Skill challenge help sought

[eleran]

I am working on planning my next session and I would like to try out the skill challenge system.


The PCs have come to a keep (not that one) a few days distant from their home base. I have worked up some rumors they can gather from the townsfolk regarding the keep itself (its history and citizens and the surrounding area), some true, some false. I would like to develop a skill challenge whereby they gather these rumors.


It is a 1st level group. So I think I want to make it a 1st level challenge, complexity 3, with every 2 success or failure resulting in a gained rumor, just so I can get used to the skill challenge system.

Heres where I need some help. I want to hand out the rumors on paper as they come up in roleplay (just to act as reminders for later). The skill challenge section says to inform players when they get a success or failure, but I think I am going to not do that because failures will result in false rumors and successes will result in true rumors, and I dont want it to be that obvious.

Any other ideas how perk this up a bit?

Because it is our first use of the skill challenge system I am going to inform them that we are in a skill challenge and work thru initiative order just to keep things flowing and get everyone involved. A couple of my players are still not out of their RP shells completely.

 

[D'karr]

Heres where I need some help. I want to hand out the rumors on paper as they come up in roleplay (just to act as reminders for later). The skill challenge section says to inform players when they get a success or failure, but I think I am going to not do that because failures will result in false rumors and successes will result in true rumors, and I dont want it to be that obvious.

Any other ideas how perk this up a bit?

Because it is our first use of the skill challenge system I am going to inform them that we are in a skill challenge and work thru initiative order just to keep things flowing and get everyone involved. A couple of my players are still not out of their RP shells completely.

You could have all the rumors on paper and not tell them when they fail, but believe me the players will know when they blew a skill roll. Mainly because they are the ones making it. If all they are rolling are sub 10 rolls they are going to know anyway. Maybe for a skill challenge like this you'd play it similar to how they would search for traps. You can roll. However that is not very satisfying.

So maybe what you can do is not give them the piece of paper for the rumor until they've completed the entire challenge. That way they will have to determine what was true or false without knowing which piece of information was achieved with a success and which with a failure.

In a skill challenge like this you can also play on the NPCs attitude. If the NPC is unfriendly, the DCs for the challenges are more difficult. If they are friendly or helpful, the DCs can be easier. So certain things like bribing (buying drinks, etc) can have an impact on the attitude of the NPC and make it easier to get information from them.

 

[eleran]

You could have all the rumors on paper and not tell them when they fail, but believe me the players will know when they blew a skill roll. Mainly because they are the ones making it. If all they are rolling are sub 10 rolls they are going to know anyway. Maybe for a skill challenge like this you'd play it similar to how they would search for traps. You can roll. However that is not very satisfying.

So maybe what you can do is not give them the piece of paper for the rumor until they've completed the entire challenge. That way they will have to determine what was true or false without knowing which piece of information was achieved with a success and which with a failure.

In a skill challenge like this you can also play on the NPCs attitude. If the NPC is unfriendly, the DCs for the challenges are more difficult. If they are friendly or helpful, the DCs can be easier. So certain things like bribing (buying drinks, etc) can have an impact on the attitude of the NPC and make it easier to get information from them.

Excellent idea about giving them the rumors at the end and leave them to sort it out. Thank you very much!!! I had already planned to give bonuses or penalties to the DCs based on the NPCs attitudes, motives and so on. Some of the NPCs are actually working against the goals of the PCs so if those NPCs are consulted they will have higher DCs so as to be the likely source of false rumors.