Specific rules for Group Actions
Group Actions call for a specific treatment, including Fame management. Group Actions are divided in Cumulated, Lead and Coordinated Actions and to cover all the topic, we'll finish with the description of so-called Strategic Actions, which are a combination of Lead and Coordinated Actions.
You'll master that… It's not that complicated! Or what? Just don't care about it!
Cumulated Actions
The Cumulated Actions are actions which do not require a complex coordination but the conjunction of the capacities of several persons. A simple case coming to the mind is that of the Strength. If it goes about knocking over a stone Voodoo altar (Such a gesture might however have huge consequences otherwise…) and the stone weights about a ton the Characters will better be at least four or five to have a hope to achieve this (some devices and a little of thinking would also do but this would no more be a pure case of Cumulated Action).
For Cumulated Actions, the Mastery Levels of the participants are computed and then added together. One adds again 10 upon that and finally substract a Difficulty Level of the action, fixed in advance by the Game Master.
It may seem stupid to first add 10 and then substract any Difficulty Level: it is up to our nonetheless friend the Game Master to combine them directly to remove one operation. However, the adding of 10 - and the computation of a higher Difficulty Level as a consequence - allows us to align the testing procedure with that of Actions in Opposition, the Cumulated Actions then being simply seen as Actions in Opposition to an inert thing (see further in this chapter) and suddenly it looks less stupid, well anybody onboard that ship may think different from the Captain's judgement…
The Fame which can be obtained from a Cumulated Action is shared equally between all participants to the action in the general case.
Decidedly slightly suicidal, our four Pirate friends who managed to get into a Voodoo temple dedicated to the Great Z…-Lwa undertake to knock over its altar which weights probably not far from ton. Their Strength Levels are 7, 5, 5 et 4. One multiplies them by two (action based on a pure Characteristic) and add them together to 42. Adding 10 and taking into account a Difficulty Level estimated to 50 by the Game Master result in an actual Mastery Level of 2 for that group action… A fifth pal or good levers would not be too much help!! (A sufficiently sturdy and big lever could add again a Bonus of 10 to the Mastery Level of the group.)Lead Actions
Lead Actions are relatively complex actions which require that a « leader » take over the organisation and lead the operations. Among those actions one can find particularly complex actions and think of, say, navigation and naval battles as good examples. But one should not limit himself or herself to those and thus a whit of sense of the Game Master will do to manage this type of Actions; note again that what can be role-played and story-told otherwise does not need to be recounted by the dice. The following few simple principles will guide the Game Master in managing Lead Actions, the course of which is quick.
The most important is the capacity of the leader to command and lead the operations. The Game Master decides on a Coordination Difficulty for this action (in addition to the Difficulty of the action itself, generally too high for a single individual). A first Roll ensues versus Got a Nerve! + Command of the group leader (or any other combination more suitable for the considered action and containing at least one of the two). Typically - but the Game Master can adapt this chart if he thinks necessary - in function of the Success Level of that first Roll, the actions of the Characters of the group, the leader included if applicable, are modified as follows:
| Mastery Level | 20 or + | 2 to 19 | 1 or – |
| Success Level | Bonus / Malus | ||
| Critical Success | +5 | +3 | +2 |
| Normal Success | +3 | +1 | +0 |
| Normal Failure | -0 | -1 | -3 |
| Critical Failure | -2 | -3 | -5 |
For managing the Rolls specific to the realisation of the action, one must distinguish whether it is an Action of « Cumulated » type or if depends on individual actions which combines. In the first case, one sums up the Mastery Levels, each including the Bonus or Malus resulting from the « leadership » Roll and follows the procedure for Cumulated Actions. In the second case, each of the Players make her Roll(s) separately, including the Bonus or Malus in her Mastery Level.
