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Help Me Make My Skill Challenge Fun
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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 6658107" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>*cracks knuckles*</p><p></p><p>Alrighty. Before I say anything of my own, I can definitely second essentially all of the general points of Manbearcat's advice. Fail forward is critical to making skill challenges enjoyable and effective. Making "star" PCs take great(er) risks for their great(er) competence is a useful tool. Stressing that powers--whether naturally "combat-oriented" or not--can apply is also a big deal. I'll expand on all of these with my own ideas.</p><p></p><p>One of the only things I'll disagree with is that I don't think it's <em>essential</em> to let players know they're in a skill challenge--only that they have a problem to solve and need to find ways to solve it that don't strictly include sticking a sword into something (or fireballing something, etc.) Sometimes it's a good thing to say it--particularly if it wouldn't SEEM like it's a skill challenge, and I think "exploring this dungeon" would count as one of those times. Other times, I think it's good to make it more subtle; a prior 4e DM made a skill challenge out of "escape from the slaver guards and Templars and regroup elsewhere," and that was quite fun--I only realized it was an SC after the fact.</p><p></p><p>"Fail forward" is one of my favorite "new" mechanical ideas--I'm sure it's really existed forever, but having played lots of Dungeon World where said mechanic is core to the system, I've grown extremely fond of it. It's harder to weld into D&D proper, since DW's rolls are naturally pyramid-shaped (2d6), but there are a couple ways you can address it. Crits and crit-fumbles are "big" successes/fails--getting an unequivocal good or unequivocally losing out kind of deal. Then, you can make particular ranges "bad"/"good" respectively. For example, maybe 17+ (on the actual die) gets a small extra perk, otherwise makes things a little nicer, or doesn't hurt as bad if it's still a fail; while 4- is a serious fail with somewhat more dire consequences than simply doing badly. Another alternative might be to try to bring in the 2d6 (or some similar pyramid shaped distribution) in some way, perhaps as a roll you make to "tweak" the player's results (e.g. 5-9 no change, 2-4 adds a negative complication, 10-12 adds a positive complication). Regardless of how you do it though, I definitely agree that things should always drive the action toward an "exciting" conclusion, whether that conclusion is what the PCs wanted or not.</p><p></p><p>Dealing with the problem of "star" PCs is much like dealing with the problem of "star" students in a classroom. There's nothing "wrong" with being good at something, and there's nothing "wrong" with wanting a skilled person to tackle tasks...but on the grand scale, this results in over-working the "stars" and allowing everyone else to coast along without (in the classroom case) learning nearly as much. Fortunately, almost everyone will be good at <em>something</em> in the D&D case, so you can focus on giving "advanced" challenges for them, and adapting, where possible, to the strengths of the group. For example, our own group has (unless Dresden's new player changes things) a pretty heavy emphasis on Charisma skills, especially Diplomacy, while being relatively more limited in terms of Perception (I believe only the Ranger has that trained). So we have a tendency to default to his skills, but we aren't above participating in a group toward checking things. So perhaps the high-Perception character can have things that really do <em>warrant</em> being so eagle-eyed, while having others handle more "basic" detection-related tasks.</p><p></p><p>Last but FAR from least, Powers! Powers are something people really NEED to think of in a more open-ended sense than they usually do. For example, my Paladin's power "Majestic Halo." It's a Daily, so its use would probably need to be commensurate with its effect; as I see it, this power pretty dang clearly demonstrates "I am on a mission from God," and in the right circumstance, such a blazing symbol of divine authority could be very effective; for example, a situation where someone's moral fiber is in question (a courtroom, a negotiation table) and there are enough religious sensibilities, or...perhaps struggling to escape a dungeon filled with a magical darkness/fog, especially if the party has been separated (such a 'glowing halo' could be easily visible from a ways off). Similarly, I had a Sorcerer who got good use out of some of his at-will powers--Burning Spray meant we had access to fire pretty much any time we needed it, which was very useful in Dark Sun.