Skill Challenges: Please stop

[surfarcher]

I'm not entirely certain what you mean here. Then again, you are missing context with these skill challenges I've posted.

For the "find the dungeon in the swamp" skill challenge, if the party had given up on finding it (or had taken too long in doing so) the yuan-ti excavating said ziggurat would have been further along in their excavation, until eventually they uncovered the snake pit that was required for them to perform their freakadelic, pro-serpent ritual called plague of serpents, which wouldn't have ended the world or anything but would have led to a drastic increase in the number of snakes in the area.

For the "find the island" skill challenge, if the pcs fail or give up, they don't learn the information available there, which means they fail to gain a couple of leads on one of the bad guys on their list- which means his plans continue to advance sans interference. This is meaningful in the long term in the campaign, but won't have any immediate consequences. However, in a strong-continuity, long-running campaign, long-term consequences are fine (imho).

I wasn't talking about a particular challenge and especially not yours. From what I've seen yours go out of their way to ensure failure and success are both meaningful in some form - whether relatively immediate or more long term. I applaud this.

My concern is that a lot of SCs seem to go out of their way to ensure failure means very little. By all means ensure there's a way for the PCs to go ahead and do something if they fail. But if success and failure amount to the same thing then I think there's no reason to actually have a challenge there in the first place.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, if it makes you feel any better KD, I have found that higher complexity SCs usually are too long. I rarely go past complexity 3. Those times where I have either involved a situation that was quite interesting and engaging in other ways or where the SC involved different sections where there were quite different things to do. That last category is fairly rare because usually there's no logic to carrying success/fail counts forward through significantly different activities (IE what does it matter if you got a failure bomboozling the gate guard when you arrive at the vault and start tinkering with the lock). You can tie things together by using the count to represent a time factor, which is reasonably common. It is possible to use it as say an overall measure of how suspicious people are of you or something now and then but such abstract measures can often derail.

I think the sweet spot is around complexity 3 really. You get 11 checks maximum, so each player will have maybe 2 chances to do something. Even someone lacking the key skills can probably find ONE way to contribute in a decent challenge, and even the super ace primary skill guy is only going to be getting maybe at most 3 uses of his good skill, and chances are you can switch up a bit as the SC evolves so it isn't all one guy doing it all. Advantages help here too, you get to toss 2 of those in and you can use them to give one of the 'off' players a shot at something interesting.

Honestly I'm moving more towards a style of listing resources and obstacles instead of skills and a general problem statement in general. This is especially good for the more extended challenges. By listing the things present in the situation which the players can use you know what to describe and basically what tactics are likely to be advantageous. It also defines a lot of the useful skills. The obstacles define what the successes and failures mean in terms of the scene and usually suggests the primary skills that will apply. The conditions under which each resource or obstacle comes into effect should be defined. Of course the players may often turn these on their heads, but since they are defined in terms of narrative elements and not mechanical elements they are more helpful as guidance in running the challenge.

 

[the Jester]

Yes, I understood that.

But, I don't seem to be making myself clear (which is not unusual these days).

Your players might have found this challenge awesome. It's obvious that you put a lot of time and effort into creating it.

But as a player, I would be falling asleep at the table over this unless my player was the one with the good Nature skill and even then, it would be pretty much a snooze fest.

Ahh, gotcha. Fair enough- that's probably a matter of playstyle.

Let me ask you, though- would you find an hour or two of old-school swamp exploration, roleplaying and stuff on the way to the dungeon a snoozefest? Personally, I love that stuff (and my group seems to as well), and I think the skill challenge in question is pretty close to that, with the skill challenge part as an additional factor.

My concern is that a lot of SCs seem to go out of their way to ensure failure means very little. By all means ensure there's a way for the PCs to go ahead and do something if they fail. But if success and failure amount to the same thing then I think there's no reason to actually have a challenge there in the first place.

Oh, yeah- again, gotcha. I agree; a lot of published SCs make failure virtually meaningless. I had an early SC or two like that; afterwards, I scratched my head and said, "Now why was that so flat?"

 

[surfarcher]

Ahh, gotcha. Fair enough- that's probably a matter of playstyle.

