The ship is under attack!
I am GM. My PC is first mate on a space ship. The ship is being attacked by some tiny hard-to-detect UFOs. PC wants to work with the engineering team to rig up some better sensors.
How should I as GM translate this situation into the Fate mechanics?
Part of the GM's job is deciding when to do skill rolls, and when to do something more complex mechanically like multi-roll challenges.
Here is the answer I came up with:
As I read the SRD, the first question to answer is: "should we roll dice at all?"
Roll the dice when succeeding or failing at the action could each contribute something interesting to the game. - When to Roll Dice
In this case I think both success and failure are interesting enough to matter: success gives the PC a cool new sensor tool to fight the bad guys, and a failure increases the suspense of being forced to fight blind. So I will say yes, we should roll dice.
Next question: should we zoom in?
I could make this a single Create Advantage roll, but I feel like that doesn't properly capture the team effort of this situation.
My first thought is that this should be a two-part challenge. PC rolls engineering and rapport, for how well he can work with the team and lead them.
I could also imagine some time component (see deadline pressure). They race to finish before the next attack.
This is my answer to my own question, but I am a newish GM and I'd like to know:
- Am I handling this in a good (or the best) way?
- Am I misreading the rules anywhere?