William Parker is here again with more advice for GMs; this time regarding Extended Task. William Parker, also known as, theauthor13. You can find him and his works around Discord, Twitch, and YouTube under that name. He runs a weekly game in the Shackleton Expanse.

Extended Tasks are often a point of contention among STA Game Masters. Some love them for their mechanical flair, and others feel like it is too complicated to implement in game. However, I have found that some tables are using Extended Tasks in the wrong manner, leading to pacing being dragged down and slowing the game needlessly. By design, the Extended Task is supposed to take a long time to resolve, slowly picking away at a major task. A Game Master needs to be smart when and how to utilize this tool for the best effect. 

First, Extended Tasks are employed when you have a major project that will take several roundsor scenes to complete, and you have to slowly chip away at it each round until you complete it. If you notice, combat is just a specialized Extended Task with a focus on the Tactical officer. When you think of it like this, you can easily rotate it around to other departments. Setting up an observatory is just an Engineer focused combat. Disaster relief for hundreds of individuals is Medical focused combat. When you set up an Extended Task, have one player in mind to lead the Task. This is the primary. Everyone else will either be Secondaries or will be handling other things around the episode. 

Here are six tricks to make the most of Extended Task:

1. Have other PCs assist. First and best trick is to get the rest of the crew involved. Generally, you want just one Primary Character leading a task and actually putting work down. Combat would be boring if one person swing at the bad guy over and over and over again while everyone else is doing nothing. So allow the other players to pick up characters and assist! Anyone with a department score of 2 or more can assist on the task and add to the overall work done (either challenge dice or Impact depending on Edition). However, assistance doesn’t always have to be one d20 added to the roll. You can also suggest that other players create advantages around the Primary. Remember that advantages can help lower the difficulty on task, but you can also use them to modify the Work or Impact done. A Command officer can help coordinate the team. Medical can ensure that no one is overworking themselves. Engineering or Science can help set up tools or specialized gear. Conn can help move people and gear around to where it is needed. Be open to suggestions and lean into “Yes, and”. These other characters can create traits to help the roll directly, or modify the amount of work done. 
   
2. Use them over several scenes. In between rounds of the Primary putting work down, you should be cycling between other scenes and other problems. Not only will this keep everyone involved, but it gives the illusion of more time passing, increasing the emotional magnitude of completing the task. You can have an A Plot, and a B Plot running side by side and switch between them. We often see engineers frantically working on major repairs while the commander is trying to keep the bad guy from shooting you while you are down. I would highly suggest that only one plot use the Extended Task at a time, so mix it up.
   
   Alternatively, you can have major projects that take place over the course of several adventures, and cut to a small scene of the Primary working on this project a little each episode. This could extend a project over the course of several weeks, making it that much more exciting when it finally finishes.
   
3. Keep track of how many rounds it takes.  If there is no time pressure, then why are we dragging this task out over several scenes unless it COUNTS? You should always keep tabs on how many rounds an Extended Task takes and put a time pressure on it. Put a time limit on it, saying that you have X number of rounds to complete this task, or you fail. Alternatively, you can just track the total number of rounds it takes and have consequences if it takes too long.
   
   Mechanically, try to have a number of breakthroughs about equal to the number of rounds you want this task to take. You can fudge the number up if you want to be a nail biter, or down if you want to relax the pace. If you want to use discrete time intervals, they should be about double the number of breakthroughs, allowing for the momentum spent to halve the time. So if you have 3 breakthroughs, you should have about 6 intervals, up to 8 and down to maybe 5. Again, add more time if you want to relax the pace, or short it to increase the tension. I would caution though not to short the time intervals by more than 1-2, or else you will be setting your players up for failure. 
   
4. Have a description for each breakthrough as to what happens. Although this is a major task, each breakthrough should mean something and add to the narrative. Try to prepare a short description about what happens as each breakthrough is completed. What does the crew learn? What do they accomplish? What steps towards the greater goal happens this round? When you are crafting your Extended Task, try to think of how many significant steps you can make towards the larger goal. 
   
5. Spend Threat to make it interesting. Again, as in my last article, you can spend Threat to move the camera towards other PCs. If your medical officer has nothing to contribute to this task, you can spend Threat and create an accident that hurts some people. There might be a tactical threat that the Security officer has to hold off while your Engineer does the work.
   
   You can also spend Threat to attack the work track directly, creating complications and setbacks. Remember, you can remove work from the track one for one, but you don’t roll back the breakthroughs. 

Extended Task are a powerful tool to raise the stakes and draw the importance to one major task that will take the whole day and the whole crew to get done. It is also a wonderful way of making non-combat tasks as exciting and involved as combat itself, but with the focus on a different character who might not get to throw damage at an enemy ship. Try an Extended Task your next episode and see how it can keep the tension high on a longer task.