D&D 5E Toxicity in the Fandom

[beancounter]

I've never encountered one of these people who are offended by everything.

So, you've never been on a vegan forum then?

 

[Hussar]

You know what else is toxic? Accusing someone of being any of the 'ist epithets simply because you didn't take their argument at face value and ascribed all sorts of motives and assumptions to what they were saying. Or because you disagree with what they are saying.

I agree. Of course when the behaviour is repeated multiple times and when calling it out immediately results in being dehumanized, called the standard epithets like keyboard warrior and the like, sometimes one really must call a shovel a pointy digging instrument.

 

[Hussar]

Note trolling is not the fishing term. The fishing term is trawling. Same pronunciation but not the same word.

Trolling has always been toxic.

 

[pemerton]

In my experience, I have never found the round-robin of skill checks of dubious connection to the scenario that is a 4e skill challenge to be remotely immersive. But I'm sure there are plenty of counter-examples.

The notion of the scenario sounds like a railroad to me - if it's already decided how things are going to go, why are the players declaring and resolving skill checks?

But leaving that to one side, skill challenges are a form of closed-scene resolution of the sort found in Maelstrom Storytelling and HeroWars/Quest complex conflict resolution. The state-of-the-art in respect of them hasn't really changed since these threads in 2010 and 2012:

Skill challenges - who else likes them as the core non-combat sub-system?

The news about future D&D releases has led to some discussions about resolving non-combat challenges. I'm one of those who sees skill challenges as the core 4e mechanic for resolving these things, but am wondering about what others think. The following is a fairly typical criticism of skill...

www.enworld.org

Why I like skill challenges as a noncombat resolution mechanic

A couple of recent threads - one in this sub-forum, and one which got moved to Meta - have talked about noncombat resolution and skill challenges. This has come up in the context of what 4e players might be looking for from D&Dnext. It seems that people are looking for a range of different...

www.enworld.org

 

[pemerton]

we're in the forest looking for a monster, and the DM trots out a wilderness survival skill challenge. Some of us don't have skills for this, and I point out we have a Ranger who has all the skills relevant. "Why would we have a skill challenge? We could just mess it up- wouldn't it just make sense to do whatever the Ranger says? This is his thing, right?"

I don't really understand what you're describing here. What threats was the GM narrating? What actions were your PCs declaring.

I mean, suppose the GM said "You're under attack by manticores" it would be weird to reply "We have a fighter who has all the relevant abilities, so why are you making us run a combat", wouldn't it? The GM would frame things in such a way that all (or most) of the PCs feel the pressure to engage in the scene (contrast, say, an Orc captain challenging the fighter to a duel, which might be a one-on-one resolution).

As an aside, this touches on one of the things I didn't like about skill challenges. A few times, I found myself in one, where none of my skills were applicable, and I didn't want to roll because I'd just make the party more likely to fail. Or as I once put it, "this sucks, if I didn't show up today, you guys would have succeeded easily".

At this level of description, how is this different from an archer being caught in a close-quarters ambush? They're still there, and the fate of the other PCs depends in part on what they do.

an example of a "combat skill challenge", where the adventure writer decides to throw in some action. In this case, during Scales of War, we have to engage in a skill challenge to control a flying ship while being attacked by minion wyverns. They didn't do much damage, but fighting them meant you couldn't make a skill challenge roll. But what they did do, was hit you with a stun, preventing you from rolling, if you didn't fight them.

This was positively grueling because my Ranger was the best ranged attacker, but also the one with the best skill check to try and fly the ship.

There are some issues with stun as a debuff in 4e.

But putting that to one side, isn't what you describe here like a situation in which the wizard has the best AoE attack (to hold off the swarming Orcs) and the best knowledge of Arcana (to try and close the portal to the bad place)?

 

[Micah Sweet]

The notion of the scenario sounds like a railroad to me - if it's already decided how things are going to go, why are the players declaring and resolving skill checks?

But leaving that to one side, skill challenges are a form of closed-scene resolution of the sort found in Maelstrom Storytelling and HeroWars/Quest complex conflict resolution. The state-of-the-art in respect of them hasn't really changed since these threads in 2010 and 2012:

Skill challenges - who else likes them as the core non-combat sub-system?

The news about future D&D releases has led to some discussions about resolving non-combat challenges. I'm one of those who sees skill challenges as the core 4e mechanic for resolving these things, but am wondering about what others think. The following is a fairly typical criticism of skill...

www.enworld.org

Why I like skill challenges as a noncombat resolution mechanic

A couple of recent threads - one in this sub-forum, and one which got moved to Meta - have talked about noncombat resolution and skill challenges. This has come up in the context of what 4e players might be looking for from D&Dnext. It seems that people are looking for a range of different...

www.enworld.org

Would you explain skill challenges to a new player as, "a form of closed-scene resolution of the sort found in Maelstrom Storytelling and HeroWars/Quest conflict resolution"? I'm not a new player, but very little of that explanation meant much to me.

 

[pemerton]

Would you explain skill challenges to a new player as, "a form of closed-scene resolution of the sort found in Maelstrom Storytelling and HeroWars/Quest conflict resolution"?

No.

I'm not a new player, but very little of that explanation meant much to me.

My understanding is that you've been RPGing for close to 40 years. And are a serial poster on a dedicated RPG discussion forum. So I assume that you know more about the state of the hobby than a new player would.

