Why I like skill challenges as a noncombat resolution mechanic

Hypersmurf · Jul 10, 2012

pemerton said:
Except a failed skill check costs the party 1 hp. So it's not two parties trying to wear one another down. It's one party engaging a situation and wearing down both pools depending on what happens.

If each check is considered a contest between two parties, loser takes damage, it's exactly the same.

It's pretty close to how some of the old solo gamebook systems used to work. The monster has a combat stat of 4 and 6 hit points. Roll a d6. If you beat his combat stat, he takes a point of damage. If you don't, you take a point of damage. Repeat until you or the monster runs out of hit points.

That's a system for combat by attrition, and it's exactly how skill challenges work...

-Hyp.

Mercutio01 · Jul 10, 2012

pemerton said:
4e gives me a chart of level-appropriate DCs, so I used that. To the best of my knowledge 3E doesn't have such a thing.

Well, there IS a chart of DCs set to tasks and their difficulty. What's missing is the "level appropriate" bit, but that's as simple as deciding on the difficulty of the task yourself and using that DC. Which is pretty much what you do for 4E, isn't it?

4e's approach to injury and healing is very liberal in this respect. 3E/PFs is not.

In 4e I was able to describe the PC as suffering burns. The wizard cast Remove Affliction (using some Fundamental Ice as the material component) and the PC spent some weeks resting.

Not turning this thread into a rehash, but suffice to say we disagree on this a lot.

I don't know that the rulebooks give especially clear guidance.

Where, exactly, did you find the proper rules in 4E for this? I sure don't see it. I mean, page 42, of course, but there's no clear guidance for this either. It seems as much DM fiat as anything else.

pemerton said:
But I have never seen anything in any prior version of D&D that suggests that the appropriate narration, in response to a failed Diplomacy check, is for the NPC to acknowledge the reasonableness of the PC's request but explain that s/he cannot go along with it because s/he has sworn an oath that prevents her. ... nevertheless failing to get what s/he wants because of some newly-introduced complication of the situation

This happens directly in "The Red Hand of Doom" adventure module. There is also explicit advice on failed checks/task completion and how DMs should approach the narration of events that follow on.

for example the sample of play in the Rules Compendium

This is, again, a failing of the core books. In general, people who don't like the food on the first bite aren't going to go back to the table for seconds.

Crazy Jerome · Jul 10, 2012

pemerton said:
I would say that, as I run them, skill challenges have two mechanical dimensions - skill checks, and power use (which includes action point expenditure, and which functionally plays a bit like BW artha). If I had to look for a third dimension, I would nominate something non-mechanical, namely, the pressure on the PCs (and therefore the players) generated by the narated fiction.

While I'm not sure that this is the sort of dimension you are looking for, it is important. It is that narration (that reflects the underlying mechanical unfolding of "N before 3") which pushes the players to do things - non-diplomancers to nevertheless talk, desparate sorcerers to try and speed up their carpet by catalysing elemental fire, dwarven Warpriests to shove their hands into forges.

Yes, this would not meet my requirements, since that is not a mechanical dimension. The narration you describe is crucial to the whole thing working, and I would see it as integrated with the whole piece, but my theory is that you need 3 mechanical dimensions as a minimum--and then whatever else is required, such as driven narration.

Note also that my theory is not that 3 such independent dimension are required for a game to work, but rather that they are required to work well in a way that includes player-driven decision making that means something mechanically. A game, for example, where someone rolls a skill check to find out what happened, isn't a skill system attempting to make such decisions matter mechanically.

JamesonCourage · Jul 10, 2012

pemerton said:
Or, to generalise this, I have never seen it suggested in any prior version of D&D (nor in Rolemaster, HERO or RQ) that the response to a failed check might be to describe the PC as having succeeded at his/her task - in this case making a reasonable offer that is well-recieved - but nevertheless failing to get what s/he wants because of some newly-introduced complication of the situation.

