D&D 5E What's the rush? Has the "here and now" been replaced by the "next level" attitude?

[Balesir]

So you consider repetitively rolling dice to gather enough points to proceed without any plan or intend to actually work towards the goal (we win when we roll enough successes, so everyone roll the highest skill you can get away with over and over, it doesn't matter what) to be better than figuring out the best way to reach the objective with the parties skillset and minimal risk of failure and then execute said plan, adapting to failures on the fly?

Nope, that's not how any of our Skill Challenges have worked since day 1. As [MENTION=11821]Obryn[/MENTION] says, that's an edition h4ter's parody-cum-strawman of how they work.

They are certainly imperfect - lack of "active" opposition is a flaw - but the idea that they are worse than "make an arbitrary number of undefined rolls and spell uses until the GM's reluctance - itself based on how much they were amused and impressed by your "plan" - is overcome" in either probability transparency or clarity of shared vision is absurd.

 

[Obryn]

So 5 years and lots of spend $ so that skill challenges come close (relatively) to what previous editions offered from day 1? And the core concept of skill challenges is still broken as it shifts the goal from overcoming the situation to getting an arbitrary number of successes to finish the skill challenge.

I have no desire at all to defend the DMG1 skill challenge system, and think it's terrible it took that long to get it right, so can you cut back the rhetoric?

You're wrong that it's equivalent to previous editions. It's a robust mathematical framework where you can get a good look at the difficulty and challenge level of a non-combat, tense situation with success and failure states.

I most often use them alongside a combat situation or for extended scenes like cross-country travel. I've used them for waking across the Silt Reef in Giustenal, crossing the Ivory Triangle, sneaking through Tyr, taking down Abalach-Re's wards, and so on.

I don't care for them for social situations and negotiation, though. This level of structure adapts less cleanly there.

 

[Nagol]

Nope, that's not how any of our Skill Challenges have worked since day 1. As [MENTION=11821]Obryn[/MENTION] says, that's an edition h4ter's parody-cum-strawman of how they work.

They are certainly imperfect - lack of "active" opposition is a flaw - but the idea that they are worse than "make an arbitrary number of undefined rolls and spell uses until the GM's reluctance - itself based on how much they were amused and impressed by your "plan" - is overcome" in either probability transparency or clarity of shared vision is absurd.

Surprisingly enough, that isn't how I've done/seen non-skill challenge situations resolve in the last three decades or so. I might almost be inclined to posit that this position is also a parody.

 

[Obryn]

Although it is good to hear of some improvement in later supplements, based on the skill challenge presented in these forums the system still leaves an awful lot to be desired in probability transparency, on-the-fly assignment of consequence, and dealing with situations where the PCs are not the only active participants.

Which skill challenge?

They could be more transparent, but the DCs by level are already a pretty fair guide. Consequences can vary from individual to group, too; I've had a few that cost healing surges on failed checks.

As for active opposition, I think it abstracts into the framework quite well. I really hate opposed rolls in D&D; they're probability hell when d20s get involved. One example of active opposition within the framework would be during a stealth challenge, the DC could go from Easy to Moderate after the party sets off a few alarms.

 

[Nagol]

Which skill challenge?

They could be more transparent, but the DCs by level are already a pretty fair guide. Consequences can vary from individual to group, too; I've had a few that cost healing surges on failed checks.

As for active opposition, I think it abstracts into the framework quite well. I really hate opposed rolls in D&D; they're probability hell when d20s get involved. One example of active opposition within the framework would be during a stealth challenge, the DC could go from Easy to Moderate after the party sets off a few alarms.

One I dug into a fair bit because it was the first "thorough" design I found was [MENTION=1210]the Jester[/MENTION]'s "Finding the Island".


Although I appreciated the overall flavour and attention to options presented in that SC, I found the actual mechanical implementation lacked consistency.

The scenario is very swingy depending on player choice and the more interesting choices are heavily penalised through higher DCs. The optimal solution for a group is to simply steer the boat (DC 19). If the group does that and fends off the ghouls, there something like a 2% chance of failure.

