I wasn't able to make SCs fun in 2008, and gave up after a few tries. But now I'm running the dungeon area of a Dungeon adventure, and I'm less than enthusiastic about playing through it in the traditional one-room-at-a-time fashion. There are lots of 5-foot corridors, traps, and isolated micro-encounters; which don't play to 4e's strengths. So I'm thinking about converting this dungeon, except for the final climactic encounter, to a SC.
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EzekielRaiden I'd appreciate any input regarding SCs you might have. I'm not going to post anything too revealing, but if you want this possible SC to be a complete* surprise, don't feel obligated to read anything more.
*I realize that the first advice given about SCs is "Don't tell the players they're in a SC," but seeing as how you and the other players have already seen part of the dungeon map and had the first encounter there...well, I think the cat's already out of the bag.
So, I think that the two big issues with SCs are:
1) Because of their X-successes-before-Y-failures nature, SCs incentivize players to leave all the rolling up to the PC with the highest bonus. I think that a 'The party has Y out-of-combat rounds to rack up as many successes as they can' format would be better. (Where Y isn't necessarily known to the players.) After Y rounds have elapsed, the party's degree of overall success is determined by their number of successful checks -- possibly using a fail-forward scheme.
2) When I last ran SCs, I didn't tie individual success/failures to a narrative or any individual mechanical outcomes. So SCs were for my players just roll, roll, roll...roll some more...final outcome!
I'm going to throw some general thoughts out there, some guiding principles and some techniques for you. You can then follow up with whatever questions, clarifications, etc that you might have.
First things first. I don't subscribe to the "don't let the players know they're in an SC" at all. In fact I think it is actually a bad idea for what SCs try to accomplish. Lots of conflict resolution systems don't hide their metagame architecture from the players; Dogs in the Vineyard, Fate, Cortex + for example. The adversity has the equivalent of a stress track of a dice rating and once you reach the end of it, the adversity is overcome. Players have rules and means (PC build resources) to get to the end of that track and overcome that adversity. Mechanically, those systems are what 4e's SCs emulate. Put another way, "Successes" is the adversity's Hit Point pool while "Failures" is the players' Hit Point pool. You don't hide the metagame archetecture of combat from players (initiative, action economy, attack rolls, hit points, et al) because it would stunt player agency, inhibit their ability to make informed action declarations, and generally stunt the process of resolution.
Same thing applies to noncombat resolution.
So what I do is make it as plain as possible to the players. I use the RC rules:
Complexity
| Successes
| Failures
| DCs
| Advantages
| Secondary Skills
|
1
| 4
| 3
| 4 M
| -
| 1
|
2
| 6
| 3
| 5 M, 1 H
| -
| 2
|
3
| 8
| 3
| 6 M, 2 H
| 2
| 3
|
4
| 10
| 3
| 7 M, 3 H
| 4
| 4
|
5
| 12
| 3
| 8 M, 4 H
| 6
| 5
|
Secondary Skills are at the Easy DC and augment a player-specified, subsequent primary check by + 2. On a failure, the GM has a complication that they can deploy against a subsequent primary check (imposing a - 2 to the roll).
Advantages are spent to step down a DC (eg from Hard to Medium).
Every micro-failure is 1 Healing Surge lost by the player.
Every micro-failure of a Group Check is 1 Healing Surge lost by each player
A failed Skill Challenge is 2 Healing Surges lost by each player.
Pretty simple.
One of the problems I see you're running into is that PC team is deferring to a player with a relevant high check to solve a problem. There is an easy answer for this.
Consider a Skill Challenge to be that of a story-boarded action scene in comic books. Each moment of relevance of an SC is its own box. That box should typically put pressure onto a specific PC RIGHT NOW. You put that PC in a spot by framing them into a moment of desperation, a hard choice, or by showing them something imminent that will come to pass if they don't seize the moment. They may be able to be aided by a player (via a SS, but the PS will be theirs).