Captain Brilliantine lost all his Crew with the sole exception of two Sailors, not really as crafty as monkeys but surely as strong as horxes (Do not ask me what…). Thanks to Lady Destiny's intervention lucky enough to find himself castaway on an unknown desert island, what a joy to find a water source where game comes at dusk! Wanting to leave no chance to bad luck, he explains his plan to the two Seamen: come close discreetly with the wind always in front, then rush stake in hand on the animal looking the weakest, « over there, yeah this one! But don't stay out of cover like that, moron!! ». Once the last recommendations given the two Sailors, roused by a gulp of rhum which remained in Captain Brilliantine's possession, set off creeping under the thicket… So the Game Master requests from Captain Brilliantine's Player a Roll of a d20. His Mastery Level in Got a Nerve! + Command is 13 and the d20 turns up 1! It's a superb Critical Success allowing his Seamen to get a Bonus of 3 in the next bunch of actions (progress discreetly and kill the game).Coordinated Actions
Coordinated Actions are simple or complex actions undertaken by different Characters in a group who adapt their action in function of what the others do. This type of action can succeed only if the group is closely knit and if its members know each other well. At last, it is necessary that the individuals of the group are in position to know or guess what the others do: either do they see or hear them or they can imagine what they're doing for instance. It always stems from the Players being seated around the same table that the coordination of the Characters' actions goes simply with(out) saying but this is in fact no necessarily so simple in the field of operations…
Thus here again it calls for a whit of sense of the Game Master to manage the situation and as often in role-playing games, especially Zebra Island RPG, what can be role-played and story-told otherwise does not need to be recounted by the dice. principe assez général dans le Jeu de Rôles, en particulier dans Zebra Island RPG. The following few simple principles will guide the Game Master in managing Coordinated Actions, which he or she decides not to simply resolve with « common sense ».
Before rolling the d20 for the individual actions of the Characters, a little like for Lead Actions, one rolls dices to determine a Bonus or Malus which will reflect the degree of coordination of the group. Thus each Player rolls a d20 versus a Mastery Level equals to (Cleverness – Got a Nerve! + 10): the formula is a balance between the Character's ability to anticipate her comrades' actions (Cleverness) and her potency for individual - up to egoistic - action (Got a Nerve!).
The Game Master can under certain circumstances grant a Malus or Bonus for that first Roll (between – 3 and + 3, or even - 5 and + 5 in extreme cases) to account for the degree to which the individuals of the group know each other or more sepcifically if the group already experienced similar situations.
According to the result of the d20s, Boni or Mali are computed for each Character individually using the same table as for Lead Actions (see in the corresponding section of that page). Thus, the actions of the individuals of the group are affected by an individual Bonus or Malus in the frame of the Coordinated Action whereas in a Lead Action the Bonus or Malus is the same for everyone, stemming from the leader's ability for Command.
Maybe an example will do at this point:
Berthomeu and Alberto are two Pirates in the galley in that part of the Lesser Curry-Beans since already quite a while. They camped in the forest on Good-Fortune Island in the last days, having to hide because the local Governor is hard with Pirates. They are caught at « dinner » in their camp by a patrol of his soldiers! They obviously have no time to devise a plan on what to do next [but the Player who play their role around a table always have, even if only a little, that opportunity] and each rush on his musket and attempt to throw himself under cover while the shots already swish around them, before searching for a way to counter-attack. [In the actual situation the Players have no way to pretend that they would have been able to coordinate their action in that manner, so the Game Master request d20 Rolls for a Coordinated Action.]Berthomeu has 7 in Cleverness and 6 in Got the Nerve!. Alberto also has 7 in Cleverness but 6 in Got the Nerve!. The Game Master grants them a Bonus of 2 for This Roll because he judges that they know each other since a sufficiently long time and that they already had to get out of similar tight spots in the past. Berthomeu thus has a Mastery Score of 13 and Alberto of 11. The respective d20s turn up 15 and 4. Referring to the previous chart, Berthomeu receives a Malus of 1 and Alberto a Bonus of 1 for their actions as long as didn't get the time to clearly see what the other is doing. [That means practically in this case: taking quickly the weapon, rushing under the thicket and possibly the first retaliation shots… The Game Master can also use those Mali and Boni to determine if the muskets are already loaded or not – in the case when the Players would have omitted to mention it explicitely before… The following actions of the sequence can be managed by the rules regarding the Encounters and Conflicts.]
Strategic Actions
Dear Reader, and nonetheless Friend, you will have noticed how Lead and Coordinated Actions are close in their form. In fact in actual situations, particularly in a Pirate Crew, both are mixed: the Captain give orders to manage operations (change of tack, change of sails, boarding, etc.) but he wouldn't be able to manage if he had to explain everything in details to everybody. Using the experience of his Crew, he gives relatively general orders and the members of the Crew know what they have to do, having then only to coordinate their actions. Those combined actions are called here Strategic Actions.
In terms of gaming system, it is as simple as first rolling a d20 for the Command Roll of the group leader. The result of that Roll determine a Bonus or Malus applicable to all active members of the group. For each of them, one then adds to this modificator the Bonus or Malus stemming from the individual Roll for each one's Coordination Ability. At last, that combined modificator is taken as the Bonus or Malus for the d20 Rolls versus the Mastery Levels for the actions taken in the frame of the Strategic Action.
More specifically, the procedures for Navigation, Naval Battles and Boardings are based on the system for Strategic Actions but they are discussed more in details in another chapter.