D&D General Skill challenges: action resolution that centres the fiction

[AbdulAlhazred]

I own and have read the 4e DMG and used SCs out of there.

I remember there was discussion that the math was off and they rejiggered that later but since I was pretty much applying this to Pathfinder game situations the exact math was not important to me and I did not really pay attention to any errata specifics here.

Anybody have the errata they posted?

In the 4e DMG page 74 under running a skill challenge:

"Roll initiative to establish an order of play for the skill challenge. If the skill challenge is part of a combat encounter, work the challenge into the order just as you do the monsters.
In a skill challenge encounter, every player character must make skill checks to contribute to the success or failure of the encounter. Characters must make a check on their turn using one of the identified primary skills (usually with a moderate DC) or they must use a different skill, if they can come up with a way to use it to contribute to the challenge (with a hard DC). A secondary skill can be used only once by a single character in any given skill challenge. They can also decide, if appropriate, to cooperate with another character (see “Group Skill Checks,” below)."

Right, I don't have the precise errata in front of me. The official version that was last published is the Essentials Rules Compendium version. There's no initiative, and all challenges fail at 3 failures, regardless of complexity. This is not to say that the original design is 'wrong', it was just felt by most commentators that the odds of success were better for higher complexity because you had more margin. However, I had some long discussions with guys on rpg.net who considered the original system to be a superior design. They had their reasons for that.

 

[FallenRX]

FYI, here is Matt Colville talking about Skill Challenges:



IMHO, that you say you are careful when you use "railroad" makes it all the more the tragedy when you misuse it this way, especially with such accompanying loaded language.


If the point of the skill challenge is to get out of a collapsing tunnel system in time and this requires 4 successes, however they are earned (e.g., skill checks, powers/spells, magic items, costs, etc.),* and the players fail to achieve those successes, then why should they have succeeded in getting out of the collapsing tunnel in time regardless of whether they evaded the pit trap, avoided the falling rocks, etc.?

* Because even in the original 4e DMG discussion of Skill Challenges it says that (a) players will use skills you do not expect or in ways you don't expect them, and (b) that other things that players have at their disposal (e.g., powers, rituals, etc.) or whatever may be appropriate to the fiction can also be used to resolve Skill Challenges. So it's far less railroady than you are depicting it to be. It's no more "railroading" than requiring a particular check for the outcome of a single roll.

Because they are designed if a specific player input in mind to achieve these things divorced from the reality of the problem, and not really accounting for the variety of ways the players can actually handle the problem. (And also in the original they actively discourage that by increasing the DC for doing anything else). Like for example, you can present the collapsing tunnel as the challenge itself, but if the players just have a dimension door, and it takes them out in time whats the point? This is a very basic example of just one possible solution(a pretty shallow one to be fair), but when the players are engaging with the challenge in question and find reasonable solutions to problem, i think you should actually engage with the fiction of the solutions, not the fiction of the input of X amount. its so sad because Skill challenges are a bad framework for even the challenge you presented forward, you better off just making a set of obstacles on the way out of the challenge, and having the players come up with solutions to those obstacles than the totality of it all itself.

Thats why i say this is clearly rails, 4E skill challenges as presented has always had the issue of being basically a script to solve a puzzle, and not actually describing the problem and letting the players figure out solutions, its why that mechanic failed.

Actually the collapsing tunnel example frustrates me quite a bit, because its so obviously bad, like screw the skill challenge, describe the problems of getting out of the tunnel and let us engage with that, not your weird skill rolling minigame, its so weird like how does that actually work at a table and not be god awful.

 

[Aldarc]

Because they are designed if a specific player input in mind to achieve these things divorced from the reality of the problem, and not really accounting for the variety of ways the players can actually handle the problem. (And also in the original they actively discourage that by increasing the DC for doing anything else). Like for example, you can present the collapsing tunnel as the challenge itself, but if the players just have a dimension door, and it takes them out in time whats the point? This is a very basic example of just one possible solution(a pretty shallow one to be fair), but when the players are engaging with the challenge in question and find reasonable solutions to problem, i think you should actually engage with the fiction of the solutions, not the fiction of the input of X amount. its so sad because Skill challenges are a bad framework for even the challenge you presented forward, you better off just making a set of obstacles on the way out of the challenge, and having the players come up with solutions to those obstacles than the totality of it all itself.

