Why I like skill challenges as a noncombat resolution mechanic

The thread is a very worthy cause within the dialogue of our hobby. You've done more than enough to clarify the intent and structure of the system but I'm glad to lend a hand to that end to whatever degree I am able.

pemerton said:

Burning Wheel and The Dying Earth both have social mechanics that can be used to resolve PC vs PC conflict. In BW, winning a Duel of Wits doesn't change anyone's mind, but you have to stick to the terms that were agreed prior to resolving the Duel, and if you don't like them must look for collateral ways around them. In The Dying Earth, minds can be changed by social conflict. Much as, in AD&D, there is no prohibition on one PC charming another.

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Here's another method: In Sorcerer, all characters have full agency. You can make an argument and roll successfully, but the other character can still ignore it. What happens is that the other character gains penalty dice in the dice-pool system equal to your number of successes. Those penalty dice can translate into bonus dice if you decide to punch the other guy in the face.

Very dangerous if your punch does Special Damage.

[MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION] - Sorcerer is a game I know of, but don't know, and probably should.

Just to clarify (I'm tired and am having trouble parsing pronouns) - if player A succeeds on a social check, and player B has his/her PC ignore it, then player B suffers a resolution penalty that can also act as an augment for player A if player A escalates his/her PC's action against player B's PC?

So in 4e, something analogous might be a Diplomacy check or Intimidate check that causes a penalty to defences, or vulnerability to another character's damage, if the social check succeeds and the player chooses to disregard the outcome?

pemerton said:

Just to clarify (I'm tired and am having trouble parsing pronouns) - if player A succeeds on a social check, and player B has his/her PC ignore it, then player B suffers a resolution penalty that can also act as an augment for player A if player A escalates his/her PC's action against player B's PC?

So in 4e, something analogous might be a Diplomacy check or Intimidate check that causes a penalty to defences, or vulnerability to another character's damage, if the social check succeeds and the player chooses to disregard the outcome?

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Yep. 1 success = 1 bonus = 1 penalty. You can use the success as a bonus die to your own roll or a penalty die to the other character's action - which one depends on the fictional content of your actions.

Though it should be said that the above happens even if you go along with the argument. If you do go along with the argument, you're giving ground and there's less reason for conflict. It's obvious in combat - if your PC is manoeuvred into a horrible position, you can surrender or beg for mercy.

In 4E, you might use Intimidate against some goblins - telling them that you're going to drink from their skulls. If you succeed it doesn't matter what the goblins do, you get some sort of bonus.

[sblock=In my hack...]For example, in my hack:

• The goblins charge you in terror and you cut them down. You'd get a +4 bonus to your attack roll (a situational advantage of +2 because they're terrified and +2 for following up on previous action) and a +2 to your Defence (because the goblins have some kind of impairment or penalty - the terror). Obviously that's not a good move for the goblins!
• The goblins flee in terror. You charge one and cut him down from behind. You'd get a +4 bonus to the attack roll, the same as above, except this time the situational advantage is that you're attacking from behind. The goblins might get a bonus to Defence, depending on your Speeds/distance.
• The goblins flee in terror. You throw your axe at one. Once again you'd get a +4 bonus, the same as above, but the goblin wouldn't get a bonus to Defence (unless it ran around a corner).
• The goblins surrender. You interrogate them. Once again, you'd get a +4 bonus to your roll (as in the first example). This would be the start of a skill challenge, but instead of making a Reaction Roll to determine the Complexity I'd set it to "Looking to make friends", or 2 Successes needed.
• You decide to run away and the goblins decide to attack. You'd get a +2 bonus to your Defence from the goblin's impairment (being terrified), and possibly more based on your Speeds/distance.
• The goblins decide to negotiate and you go along with it. You're probably getting a +4 bonus and +2 to your Defence, as in the first example, if a roll is called for.

(The intimidate check, being successful, would trigger a Morale check. If they failed, they'd probably flee or surrender.)

Sorcerer was a strong influence on my conflict resolution mechanics.[/sblock]

I like a lot of what you guys saying especially the decision-points, however there is one thing you do that I disagree with and want to propose a solution. I do not think that players should be penalized in any way when they succeed, it takes the glory of a success and makes it mean less to the player. to go further, when a player fails shouldn't have an overall penalty to the group, but instead be unable to contribute to progress.

in examples:

Manbearcat said:

- He needs to get across and to the village. He is desperate. While options are a-many, they narrow in his mind. He draws in a deep breath, rounds his horse back a few paces...he's going for it! He narrowly succeeds the difficult check, right on the DC, but his horse is injured for the effort (negative to ride skill checks or movement rate...whatever might be applicable). 3 success:2 failure

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LostSoul said:

Yep. 1 success = 1 bonus = 1 penalty. You can use the success as a bonus die to your own roll or a penalty die to the other character's action - which one depends on the fictional content of your actions.

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I wanna propose my alternative:

With whats been laid out in this forum I've done a series of playtests with my group on an 'event' system simular to skill challenges. Each 'Event' has HP and a duration of 3 rounds. The HP is equal to 15 HP per player (5 hp per player per round). Each event needs to be important to the players and rewards if the event is successful and/or punish if the event is a failure.

