Skill Roll Collaboration?

[stories with bears]

I've searched but can't find anything, really, on the topic of skill collaboration (if such a thing even exists!).

Is there any RAW way to reflect more than one player working together on a skill roll? For example, it seems like a team of surgeons working together should have a decent bonus to a Surgery roll—more eyes to spot potential screw-ups, and more hands to provide assistance.

At the same time, though, there are skills in which collaboration could prove disastrous if one of the people involved is incompetent. If someone blunders into the surgery with a single point of First Aid, they could botch the entire thing no matter how skilled the rest of the team is.

If there is no RAW way to reflect this, any suggestions for house rules? I considered averaging the skills of everyone involved, but it seems somehow "off" that a surgeon with Surgery 14 has a better shot working alone than he does with two Surgery 12 assistants.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by stories with bears

I've searched but can't find anything, really, on the topic of skill collaboration (if such a thing even exists!).

That sounds like you want the rules on complementary skills in GURPS Action 2 p. 5 or...um...somewhere in Social Engineering. This allows one character to roll against a skill relevant to a task and, if successful, give a bonus to someone else.

[Anaraxes]

Also see B346.

- More than one person can count as Extra Time in the same interval. That is, rather than one person taking two hours for a one-hour task, you can use two people for one hour. (This option isn't quite so useful if you use the complementary skills rule, as that can get you better bonuses.)

- Supervisors can add +1 or +2 to their workers on Long Tasks by making an Admin or Leadership roll

[stories with bears]

I'll give both of those a look! Thanks!

[Dustin]

I find the rules for Complementary skills from Action 2 a little too stingy - without a critical, they provide a -1 or +1 at most. My houserule is as follows:

Skill Assistance: When applicable (not always), two characters may assist each other on a skill roll. The character who succeeds best has their result modified as follows:

Helper critically fails: Critical failure affects both characters.
Helper fails: Margin reduced by 1.
Helper succeeds by 0 to 4: Margin improved by 1.
Helper succeeds by 5 to 9: Margin improved by 2.
Helper succeeds by 10+ or critically: Margin improved by 3.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Dustin

I find the rules for Complementary skills from Action 2 a little too stingy

They are, but deliberately so . . . you can in theory get a very large bonus from several helpers making rolls: "If the GM agrees, a master skill might sometimes be able to benefit from several complementary skills!" And quite a few examples allow exactly that, like the ones on pp. 7, 8, 13, 15, 16, etc., and of course ACT (p. 17). For instance, a hacker could get bonuses from Computer Programming (for writing code), Electronics Operation (Surveillance) (for monitoring), Expert Skill (Computer Security) (also for writing code), Fast-Talk (for social engineering), and Scrounging (for Dumpster-diving), giving from +5 to +10 if things go well.