D&D 4E 4e conversion of White Plume's hot mud room

[kaomera]

The only other thing you need is a way to keep from going back the way they came.

I think what you need is a way to make the players (and/or characters) want to engage the encounter. If you just randomly lock them in with it, no other way to go, that's no fun. OTOH, the encounter only becomes interesting when the PCs actually try to deal with it directly, and are not just trying to find a way around having to deal with it.

This was how this sort of situation was dealt with in earlier editions. In 1e I had some serious problems with WPL; although it's supposed to be a classic, it was so divergent from how we played the game that the players simply had no interest. The PCs would have found another way around or just gone home before they submitted to a bunch of random rolls to get across the room. Of course, that's exactly what they did each time they faced a combat encounter, but this is no combat encounter...

 

[Saeviomagy]

The appearance of danger can provide just as much dramatic tension in the game even if the actual danger is minimal. In other words, the actual difficulty of the challenge, numbers-wise, may be minimal, but if the players think that their characters are in danger, they'll act accordingly. And there's never any dissappointment, if they never actually realize how easily they blew through that paper obstacle.

So... how do you avoid that "wait... I took ONE point of damage from the lava?" moment? Alternately how do you avoid the "wait, I succeeded even with a total of 5??" moment.

I mean pretending that danger is there is all well and good, but players are savvy: if you don't roll the dice, or if they roll low and still succeed, the tension is just all gone.

 

[kaomera]

So... how do you avoid that "wait... I took ONE point of damage from the lava?" moment? Alternately how do you avoid the "wait, I succeeded even with a total of 5??" moment.

I mean pretending that danger is there is all well and good, but players are savvy: if you don't roll the dice, or if they roll low and still succeed, the tension is just all gone.

I agree that players will generally know if you're fudging (except maybe in very small amounts). Maybe not players that really don't know the system yet, but they're going to find out eventually.

I think the ideal is to avoid situations where a failed roll sends the PC directly into the lava. 4e already leans this way. Instead you have the PC grab onto the edge, dangling over the precipice. This is where the real "fudging" can come in: you don't need to tell the players that a single failure isn't going to be fatal, and if they make the roll they may never know... But sooner or later the players are going to figure out what kind of game you're running.

This is why you need the players to really "buy in" to the encounter. Rolling through a Skill Challenge (or even just a few Skill Checks) when the players don't really care, when they just want to be done with this, isn't much fun. At best they succeed and you've only wasted time, at worst they fail and feel frustrated.

 

[Mythlore]

One way you could remove the "I only took 1 point of damage" is to up the minimum damage. If the damage range is 5-15 or so (1d10+4) -- or you could simply make it a static range of 5, and +5 per 5 that the fail occurs on. Don't make it too simple, but don't make the penalties far too complex. A single healing surge could compensate for that damage, by a similar token, too -- two on a significant failure (5 or more) -- three on a critical failure (if by chance you roll a 1).

 

[Pbartender]

Dangnabit! I had a nice long post that just got eaten.

The short version:

So... how do you avoid that "wait... I took ONE point of damage from the lava?" moment? Alternately how do you avoid the "wait, I succeeded even with a total of 5??" moment.

I mean pretending that danger is there is all well and good, but players are savvy: if you don't roll the dice, or if they roll low and still succeed, the tension is just all gone.

Yep, you're right... Like I said, that's the tough part. You've really got to know when it's best to use that trick, be careful to not use it too often.

Most times a dangerous situation really should be a dangerous situation... That's part of what makes the occasional bits faux-danger more believable.

I think the ideal is to avoid situations where a failed roll sends the PC directly into the lava. 4e already leans this way. Instead you have the PC grab onto the edge, dangling over the precipice. This is where the real "fudging" can come in: you don't need to tell the players that a single failure isn't going to be fatal, and if they make the roll they may never know...

This is probably the best way to build tension without real danger... Multiple checks and moderate difficulties makes the chance of complete failure low, but with a little bit of showmanship you can make each small step toward disaster increasingly build up that tension. When the slippery catwalk is half-collapsed, and a PC is slowly sliding toward the end, or dangling from the edge by his fingertips everyone at the table will start paying attention.

It's the same trick they use in the movies applied to the gaming table.