Exploration example:
GM: Bob (the Fighter), as the vanguard of the group, you're the first to enter the chamber. The massive stone double doors you pushed through resisted but then relented. The lentil over the entrance is cracked and pocked and dust and dislodged pebbles assail you as you step inside. By the magical light imbued in your sword you can see high ceilings held aloft by crumbling pillars. The framing of this room is failing terribly. As your allies begin to filter in behind you, you hear and see one of the primary load-bearing pillars begin to give way. You're certain the ceiling will come with it!
Player of Bob the Fighter: I sprint to the pillar and bear hug it to hold it in to place! I shout to my allies: "Hurry and find the exit or we'll be buried alive! I don't know how long I can hold this!"
GM: Alright. This is serious business. You're wanting to keep the failing pillar in place and hold up the ceiling while your allies look for eggress, right? I think this calls for using one of my 4 Hard DCs (assuming Complexity 5).
* Of note, the GM's Hard DCs are basically like MHRP Doom Pool. When the GM wants to escalate the action, up the stakes, and amp up the tension, they'll use one of their Hard DCs. Likewise, Advantages are basically the community Plot Point pool for the players.
Player of Bob the Fighter: That's right! My spirit soars and my muscles bulge! Be it a swarm of monsters or a collapsing ceiling, it is my sworn duty to protect my allies no matter the cost to me!
I'm spending one of our Advantages to step down the DC to Medium.
The key here is to always keep the action moving in interesting directions. The fiction should ALWAYS change dynamically as a result of any given resolution. Any micro-success in a Skill Challenge needs to be a "Success with (interesting) Complications". Any micro-failure needs to have the PCs "Failing Forward." The fiction must always be propelled forward with exciting, interesting decision-points for the players. Let past results snowball toward climax and only on the cementing success or failure is there going to be 100 % win/loss established.
You need to be using genre logic and narrative causality throughout the course of the challenge. Every challenge needs to follow Freytag's dramatic arc: Exposition > Rising Action > Climax > Falling Action > Denouement. At the exposition phase, you need to be having a conversation with your players. Their goals for the challenge need to be clear. The price of failure/the stakes need to be clear. At each action declaration, you need to understand the exact intent of your player so you can come up with dramatically compelling consequences for failure. Consequences that changes the dynamics of the scene and propels things forward but doesn't close it out (unless you're at the final failure).
Consider the above situation with Bob. Bob fails his Athletics check? Let us assume it is the 1st or 2nd failure in the dungeon Skill Challenge. We need to fail the group forward. Perhaps Bob holds up the pillar
just long enough for his allies to discover the egress from the room. They're all at the edge of the room save Bob on the other side.
It is pretty hopeless. Those PCs are going to have to dive out the egress and leave their friend Bob to the cave-in. We've got a Mines of Moria "Fly, you fools (!)" moment where Gandalf (Bob in this case) heroically sacrifices himself. You don't have to have the other PCs make a primary check to dive out of the room with the collapsing ceiling. You can just "say yes." If that is what they do then now we've split the party up. Mayve everyone else pushes on. Maybe Bob has to try to excavate himself out of the other side of the room and then find an alternative route to his allies. Or maybe the PCs try to excavate the rubble and find their friend.
Or. Perhaps instead of all of the PCs diving out of the room, maybe on of the PCs has Arcane Gate (or some kind of derivative)! The Wizard spends the Daily power to create a portal to the other side of the room for good old Bob! Bob dives through before the ceiling falls on top of him and everyone is out of the room! Boom, 1 (or 2 perhaps because that is pretty awesome) auto-success for the Skill Challenge and everyone is safely out of the room.
Regardless, the action always needs to go forward. It needs to be charged with conflict at every moment. And you need to be putting specific players in spots or giving specific players moments that test their archetype mettle in the crucible fo the resolution mechanics so you can see what happens.