</p><p></p><p>I hope that that's helpful. I've also heard stuff about the "Obsidian" Skill Challenge system, but I don't remember the details or where to find it, I'm afraid. :S</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 6658107, member: 6790260"] *cracks knuckles* Alrighty. Before I say anything of my own, I can definitely second essentially all of the general points of Manbearcat's advice. Fail forward is critical to making skill challenges enjoyable and effective. Making "star" PCs take great(er) risks for their great(er) competence is a useful tool. Stressing that powers--whether naturally "combat-oriented" or not--can apply is also a big deal. I'll expand on all of these with my own ideas. One of the only things I'll disagree with is that I don't think it's [I]essential[/I] to let players know they're in a skill challenge--only that they have a problem to solve and need to find ways to solve it that don't strictly include sticking a sword into something (or fireballing something, etc.) Sometimes it's a good thing to say it--particularly if it wouldn't SEEM like it's a skill challenge, and I think "exploring this dungeon" would count as one of those times. Other times, I think it's good to make it more subtle; a prior 4e DM made a skill challenge out of "escape from the slaver guards and Templars and regroup elsewhere," and that was quite fun--I only realized it was an SC after the fact. "Fail forward" is one of my favorite "new" mechanical ideas--I'm sure it's really existed forever, but having played lots of Dungeon World where said mechanic is core to the system, I've grown extremely fond of it. It's harder to weld into D&D proper, since DW's rolls are naturally pyramid-shaped (2d6), but there are a couple ways you can address it. Crits and crit-fumbles are "big" successes/fails--getting an unequivocal good or unequivocally losing out kind of deal. Then, you can make particular ranges "bad"/"good" respectively. For example, maybe 17+ (on the actual die) gets a small extra perk, otherwise makes things a little nicer, or doesn't hurt as bad if it's still a fail; while 4- is a serious fail with somewhat more dire consequences than simply doing badly. Another alternative might be to try to bring in the 2d6 (or some similar pyramid shaped distribution) in some way, perhaps as a roll you make to "tweak" the player's results (e.g. 5-9 no change, 2-4 adds a negative complication, 10-12 adds a positive complication). Regardless of how you do it though, I definitely agree that things should always drive the action toward an "exciting" conclusion, whether that conclusion is what the PCs wanted or not. Dealing with the problem of "star" PCs is much like dealing with the problem of "star" students in a classroom. There's nothing "wrong" with being good at something, and there's nothing "wrong" with wanting a skilled person to tackle tasks...but on the grand scale, this results in over-working the "stars" and allowing everyone else to coast along without (in the classroom case) learning nearly as much. Fortunately, almost everyone will be good at [I]something[/I] in the D&D case, so you can focus on giving "advanced" challenges for them, and adapting, where possible, to the strengths of the group. For example, our own group has (unless Dresden's new player changes things) a pretty heavy emphasis on Charisma skills, especially Diplomacy, while being relatively more limited in terms of Perception (I believe only the Ranger has that trained). So we have a tendency to default to his skills, but we aren't above participating in a group toward checking things. So perhaps the high-Perception character can have things that really do [I]warrant[/I] being so eagle-eyed, while having others handle more "basic" detection-related tasks. Last but FAR from least, Powers! Powers are something people really NEED to think of in a more open-ended sense than they usually do. For example, my Paladin's power "Majestic Halo." It's a Daily, so its use would probably need to be commensurate with its effect; as I see it, this power pretty dang clearly demonstrates "I am on a mission from God," and in the right circumstance, such a blazing symbol of divine authority could be very effective; for example, a situation where someone's moral fiber is in question (a courtroom, a negotiation table) and there are enough religious sensibilities, or...perhaps struggling to escape a dungeon filled with a magical darkness/fog, especially if the party has been separated (such a 'glowing halo' could be easily visible from a ways off). Similarly, I had a Sorcerer who got good use out of some of his at-will powers--Burning Spray meant we had access to fire pretty much any time we needed it, which was very useful in Dark Sun. I hope that that's helpful. I've also heard stuff about the "Obsidian" Skill Challenge system, but I don't remember the details or where to find it, I'm afraid. :S [/QUOTE]
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