What does it mean to "Challenge the Character"?

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So... If I am presenting an obstacle that can be overcome via the use of game mechanical resources, and the player is playing a pregenerated character, am I challenging the person that is playing the character, or the person who generated the character?

lowkey13 said:

Great and interesting post. I'm keying on this at the end for a reason.

I think that everyone who has posted in this thread, so far, has articulated the same distinction (for the most part) with regards to PC/Player challenges.

I guess what I'm not sure I understand is how, in the excerpted fashion, this is any different that what @Elfcrusher is saying when he articulates that a PC challenge is actually a build challenge? By investing resources into, for example, being a trap-finder?

Am I missing something? Or are you agreeing?

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One thing that makes discussions like this challenging is that participants often take slight differences in positions and exaggerate the other side to an extreme. (I think that's what you're calling out here.)

As an example, I think it's fine for the player to solve a challenge without trying to imagine what it would be like for their 8-Int character. (Mostly because it's simply not possible to "think like" somebody with a mind different from yours, and I don't want to reduce all the interesting bits of the game to dice rolls.)

Now, it's really easy to (mis)characterize that position as, "Oh, so you think it's fine to put multivariable calculus problems in the game and let dumb fighters solve them just because the player is a rocket scientist!"

No, that's not what I mean. And, for the record, I hate the sort of puzzles that require solving an actual puzzle out-of-game.

If I had to write a definition of the difference between "good" and "bad" puzzles I would say that good puzzles are the ones where the hard part is coming up with the approach, but once you do the solution is easy, and bad puzzles are where the approach is obvious but the solution is hard.

Good puzzle: in the original Zork, where you have to roll the giant onion into the room and cut it with the sword, causing the many-eyed creature to cry and go blind while you beat on it. (What's bad about that example is that no other solution is possible, e.g. there's no way to beat the monster in straight-up combat, but it's a computer game not an RPG.)

Bad puzzle: the floor is divided into a grid, and some squares are "on" and some are "off". If you step on an "on" a square it changes state, and the four adjacent squares (but not diagonally adjacent ones) also change state....etc.

So in the first case it may take a while to come up with the approach, but once you do you're done. In the second example you know exactly what the approach is, but it may take a while to solve.

Both are examples of "challenging the player" because the player has to come up with a solution, but in the latter case you really leave the game completely while you work on the solution.

Also, I don't think it is at all unreasonable for a low-Int character to come up with the idea about the giant onion.

Now, it's fine if there are also some ability checks along the way. Maybe it requires Strength to move the onion, although if there's no time pressure or consequence for failure I wouldn't require rolls. The Wizard can't move it, but the Fighter can. Or maybe it takes the Fighter AND the Wizard. Whatever, no dice required. But maybe you have to roll it over a narrow bridge or up some stairs. Now a check is appropriate.

Maybe that's what some people see as "challenging the character"? If so, yeah that can be fun, too. But ideally it should be a risk-reward option, so that the "challenge" is in deciding whether or not to risk the dice roll, depending on your character sheet. "If you can push the onion over the bridge you'll get there quickly, but if you fail the roll you will lose the onion. Otherwise you can take the long way around, but you risk waking up the dragon. What do you do?"

If there's no real decision to be made, other than "who has the highest bonus to make this roll", it's just not very interesting. Nor is it challenging anybody or anything.

Celebrim said:

But, to be very precise, you've not given enough details for us to answer your question, because we don't have enough of a description to understand the process of play. You've described the fiction, but not the process you will use to filter, validate, and resolve player propositions. For all the reader knows, everything in that fiction will be resolved by dice rolls or none of it will.

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As I mentioned in my post, this is for a D&D 5e game, which means the DM calls for ability checks when the player has described a task for the character that has an uncertain outcome and a meaningful consequence for failure. If the outcome is certain and/or there's no meaningful consequence for failure, then the character simply fails or succeeds according to the judgment of the DM without a roll or often without reference to the character's ability scores.

Please let me know if you need additional information to render an opinion.

Elfcrusher said:

But does that actually "challenge" anything? It seems to me the character, which in this case means the numbers associated with the character, are just a constraint on the player's actions. But the player is still facing the challenge.

Two players both wish to accomplish the same thing in the same way, but one player adds 6 to the roll of a d20, and other subtracts 1 from the same roll. The first player has a higher chance of succeeding, obviously. But what or who has been challenged, and how?

The only challenge I see being addressed is that the first player in some sense "anticipated" this sort of challenge by making those particular choices for his character build.

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Again, challenge the character is not meant to include "not challenging the player" in its basic definition. Its defining a case where the character traits are an integral part to overcoming the obstacle.

