It’s an interesting one because there’s different rules for group recon Rolls vs group rolls in general - I see why buy I also could see why you could just use the rules for group rolls.
From memory, blades in the dark has the lead player roll and everyone else rolls too, with the lead player taking “stress” for each failure of the team but the success or failure of the sneak roll being determined by the leader. Tw2k isn’t really going work this way because you don’t have stress - but it’s an interesting thing to consider.
Taking this
HOWEVER, if you did want to make the highest Recon character more important and have them play a more "Point Man" type role, how about instead of making the lowest Recon character roll, you make the highest Recon character roll.
So, no opposed check, but only a straight up fail/succeed type roll.
(or, if you want it harder, make an opposed roll and deduct all successes that the enemy rolls from your players successes)
This way you utilize the highest Recon player and they get to shine, but you also reflect on the fact that a larger group is harder to help sneak.
I think the idea here is you want to make it engaging, and have the best and worst recon people being part of the roll in some way.
Perhaps:
- The leader rolls, they can get help from anyone else as normal .. where it makes sense - which could include people staying back to observe - but I’m thinking not everyone should be able to help because helping in recon implies that you might not actually be doing the sneaking also…. Maybe ?
- Leader rolls, every success >1 is someone that the leader gets through ok - they don’t need to roll
- anyone else that then has to roll because the leader didn’t get them through ok - then has a decision to make - do they try to sneak also (and roll individually) or stay back
My idea is that it should feel like a movie - the leader runs point, maybe helped by someone who is in a watchtower, or a building corner observing (the sniper in most movies). The leader works out the plan, starts to shuttle people across, giving them guidance, telling them when to stop, when to dash etc etc. The leader does this until they run out of time, an enemy on patrol becomes into play (i.e. when the successes are used up) - after which everyone looks at each other and then the rest make a decision whether to scramble / sneak across too knowing that there is a risk (because the leader, having no more successes, can assess the risk). You’d obviously help the worst players sneak first. The more terrible players the more of a burden the leader has.
This way might work for the situation where a group is sneaking into an enemy camp, for example.
For very large groups or for when the sneak is a bit more passive, perhaps it’s simply the leader doing their roll to find a path / way that will work for the group, and then they have essentially performed a point-man-scout type of outcome. They could be helped by whoever comes along to help scout (at the risk of them being found out and attacked while away from the main group). If successful, they found a way.
This way might work for the situation where a group needs to sneak across a river near an enemy camp, but they really just need to find a safe and concealed route, far enough away and away from any patrolling guards, but they are not really trying to get close to the enemy but rather find a path without bing spotted.