Yes, another Extended Tasks question: How to determine attributes?

Star Trek Adventures
1

I’m beginning to understand how an extended task works – how magnitude, breakthroughs, and work track relate. I don’t understand how to determine those attributes, though. How do I, the GM, decide the magnitude of the task? How do I determine how long the work track should be? Is it arbitrary?

I haven’t found anything in the CRB about this, and even less online. Thanks in advance to anyone who can elucidate this!

2

In essence, Extended Tasks are a mechanic to present “problems” that work like NPC. Breakthrouhgs are Injuries. Magnitude is the amount of Injuries the problem can “avoid/ignore” before it’s solved (= is defeated). The Work Track equals the amount of Stress the problem can take, before it suffers an Injury (= the players have a Breakthrough). Resistance is still Resistance, btw.

Thus, design your Extended Tasks like you design your NPC. The players roll with Science or Medicine instead of Security – but basically that’s it. :slight_smile:

3

My advice:

  • difficulty=nb of problems that need to be solved since difficulty go down on each breakthrough
  • work: 2xnb of intervals you give them, 4 intervals 2 tasks if they don’t speed it. Work 8
    -Resistance: =1 for each situational difficulty
4

This blog post might help: STA Dev Blog 005: A Guide to Star Trek Adventures

Reviewing pages 90-91, 273, 282-284 of the core rulebook might help too.

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5

Thank you everyone for your recommendations and guidance. I am reading, thinking, and learning, and am confident I will have a firm grasp on this before I run my next session.

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