Let me ask you, though- would you find an hour or two of old-school swamp exploration, roleplaying and stuff on the way to the dungeon a snoozefest? Personally, I love that stuff (and my group seems to as well), and I think the skill challenge in question is pretty close to that, with the skill challenge part as an additional factor.

Could be they tend to use visible challenges too. If it's narration and interaction and it's broken up by an encounter or four on the way that's quite a different kettle of fish to "rolling 24 skill checks".

Oh, yeah- again, gotcha. I agree; a lot of published SCs make failure virtually meaningless. I had an early SC or two like that; afterwards, I scratched my head and said, "Now why was that so flat?"

LOL! Yup! Me too! Just like you I wised up fairly quickly tho.

 

[kaomera]

It's sort of like in combat, my players rarely, if ever, say "I call upon the power of Bahamut, saying a prayer that he'll help my companions and hinder the snarling orc beating on Brack." Rather, they say "I'll cast Astral Seal on Homecheese over there."

I wish you could do that in skill challenges (or do it more). They made a big deal of "siloing" the 4e design, but it doesn't seem to have actually panned out - different classes have different numbers of skills, and taking a cool SC-related power means missing out on something more useful in combat...

But I find that when a player says "I call upon the power of Bahamut..." they have a specific power in mind that they're using, and they'll correct you if you get it wrong. Same thing with skill usage. I'm running a Dark Sun game and the PCs needed to get some info on some undead. Religion is the skill you would use for that, but this being a Dark Sun game no-one in the group has any real ability with that skill. So when I called for a Religion check my players "corrected" me that, no, they wanted to roll Arcana...

And generally my players always want to roll Arcana or Nature. I've found that the way PCs are built they usually have really big bonuses at one or two things each, moderate ability at a small handful more, and not much more than +1/2 level at anything else. And they really don't want to make checks that they might fail... I think with the worst skill bonus possible my 13th level PCs are making easy checks on a 9+, but they never actually roll for it... And we have one character who can make a difficult DC on a 1+ if aid another is available (from the other PC with a bonus high enough that she can't fail at Aid Another...) and another who makes difficult Nature checks on a 4+ and gets to roll twice and take the highest... And the other PCs mostly don't ever make SC-type checks, deferring to the group "skill monkeys".

So my players are "gaming" the skill challenges whether I tell them they're in one or not (and they've asked me not to). I don't think there's anything horrible about that - they made these PCs to be good at what they're good at because that's what interests them and that's where the PCs attention is going to focus. I'm planning on asking them to see if they can spread some of their bonuses, etc. around some (even if it means free retraining), I'm not too happy with them needing better than a 5+ for a difficult check with Aid Another...

So what I was trying to do with my skill challenges was to let them use their awesome skills, but just not for every check. And I tried to set stuff up where they would at least be tempted to get some of the other characters / players rolling stuff, for Aid Another or whatever. The other players tend to just look over their sheets and say "well, there's really nothing I can roll..." because they might rack up a failure. I even tried making the "any other skill with a good explanation" checks at lower DCs to encourage them, but players just seem to like having the biggest numbers...

 

[KarinsDad]

Let me ask you, though- would you find an hour or two of old-school swamp exploration, roleplaying and stuff on the way to the dungeon a snoozefest? Personally, I love that stuff (and my group seems to as well), and I think the skill challenge in question is pretty close to that, with the skill challenge part as an additional factor.

Actually, not so much.

There was a survey in a Dragon magazine about 30 years ago. It asked the multiple choice question, "What type of PC do you want to play?".

One of the answers was:

In real life, I can trip over a garbage can. I want my dwarf in plate to not be a klutz.

Or something to that effect.


Fighting bugs in a swamp?

Not so heroic. This entire skill challenge could be replaced with a single Nature roll and an Endurance roll from each PC and they either get lost or they don't. They either get diseased, or they don't. The DM could describe the harrowing journey through the swamp in a few minutes and the players could cut to the chase and be at the adventure site.


To me, the journey can be exciting, but not with skill rolls. And, it's not just about combat. The journey can be exciting by meeting and interacting with NPCs in the swamp.

But interacting with bugs and just the fellow PCs for an hour and a half of real time at the gaming table? Meh. Sorry, but I don't get the attraction.

 

[Barastrondo]

I wish you could do that in skill challenges (or do it more). They made a big deal of "siloing" the 4e design, but it doesn't seem to have actually panned out - different classes have different numbers of skills, and taking a cool SC-related power means missing out on something more useful in combat...

