the Jester
Legend
I mentioned this upthread, but perhaps I did not clearly articulate it. In this particular case, the main point of the skill challenge is to see how far along the yuan-ti excavation is and thus how many of them there are.
Skill Challenges: Please stop
- Thread starter amnuxoll
- Start date
I mentioned this upthread, but perhaps I did not clearly articulate it. In this particular case, the main point of the skill challenge is to see how far along the yuan-ti excavation is and thus how many of them there are.
Crazy Jerome
First Post
There is definitely a sense in which some GMs could benefit from using skill challenges in thier preparation--and then throwing the skill challenge away while keeping the material in it.
I mentioned already that sometimes for me a skill challenge is just a convenient way to record my notes (and it is a lot less work than writing it out in pure text, sometimes). Those notes may or may not inform a skill challenge at the table. It could just as easily turn into an interesting scene with a skill check or three.
But there is also the sense in which skill challenges are a check list, regardless of how you record the prep material. Do you have interesting and fun things that can happen on failure? Does failure matter? What does a partial success mean? Will this interest most or all of the players at the table? Are there things that their characters can do, if they are so inclined?
To the extent that you've already internalized these questions in your prep, and your players are proactively making things happen, then this aspect of skill challenges isn't helping you much. If you've got that player that will always find a way to make Streetwise matter every game--even on an overland trek, then you don't even worry about it anymore. For you, a skill challenge is merely a structure to the action, and will only be useful if you want/need that structure or are driving towards a particular style that benefits from it.
In my case, I've got some players that aren't that proactive (though not completely reactive), and also having a large group makes it hard to juggle. Even though I know all the questions I want to check, it is still easy to miss something useful. Working on a skill challenge during prep, for me, is a conscious statement that this scene matters as a scene that drives the action and takes a certain amount of time (aka pacing). Might not turn out that way, but that is what my initial plan says. Contrawise, if I start putting together such a scene, and I'm struggling, this tells me that at least one of two things is true:
1. The scene just isn't worth a skill challenge, and I'm trying to force it. Rethink my priorities and pacing goals.
2. The scene is worth a skill challenge, but my material going into it sucks. Broaden, deepen, expand that material to make it rich enough to deserve a scene.
I roomed with a guy in college that did all of the above naturally, often winging it. But he was a communication/theatre major and worked as a DJ on a call-in radio show. He lived and breathed this stuff.
I mentioned already that sometimes for me a skill challenge is just a convenient way to record my notes (and it is a lot less work than writing it out in pure text, sometimes). Those notes may or may not inform a skill challenge at the table. It could just as easily turn into an interesting scene with a skill check or three.
But there is also the sense in which skill challenges are a check list, regardless of how you record the prep material. Do you have interesting and fun things that can happen on failure? Does failure matter? What does a partial success mean? Will this interest most or all of the players at the table? Are there things that their characters can do, if they are so inclined?
To the extent that you've already internalized these questions in your prep, and your players are proactively making things happen, then this aspect of skill challenges isn't helping you much. If you've got that player that will always find a way to make Streetwise matter every game--even on an overland trek, then you don't even worry about it anymore. For you, a skill challenge is merely a structure to the action, and will only be useful if you want/need that structure or are driving towards a particular style that benefits from it.
In my case, I've got some players that aren't that proactive (though not completely reactive), and also having a large group makes it hard to juggle. Even though I know all the questions I want to check, it is still easy to miss something useful. Working on a skill challenge during prep, for me, is a conscious statement that this scene matters as a scene that drives the action and takes a certain amount of time (aka pacing). Might not turn out that way, but that is what my initial plan says. Contrawise, if I start putting together such a scene, and I'm struggling, this tells me that at least one of two things is true:
1. The scene just isn't worth a skill challenge, and I'm trying to force it. Rethink my priorities and pacing goals.
2. The scene is worth a skill challenge, but my material going into it sucks. Broaden, deepen, expand that material to make it rich enough to deserve a scene.
I roomed with a guy in college that did all of the above naturally, often winging it. But he was a communication/theatre major and worked as a DJ on a call-in radio show. He lived and breathed this stuff.
surfarcher
First Post
OK now I've skipped a whole pile of because it's the weekend here and I have to work overtime tonight (yeah I start 2am on a Sat->Sun night lucky me). If I get something out of context please do let me know and please do try to assume it's because of that skipping.
[MENTION=2011]KarinsDad[/MENTION]
I say if it's not meaningful don't do it! I mean really! Anything, combat included, will destroy your storyline if it's irrelevant. That's a huge amount of what 4e is about. Why have less combats? Why have SCs? Why have anything? Because you should only have what's relevant!
