that said, I think I may have hit on a system similiar to what I'm going for- Time Combat, from Continuum.  The ways Strategies are used and consume a variety of limited resources (time and Span, at least), Rounds are calculated, and so on- it all feels very close to what I'm looking for.  Except you'll assign the Strategies to your minions... Yes...

I'll post more, when I've got something a little more concrete :)