The "fail forwards" style of game. I like this idea, but I actually prefer to use it on successes, not failures. So, if you need 4/3, and you "succeed" (a success in the skill challenge) in convincing your target of something, then you've convinced him, but something prevents it (complication, or "falling forward"). However, if you "fail" (a failure in the skill challenge) in convincing the target, then you suffer a setback (he's not convinced with your argument, or is in a bad mood, or the like).

By setting stuff up this way, I can have the narrative of "failing forwards" and "failing back" in the same encounter, depending on rolls, which makes for a dynamic outcome for the unfolding fiction. I do agree that D&D prior to this point hasn't really set stuff up this way, and I think that the 4e skill challenge system (while it has deep flaws for my style) is a step forward to people who like a dynamic pacing mechanic, and enjoy watching a surprising story unfold naturally. Just my take. As always, play what you like

Crazy Jerome · Jul 10, 2012

Mercutio01 said:
Wait, how is that different from how I did/do skills in any other edition? I have this distinct feeling that the way skills work in my 3E/PF games work pretty much the same as the way you run skill challenges in 4E, and I've been doing it much longer than 4E has been around. I'm not at all understanding how 4E managed to revolutionize something when it pretty much didn't change my approach to skills.

Specifically, failures of skill checks led to complications in other parts of an adventure. Whereas in the 4E games that I played it, they literally just became accumulating 6 before 3. Obviously, it just wasn't run well, because I can see how the way I play seems to be the same as you do, but I didn't need the rules from 4E to come up with it on my own, and I think the base rules in the core books do the idea a tremendous disservice.

pemerton said:
It may not be.

But I have never seen anything in any prior version of D&D that suggests that the appropriate narration, in response to a failed Diplomacy check, is for the NPC to acknowledge the reasonableness of the PC's request but explain that s/he cannot go along with it because s/he has sworn an oath that prevents her.

Or, to generalise this, I have never seen it suggested in any prior version of D&D (nor in Rolemaster, HERO or RQ) that the response to a failed check might be to describe the PC as having succeeded at his/her task - in this case making a reasonable offer that is well-recieved - but nevertheless failing to get what s/he wants because of some newly-introduced complication of the situation. Whereas this is pretty central to skill challenge adjudication and narration (the rulebooks don't call this out specifically - as I've said upthread, their advice on this is poor - but they give examples that show the technique at work, for example the sample of play in the Rules Compendium).

If someone readily grasped one of the stakes/intent guidelines from something like Burning Wheel, used BW "Let it Ride" as written, with perhaps also "Say Yes or Roll the Dice"--and then applied that best they could to a series of 3E skill checks, you'd have 90% to 95% of the function of a 4E skill challenge. Arguably, you'd have all the good parts and drop some of the bad--which brings up the question of why they didn't do that, instead.

The only thing that would be missing, I think, is a definite end point to the skill challenge. I don't particularly see this as a useful thing. As soon as I realized what skill challenges were trying to do, I started running them ad hoc, much as described in the preceding paragraph, with the success/failure count only a rough guideline for pacing (and as a measurement of the XP afterwards). But then I suppose that is harder to teach than N successes before X failures.

I agree with someone earlier (here or another topic) that suggested that the success/failure dynamic would be better served with a track, that the party could advance or regress on. That neatly removes the fixed upper limit of trials aspect, while still having a definite end point. An ad hoc track would be, I think, much more easily set by a DM, and more easily modified when the narration and/or player choices indicated that it should change.

Crazy Jerome · Jul 10, 2012

Hypersmurf said:
If each check is considered a contest between two parties, loser takes damage, it's exactly the same.

It's pretty close to how some of the old solo gamebook systems used to work. The monster has a combat stat of 4 and 6 hit points. Roll a d6. If you beat his combat stat, he takes a point of damage. If you don't, you take a point of damage. Repeat until you or the monster runs out of hit points.

That's a system for combat by attrition, and it's exactly how skill challenges work...

