Progression Wheel

What is a Progression Wheel?

A progression wheel is a wheel divided into sections representing long-term planning and action and can be used for contested checks that go more than one or two rolls. The more complex the action, the more slices the wheel is cut into. This isn't so much for firefights or melee combat, but more intrigue, planning, and the like.

A simple Progression Wheel would be three or four slices.

Making a plan and stealing a common car would be three slices. 1. Locate the car (gathering information) 2. Make a plan (organization) 3. Steal the car. If the wheel is successfully completed without a failed roll or critically failed roll, the police are not engaged. A botched check on the planning stage, and the police notice the crew scouting locations or someone snitches on them for being back in the business and the po-po comes knocking.

Robbing the local convenience store with an improvised weapon or a candy bar stuffed in a pocket and brandished like a gun.

Casting a complicated enchantment to create a +1 magic sword.

A complex wheel would be six or eight.

Stealing a high-end car is much more difficult, there isn't just 1. Location and 2. Planning, there will be 3. Counterfeiting Keys, and when it comes time to steal the car itself, there will be 4. Break into location holding car, 5. bypass car security measures, and then finally 6. Steal the Car. There could be a 7. Evade local law enforcement, and 8. Stash the car until the heat dies down. All of these could go wrong and net the car boosters in hot water.

Robbing a bank, Dead Presidents style. 

Casting a difficult enchantment to create a +3/+5 vs a specific enemy magic sword.

A challenging wheel would be ten, twelve, or more. It all depends on the size and complexity. 

Gone in 60 Seconds would be a massive wheel, but it isn't one character rolling all the dice, there is an entire team. Using teams allows for specialists to come into play. Your computer guy does recon. A drone guy does flyovers to find alleys not on maps and see where cars are parked at different times of the day, and so forth. Thus, the team maximizes skills, and attempts to steal fifty cars in two days.

Breaking into a casino and robbing the place of millions while no one is aware that anything is going on.

Casting an epic difficulty spell to create a legendary +5/Vorpal/Holy Avenger, one of a kind magic sword.

Beyond Basics

Another thing that the progression wheel can be used for is tracking the actions of large organizations or parties. Some slices could be based on accumulating a certain number of successes on skill or action checks, other slices could be very concrete things. In the instance of the Complex Car theft, one of the sample actions is acquiring the keys for the car, and this is not a group effort or a dice pool, it's literally getting hands on the keys one way or another.

The players, in their stolen car, have alerted the police, and the police pursuit has their own progression wheel. The longer the chase goes on, and the more dangerous it becomes, the police response increases. This is really no different that what happens in GTA. The police wheel might look something like this.

1. Eating donuts and watching speed traps, completely unaware

2. Annoyed and driving around, but not really interested. Active, but not engaged.

3. Something is going on, officers are on alert. Active and somewhat engaged. How many times have they gotten here and nothing of interest happened?

4. Suspicious activity reported, units are advised to BOLO in the area in question. Active and alerted.

5. Violent activity reported, APB issued in the area. There are descriptions of the suspects and details on what has happened.

6. All units in an aggressive stance, SWAT has been notified.

7. SWAT is engaged, and high-speed pursuit vehicles are on the scene. Helicopters are likely in the air.

8. The police are shooting the car with crazy EMP harpoons that shut down the electronics systems, and social media is being limited in the area so suspects can no longer use their phones.

If the party has done a good job, when they slide into the driver seat of the one of ten made special edition hypercars, the police have no idea what's going on. As they cruise down the boulevard heading for the safe house, the only thing on the cop's mind is department drama and hot coffee. If the party has been messy and has failed a roll or three, by the time they make their big hit, the police are out and cruising, because they know *something* is up and they want a piece of it. One or two bad rolls later, the supercar is missing body panels, a teammate is upside down in a ditch, their car wrecked, and city PD helicopter is chasing the ongoing high-speed chase.

This is a good example of two progression wheels opposing each other. The police wheel is passive, and it only moves when the players fuck up. Their wheel is active, so they have control over it. There isn't a police player, so it's an NPC tool.

Big Plans, Big Resistance

In the context of the Casino Heist, the players might have three wheels to contend with, or even four. Their own heist plan and action, the Casino and Mafia owner's passive response wheel, the Police passive response wheel, and possibly a rival gang that is competing with the team, and the two have to work around each other, trying to keep the heat down, but getting the other team members busted, or put into a position where they have to back down.

I plan on using this to construct 'conspiracy wheels' for dystopian games.