Make me a Skill Challenge?

[Trellian]

OK, so I'm really struggling with skill challenges. I understand the concept, but I cannot seem to transfer it into play.

I've had a couple of improvised skill challenges, which worked out well, but now I want to plan a skill challenge I know will come up sooner or later.

One of the character's in my group is a kobold paladin, and while he has been hiding beneath a closed helmet so far, sooner or later the people in the town they're staying in, will find out.

They're second level, and have done the town a favor by saving them from a goblin assault, and then wiping out the goblin's hideout. Now, they will be invited to a formal party at the town's leadership. I foresee that the revelation will come here, but it may come at some other point too.

Any one up for the task?

 

[Turtlejay]

My gut tells me you should just straight roleplay this out. No rules, no die, do predetermined outcomes.

Jay

 

[Amaroq]

Yeah, I'm not sure what the "skill challenge" is, here.

A skill challenge works well for overcoming an obstacle - Nature to make it through the dangerous forest without getting lost or running into a bad random encounter; Thievery and Stealth for breaking into an occupied mansion and stealing the crucial documents before alerting the guards.

What you're working on sounds like a "racism vs Diplomacy" challenge, a lot more like what happened to my character in a recent adventure.

My character was one of the few humans every acknowledged into a dwarven clan for his actions and heroism, but an unfortunate turn of events saw him fall from "notable hero" to "legendary villain" in the eyes of the dwarves - but he still thinks of himself as possessing a dwarven honor.

So.

He winds up teleported into a dwarven village, and of course the captain of the guard demands to know who he is and why he is there.

With perfect dwarven etiquette, he proudly declares his name, clan, and honors, and greets the captain with a low bow.

The captain's face goes white: a legendary villain, in his town?!?

Our DM asks for a Diplomacy check to see how well I'd mastered dwarven etiquette; I netted a 33, which was a spectacular success for our level.

The DM wound up playing the captain as
- bound by his dwarven honor to apprehend me for my villainous crimes, but
- sensing the honor in my character,
- not wanting to kill me, and even
- believing my story of the tragic events that I've been blamed for.

Definitely not a skill challenge - unless you considered it as being phrased "1 success before 1 failure!"

Key to the issues are:
1. The DM knew that dwarf's character.
2. He allowed my roll to influence how the character perceived me,
3. .. but not who the character was.
4. And then played him as "conflicted" about me for the rest of the adventure.

Over time, as I work to clear my name, I hope this NPC will develop into an ally.

 

[LostSoul]

Key to the issues are:
1. The DM knew that dwarf's character.
2. He allowed my roll to influence how the character perceived me,
3. .. but not who the character was.
4. And then played him as "conflicted" about me for the rest of the adventure.

That bears repeating!

All you need to do is:

1. Figure out who the main characters are. What they want, what they fear, etc.
2. How stubborn they are about this issue. That'll set your Complexity (ie. their "social HP").
3. Their level. That will set the level of the challenge.

 

[GeekKen]

I'll give my little design philosophy on why 4E has skill challenges. Remember all those times in past editions where you role played a solution to a problem, or completed some task not related to whacking monsters on the head? Yeah, those times you pumped NPCs for information to find the temple of evil bad guys, or snuck a way into the fortified complex of doom.

There were no real rule frameworks for you to structure that into a series of tasks, or guidelines for rewarding players for being clever. Now you have skill challenges. A way to give those events some goals and most importantly, a way for the players to get some rewards in the means of exp.

With that concept, for the entire group, how is the situation you are describing going to be a skill challenge? What happens if they succeed? What happens if they fail? Are there gradations (levels) of successes or failures?

Is the entire party onto the subterfuge? Or is the player the only guy deceiving everyone? If it is a single player hiding his true identity, what happens to everyone else in the party?

If you are leaning towards one guy, deceiving everyone about his identity, and having this culminate to some rapid conclusion, I'd say role play it out. If you are putting the entire party into some situation that they all know about, maybe craft it as some type of skill challenge.

Don't forget, if it is a complete RP session, that players can get exp for that too. If the guy (or party) really shines during the feast, reward them for that.

 

[Trellian]

Thanks for the help so far.

Everybody else knows he's a kobold. They are all small races (two gnomes, one halfling, one goblin.. although he died previous session).

If I go the Skill Challenge route, I would like the goal to be something like: "Have the citizens accept him for who he is, even though he's a kobold". Him being a kobold does affect the rest of the group as well.

I'm just finding it hard to envision other skills than Diplomacy being used here. Maybe Religion? He is a paladin of Amanuator (a good deity).

I just remember reading the first Drizzt novels, when even if he'd saved someone, they still loathed him for being a drow.

 

[Saeviomagy]

*zap* You're now a skill challenge!

But seriously.

First, make sure you have something fun and interesting prepared for when they fail. While being crapped on by those he saves might make for a great book, it's likely to just annoy your players unless it's got more depth than that.

Then, remember that skill challenges should be all about letting your players decide how they face a problem. So: social skills might be the core, but there are other ways to impress people than just being nice/convincing/scary/understanding. Make sure you populate the ball with individuals who might be persuaded in a variety of ways.

 

[Turtlejay]

Do you want them to get over this hump and leave it behind? From what I remember of the Drizzt novels (15 or so years ago?) it wasn't just a one and done with the racism. It was kind of a theme. Wouldn't you rather mine these interactions for plot and tension?

If you do insist on a Skill Challenge, the three big social skills could work (Diplomacy, Bluff, Intimidate) as well as maybe Knowledge skills for a secondary (History, Nature, Religion). Unfortunately, this leaves a lot of melee characters out. What can Endurance bring to the party? Stealth? I made this mistake early on by having a skill challenge that only involved about half of the party. I ended up cutting it off and fast forwarding the results because the other players just had to sit and listen. If you can't find a way to make diverse skills apply, then maybe this is not a good situation for the challenge.

Jay

 

[Trellian]

Well, I don't want every session to be about the kobold and the racial issue, but I do want to put some focus on it in the start. I was more like thinking that one skill challenge would persuade the leaders of this town, while he could get into troubles later on if visiting other cities.

Maybe I'll just play it by ear instead.

Somebody mentioned XP for RP sessions.. is there a formula for this? I remember something along the lines of 1 Standard monster for the PC's level per hour.

 

[Saeviomagy]

What can Endurance bring to the party? Stealth?

This is the point where you have to be very flexible in what skills can achieve.

Endurance: endurance lets you drink... and drink... and drink... And as we all know, people drink easier with a drinking buddy, and drunks are easy to convince.

Stealth: if you've ever accidentally gotten drunk because you didn't notice someone was refilling your wine glass, then you can see how this might contribute. I suppose this one could also be thievery.

Acrobatics and athletics are problematic, unless they're going to be used for displays of raw ability in an effort to impress.