That's how skill challenges work if you play them with your brain turned off, and where narration or intermediate success/failure has absolutely no effect on what happens in the fiction or on subsequent checks. Granted, one could read them that way, incautiously, especially given the early atrocious examples and explanations.

But if you play them as intended, they are not an attrition mechanic. I believe pemerton is discussing them from this angle.

KidSnide · Jul 10, 2012

It would take quite a long post to hit all the problems with skill challenges as they were implemented in the 4e PH1, but I want to focus on one in particular: using skill check failures to track the loss mechanic.

A "three failures and you lose" mechanic is alright for certain types of skill challenges. For example, if the party is trying to persuade someone touchy, maybe the touchy NPC will walk away if the PCs fail to make progress three times?

But it's a terrible dynamic. Because it's important to minimize the chance of failure, it discourages anyone but the most capable people from attempting a roll. In the combat rules, some characters may be more helpful than others, but the penalty of failure is a failure to make progress, not losing a third of the party's ability to survive the encounter. Discouraging weak assistance just makes the SC less fun because a well organized party will get most of the players to "shut up and assist" rather than think creatively or have fun.

(And yes, there are ways of getting around this, but you don't design an encounter mechanic that requires any designer to work around a core characteristic of the mechanic!)

In addition to creating a poor party dynamic, "three failures and you lose" often doesn't make any sense. If you're putting out a fire, what matters is the fighter knocking over the water tower, the bard arranging a bucket brigade or the wizard casting wall of ice. Why should these characters' efforts be undermined if the frustrated player of the gnome rogue decides to blow his action peeing on the flames? If the party is searching for arcane lore, what matters is what the intelligent characters know or can find in the library. If the barbarian decides to have a scene making a comic attempt at the dewey-decimal system, that shouldn't cost the party a failure. It's just a non-success. (Yes, a good DM won't penalize players for this, but that's just another example of working around the rules.) Even in the touchy duke scenario, someone trying to get a success with a long-odds history roll should have the option of keeping his mouth shut if he doesn't roll well.

Frankly, the one thing I've noticed about good skill challenges is that they usually replace the "three failures and you lose" mechanic with a mechanic that makes sense for the encounter. For example, a Caradhras Pass style skill challenge could involve forcing everyone to make regular Endurance checks to avoid losing hit points (or healing surges), while allowing the characters with appropriate wilderness skills to make rolls to adjust the Endurance DC. I'm not even sure what "three failures and you lose" would mean in a skill challenge like that. ENWorld is filled with clever people, so I'm sure someone can explain a plausible way to read it, but that's the problem: we shouldn't need "clever plausible reads." The mechanics should be close enough to the in-game fiction that the meaning of the mechanical outcomes are obvious.

As far as I can tell, the only nice thing about "three failures and you lose" is that it's simple. All I have to say is this: throwing a rock at your players if they roll below 5 on a d20 is also a simple rule. That doesn't make it good rule.

-KS

pemerton · Jul 10, 2012

KidSnide said:
A "three failures and you lose" mechanic is alright for certain types of skill challenges. For example, if the party is trying to persuade someone touchy, maybe the touchy NPC will walk away if the PCs fail to make progress three times?

But it's a terrible dynamic. Because it's important to minimize the chance of failure, it discourages anyone but the most capable people from attempting a roll.

I don't find this to be the case - that is, I don't find it hard to get the players to have their PCs make checks, even if they're not the most capable. But this depends on framing the situation and the stakes in a certain sort of way, as I've described upthread.

KidSnide said:
In addition to creating a poor party dynamic, "three failures and you lose" often doesn't make any sense. If you're putting out a fire, what matters is the fighter knocking over the water tower, the bard arranging a bucket brigade or the wizard casting wall of ice. Why should these characters' efforts be undermined if the frustrated player of the gnome rogue decides to blow his action peeing on the flames?

It seems that you're thinking more in "complex skill check" terms - focusing on ingame causal relationships between the consequence of checks. Whereas the sort of skill challenges I'm interested in rely upon metagame driven adjudication of consequences and complications.

