Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Skill Challenges Open Thread
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6772497" data-attributes="member: 6696971"><p>[MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION], your inbox is full so I'm just going to respond to your PM here. It is topical anyway so fair enough! </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Hey mate.</p><p></p><p>Yup, I've read it. I think you'll find (should you purchase it) that it bears an extremely tight resemblance to DMG2. The two are pretty close to contemporaries (with DMG2 coming out perhaps a year before it?) and Rodney Thompson is a (the?) primary author of the GoI book so it makes sense. It does all the stuff that DMG2 does (breaks down different levels of mechanical transparency, adjudication of non-skill actions - eg Rituals, HS, Coin vs Force Powers, Talents, Feats, Equipment, GM guidance, and player approach).</p><p></p><p>I have a pretty high opinion of DMG2 (as you know) so my opinion of GoI is pretty similar.</p><p></p><p>That being said, I think there are some key differences:</p><p></p><p>1) While they both stridently speak to the the Skill Challenge as genre trope/cinematic action scene facilitator, GoI more vigorously encourages players to approach things that way. However, this is also a problem because there is some incoherence embedded in some of the instruction. It speaks to players approaching their action declarations from that perspective (daring-do and cinematic risk-taking) while also encouraging them to work toward maximizing their strengths in their approaches. These two are often at tension during play and it doesn't provide GM guidance (or a proper reward cycle to handle sub-optimal approaches to action declarations) to reconcile this.</p><p></p><p>2) GoI does a good job about talking up the necessity of the fiction evolving dynamically as a result of each "panel" (my language, not theirs). However, it also talks about the Skill Challenge possibly evolving such that the declared goal/stakes might change mid-stream...</p><p></p><p>That is awful advice in my opinion. Awful because it is problematic for play. The point of a Skill Challenge is to focus on a specific genre trope/action scene and continuously escalate the conflict toward resolving the premise at the heart of the scene; "Do the imperial speeder bike scouts discover the rebel activity on Endor and relay it to central command?" That is a contained scene. If things totally change and that question suddenly becomes unanswerable/irrelevant before the resolution mechanics/evolved fiction have decided its fate (for whatever reason...typically that means something has gone very wrong - either poor GMing or incoherent motivations amongst the players...which typically is an issue that needs to be addressed outside of play at the social contract level), the scene should be closed out/immediately transitioned. Likewise, the mechanical framework of the former SC should be closed out in that case and the fallout/rewards tallied and the new scene framed (along with attendant stakes/goal).</p><p></p><p>Anyhoo, for my money Koebel and Latorra's Dungeon World by far do the best job of GM instruction when it comes to this stuff. They transparently canvas the difference between (a) rules, (b) top-down agenda for play generally, and (c) specific GMing principles that will inform the approach to any particular moment of play. Breaking these out and providing keen clarity on each of these is central to that. Running them together/outright conflating one with another or pretending that there is no delineation between the three is a problem with a lot of GMing advice.</p><p></p><p>MHRP is another hugely wonderful resource for running 4e Skill Challenges (while it also possesses the dynamic feedback chops that 4e noncombat conflict resolution would have been better for having...if 4e's SCs had that dynamic feedback and something like Burning Wheel's reward cycle, it would have been just about perfect in my opinion).</p><p></p><p>Alright, I'm tapping out for the night! I'll respond to your post directly above tomorrow. I still have to find the time to update the PBP I'm running on here with the results of the mass combat! Waning time and waning brain power is a bad mix.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Manbearcat, post: 6772497, member: 6696971"] [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION], your inbox is full so I'm just going to respond to your PM here. It is topical anyway so fair enough! Hey mate. Yup, I've read it. I think you'll find (should you purchase it) that it bears an extremely tight resemblance to DMG2. The two are pretty close to contemporaries (with DMG2 coming out perhaps a year before it?) and Rodney Thompson is a (the?) primary author of the GoI book so it makes sense. It does all the stuff that DMG2 does (breaks down different levels of mechanical transparency, adjudication of non-skill actions - eg Rituals, HS, Coin vs Force Powers, Talents, Feats, Equipment, GM guidance, and player approach). I have a pretty high opinion of DMG2 (as you know) so my opinion of GoI is pretty similar. That being said, I think there are some key differences: 1) While they both stridently speak to the the Skill Challenge as genre trope/cinematic action scene facilitator, GoI more vigorously encourages players to approach things that way. However, this is also a problem because there is some incoherence embedded in some of the instruction. It speaks to players approaching their action declarations from that perspective (daring-do and cinematic risk-taking) while also encouraging them to work toward maximizing their strengths in their approaches. These two are often at tension during play and it doesn't provide GM guidance (or a proper reward cycle to handle sub-optimal approaches to action declarations) to reconcile this. 2) GoI does a good job about talking up the necessity of the fiction evolving dynamically as a result of each "panel" (my language, not theirs). However, it also talks about the Skill Challenge possibly evolving such that the declared goal/stakes might change mid-stream... That is awful advice in my opinion. Awful because it is problematic for play. The point of a Skill Challenge is to focus on a specific genre trope/action scene and continuously escalate the conflict toward resolving the premise at the heart of the scene; "Do the imperial speeder bike scouts discover the rebel activity on Endor and relay it to central command?" That is a contained scene. If things totally change and that question suddenly becomes unanswerable/irrelevant before the resolution mechanics/evolved fiction have decided its fate (for whatever reason...typically that means something has gone very wrong - either poor GMing or incoherent motivations amongst the players...which typically is an issue that needs to be addressed outside of play at the social contract level), the scene should be closed out/immediately transitioned. Likewise, the mechanical framework of the former SC should be closed out in that case and the fallout/rewards tallied and the new scene framed (along with attendant stakes/goal). Anyhoo, for my money Koebel and Latorra's Dungeon World by far do the best job of GM instruction when it comes to this stuff. They transparently canvas the difference between (a) rules, (b) top-down agenda for play generally, and (c) specific GMing principles that will inform the approach to any particular moment of play. Breaking these out and providing keen clarity on each of these is central to that. Running them together/outright conflating one with another or pretending that there is no delineation between the three is a problem with a lot of GMing advice. MHRP is another hugely wonderful resource for running 4e Skill Challenges (while it also possesses the dynamic feedback chops that 4e noncombat conflict resolution would have been better for having...if 4e's SCs had that dynamic feedback and something like Burning Wheel's reward cycle, it would have been just about perfect in my opinion). Alright, I'm tapping out for the night! I'll respond to your post directly above tomorrow. I still have to find the time to update the PBP I'm running on here with the results of the mass combat! Waning time and waning brain power is a bad mix. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Skill Challenges Open Thread
Top