If anyone tries to use any form of class specialty ability (Arcane Lore removal or vapours, Religion, and pretty much all the rest), the chance of failure skyrockets. It doesn't necessarily look like that at first glance though - which is why I think the transparency is a failure for skill challenges.

 

[Celebrim]

I must have spent 100 pages writing out in detail why the 4e skill challenge system wouldn't work before it had officially came out.

There isn't any need to rehash that again. No one is going to change anyone's mind.

For the haters, it's actually useful in a narrow set of situations - for example, it's in abstraction not that different from the system used by the third edition supplement 'Hot Pursuit', which is in many ways an execellent 3rd party supplement. It's not that bad. The bad part is trying to pretend that this generic structure models skill challenges of all sorts well. A better system would have been to introduce 5 or 6 skill challenge templates as alternatives to X before Y and describe when to use each one. That I might have well adopted in some form and hailed as a triumph, at least each template was more refined than the original was in the first place.

For the lovers, for many situations, the haters are a lot more right than you are ever going to admit, even in its fixed form. Choice is largely meaningless in the existing structure. There are times when that makes sense, mostly when you are working toward some goal a linear distance away and you have a very large number of paths to get there. For example, 'Help the craftsmen finish a castle in time', fits the structure provided your choices are reasonable. But most of time that choice is meaningless structure just doesn't fit.

But really, if all we can do is bash the 4e skill challenge, we've run out of things to say.

 

[pemerton]

The only reason to pay the cost of D&D's extreme fiddliness, slow play, and imbalances at high level is if you are buying something you cant' have at low level. Now, I do play at high(ish) level, so obviously I do obviously feel something can be purchased there but we don't agree as to what it is.

Ferno the more advanced Pyromancer after he's wiped the floor with a whole field of orc barbarians.

"Well, looks like all that patience and hard work really paid off".

These seem to me to be two different conceptions of what high level is for.

(1) High level is for opening up certain options for play (options which make it worth enduring certain perceived costs).

(2) High level is a reward for playing the game - it unlocks certain desirable options.​

Conception 2 makes me think of video-game design, to the extent that I understand video game design. It is not compatible with option 1, according to which high level is not a reward, but a tool (with costs and benefits).

At least in my current 4e play, I don't think either (1) or (2) adequately characterises what high level is for, although each gets at elements of it. High level opens up certain mechanical options, but they are relatively modest. As I have posted in the current "epic levels" thread, the main changes with levelling in 4e are story-oriented rather than mechanically oriented. As I see it, the main function of high levels in 4e is to make a certain story experience possible. It does this by combining multiple features:

(a) Ongoing character change (which plays a certain role in keeping things interesting), which is also expresses improvement in modest mechanical ways (the most dramatic of these would be access to flight and access to self-resurrection, I think) and in noticeable story ways (I gain a paragon path, than an epic destiny);

(b) As long as the default Monster Manuals are used, the antagonists will change over time in a fashion that expresses the "story of D&D" - starting with kobolds (or similar), ending with Tiamat (or similar), which by implication brings with it a gradual expansion in the scope and depth of the fictional stakes.​

This is a set-up for long term play, and if you are not going in for long term play then I think you have little need of 4e's high levels (unless you really want flight and self-resurrection). If you are not playing in that long term way, then you won't experience the contrastive and amplificative significance of gaining a paragon path or an epic destiny (you may as well just build all that sort of stuff into your 1st level class or theme). And there is no inherent point to having hit points, attack and damage grow numerically - this is just a device for interacting with the default Monster Manuals.

I believe that WotC recognised all of the above when it published the Neverwinter campaign supplement. This has a good range of 1st level themes (to allow players to build the character they want to play right away, without having that made into a more contrastive experience via gradual acquisition of paragon path and epic destiny). And it re-builds a whole lot of monsters which story-wise are paragon tier (eg drow, mindflayers) to make them numerically and mechanically heroic tier.

This is an excellent model for more short term play: you don't need (a), because you're not playing for the long term; and you depart from (b) so that you can frame the story you want to frame using the smaller numbers and somewhat reduced mechanical complexity of heroic tier.

