Does the leader of a Lead-A-Group make an Action roll at all, or is he just leading? If he does make a roll, does he also suffer a stress-loss from a 1-3 roll?
When doing a Long-term project during Downtime, can multiple players help in the same project? Or are they sort of doing it themselves? In our game, one player wanted to find the secret base of a rival gang, so I made a 6-point clock (“Long-term project find X’s base”), and he ticked two points. When the other players heard about this, they all wanted to find that base too. So, I wasn’t sure to give everyone their own clock, or all tick one communal clock.
I chose the latter, but that meant they discovered the base immediately. So much for being secret!
Yep, the leader makes a roll. They also take stress if they roll a 1-3.
Usually Downtime actions are done individually. You may have a case for using teamwork. I’ve often seen folks assist each other. In your case though I’d make the clock a common project (put it on the crew sheet) and let folks all advance it with their own downtime actions (just like they could all contribute to reducing heat). As far as it being secret, it sounds like 2-3 downtime actions were put into finding it…that’s a lot of legwork!
I’ve also allowed players to help each other on project clocks. It makes sense in terms of the fiction, and it still costs a downtime action, so it doesn’t break the game economy.