Only if you can ship me to NYC for 10-10-10… I can’t afford it!
and again, you’re coming at it from a narrow view, Patrick… Examine the reward cycles.
because of the way MG works (specifically, the GM and Player Turns), it doesn’t work out the way you envision. Overlaping character goals, due to the player turn structure, wind up with each player doing part and parcel of the tasks needed to accomplish them, work out to make it more likely for all involved to earn their artha, even on a bad GM turn.
For example, taking abstract labels as tasks… If Joe needs ABC, and Fred needs ABD, both need only two checks… because Joe can do A&C and Fred B&C, even if both have identical skills.
If Joe, Fred, and Marc need ABC, ACD, and ABE, again, each needs only two… Joe A&C, Fred B&D, and Marc tackles the consequences of a failure on A or B and does E…
If Joe, Fred and Marc need ABCDE, ABCFG, and ABCHI for their goals, each needs 3 checks… Joe does ADE, Fred does BFG, and Marc does CHI…
But if instead its ABCD, EFGH, and JKLM, each will need 4 checks (possible but difficult to obtain in a single “session”), and the others are unlikely to pick up their slack, should they fail.
Hapened a lot in my MG game.
Likewise, in the player turn, due to the economy of “best odds are one roll per non-conflict obstacle” and due to help not providing checks for the helper (unlike the rest of BW), advancement is at odds with helping & success, but helping is so profoundly useful that players tend to rotate who leads, and not always to the mouse with the best base. Especially in conflicts… where each mouse takes an action, and any mouse who sat out round X must act in round X+1… really, Patrick, overlapping broad competence is truly powerful in MG. Ironicly, the hardest to fill was always the failures…