In the following example I used a "find a hidden temple in the forest, before you get lost" if they succeed the event, they find the temple without concequence. If they fail the event, they lose some healing surges as they get lost. players end at the temple either way.

Each player goes around in turns and rolls a skill check, casts a spell, or uses an item they think is helpful to the situation. The DM determines how helpful it is and assigns it damage accordingly.

Not very helpful -1d6 - "I wish to wonder aimlessly"
helpful - 2d6 - "I want to find north"
very helpful - 3d6 - "I want to climb a tree to see the lay of the land"

the player then rolls damage. There are dimished returns. If the same action is done a second time the damage is halfed, it cannot be attempted a third.

What I found:
• Players are rewarded for creative thoughts and will go out of their way to think of things that are more helpful in order to roll more dice.
• The party / players are not punished when someone fails, they just don't contribute.
• DM doesn't allow stupid skill checks like "wonder aimlessly" to contribute alot to an event like a success on a skill challenge might.

ADDING DECISION POINTS AND OBSTACLES:
This is the key to keeping drama. Each round after every player has a turn the DM takes a turn and does 2 things:

1.) Open up new options and new decision points for the player, introducing new ways to preform tasks.
2.) Add increasing drama of the event.

This is an example of what I add to the "search through the forest encounter"

• After turn 1: " infront of you is a large cliff that hinders your progression.
- for some DMs this might people to take damage if someone fails a climb check to simulate rocks falling.

• After turn 2: " Player number # falls and is stuck in quicksand."

• After turn 3: Fail condition. "players get lost and after 2 days find their way back onto the right path and locate the temple. Everyone loses 2 healing surges in this process."

Adding a cliff face to the event adds more options to the player in terms of new things to do. and can add hazards to the players if the DM wants to.

Having quicksand again adds a whole new list of checks and options to the players, for the player caught it adds a new level of self danger. I normally 'hit' players that are inactive, this normally will get them more involved on whats going on.

What I found:
• adding events at the end of each round keeps the "improve" amount the DM needs to a minimum, infact it can be planned.
• as long as the event adds drama and new options to the player they remain engaged and think of new interesting things to preform.
• This added drama can be "close-system" and does need to be determined on what the PCs do on their turn.

-thanks

calprinicus said:

I normally 'hit' players that are inactive, this normally will get them more involved on whats going on.

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I use this sort of technique too - within the standard skill challenge framework, I narrate something that gives a particular player a strong incentive to respond to it. This is also how I do things like motivate PCs who aren't optimisted face-people to nevertheless make social checks.

calprinicus said:

I do not think that players should be penalized in any way when they succeed, it takes the glory of a success and makes it mean less to the player.

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I'm not sure I agree with this, but am interested to hear more. In the "reforging Whelm" skill challenge, the player succeeded on his Endurance check to have his fighter-cleric PC hold the artefact steady in the forge so the dwarven artificers could grab it with their tongs.

I nevertheless narrated his burned hands (the wizard PC used Remove Affliction to heal him). For me, this is a genre and credibility issue - if you do crazy stuff it might get you what you want, but you might still have to pay the price.

Mechanically, it also reflected in some fashion the earlier failed Religion check - the PC had prayed to Moradin, but this wasn't enough to stabilise the powerful magical energies. And that makes me think that maybe it's not really at odds with your pinciple - I've just waited to narrate the penalty from that failed check until the whole episode has resolved itself.

calprinicus said:

Each player goes around in turns and rolls a skill check, casts a spell, or uses an item they think is helpful to the situation.

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Does any narration happen between these checks, or are they more like "simultaneous declarations of action" in some of the more old-school initiative systems?

If the latter, do you integrate their resolution into one another? - or do the players already work that out among themselves in advance before making their declaration? - or are they all resolved independently of one another?

Skill challenge stripped to its bare bones.

I use MasterPlan to play, and the structure of a skill challenge is beautifully apparent in this software.

COMPLEXITY : length of the challenge.
DIFFICULTY : mood of the scene.
RESULTS : what is the result of the scene within the whole plot.

• Victory result : the best that can occur out of the scene.
  The players characters get what they expected out of the scene and some more.
• Defeat result : the worst that can occur out of the scene within the whole plot.
  The players get the least that it takes to get the plot going, they may branch to a sub-plot that will slow them down... But the action keeps on going.

ACTIONS : what the Dungeon Master expects the players to do through their characters.

• Primary actions : the kind of actions that will move the plot, will impact the scene heavily.
  I prepare the description of the action I think the players will take for their characters, with a few skills that seem likely to test the action, along with the level of difficulty of the action (hard, average, easy). When the player describes the action for his character, I decide which action it looks like and what skill will be tested.
  For each primary action, I prepare one or several success results : what the player character gets for succeeding in his skill test.
  Then, I prepare a bunch of failed skill test results. What the player character gets for failing the test. Most of the time, the player character gets much for a failed test, because I want to make sure that the player action matter.
• Secondary actions : actions that characters will take when they don't feel they are the best for the scene. For example, the kind of actions a player states for his character when he thinks his character is not up to the task, when he doesn't really know what to do, etc.
  Generally, for each succeeded skill test in secondary actions, the subsequent tests will get a bonus. But a bunch of informations can slip in.
  For a failed skill test, the group gets no bonus or gets useless information. The goal is not to discourage players for intending actions they see fitting to the situation and their character profile.