I haven't engaged much with 4e Darksun, but it seems to me that to some extent it also departs from (b): it reframes the default antagonists so that gaining levels doesn't as dramatically change the underlying fictional stakes as it does for default 4e. I'm not entirely sure if this would make for a fun experience (I haven't tried it): my worry is that it could make the long term play a bit same-y storywise, and I have certainly thought to myself that if I were to run 4e Darksun I would probably increase the rate of level up (perhaps by skipping even-numbered level) to help ameliorate this possible problem.

 

[pemerton]

Won't happen if you have explicit rules for covering jump.

<snip>

Won't happen if fireball explicitly doesn't set objects on fire, thus simplifying the resolution of complex events like burning something down. Simply put, fire doesn't spread unless the rules provide for it.

In actual fact, from work I have done in Chemical Industry safety, I can tell you that a fireball will rarely set anything on fire. A sustained flame - that's a very different proposition. But fireballs tend not to.

Increasingly, my preference is for "genre-constrained" resolution. I know at least two basic models for this, and I imagine there could be others.

One is Burning Wheel: skills/abilities are rather narrow, DCs are set "objectively", action declaration by a player requires specifying both task (what is your PC doing) and intent (what is your PC hoping to achieve). On a successful check, the PC succeeds at the task and realises his/her intention. On a failed check, the PC fails to realise his/her intention, and the GM is empowered to introduce, into the fiction, the reason why this happened. Which may or may not involve the PC failing at the attempted task. The GM is encouraged to make it clear to the player what the likely consequences of failure are, although the rulebooks (including descriptions of the author's own play practices) leave it open how the balance is to be struck here between explicit framing and what is implicit in the situation as it has evolved out of the play in which everyone at the table is engaged.

Aspects of this approach resemble Runequest, Rolemaster and Traveller (and perhaps also some approaches to 3E/PF, though I know them less well): the "objective" DCs, the long and detailed list of rather narrow skills, etc. So in framing a check "reality" is certainly playing a role: the GM is instructed by the rules to use DC-setting, for instance, to communicate facts in a consistent way about the nature of the setting; and the player in framing intent and task is expected to be thinking about the capabilities of his/her PC. (BW PCs are generally less gonzo than D&D ones - another point of resemblance to RQ and Traveller). And if the check succeeds, then all is well and these conceptions of the ingame "reality" of the setting and of the PC are affirmed.

But if the check fails, the GM is not obliged to narrate that failure by reference to "realistic" considerations of causation. The GM simply has to introduce elements into the fiction which explain why the PC's intention was not realised. Thus, at the point in resolution which is the most obvious flashpoint for contention between players and GM - namely, the GM's adjudication of failure - the GM's obligations are decoupled from the constraints of "reality". Instead s/he is encouraged to have regard to the dramatic and genre logic of the scene. The failed jump, for instance, can be narrated as a stumble during the run-up (something for which there is generally no adjudicative mechanism in RQ, RM, Traveller or 3E unless the GM has made a prior stipulation of difficult terrain). So the jump fails, but the PC does not plunge to his/her doom. Or if the PC fails to extinguish the fire, the GM does not need to have regard to the sort of knowledge Balesir has of fires and fireballs. Some countervailing agent, for instance, can be introduced into the scene ("There are angry fire spirits thwarting your efforts") that fit the dramatic and genre logic of the situation and keep the focus of play on those matters, rather than on the "realism" of the details of the mechanical resolution.