Your attempt to divorce it from player challenge is the misconception.

Its contrast is most obviously shown by the ones above, but any challenge in which the overcoming can be accomplished without reference to character, basically by any character, would likely be a "challenge the player."

For your example, assuming the bonus to the roll came from a character trait, then it's a challenge the character. The choices the players made at chargen or beyond are bring shoen to have meaning and relevancy.

Contrast that to a teapot riddle challenge where you can pop in or out most any character and the same results occur if the player gives the same statement. There, it doesnt matter who the character is or what the choices on chargen etc were.

Challenge the character obstacles bring both player choice of actions at the moment and character differences into the resolution.

Challenge the player only brings in the player choice of actiins at the momrnt.

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Monayuris said:

Not sure I think that is at all relevant.

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Yes, but in an attempt to give the player so much of their due, you can end up missing a point that isn't so much about the player or the character, but is about adventure design.

The focus isn't on how the player makes all decisions for the character, both tactical and strategic. The point is that there are times when the adventure or challenge does an end run and goes for the player directly, bypassing the character and game mechanics.

Logic puzzles where the GM does not give hints via skill checks are one example. Social scenes where the GM bases entirely off what the player says, without using the system's social encounter resolution mechanics, would be another. Telling a player that their character can climb a 60' rope if the *player* can climb a 10' rope would be another.

Much of the point is that the player has already made strategic decisions in their character build. If you challenge the player directly, those decisions are voided! And that's not always cool.

We can easily construct a scenario that makes this obvious. We have one player who is a total mechanics, powergaming and logic rockstar, and has built himself a super-effective combat barbarian, with an Int of 6. We have another player who isn't such a grand with manipulating the rules, isn't stunning at logic puzzles, but has a wizard character with an Int of 18.

If you challenge these with the classic "One guard always tells the truth, the other always lies" logic puzzle, the barbarian player can get it easily, but the wizard player won't. But, within the story, the wizard should totally have figured it out before the problem was fully posed, while the barbarian should have gotten bored, shouted "TOO MUCH THINKY!!!" and tried to stab a guard.

Umbran said:

If you challenge these with the classic "One guard always tells the truth, the other always lies" logic puzzle, the barbarian player can get it easily, but the wizard player won't. But, within the story, the wizard should totally have figured it out before the problem was fully posed, while the barbarian should have gotten bored, shouted "TOO MUCH THINKY!!!" and tried to stab a guard.

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Barbarian should follow up said stabbing with the question, "Is that guy dead?"

robus said:

Well here's a simple question: What does Challenge Rating refer to if not the level of the characters (rather than the players)?

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If you're referring to D&D 5e, the challenge rating "tells you how great a threat the monster is. An appropriately equipped and well-rested party of four adventurers should be able to defeat a monster that has a challenge rating equal to its level without suffering any deaths."

Should is the operative word here, I think, as it leaves open the possibility that the party could suffer a death depending on the circumstances. Some of those circumstances might reasonably include the players making unfortunate tactical decisions that increase the difficulty of the encounter beyond the system's expectations.

I think we should also note that a better word for "challenge rating" is "difficulty," in my opinion, which I believe would make it easier to avoid conflating the concepts of "challenge" and "difficulty," but it is what it is.

robus said:

I would say that combat primarily challenges the characters and not the players - it directly interacts with the character's AC, HP, ability to hit etc etc. Sure the player animates that character during the combat, but its ability to stay in the fight is directly down to its stats on the sheet.

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I think this greatly downplays the importance of the player's tactical choices (and strategic ones for that matter).

robus said:

Edit: And that may be why combat can become a bore, because it can devolve into a mechanical exercise rather than a entertaining experience (and a good reason to finish them once it becomes a foregone conclusion).

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Here I think this is a separate issue, one of the "dramatic question." Combats become a grind when it's a foregone conclusion and all you're really doing at that point is mitigating resource drain to get the XP. That means that the challenge has been reduced to a difficulty that is no longer entertaining. Good encounter design can help with this.

Umbran said:

If you challenge these with the classic "One guard always tells the truth, the other always lies" logic puzzle, the barbarian player can get it easily, but the wizard player won't. But, within the story, the wizard should totally have figured it out before the problem was fully posed, while the barbarian should have gotten bored, shouted "TOO MUCH THINKY!!!" and tried to stab a guard.

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First, I cringe at your use of "should have". But maybe you meant, "An example of interesting roleplaying might be..." (Although I also cringe at cliches about what classes and ability scores represent.)

But I think the real problem here is that the puzzle you use is just a bad puzzle to include in an RPG. To use the criterion I proposed above, the approach is obvious and the solution is hard.