How to use stealth mechanics?

[Carthrat]

"This is a solo sneaking mission. The use of stealth is required..."

But this just doesn't work well in a lot of tabletop games. Why?

Picture the situation. You have a party of three-six guys, and only one or two of them has any skills in getting around undetected. He's going to want to use them from time to time- but because of the nature of stealth, it virtually has to be a solo activity; group participation often increases the odds of getting detected! This means one guy is playing by himself for a while, and if he's in enemy territory, getting detected usually means awful, terrible things happen to him.  Often, stealthy characters are kinda flimsy, so if they're caught they'll go down quickly. Thus, the party is put in a shitty tactical situation, where one guy needs to be saved by others in a rush. And that's if they're lucky enough to even know he's in trouble!

It's just easier not to bother in the first place. Which can kind of suck, being sneaking around is a cool skill to have. But it just feels like too much trouble to actually use, so much of the time. So what can a GM do to make it more accessible? I think it comes down to identifying cases where stealth is required, and streamlining the process so that it doesn't take up too much time from the rest of the players, as well as making the risks manageable to the PC involved.

So where do we use stealth, in a typical party-based situation? Broadly, in two places;

1) You want to go somewhere and look at stuff without being found. Scouting, recon, etc.
2) You want to go to a specific place you shouldn't be, and actively do something you shouldn't be doing, e.g. stealing, backstabbing, laying an ambush, etc.

I think in a lot of cases, both of these should be handled with a single check. A good stealth roll should be sufficient to gather information on a particular area without being detected; greater success means more information, as the stealthy character can cover more ground and see more stuff before returning (or reporting back via radio/magic, or whatever.) This check should take into account the difficulty of sneaking around a particular area, rather than being a million opposed rolls between every single NPC guard present.

In the second case, I think it comes down to positioning; you want you rogue to get in position to take out a sentry, cause a distraction, or flip a switch or whatever, which can directly support the rest of your team. Again, a single check to get in position should be sufficient.

In both cases, a failed check shouldn't mean the character is automatically detected; as long as they don't fail the check too badly, it should merely mean they have to backtrack, stop, find it impossible to proceed, or anything like that; they realize they can't continue without detection and thus abort their operation (or pick up their guns and start a fight, or whatever.)

How to decide how hard a sneaking-based action is? Most books have plenty of situational modifiers that could be uses; stuff like darkness, rainfall, available undergrowth or cover; loud, distracting events taking place nearby. I think they do tend to make the mistake of treating every NPC guard individually, and it would be better treat them as a single modifer; poorly-trained or tired guards make a place easier to sneak into, and vice versa. The commanding officer in charge of patrols would also play a part, naturally. And of course, if you're only worried in sneaking into a place and not so much about getting out, that seems like it would be easier, too.

Indeed, a stealthy character should be able to assess the probable difficulty of any situation like this reasonably well; presumably they know the limits of how far they can go. Some places they're never going to be able to sneak into without special preparation/magic/gear (e.g., an area where all entrances and exists are guarded by alert soldiers in a highly rigorous fashion), and they should be cognizant of this fact. When sneaking is possible, however, it should be achievable quite quickly, the PC should have a rough idea of the risks, and it shouldn't take long to get the rest of the party back into action!

Is this an invented problem that you've never had trouble with yourself? Are there better ways to use these systems? How has it worked out for you? What parts of sneaking around should be simplified or ignored, and in what sort of games? Is there some existing system which handles it in a cool way? Let's talk about using sneaky PCs in a party in an honest, open, and respectful-to-the-personal-space-of-others sort of way.

(Incidentally, in a solo game, or if you actually want to put a significant portion of time to solo sneaking, I don't know of a pnp game that handles that particularly well, either; if anyone does, let us know!)

[Dracos]

Hmm.

That's an interesting note.

I'll think more on this later, but I want to add another that rarely shows up when games remove terrain:
Stealth as a positioning mechanic.

Maybe 3-4 sessions ago, our perceptive party noticed enemies ahead before they noticed us.  Stealth in this case was used to allow the party to catch the enemies in a more pincher situation.  It didn't end up working out, but it's a reasonable thing that's not used all that often.  Possibly because parties are usually beefier if tightly packed (outside of AoE spells), but probably more because 'Seeing the enemy at a distance' is a rarely offered setup and terrain is also rarely offered.

Actually, heck, just last session on a simple charge, the thief was able to use stealth to hide on his approach.  The enemies noticed the burly fighters, but were still unaware of the thief allowing him to get sneak attack bonuses.  Again, something usually left unused, as most enemies psychically gain knowledge of the entire team as soon as anyone is seen.

That's stealth as an approach mechanic, something that rewarded the stealthy character without actually separating him from the party.

[Anastasia]

Is this an invented problem that you've never had trouble with yourself? Are there better ways to use these systems? How has it worked out for you? What parts of sneaking around should be simplified or ignored, and in what sort of games? Is there some existing system which handles it in a cool way? Let's talk about using sneaky PCs in a party in an honest, open, and respectful-to-the-personal-space-of-others sort of way.

I don't think it's an invented problem as much as a limitation of group based gaming. Sneaking requires part of the party to stop while the rest goes to scout, sneak by or what have you. That's going to be a natural deterrent.  There's ways to mitigate it like Drac mentioned, but it's usually not worth the hassle.

One of those things.

[Dracos]

I disagree on the hassle thing. 

Much like a lack of terrain renders many abilities and effects superfluous, it is more that stealth gets relegated to either "Go sneak by yourself" or "Useless" that creates the situation where stealth becomes an unwelcome part of the character.

Much like having roll spot and listen for every single situation, turns 'perception' based stuff into a super-skill that's madness not to have, having everyone instantly know where the party is transforms stealth into something that only shows up in unwelcome situations.

Hmmm...

It's probably best to say that Stealth is like Knowledge skills.  If a DM doesn't have monsters have psychic communication, but instead treats stealthing characters as possible unknowns, high stealth scores become a way that rogues get occassional surprise benefits, even if the rest of the party is spotted ("Hey, they have 4 people, not three!")

In a good recon setup, a stealthy rogue moves 10-20 feet ahead of the party (but they move together), disarms traps, waves notice of enemies up ahead, and basically is treated no differently than moving as a block of folks anyway.

In a good battle setup, a rogue that says he's stealthing and hasn't attacked anyone yet is just given a per/stealth check against their first opponent to possibly get to sneak attack them.

Mmm, disorganized blather.  oh well, I'll come back later *Focuses on work*

[Brian]

Stealth is not a fun team mechanic.  By that I mean, 'the entire party must have and use stealth' is a bad policy, because then whoever has failed it has blown it for the entire party.  There's a reason there's not a whole lot of mechanics like that.

Otherwise, speaking from experience, I mostly only see stealth working when the stealth player goes off on their own.  It can work well for recon or infiltration, but then it does tend to leave the rest of the team in the lurch.  Possible ways around this are having the rogue sneak in somewhere to open a door/make a portal for the rest of the party, but the smoothest execution I've seen is giving the rogue a chance to stealth while the rest of the party is spotted.  Make that sneak attack more than just a flanking bonus!