The other model for "genre-constrained" resolution that I know of is more thoroughgoing. It bears very little resemblance to RQ, RM or Traveller. Games I know of that exemplify it include Maelstrom Storytelling, HeroWars/Quest, Marvel Heroic RP and the 4e skill system (with the exception of some checks - mostly Acro, Aths, Perception and Stealth - made as part of combat resolution). In these systems there are no "objective" DCs: DCs are set in accordance with metagame guidelines for managing pacing, dramatic intensity and the like, and have no objective meaning in terms of communicating the consistency of the setting. Consistency is maintained, rather, by the GM's narrative framing of situations having regard to the metagame-mandated DCs (eg if the guidelines tell you to set a high DC, you describe to the players a dramatically challenging situation). Declarations of action still follow the BW "intent and task" model, but the decoupling of DCs and skill bonuses from modelling the setting means that the question of what sorts of tasks a PC can attempt is settled by shared understandings of, and negotiations around, the dramatic and genre logic of the situation and of the game more broadly. Can the player declare as a task for his/her PC that s/he will climb the Pillars of Chaos (via an Aths check)? Or, in Marvel Heroic RP, can s/he declare that s/he will punch the villain so hard that the latter is knocked clean across the Hudson River into New Jersey? There is no "objective" mechanical answer to this (eg no table of DCs and skill checks telling you how hard the Pillars are to climb, and what sort of skill bonus would make you good enough to do so). The framing is up to the GM and players on the basis of logic and drama, with the understanding that the GM has the final word (in HeroQuest revised this is called the "credibility test"; in MHRP (p 55) the rules say that a declared action "must fall within the realm of possibility" for a character, and makes it clear that the GM is the final arbiter of this).

As with BW, so in these systems "fail forward" is the basic approach to failed checks - the GM draws upon the framing of the situation, and the underlying dramatic and genre logic, to introduce additional details into the fiction that explain why the PC's intent was not realised. This may or may not include failing at the attempted task, as the GM thinks is most appropriate to maintain the impetus of play.

At least as I have experienced them, these approaches to resolution reduce the need to have detailed rules that model "realistic" processes, instead taking advantage of the shared dramatic and genre expectations of the participants in the game. And one important way they do this is via "fail forward": at the crunch point where player/GM tensions and disagreements can be most intense, they point all the participants back to those shared expectations, with the goal of keeping the game moving rather than letting it get stuck on disagreements about what would "really" happen in the imagined situation.

 

[Argyle King]

At least as I have experienced them, these approaches to resolution reduce the need to have detailed rules that model "realistic" processes, instead taking advantage of the shared dramatic and genre expectations of the participants in the game. And one important way they do this is via "fail forward": at the crunch point where player/GM tensions and disagreements can be most intense, they point all the participants back to those shared expectations, with the goal of keeping the game moving rather than letting it get stuck on disagreements about what would "really" happen in the imagined situation.

It's always odd for me to read things of that nature because I've had the exact opposite experience with rpgs. I prefer having a realistic base because I feel that allows my game to be more narrative by allowing scenes and situations to flow naturally rather than me -as the out of game entity known as the GM- needing to reach my hands into the game so often. Likewise, if I had a solid idea of what seems plausible given the working parts of the game, I can extrapolate from that scenes and what I suppose you might call organic growth for the campaign rather than trying to remember things like XP budgets, level guidelines, and various other things. I've found that, with a more 'real' set of rules, I can come up with a scenario in my head; write my story, and then worry about adding the game mechanics to it later. In contrast, when I was GMing 4th Edition (and, really, this happens for me with D&D in general,) there were a lot of times when I felt as though I was forced to make my vision and the story I wanted to tell bend to the will of the system rather than being able to write the story I wanted to write. This caused disagreements because the game itself was at odds with the style of game attempting to be played.

The easiest example to cite is the classic hostage scenario: In D&D, it doesn't tend to work because of D&D style HP. Instead of "ok, what should our characters do here," I feel the discussion too often (when sitting at a D&D table) turns into "ok, well, how many HP would the hostage have; can we shoot her?"



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In regards to the thread as a whole....


I didn't read everything, but I've skimmed through, and two things come to mind:

1) I'm not entirely sure how to respond to the thread or the OP because the primary rpg I play doesn't have levels at all. I've at times commented that I'd rather my tabletop experience feel more like a novel than a movie (though I'd be alright the feel and pace of a long tv show.)

