Stalker0's Obsidian Skill Challenge System (NEW VERSION: 1.2!!!)

[Neubert]

I haven't had much chance to play recently, but what I have thought about, and wanted to share is an idea of putting the skill challenge in a tree-structure.
You have your starting point (first segment), and depending on whether your players fail/succeed at the first segment, they will end up in a new situation.
For instance, the characters are being chased through a city by a gang of thugs. A success in the first segment will change the "scene" to the busy marketplace, where new skills might be viable (acrobatics for dodging villagers), or a failure might mean that they ran into the thugs "home turf" and more thugs are after them. A success at the marketpalce might mean the characters run into a group of the city guards (which might open diplomacy options?) that might help them in a battle, or another failure after the first might mean that the characters make a wrong turn and are trapped in a dead-end alley.
By no means does a failure in a segment have to turn into a worse situation or vice versa (in the example above, no character might be trained in either acrobatics and diplomacy, and will have a harder time even though they succeeded in the first/second segment).
All this means some more work for the GM of course, but some scenes might be able to be re-used.

I didn't mean to derail the thread from Stalker0's suggestions/proposals above, I just wanted to share my idea.

My biggest issue currently (though an issue with skill challenges themselves, not Obsisian) is the diplomatic challenge where all the players take turns trying to come up with something to persuade their target. It seemed a little forced to me when we ran it.

 

[Stalker0]

I haven't had much chance to play recently, but what I have thought about, and wanted to share is an idea of putting the skill challenge in a tree-structure.

In the Obsidian system, complex skill challenges do exactly this. The difference is a "segment" for the purpose of what you are describing is a normal obsidian skill challenge. How you succeed/fail in that one gives you a bonus/penalty in the next, and so forth.

I have thought about making each individual segment more purposeful, but I also walk the fine line of more complexity vs keeping it simple. Personally, I like complex rules...but I think part of Obsidian's success has been how straightforward and simple it is. People can learn it quickly, use it readily, and adapt it easily to their needs.

 

[Ismaul]

My biggest issue currently is the diplomatic challenge where all the players take turns trying to come up with something to persuade their target. It seemed a little forced to me when we ran it.

This is why I didn't directly adopt the Obsidian system for my game, instead experimenting a bit with my own ideas. Obsidian (and WotC's system) lacks an important component of challenges: Active Opposition. In combat, you got dudes that try to hamper you actions and win the combat for themselves. This makes combat dynamic.

If you're in a diplomatic challenge and all that's happening is the players searching for arguments to throw at someone, the whole thing feels very one-sided. The challenge becomes detached from the opposition, from the NPCs you're trying to deal with. The opposition is reduced to nothing more than a DC. Passive. It might be passable for challenges involving PCs vs. environment, but with PCs vs. NPCs the flaw becomes apparent.

I'm not sure how to restore that dynamism in challenges without complicating the system, aside from lively description of course. I'd like my NPCs to counter the efforts of the PCs, and not only when the PCs fail their checks. Maybe make the opposition as a whole (the challenge itself) have one obstacle per round they can throw at the PCs to spice up the challenge.


In addition, there's another important element challenges miss out on: what distinguishes an NPC/challenge from another. In combat, aside from Attack bonus and damage (which is as bland and generic as the challenge DC), you got some special abilities that define the monsters you're facing. Kobolds are shifty, hobgoblins are orderly. This gives the enemy personality.

You never get that sense of identity from an NPC involved in a challenge, at least not mechanically. There is no difference in the 'game' aspect between two diplomatic challenges of the same level with two different NPCs, except for how both are roleplayed.


I believe we need mechanical distinctions between challenges as much as we need differences in roleplaying: they complement each other and make the experience fresh. It would make sense to combine both the 'dynamism' and 'identity' aspects. The best thing would be to give "powers" to challenges that reflects what make them unique, racial power style, usable once per segment. We could even have 2 types of powers, for NPCs or the environment, emulating the monster - trap distinction.

An example off the top of my head:
"Shifty" NPC: This guy is really good at evading questions and accusations that are thrown at him. Once per segment, he can make an opposed skill check against any successful PC check with a +2 bonus. If the NPC 'hits', this PC's success(es) don't count towards the victory of the challenge.

A system like that would require designing a bunch of Challenge Powers that the DM can choose and assign to the specific challenge he's running, but I can smell the benefits from here. Plus, they'd be modular. Like 'em, use 'em. They'd fit on top of both WotC's system and Obsidian.

Rather than labeling some skills as appropriate vs. inappropriate for the challenge, I've come to think in terms of expected skill use vs. creative skill use. Both are fun for different reasons:

• Expected skill use (using social skills during a social encounter) is fun because it reinforces your character concept. Someone who has good social skills picked them because they want to play a socially skilled character, and during a social challenge they should be allowed to shine by using all their social skills.
• Creative skill use (using mental or physical skills during a social encounter) is fun because creativity itself is fun. Unexpected things are more interesting and allowing players to use unexpected skills lets them apply a bit more problem-solving to the challenge.

Should either type of skill use have the edge? Should they be identical in how they are applied?

That's really an apropriate distinction. Both expected and creative uses of skills are things we want to reward. I think in some way Obsidian's system takes that into account. Expected uses get an automatic +2 (in other words they're primary skills), and creative uses get a DM-approved +2.

The only weakness is how you go about rewarding a nicely roleplayed expected use of a skill. Do you give it a +4, and can the system handle it? Or should we distinguish the advantage to be had by using an expected skill use vs a creative one, as right now they both give the same mechanical benefit?



Aside from that, I couldn't help but notice the 2 Segment rules. They could be better, simpler. Right now, we got to refer to the chart, then substract successes needed for partial and total victory, with some wierd results.