In this case the swap SC seemed relevant to TJs party. So he put it in. It worked. They were happy. Life was good.
If it's not relevant don't put it in!
Laying in bed last night I asked my wife "What's the most memorable thing that's happened in our current campaign?".
Her unhesitant answer? "When we raided that caravan to help the Silver Dragon!"
That one was an SC and it keeps coming up like a bad penny. I mean every single time I ask that question of one of my players, that's the answer.
So done right I'd say SCs are pure gold. And done wrong they are pure detritus.
And I think the number of rolls is irrelevant.
I think it's about engagement and buy-in.
But that's just my 2cp. YMMV.
I think a big part of your problem with what TJ is presenting is that you take issue with what he is implementing. Because it's not to your tastes and not to your group's taste. That's fine and I'd say it's actually perfect. But it doesn't invalidate his concept. Another application of that concept may be ideal for you.
At the risk of redundancy...
because it's the weekend here and I have to work overtime tonight (yeah I start 2am on a Sat->Sun night lucky me). If I get something out of context please do let me know and please do try to assume it's because of that skipping.[MENTION=2011]KarinsDad[/MENTION]
I say if it's not meaningful don't do it! I mean really! Anything, combat included, will destroy your storyline if it's irrelevant. That's a huge amount of what 4e is about. Why have less combats? Why have SCs? Why have anything? Because you should only have what's relevant!
In this case the swap SC seemed relevant to TJs party. So he put it in. It worked. They were happy. Life was good.
If it's not relevant don't put it in!
Laying in bed last night I asked my wife "What's the most memorable thing that's happened in our current campaign?".
Her unhesitant answer? "When we raided that caravan to help the Silver Dragon!"
That one was an SC and it keeps coming up like a bad penny. I mean every single time I ask that question of one of my players, that's the answer.
So done right I'd say SCs are pure gold. And done wrong they are pure detritus.
And I think the number of rolls is irrelevant.
I think it's about engagement and buy-in.
But that's just my 2cp. YMMV.
I think a big part of your problem with what TJ is presenting is that you take issue with what he is implementing. Because it's not to your tastes and not to your group's taste. That's fine and I'd say it's actually perfect. But it doesn't invalidate his concept. Another application of that concept may be ideal for you.
At the risk of redundancy...
- If it's not important there shouldn't be a skill challenge.
- If it's not engaging there shouldn't be a skill challenge.
- If it's not relevant to your players there shouldn't be a skill challenge.
That doesn't exactly answer the question as to why these particular set of (a lot of) skill rolls rate an entire encounter.
The main point of the number of days it takes to get through the swamp is to see how far along the yuan-ti excavation is. That's not a reason to have a skill challenge. That's a reason to track the number of days.
I do understand that you set it up as a skill challenge and that's fine.
The only point I am making is that it works ok by NOT being a skill challenge. In fact, based on the fact that the players succeeded without a single Nature failure (IIRC what you wrote), it didn't sound like much of a challenge at all.
You chose to use the game mechanics of a skill challenge, but you could have gotten the same overall result (feel, atmosphere, threat, number of yuan-ti present, etc.) without making it a skill challenge.
Three years ago before you had heard of the concept of a skill challenge, you could have run the same adventure with the same criteria without even the thought of those skill rolls being anything other than skill rolls (i.e. no XP for doing so).
Anyway, I think I've discussed your challenge too much as it is. I do want to go read others. Thanks for discussing this.
KarinsDad
In general I'm not a big fan of overland travel SCs for the sake of it.
The last overland SC I ran was complexity two (6/3). Main skills were Nature (to find a good path), Stealth (to keep out of sight of the pursuing gnolls), Athletics (to climb mountains and/or cross the river), Endurance (to avoid fatigue). I had particular encounters placed which were to occur at 3, 5 and 6 successes. Failures prior to those encounters had effects like being surprised by the manticore-riding gnoll scout, or failing to get an extended rest overnight.
I think the skill challenge worked. It introduced some tension into the overland travel, without making it take too long at the table. And because of the consequencs of failures for extended rests, it helped reduce the nova-ing/15-minute aspect of the encounters, without having to introduce a verisimilitude-threatening number of encounters per day.
In general I'm not a big fan of overland travel SCs for the sake of it.
The last overland SC I ran was complexity two (6/3). Main skills were Nature (to find a good path), Stealth (to keep out of sight of the pursuing gnolls), Athletics (to climb mountains and/or cross the river), Endurance (to avoid fatigue). I had particular encounters placed which were to occur at 3, 5 and 6 successes. Failures prior to those encounters had effects like being surprised by the manticore-riding gnoll scout, or failing to get an extended rest overnight.