2) Somewhere along the line was a comment blaming console rpgs for the way things are now. I find that unusual because I find games such as Skyrim and many newer crpgs to be attempting to give more opportunity to engage the game world and enjoy the journey rather than just the end destination. They're still nowhere near what a tabletop game can do, but (in my humble opinion) there is an effort to make crpg worlds feel more alive.

 

[pemerton]

So you consider repetitively rolling dice to gather enough points to proceed without any plan or intend to actually work towards the goal (we win when we roll enough successes, so everyone roll the highest skill you can get away with over and over, it doesn't matter what) to be better than figuring out the best way to reach the objective with the parties skillset and minimal risk of failure and then execute said plan, adapting to failures on the fly?

The latter is how a well-designed skill challenge works.

Completely correct.

Actually the former is how Skill Challenges are designed to work. The latter is how people wish Skill Challenges would play out when you ignore half the rules, add some houserules and stir and also the way skills worked in earlier editions.

There is no textual evidence to support this. I have no personal play experience to support it either.

the system in the DMG1 was wretched

I have no desire at all to defend the DMG1 skill challenge system

I will defend it. (Not the DCs, which had problems, but the basic framework.)

The following paragraph is composed only of text taken from the 4e DMG (in the skill challenge section: pp 72-75) and the 4e PHB (in the section on skills and the section on encounters: pp 179, 259):

Whatever the details of a skill challenge, the basic structure of a skill challenge is straightforward: the goal is to accumulate a specific number of victories (usually in the form of successful skill checks) before getting too many defeats (failed checks). The DM determines the level and complexity of the skill challenge; the players describe their PCs’ actions and make checks until they either successfully complete the challenge or fail.

More so than perhaps any other kind of encounter, a skill challenge is defined by its context in an adventure. The DM sets the stage for a skill challenge by describing the situation (including defining the PCs’ goal), describing the obstacle(s) the PCs face to accomplish their goal, and giving the players some idea of the options they have in the encounter. The DM then describes the environment, listens to the players’ responses, lets them make their skill checks, and narrates the results. Depending on the success or failure of a player’s check, the DM describes the consequences and goes on to the next action.

It’s up to the players to think of ways to use their PCs’ skills to meet the challenges they face. In skill challenges, players will come up with uses for skills that the DM didn’t expect to play a role. When a player’s turn comes up in a skill challenge, let that player’s character use any skill the player wants. Try not to say no. As long as the player or DM can come up with a way to let this secondary skill play a part in the challenge, go for it. This encourages players to think about the challenge in more depth. However, it’s particularly important to make sure these checks are grounded in actions that make sense in the adventure and the situation. The DM should ask what exactly the character might be doing. Don’t say no too often, but don’t say yes if it doesn’t make sense in the context of the challenge.​

Both the DMG and PHB also make it clear that actions other than skills (eg using powers, using rituals) can help achieve successes, though the DMG2 does add more advice on how to manage the mechanical aspects of this.

I reckon that what I've got in that paragprah sets out a pretty good system. It is one in which the players "figure out the best way to reach the objective with the party's skillset and minimal risk of failure and then execute said plan, adapting to failures on the fly." It is certainly not one in which players "repetitively rolling dice to gather enough points to proceed without any plan or intend to actually work towards the goal, with everyone rolling the highest skill s/he can get away with over and over, it doesn't matter what". The biggest single error in the second quoted description, which is utterly belied by the rules text I have set out, is to ignore that "what a player can get away with" (in terms of declared skill and declared action" is utterly dependent upon having a plan and intention that work towards the overall goal.

the system still leaves an awful lot to be desired in probability transparency, on-the-fly assignment of consequence, and dealing with situations where the PCs are not the only active participants.

Probability transparency is an issue, as it is in any dice-pool system. The most basic way to handle this, present in the system from the beginning, is "fail forward" - meaning that for the players the stakes of estimating the maths correctly are significantly reduced. That requires adopting a non-Gygaxian attitude towards skill and challenge resolution, but skill challenges already require this anyway, so it's no big deal.