The different numbers of skills definitely have an impact; for my part, I wound up making sure that all classes have at least 4 trained skills, and adding one or two to the list for those that only had 3, so there's still an equivalent level of choice. Powers, though... it must be a playstyle thing, because I was honestly astonished after a couple of years of warlocks in play when my wife actually didn't take Beguiling Tongue for her new warlock. In our group, that was almost the Come And Get It for warlocks.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Actually, not so much.

There was a survey in a Dragon magazine about 30 years ago. It asked the multiple choice question, "What type of PC do you want to play?".

One of the answers was:

In real life, I can trip over a garbage can. I want my dwarf in plate to not be a klutz.

Or something to that effect.


Fighting bugs in a swamp?

Not so heroic. This entire skill challenge could be replaced with a single Nature roll and an Endurance roll from each PC and they either get lost or they don't. They either get diseased, or they don't. The DM could describe the harrowing journey through the swamp in a few minutes and the players could cut to the chase and be at the adventure site.


To me, the journey can be exciting, but not with skill rolls. And, it's not just about combat. The journey can be exciting by meeting and interacting with NPCs in the swamp.

But interacting with bugs and just the fellow PCs for an hour and a half of real time at the gaming table? Meh. Sorry, but I don't get the attraction.

I don't understand why a series of skill checks would make it less exciting. It might not make it more exciting but I'd prefer to at least be able to showcase the fact that I'm good at X, Y, or Z now and then. Sure you could make a couple skill checks and call it a day, but personally I find it more exciting when the players get to experience the trials and tribulations of the struggle with fate a bit and have some chances to decide if it is worth using up significant resources to change the course of things, etc. It is hard to do that with one or two tosses of the dice.

Now, do I think the_jester's SCs are the best or exactly the way I would write them? Maybe they're a bit different in style. I'd probably structure them a little different, but I certainly think his examples are worthy of being SCs. Every group and every situation is a bit different, so it is rarely easy to criticize specific example SCs taken out of the context of the game and table they were designed for. DMing style makes a huge difference as well.

Now, see, if I were say building the 'Get to the Island' SC, I'd probably make fighting the ghouls the failure consequence of the challenge and have the party make it to the island either way. That's just me though. The parameters of the challenge and its appropriateness? Seemed very solid to me.

Likewise I'd probably do the 'Traverse the Swamp' a bit differently. I'd first of all probably expand the SC to include researching the route. This would involve some knowledge skills to come up with a map, references to landmarks, etc. Then I'd emphasize the ticking time clock. Each failure at any stage would represent time wasted getting to the ziggurat. Maybe the ritual goes off at the full moon, so you could describe the time passing day by day as the PCs move closer to the goal. Failures would then represent time wasted by losing the trail or a bad shortcut, or people becoming exhausted, mired in the mud, equipment being lost and needing to be recovered or replacements crafted, failure to spot a landmark, running into some lizard folk that could have been avoided (thus forcing the party to backtrack, fight, or spend time negotiating with them). Still, the structure of the thing is good and I have no doubt it was an entertaining and successful SC as written. Just different styles for different DMs.

I don't doubt that the style some groups prefer isn't really conducive to using a lot of SCs. I get the impression that tactical encounters are something your fond of, so maybe these other out of combat type things are generally less exciting and you want them to be short and perfunctory. That's cool.

 

[KarinsDad]

I don't understand why a series of skill checks would make it less exciting. It might not make it more exciting but I'd prefer to at least be able to showcase the fact that I'm good at X, Y, or Z now and then. Sure you could make a couple skill checks and call it a day, but personally I find it more exciting when the players get to experience the trials and tribulations of the struggle with fate a bit and have some chances to decide if it is worth using up significant resources to change the course of things, etc. It is hard to do that with one or two tosses of the dice.

I still don't get it. It's not exciting to talk about dreary walking through the swamp and rolling the dice 24 times each or 120 times in an hour and a half.

Player: "I rolled a 16."
DM: Ok, that's +1 to the Nature roll. Sally, what are you doing?
Player 2: "I guess I'll try Athletics again."

Do people layer this effort with a lot of significant worthwhile roleplaying? They might stay in character a bit more, but then again, maybe not.