For example, for 5 players in a standard challenge, Victory=8+ successes and Partial=6-7. With a 2 Segment challenge, suddenly the conditions become V=6+ (substract 2), and P=5-6 (substract 1). We got a problematic overlap there.

Instead, what about this: "In a 2 segment challenge, treat the victory conditions as if there was 1 less player." No calculations needed, no overlap, just refer to the chart.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Hey Stalker0! Thanks for this system.

My last session, which I wish I had written down, revolved around 3 skill challenges.

Two of them were diplomatic encounters, but I did not have the issue that Ismaul and Neubert refer to.. but that was more due to how I set up the challenges.

The first challenge was gaining the assistance of the leaders of a monastry. Instead of starting the challenge in the audience chamber, I started is as the group entered the monastry. The three 'rounds' lasted about half an hour each and the first two took place during the tour and waiting to enter the audience chamber.

The Rogue snuck off to find incriminating evidence, the Bard talked to monks about the history of the place, the Pirate intimidated a couple of folks... lots of crazy stuff.

For the first skill challenge the group did, it worked out well for both the players and the PCs.

Later the group attempted to negotiate a truce with the Ragesian Army and I broke the rounds up the same way, altho this time I gave the PCs the choice of when they went into the audience chamber. They chose to do a fair amount of prep work and spent two 'rounds' before entering the camp.
The group received a partial success, but triggered an alternate plot when the Pirate tried to intimidate the General.


All three skill challenges went very well and the system is quite resiliant.
I did not exclude skills, if the player could pitch its use I would go with it. I did have a list of ideas of what could be done in advance and tossed them on the table in order to get things started.

For instance, the truce talks were really the third round of a larger skill challenge in which the PC's gained the assistance of the Monks and improved the defenses of the village, which were the two other skill challenges for the night. They built on this by having some monks scout out the camp, them set some of the more offensive minded ones to act as a distraction/cavalry if things went badly.



I tried to build sense of idendity by having sub-plots that would start/spin-off based on which skills are used. The General was described as a mongol/viking brutally violent man. Intimidating him under the flag of truce and in front of his subordinates is not, generally, a smart thing to do. I had decided he would suffer one insult due to the PC's having defeated him in combat earlier. THe second intimidate check, however, would encourage him to trigger an ambush once the group made it out of the camp.

 

[Llwynog]

I'd really like to try this out but I hesitate to download anything written by someone who can't even use your and you're properly.

 

[Smeelbo]

I'd get over that, then. A lot of analysis has gone into the system, simulations and their results, and he is articulate about what he is doing and why.

I admire him for doing what Hasbro should have done in the first place with their skill challenge system.

Smeelbo

 

[Stalker0]

I'd really like to try this out but I hesitate to download anything written by someone who can't even use your and you're properly.

Like many people on message boards, I do tend to get a bit lazy with the grammar

When I'm writing articles I try to keep the language clean, but with casual replies I'll just type fast and lay it out there (not their!).

 

[Magus Coeruleus]

I'd really like to try this out but I hesitate to download anything written by someone who can't even use your and you're properly.

Try less hesitation with the downloading and more hesitation on making petty, useless posts.

To avoid making this post similarly worthless, let me take the opportunity to thank you again, Stalker0. In an ideal world you'd get your apostrophes right all the time but practically speaking I'm glad your focus has been more on getting the numbers right. Although I haven't played 4e (or any RPGs) for quite a while now I've been sharing your system with others nonetheless.

 

[dammitbiscuit]

In honor of the kitsune over there, I too would like to say something self-important!

I don't know if you noticed, good sir, but prior to post #48 you'd been asking for feedback and getting sparse replies. Post #48's meaty content, however, heralded a powerful explosion of feedback, theorizing, and examples of play! Even if you decide that certain other posts merit more of your attention than the trailblazing, seminal post #48, I would love to know if any of our opinions or play reports gave you ideas, were helpful in other ways, or were just interesting.

No pressure if you don't have the time, of course, but I love hearing a designer's thoughts. In fact, my initial urge for joining D&DI was a desire to continue reading Design and Development, Save My Game, and Dungeoncraft.

The fans clamor for news!

 

[Stalker0]

I don't know if you noticed, good sir, but prior to post #48 you'd been asking for feedback and getting sparse replies. Post #48's meaty content, however, heralded a powerful explosion of feedback, theorizing, and examples of play! Even if you decide that certain other posts merit more of your attention than the trailblazing, seminal post #48, I would love to know if any of our opinions or play reports gave you ideas, were helpful in other ways, or were just interesting.

Generally when I read people's posts I am watching for a few things:

1) How do they use the system? When I first created Obsidian I expected people to use it as I had wrote it, but more and more posts have convinced me that the majority of people use it as a framework to implement their own ideas. That's just fine by me, and that drives a lot of the work I do on it now.

When I consider new versions now, my main focus is maintaining that solid baseline while adding features that create value. Obsidian's greatest advantage is flexibility, you can add a +2 here or there and still feel like the system works.

2) How often are people succeeding at Obsidian? Basically...is the math working out to my expectations, and that has a lot to do with number 1. I mentioned in my previous notes that my party was succeeding with more regularity that I had anticipated, but that seems to be the way we play with the system. If others are doing the same, then it may call for a change in the baseline assumptions.

3) Do players enjoy the system...or even skill challenges in general? The whole concept of using set mechanics to determine what used to be wholly just roleplay talk is still a new thing for 4e...and ultimately the question becomes is it a good thing?

One thing I have learned from my experience playing and running Obsidian challenges is that I like my skill challenges to be infrequent and a big deal. I don't use them for regular negotiations or persuasion, I don't use them for general moving around the world. I only use them for a big chase, a very important negotiation, or a critical piece of information.

I hope that answers some of your questions about my answers to your answers