Thats why i say this is clearly rails, 4E skill challenges as presented has always had the issue of being basically a script to solve a puzzle, and not actually describing the problem and letting the players figure out solutions, its why that mechanic failed.

Actually the collapsing tunnel example frustrates me quite a bit, because its so obviously bad, like screw the skill challenge, describe the problems of getting out of the tunnel and let us engage with that, not your weird skill rolling minigame, its so weird like how does that actually work at a table and not be god awful.

Reading along and I found a problem with your post pretty quickly, and I'm sure others familiar with 4e did likewise. You can't transport other people out with you using the 4e Dimension Door power:

Dimension Door - Wizard Utility 6
You trace the outline of a doorway in front of you, step through
the portal, and reappear somewhere else nearby.
Daily ✦ Arcane, Teleportation
Move Action Personal
Effect: Teleport 10 squares. You can’t take other creatures
with you.

Bold mine.

There are probably creative ways that you could use Dimension Door in a Skill Challenge: e.g., teleport to other side of a ravine and lower the draw bridge or something. Nothing is stopping you from doing this, FallenRX. The possibility for players to use powers or other assets in skill challenges is EXPLICIT in the 4e DMG (p. 74).

 

[FallenRX]

Reading along and I found a problem with your post pretty quickly, and I'm sure others familiar with 4e did likewise. You can't transport other people out with you using the 4e Dimension Door power:

Bold mine.

There are probably creative ways that you could use Dimension Door in a Skill Challenge: e.g., teleport to other side of a ravine and lower the draw bridge or something. Nothing is stopping you from doing this, FallenRX. The possibility for players to use powers or other assets in skill challenges is EXPLICIT in the 4e DMG (p. 74).

Ah, got it mixed up with the 5E version where your allowed to bring at least one.

Though as I said it was a simple shallow example, but to prove the point of characters having a lot of options to deal with situations, and innately designing a scenario with the idea or concept with a specific way or set of ways for the party to deal with it, and it requiring a set amount of processes to deal with it, is ultimately an extremely fragile and unrobust framework that I don't feel is good at all.

And the fact that there are better frameworks for this that actually work, as i presented in the post in question. For example simply describing the problems they face on the way out and letting them deal with that, feels like a much better and more engaging structure.

 

[niklinna]

I think some people are operating under the impression that 4e skill challenges are always rigidly scripted. They aren't (or at least, the rules don't say they are; I certainly saw examples of scripted skill challenges back when I played, and see below). They do list the skills most "natural" for the challenge, but there is text right there in the rules telling the DM to be ready for players to figure out creative uses of skills, and to "try not to say no" to them. Unfortunately, there is a bias toward those "natural" skills in that if players want to use other, "secondary", skills, the rules explicitly impose limitations on their use, and state that the DC for them should be hard, regardless of how well the creative use of a skill actually applies to the fiction.

Also, although not in the procedural rules, the very first example of a skill challenge describes how use of certain skills is needed to "unlock" use of other skills. That is perilously close to rigid scripting, and I think it was a huge mistake to set that precedent as one of mechanics over fiction.

And so, I can easily see how the impression got out there that skill challenges are scripted with little room for player creativity, especially if people just say, "I roll Diplomacy" (because it's on the list of approved skills), without bothering to explain what their character says and does and how that applies to the fiction in order to justify the mechanic of the die roll (including the DM considering the player's specific narration to apply modifiers to the skill check, which I don't think the rules even mention).

If anything, 4e is guilty of assuming a DM needs to prep skill challenges in detail ahead of time in order to run them effciently at the table. It could have left a lot of that out, and saved a couple pages of text—and then used those pages to explain better how to improvise and dynamically fit fiction to mechanics. I think 4e made some key mistakes in their design of skill challenges, which fortunately are easily corrected (just chuck out any idea of natural skills or skills that unlock using other skills, and wing it!), but the text definitely put some emphasis on those mistakes.

By the way, compare 4e skill challenges to Torg Eternity's dynamic skill resolutions. You have 4 skill checks that must be performed in a specific order (ABCD) within 5 rounds, and you can only perform each when their respective letter comes up on an initiative card. The fiction involved is usually provided in published modules, detailing exactly what the PCs must do at each step and what skill must be rolled (rarely with alternatives). The initiative & player cards allow for some unexpected stuff to happen, but really the challenge itself is very rigidly scripted (and in several instances in the campaign I'm playing in, literally on a train ).

