3+ characters in a conflict?

[Dionysus]

Howdy y'all

Just had an awesome little pickup game. Been trying to play this forever but only now got some people wanting to play.
I'll give the run-down to explain.

we started with
- "A fallen temple, overgrown with moss and ivies, and the forgotten animal spirits of its cult."
- "A youth, reincarnation of an ancient sage, remembering uncanny arts but forgetful of safeguards"
- "A trainer of apes, bereft, mourning the death of his dearest performer"
- "The burglary of a magical order's innermost library"

The players came up with
Azir - a showman who's animals were killed, and hears rumours of spells to enslave animal spirits to him
Snake - An ancient spirit locked away in a ruined temple.
The Librarian - keeper of powerful artifacts and guardian of ancient secrets of House Flambeau
Ragamuffin - errand boy to the House Flambeau mages

We played out the theft of a magical book of summoning (Azir vs the librarian). Snake attacking the trained animals exploring the temple (Azir vs the Snake) The Snake enticing the trainer to sleep in his temple (Azir vs the Snake)

Then it started to get complicated...
The librarian caught up with azir in a cave. She tried to take back the book - and snake wanted to help azir get away by tripping up the librarian.

what we did was - all 3 rolled "initiative". Azir won and started running. (his roll stood). snake was next, followed by librarian)
but then Snake was attacking the librarian - i just got the pair of them to roll vs each other - librarian beat snake (but not azir) I gave her advantage dice and went to the next round...

Felt a bit strange.

Similar thing happened when ragamuffin (revealed as the ancient master) was summoning Snake into reality, and The librarian was trying to stop him - once again snake is trying to assist.

The example in the book read as 2 vs 1. but what of when its 1 vs 1, with another trying to help someone? (Snake kept wanting "to empower" someone in a conflict)...

How does that work?

[Paul T]

You did right, as far as I can tell.

The "snake" can't empower any other character. All snake can do is attack the librarian, making it more likely that the librarian will lose his/her side of the conflict. If I want to trip you in IaWA, I roll the dice against you. If I win, I may be able to knock down your dice (making it less likely you'll succeed against the person I'm trying to help) or negotiate for an outcome I like better, such as some position from which you can no longer threaten my friend.

[Dionysus]

You did right, as far as I can tell.

cool thanks

in that case it seemed like a smashing success

Feedback from the players was good - they'd all like to play again. But with the proviso that everyone was on-board with the world and gamestyle. Their was a very strong feeling of "we're all telling this story together" rather than a gm-player divide. There was also a lot of co-operative background making

eg - Snake was trying to get the stolen magical tome to be read aloud so he could be summoned fully into the world. The players agreed between themselves that "of course the tome can only be read out loud by a powerful magician". There were other examples, but the general consensus was that a "munchkin" out for himself could be horrendously overpowered... potentially.

But they like and want to play again, so i'm happy

[Paul Czege]

My reading is that Azir wanting to get away with the book is a challenge to the librarian, and the librarian should have had to roll in response to that challenge.

What I'm not entirely clear on from the text is what happens when you get to Snake, and he decides to attack the librarian. The librarian rolls another response?

And what if the librarian got an advantage die from his first response against Azir, but Snake beats him in the second response. Does he lose his advantage die? Or does Snake just get one?

Paul

[Paul T]

My answers are not definitive, of course, but I'm pretty sure that:

1. Yes, the librarian would roll again, with appropriate consequences--i.e. play it out normally.

2. The advantage only applies to the next "round", not to the next roll. So, finish all the challenges and answers in the first round, then have players gather advantage dice for the next round of the action sequence.

(If you meant "does he lose his advantage die FOR THE NEXT ROUND", then the answer is "no".)