NOTES : altering the structure to fit the scene.
I found the skills in Dungeons &Dragons 4th Edition to be fine tuned. It gives me the flexibility to adapt them to player characters actions. In Dungeons & Dragons 3.5, the skills are way too numerous and fit for one action to be useful.
Moreover, the fact that in D&D4, the bonus includes half-level makes it easier to calculate the DC required to achieve the level of challenge I want.
One last point: a skill challenge is given experience points in a cosistent way in D&D4.
I use it all of the time... It's a wonderful tool.

calprinicus said:

I do not think that players should be penalized in any way when they succeed, it takes the glory of a success and makes it mean less to the player.

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Very good post by the way. This bit here I disagree with. While I can understand that it will take some getting used to from folks who have cut their teeth on binary outcomes, I think, over time, they will learn to appreciate gradients of success/failure and how it broadens the scope of the fiction (and its impending decision points) rather than narrowing it. The exact same can be said for failures. I'm sorry to use this term as its source makes my stomach turn but at this point in the game, moving from one paradigm/mindset to the next is all about "re-education." I think many a participant would be glad for it given its impact on conflict-resolution and its accompanying fiction.

I think you'll find that all of our favorite fantasy heroes and their crew had minor setbacks/adversities married to the moments where they "won and looked cool doing it." Conversely, they had moments where minor gaffes made their recovery all the more compelling.

When DMs and their players can get away from the habit of binary outcomes and linear responses to die rolls (but certainly still stay within the spirit of the outcome - success/failure), specifically get away from process simulation, and hone their skill in doing so, they will find that the closed system of their skill challenge frames their scenes by yielding a dynamic, organic, and thematic production...consistently.

pemerton said:

Does any narration happen between these checks, or are they more like "simultaneous declarations of action" in some of the more old-school initiative systems?

If the latter, do you integrate their resolution into one another? - or do the players already work that out among themselves in advance before making their declaration? - or are they all resolved independently of one another?

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As an aside, in my running of Gardmore Abbey, I've finally fully drifted skill challenges (which are ad hoc for me) into nearly always: All players state what they are doing. All players roll. All players narrate something appropriate to the roll. DM narrates/reveals results. Go to next round in the the challenge. It's especially useful on challenges where the actions attempted happen over several minutes or longer.

The good thing about it is that, instead of going around the table and committing, we are going around the table to get intentions. So if someone wants to skip, they are skipping to see if an idea pops into their heads. And if we go all the way around with no idea occuring, they just heard what everyone else is doing, and can say, "I go help X do Y." This is useful in a large group, because usually there are only 4-5 obvious, natural paths to pursue, and sometimes the inobvious ones don't occur to a middle-aged participants after several hours of play.

However, once the dice hit the table, the whole party is committed. So if scouting mission over in the treeline reveals orcs headed this way, the two characters back at camp who are digging through a scroll don't get to change their action now in anticipation of what will be important next round.

pemerton said:

Does any narration happen between these checks, or are they more like "simultaneous declarations of action" in some of the more old-school initiative systems?

If the latter, do you integrate their resolution into one another? - or do the players already work that out among themselves in advance before making their declaration? - or are they all resolved independently of one another?

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narration for an event at my table is:

1.) player discuss as a whole a plan of action
2.) each player describes "what they want to to, and how they want to do it."
3.) they rolls dice to determine outcome
4.) DM describes the aftermath and tells player how many dice to roll.

Each player is given a turn to do something to contribute to the event at hand. During the time the players discuss their course of action before preforming the actions. This allows players to think of something or decide to help a player if they wish. After the plan of action is chosen I normally just go clockwise as players resolve their checks. I don't see a reason to roll initiative.

After all players have participated in some way. the DM adds drama, hazards, and decision points to the Event.

ex:
"Exploring the dark woods for a hidden temple."
3 rounds, 45 HP.

*players dicuss options and decide on actions they want to take.

player 1: "ok, so I want to wait about 20 minutes and using the sun find north so we can have some bearing on where we are headed". Roll is successful. DM decides it's 'helpful' and tells the player to roll 2d6 damage to the event (5 damage is dealt, 40hp remain).

player 2: "I want to a climb a tree to get a better lay of the land." Roll is a failure. Dm responses with " The dark woods are dense with foliage that hinder your sight, even at great heights."

player 3: "I want to use a rope and drag it behind us so we don't end up traveling in circles (thanks Bear Grylls)" Roll is successful. DM determines this is 'very helpful' and tells the player to roll 3d6 damage to the event (11 damage is dealt, 29hp remain).

DM: "Now that everyone has had a turn... The sun light gets blocked by the foliage. You begin to feel confident as you are approach the middle of the dark woods. Then you find a large river, 40 feet across, which blocks your path. The current is strong and it looks deep."

... continue to next round.