I think the skill challenge worked. It introduced some tension into the overland travel, without making it take too long at the table. And because of the consequencs of failures for extended rests, it helped reduce the nova-ing/15-minute aspect of the encounters, without having to introduce a verisimilitude-threatening number of encounters per day.
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
As with everything in the game --
There must be consequences for failure.
Else, there is no game -- it's just a rail-riding exercise of collaborative storytelling.
This is no less true for an SC than it is for combat.
To me, it means that if you're doing an overland journey SC, there has to be a real chance that you might not ever make it.
You might die on the way. Or you might get lost and never have a chance to find it again.
That's not so much a problem with SC's as it is a problem with adventure design, though SC's do little to encourage smart adventure design (forex: the RAW doesn't mention much as a consequence of failure, and has no risk/reward setup, either).
There must be consequences for failure.
Else, there is no game -- it's just a rail-riding exercise of collaborative storytelling.
This is no less true for an SC than it is for combat.
To me, it means that if you're doing an overland journey SC, there has to be a real chance that you might not ever make it.
You might die on the way. Or you might get lost and never have a chance to find it again.
That's not so much a problem with SC's as it is a problem with adventure design, though SC's do little to encourage smart adventure design (forex: the RAW doesn't mention much as a consequence of failure, and has no risk/reward setup, either).
This sounds interesting, but I have some questions on it:
1) When were the 4 primary skills rolled and by whom? At set locations? By the best PC with the skill?
2) What happened if 3 failures occurred before 6 successes.
Dice4Hire
First Post
I am not the best at running skill challenges, but have no real problems with them as long as the successes and failures are not huge, and certainly not enough to derail the module or plan of adventure.
Outside of combat, I do not want a handful of rolls to derail a game. In combat, well, it is mroe likely to happen in my games.
Outside of combat, I do not want a handful of rolls to derail a game. In combat, well, it is mroe likely to happen in my games.
I just realized something; I've often compared SCs to conflict resolution in indie games, saying that the biggest difference between them is that SCs are too vaguely written. And based on this thread alone, it appears I'm not the only one who thinks that way. However, I'm not so sure about SCs being that vague anymore. You see, my library has Conspiracy of Shadows in its RPG collection (several copies of it, in fact), and a few days ago I decided to borrow it.
First of all, I know how conflict resolution works, and I've tried some of the first-generation indie games, but I didn't get CoS at all. The mechanics are not very complex, but they're presented so horribly that it's a mess. Mechanics are glossed over pretty quickly to get to the "juicy" parts; it's as if the author expects you to be already intimately familiar with the rules, or at least the innermost principles of the Forge-style game design. Instead of concrete examples this game is all about flavour, with over half the book describing the default setting, Polian. No ready-to-run material, except for a single high-powered villain. No NPCs, confusing mook rules, not even coherently written guidelines to running conflicts (for example, the game doesn't even tell you which attributes to use for physical attack rolls). My head was swimming with questions after reading it, but in the end I decided to return it the next day. Alright, I'll better stop right there, because I'm about to go on an endless rant on how vague the rules are for an "uninitiated". I just think it's a bit ironic that this was supposed to be the revised edition, released because the author thought the original rules were confusing and poorly presented.
To repeat my point above: compared to CoS, skill challenges are not that vaguely presented after all!
First of all, I know how conflict resolution works, and I've tried some of the first-generation indie games, but I didn't get CoS at all. The mechanics are not very complex, but they're presented so horribly that it's a mess. Mechanics are glossed over pretty quickly to get to the "juicy" parts; it's as if the author expects you to be already intimately familiar with the rules, or at least the innermost principles of the Forge-style game design. Instead of concrete examples this game is all about flavour, with over half the book describing the default setting, Polian. No ready-to-run material, except for a single high-powered villain. No NPCs, confusing mook rules, not even coherently written guidelines to running conflicts (for example, the game doesn't even tell you which attributes to use for physical attack rolls). My head was swimming with questions after reading it, but in the end I decided to return it the next day. Alright, I'll better stop right there, because I'm about to go on an endless rant on how vague the rules are for an "uninitiated". I just think it's a bit ironic that this was supposed to be the revised edition, released because the author thought the original rules were confusing and poorly presented.
To repeat my point above: compared to CoS, skill challenges are not that vaguely presented after all!
Storminator
First Post
We game today, and I've got 3 skill challenges on the docket. I'll chime in tonight or tomorrow and let yall know how they went.
PS
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