So in your example, if the gnome fails his "pee on flames" check, the GM narrates something external - say, the fire starts growing out of control - which makes the situation for the other PCs harder.

Crazy Jerome said:
The only thing that would be missing, I think, is a definite end point to the skill challenge. I don't particularly see this as a useful thing.

OK, whereas I rely on it pretty heavily in the way I adjudicate them.

Neonchameleon · Jul 10, 2012

epochrpg said:
When one of the developers announced that "Skill challenges died in a fire" that was probably the thing that sold me on D&D Next more than anything else.

And it was the thing that unsold me on D&D Next more than anything else. Skill Challenges are an optional DM-side tool. And apparently destroying tools you do not have to use is something they consider a positive. That people are happy to see destroyed things that they do not need to use and that others find useful, I find ... wasteful.

Mercutio01 said:
Wait, how is that different from how I did/do skills in any other edition? I have this distinct feeling that the way skills work in my 3E/PF games work pretty much the same as the way you run skill challenges in 4E, and I've been doing it much longer than 4E has been around. I'm not at all understanding how 4E managed to revolutionize something when it pretty much didn't change my approach to skills.

It isn't revolutionary. Skill challenges are a way of showing a new DM one approach an experienced DM will take under a wide range of circumstances. For the people who need them (mostly new DMs) they are an extremely useful tool and a vast improvement over core 3.X. For people who don't need them ... they don't need them.

Neonchameleon said:
Honestly to me this is a matter of experience. Skill Challenges are an attempt to systematise the way some good DMs handle complex situations and make it accessible to all DMs. The guidance isn't what it might be. And not all DMs will handle all situations the same way.

But ultimately most experienced DMs can get by without such a guideline. The people who need it are new DMs. In my third session DMing my PCs threw a slightly insane plan at me (I've given details repeatedly on other threads). And had I just had skill checks rather than skill challenges to fall back on I don't know what I'd have done. Possibly hid under the table gibbering. But with a mechanical structure to fall back on that covered the entire scene I was able to concentrate on weaving that with the fiction and handle it almost seamlessly.

And that is where skill challenges or something like them are incredibly useful. Not for experienced DMs - most will tweak the system. But for newbies wondering how to learn to pace a scene or handle an off the wall plan.

Mercutio01 said:
Well, there IS a chart of DCs set to tasks and their difficulty. What's missing is the "level appropriate" bit, but that's as simple as deciding on the difficulty of the task yourself and using that DC. Which is pretty much what you do for 4E, isn't it?

Pretty much. I find the 4e way faster and more intuitive because it means I don't have to stop to eyeball the difficulty of each individual action in a scene - I just need to think 'trivial (no roll), easy, medium, hard, or impossible (suggest to the player (s)he rethink because our understanding of the scene is different)' based on the scene parameters. And I find the 3.X table to be spuriously detailed - for instance the 'swimming in a storm' DC doesn't tell me the force of the storm the currents in the water or rocks or other obstructions - all much bigger problems.
[MENTION=54710]KidSnide[/MENTION], that has never been my experience of skill challenges. For one thing PCs are going to run out of untapped top skills - and after that they need to spread things around a little. And with all PCs able to have one trained exploration skill and one trained social skill, almost all PCs have something useful to do - the +5 for training overwhelming stat boosts.

pemerton · Jul 10, 2012

Neonchameleon said:
And it was the thing that unsold me on D&D Next more than anything else.

<snip>

It isn't revolutionary. Skill challenges are a way of showing a new DM one approach an experienced DM will take under a wide range of circumstances. For the people who need them (mostly new DMs) they are an extremely useful tool and a vast improvement over core 3.X.

As you probably already know, I don't agree that skill challenges are mostly for new GMs. (Which is no big deal. Not everyone agrees on everything.)

But I agree with your first comment. That comment was an early warning sign for me that D&Dnext wasn't heading in the direction I'm interested in.