Maelstrom Storytelling is from 1997. Robin Laws published HeroWars in (I think) 2000. The first of these systems is a little obscure. The second is widely known and discussed, as it is seen as a pretty pivotal and influential design. The 4e designers clearly knew of HeroWars and I suspect also Maelstrom Stortytelling, and its influence on skill challenge design is obvious.

I linked to some examples of skill challenges in my posts you're replying to. They show the method in action. A new player might not easily follow what is being described, but I imagine that you will be able to if you're interested in reading them.

 

[Hussar]

Heh, it's funny. I've been watching a live play from Viva La Dirt League (NPC D&D - it's a guilty pleasure, sue me). These are four players that know virtually nothing about D&D. Total newbies. As in, need to be repeatedly told which die is the d8 and which is the d4 - that level of newbie.

Yet, when the DM runs a 5e adapted version of a skill challenge, there's zero confusion and lots of immersion. He's done it more than once in the series, and every time it comes up, the players get right on board with it and have no real issues.

So, I'm finding that this idea that skill challenges are this bizarre thing that no one could ever understand to be rather overblown. DM says something along the lines of "Here's the situation, what are you going to do to help resolve that problem?" Players make their cases, and roll their dice, and the situation is resolved. No gaming the system to any large extent, very engaged players, and a ton of fun around the table.

But, because it has 4e cooties on it, we cannot talk about skill challenges seriously without all and sundry coming out of the woodwork to question every single statement and bog the conversation down under a mountain of whatabout's and theorycrafting.

For those who might be interested, check out episodes 99-100 of Viva La Dirt League's NPC D&D series for a fantastic example of how skill challenges (or group skill checks in 5e parlance) work.

 

[James Gasik]

I don't really understand what you're describing here. What threats was the GM narrating? What actions were your PCs declaring.

I mean, suppose the GM said "You're under attack by manticores" it would be weird to reply "We have a fighter who has all the relevant abilities, so why are you making us run a combat", wouldn't it? The GM would frame things in such a way that all (or most) of the PCs feel the pressure to engage in the scene (contrast, say, an Orc captain challenging the fighter to a duel, which might be a one-on-one resolution).

At this level of description, how is this different from an archer being caught in a close-quarters ambush? They're still there, and the fate of the other PCs depends in part on what they do.

There are some issues with stun as a debuff in 4e.

But putting that to one side, isn't what you describe here like a situation in which the wizard has the best AoE attack (to hold off the swarming Orcs) and the best knowledge of Arcana (to try and close the portal to the bad place)?

The forest-

The scenario is that, somewhere in the forest, the locals have encountered a creature they describe as a "demon". It hasn't hurt anyone yet, but they are afraid, and have asked us to investigate. The DM apparently decided that this search would be a good time to perform a skill challenge. When he mentions the skills involved, it struck me as odd that we were even rolling- we had a character who, if we listened to their advice, would let us overcome any of the obstacles that didn't include a combat.

On the other hand, if the rest of us urban-minded characters ran around trying to "help", we might hinder the course of the skill challenge! I (and the other players) felt that this skill challenge was simply unnecessary as a result. If the Ranger was by himself, he could accomplish all the tasks easily, so, in this caser, the rest of the party really only existed to complicate matters.

The wyvern attack- well yes, basically. Why design a scenario that forces a Catch-22? You need to accomplish a task quickly, one person can perform a vital and necessary task. But they can only roll if there are no enemies to interrupt them, and they are simultaneously the best person to eliminate said enemies?

Now obviously, what really happened was the adventure writer somehow had it in their head that there would be two characters who could attempt the necessary check in the party, and it just so happened that wasn't the case. My friend who was DMing should have adjusted the skill challenge as a result- but it doesn't excuse the idea that the skill challenge was fairly extreme.

I also really don't know if the success of the adventure hinged on it or not- we were lead to believe yes, and the White Dragon skill challenge from earlier in the campaign certainly led us to believe that it was a possibility.

 

[James Gasik]

Heh, it's funny. I've been watching a live play from Viva La Dirt League (NPC D&D - it's a guilty pleasure, sue me). These are four players that know virtually nothing about D&D. Total newbies. As in, need to be repeatedly told which die is the d8 and which is the d4 - that level of newbie.

Yet, when the DM runs a 5e adapted version of a skill challenge, there's zero confusion and lots of immersion. He's done it more than once in the series, and every time it comes up, the players get right on board with it and have no real issues.

So, I'm finding that this idea that skill challenges are this bizarre thing that no one could ever understand to be rather overblown. DM says something along the lines of "Here's the situation, what are you going to do to help resolve that problem?" Players make their cases, and roll their dice, and the situation is resolved. No gaming the system to any large extent, very engaged players, and a ton of fun around the table.

But, because it has 4e cooties on it, we cannot talk about skill challenges seriously without all and sundry coming out of the woodwork to question every single statement and bog the conversation down under a mountain of whatabout's and theorycrafting.

For those who might be interested, check out episodes 99-100 of Viva La Dirt League's NPC D&D series for a fantastic example of how skill challenges (or group skill checks in 5e parlance) work.

I am a fan of 4e, and I regularly defend it against people who don't seem to understand what it was really about. But there were issues with skill challenges. Whether this came down to skill challenges that didn't need to be skill challenges, or skill challenges that were badly designed, there were occasions where I felt, as a player and a DM, that the mechanic sometimes bogged otherwise fun adventures down.

To me, it was an area of the game that either needed more polish, or at the very least, a little more light shed onto it, to explain the hows, whys, and whens, so to speak.