Skill Challenges - PirateCat Style

[Jeremy]

Warning: Scales of War Spoilerish things in the link

So one of the take aways I had from reading PirateCat's 4e learning/commentary thread was how to make Skill Challenges something both fun, player interactive, and more organic. He talks about hand outs and honestly making these hand outs has been one of the most fun things about running them since I adopted his method.

I've got some shiny opalescent balls that represent successes and some Family Feud style red X's I use for failures. Then I hand them the sheet, they look it over and plan for a bit, and off we go.

I'll ad lib the affects of the skill challenge with each success or failure but try and include the basics of what each success does in the hand out.

Then it's just a matter of narrating the action as they move through the challenge and making it cinematic and entertaining the same way you would describe a combat or any other interaction.

Any way, I usually throw a bit of humor into the hand outs and got more than a few giggles out of writing them. So if this is something you'd be interested in reading, I've got copies of some of them up here: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B7RPAwVEgdTvT1FFaDZlTW0tdXM&usp=sharing

Please let me know if you have any questions. Enjoy!

 

[Jeremy]

I don't know if anyone actually clicked through to look at these, but I added my most recently created one to the folder.

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=4036]Jeremy[/MENTION] Hmm, doesn't this fall into the same trap that skill challenges do in RAW, by having the DM define what sorts of skills can be used, it limits player creativity.

For example, when I run skill challenges there are no primary/secondary skills. In fact, players aren't even limited to skills, they can use powers, roleplaying, or whatever zany idea they come up with. If I presented a group of players with a sheet like you propose, I would worry they'd feel pigeonholed.

 

[Jeremy]

This last one, battle planning, specifically rewarded successes for any plausible suggestions the party could put forth that would aid in the defense of the city. But sometimes they just like the structure. Too often in the game I play in ideas of how skills can be applied face a wall of "No's" that can be frustrating to even continue making suggestions against much less the next time your turn comes around. So when I came across PirateCat's way of doing it, I adopted it for the game I run and having done it now for 3 years I can't recommend it enough. It's worked fantastically for us in actual play each time.

In addition, every challenge includes a "Pick any Skill" entry at the bottom as an outlet if that reassures you any.