And sure, a few jokes will be told and there can be some fun involved, but 120+ rolls??? Seriously? And the players have very limited decision making insight involved? The problem is that there are no real choices here. The players are going through the pre-selected motions. A few players might come up with a new idea once in a while, but not for 12 rounds in a row.

That's exciting to you?

Could you imagine a combat encounter where the players roll a D20 120 times? With saving throws, that would be like a 15+ round encounter.

The only player really highlighting his skill set is really the Nature PC. The rest are just giving a bonus to that roll or to the Heal vs. disease roll here and there.

And since each "round" is a day, no significant resources (other than food/water) should be used up.

Now, do I think the_jester's SCs are the best or exactly the way I would write them? Maybe they're a bit different in style. I'd probably structure them a little different, but I certainly think his examples are worthy of being SCs. Every group and every situation is a bit different, so it is rarely easy to criticize specific example SCs taken out of the context of the game and table they were designed for. DMing style makes a huge difference as well.

I'm not criticizing his effort. I'm criticizing the entire concept. I think his idea had merit, but the implementation was based on the WotC framework and I see the same weaknesses and wonkiness in his that I see in the ones that I have seen in a WotC products.

A dozen skill rolls spread over the group, 5 to 10 minutes of gaming time, sure. 120 rolls? Not so much.

I don't doubt that the style some groups prefer isn't really conducive to using a lot of SCs. I get the impression that tactical encounters are something your fond of, so maybe these other out of combat type things are generally less exciting and you want them to be short and perfunctory. That's cool.

There are SO many different ways to enjoy the game, but rolling a bunch of dice to get from point A to point B for an hour or two seems pointless.

Combat is cool.

Puzzles are cool.

Interacting with NPCs is cool.

Problem solving can be cool.

Walking through the swamp, that's not heroic. Does that really highlight the Nature skills of a given PC? Or just show that he can make the roll over and over again?

SCs are typically not problem solving (although some can be, at least for the first skill or so per player), at least SCs set up like this one are not. Each player is more or less railroaded into a few skills and some players have PCs that have ZERO trained skills that are applicable. So that player tends to make nearly useless rolls for an hour and a half of real time.

Rolling skill checks is not a lot different than the 1E through 3.5 version of "I roll to hit. I roll to hit. I roll to hit." . 24 times in this case per player.


To me, this is not much different than roleplaying any other pedestrian type of event. Walking through the swamp and fighting off bugs is pedestrian. For example, some players get a thrill out of roleplaying their PC trying to get a date with a barmaid. zzzzz. Not only is barmaid chasing mostly worthless for the overall story (although a good DM would still find some way to pull something out of this dross), it's often pretty darn boring for some of the rest of the players who actually do want to get to a real storyline.

Sorry, I still don't get the SC appeal. I'm sure that some groups find this to be a wonderfully fun experience. But I don't see the appeal at all.


When I have time later tonight, I will be checking out some of the other SCs posted here. I went off to that link, but the few I saw there weren't that impressive either. I'm trying to have an open mind because I think there are probably good, clean, fast ways to run SCs where the players aren't pigeonholed in their skill selection and the SC can be run in 5 to 15 minutes, but I haven't seen it yet. I do think that the potential is there, but so far I haven't found what I personally am looking for with it.

Fast. Exciting. Personally satisfying for each player and highlighting their skill selection.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think you're casting it as 'pedestrian' and making it about "fighting off bugs". I don't think that's the way it went at the table, though I obviously wasn't there. Personally I think if the swamp itself is a serious bad-assed thing then spending 5 or 10 minutes on it and make 2-3 skill checks doesn't really convey that at all. It sounds to me like there were interesting things that happen along the way, some encounters, etc. I don't get the impression that it was 90 minutes of making endless die rolls.

Personally I'd find running it in old school fashion with wandering monsters and a hex map where the party wanders around trying to find their way with random encounter checks and rolls to see which way you blunder along would be boring after a while. Making it a bit more abstract and leveraging the SC framework to do that doesn't sound like a bad idea to me. Sure makes things easier to track without materially changing the narrative.

I'd note too that the loss of resources could be quite significant. The SC specifies that resting is difficult and only possible in certain situations, so losing HS etc could be a problem for the party.