Since then there has been a further development on probabilities. The Rules Compendium, in addition to once again revising the DCs, also introduces a rather ad-hoc and under-explained mechanic called "advantages", which is basically a species of "plot point" that the players can use, subject to some GM oversight for genre credibility, to manipulate the DCs. The more complex the challenge, and so the more successes required, the more "advantages" the players are entitled to. This makes complexity of challenge not so much a proxy for difficulty, but rather for "how much time and effort is this worth spending on at the table" - which I think is closer to the initial DMG intention.

I'm not sure what the problems are that you have in mind with on-the-fly assignment of consequences. This is an element of the system, but I'm not sure it's an undesirable one. The game has pretty good advice on level-appropriate damage, healing surge taxing, etc, plus the disease track as a further model. Story consequences can be worked out in the same way they are in any "fail forward"/"genre logic" resolution system. In practice I haven't generally found this to be a big deal, but I'm interested to hear more.

As to active particpants: the system handles active opposition in the sort of way that [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION] mentioned upthread, namely, via the GM narrating in such opposition as the context in which success has not yet been achieved and hence further checks are required (and unlike Balesir I don't find this makes things static rather than dynamic - the number of required rolls is static, but the sorts of checks that might be required, and how best to frame them, are rendered dynamic by this approach).

But when it comes to (say) two parties competing two achieve a common goal, the system isn't as strong. There is a model in the DMG2 for how to do this, which assumes that the PCs are helping different teams, based around tracking successes for each team. I suspect that still isn't helping with the sort of scenario you have in mind, though.

For me, I see this feature of skill challenges as a limiting one, but it's a limit that to me is reasonably compatible with D&D's overall very strong focus on party play.

I most often use them alongside a combat situation or for extended scenes like cross-country travel.

<snip>

I don't care for them for social situations and negotiation, though. This level of structure adapts less cleanly there.

I use them for all these things. Because of the sort of story elements I enjoy as a GM, and therefore frame for my players, the in-combat skill challenges most often involve closing gates or breaking through wards or other "cosmologically" flavoured sorts of things. I really don't enjoy overland travel/hex-crawl style play at all, and use skill challenges to compress this and resolve it neatly at the table. (I know [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] likes to do more adventurous stuff along these lines - like the (now infamous) gorge episode!)

My favourite skill challenges tend to be social/negotiation challenges (sometimes in combat, like when the PCs redeemed the fallen paladin in "Heathen", but more often out of it). I very much like the structure, because it provides a mechanical device for keeping the scene open long enough for interesting things to happen while also ensuring an ultimate closure, without making that dependent upon GM fiat.

EDIT: I missed this example:

"Finding the Island".

<snip>

The scenario is very swingy depending on player choice and the more interesting choices are heavily penalised through higher DCs.

<snip>

If anyone tries to use any form of class specialty ability (Arcane Lore removal or vapours, Religion, and pretty much all the rest), the chance of failure skyrockets. It doesn't necessarily look like that at first glance though - which is why I think the transparency is a failure for skill challenges.

I think the Rules Compendium does a better job of explaining the setting of DCs as a metagame-driven rather than "realism"/"objectively" driven process (eg checks by default are Medium, but repeated uses of the same skill by the same PC are Hard; etc). This helps make the probabilities of success more independent of particular choices based on class ability/interest; and it correspondingly thereby plays up the story significance of making those different sorts of choices. (Whether this is good or bad is a matter of opinion; I like it for the reasons given in my post before this one, discussing "drama and genre"-based resolution systems.)

Also, I think that skill challenges don't need "writing up" any more than combat encounters need "writing up". In preparing a combat encounter you might make notes on likely monster choices in response to predictable player choices for their PCs, but in the end as GM you are not bound by those prior notes. And the players are not bound to adhere to any predictions the GM might have made about their action declarations for their PCs! Likewise in a skill challenge: the GM's preparatory notes are guidelines on how the situation might unfold, but once actual play starts the GM should be setting DCs and adjudicating in response to what the players actually do and what makes sense in the unfolding situation, keeping in mind the relevant metagame constraints. Sticking to some sort of script would be as irrational here as it would be in adjudicating any other episode of play.