Edit: Fixed a typo.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Actually the collapsing tunnel example frustrates me quite a bit, because its so obviously bad, like screw the skill challenge, describe the problems of getting out of the tunnel and let us engage with that, not your weird skill rolling minigame, its so weird like how does that actually work at a table and not be god awful.

I've played games that worked both ways, but I'm curious to hear how you'd handle the collapsing tunnel. How does that work specifically?

 

[Heraldofi]

I think some people are operating under the impression that 4e skill challenges are always rigidly scripted. They aren't (or at least, the rules don't say they are; I certainly saw examples of scripted skill challenges back when I played, and see below). They do list the skills most "natural" for the challenge, but there is text right there in the rules telling the DM to be ready for players to figure out creative uses of skills, and to "try not to say no" to them. Unfortunately, there is a bias toward those "natural" skills in that if players want to use other, "secondary", skills, the rules explicitly impose limitations on their use, and state that the DC for them should be hard, regardless of how well the creative use of a skill actually applies to the fiction.

Also, although not in the procedural rules, the very first example of a skill challenge describes how use of certain skills is needed to "unlock" use of other skills. That is perilously close to rigid scripting, and I think it was a huge mistake to set that precedent as one of mechanics over fiction.

And so, I can easily see how the impression got out there that skill challenges are scripted with little room for player creativity, especially if people just say, "I roll Diplomacy" (because it's on the list of approved skills), without bothering to explain what their character says and does and how that applies to the fiction in order to justify the mechanic of the die roll (including the DM considering the player's specific narration to apply modifiers to the skill check, which I don't think the rules even mention).

If anything, 4e is guilty of assuming a DM needs to prep skill challenges in detail ahead of time in order to run them effciently at the table. It could have left a lot of that out, and saved a couple pages of text—and then used those pages to explain better how to improvise and dynamically fit fiction to mechanics. I think 4e made some key mistakes in their design of skill challenges, which fortunately are easily corrected (just chuck out any idea of natural skills or skills that unlock using other skills, and wing it!), but the text definitely put some emphasis on those mistakes.

By the way, compare 4e skill challenges to Torg Eternity's dynamic skill resolutions. You have 4 skill checks that must be performed in a specific order (ABCD) within 5 rounds, and you can only perform each when their respective letter comes up on an initiative card. The fiction involved is usually provided in published modules, detailing exactly what the PCs must do at each step and what skill must be rolled (rarely with alternatives). The initiative & player cards allow for some unexpected stuff to happen, but really the challenge itself is very rigidly scripted (and in several instances in the campaign I'm playing in, literally on a train ).

Edit: Fixed a typo.

The issue is bigger than just scripting; consider the actual game being played by players engaged in skill challenge resolution. Setting aside narrative development concerns, let's assume that whatever the challenge is, the players are motivated to achieve their goals, ideally as efficiently as possible.

Your character has say 3 skills they're effective at, 1 that they're very good at, and generally poor numbers with the rest. The incentive this creates is to figure out how to apply your effective skill to the situation, so if your highest number is Acrobatics, you're always going to try and tumble your way through the problem. If you can't do that, or if the DM provides enough context for you to understand that you're rolling against a worse DC with your preferred skill, you may be able to run a quick calculation and figure out which of your 3 effective skills you can leverage.

If we're in a basic skill challenge, you're entirely out of interesting decisions to make, and the game is a series of improv prompts. There's just not a lot of agency in a skill challenge scenario, because you can't meaningfully play well, outside of that small optimization to push for your highest skill number.

Skill challenges make for quite poor and low agency gameplay. Players can't generally do anything meaningful to affect the situation, outside of pushing to use their highest numbers.

If you want them to engage with the situation as a series of obstacles, they have to have abilities that affect the resulting game state unequally, thus that some choices will produce more (or faster, or greater) success than other choices. Ideally you don't want that to be intrinsic either, thus that Athletics is always a superior choice to Acrobatics, but that it can be in some situations.

You can do that in a skill challenge framework, but what are you really achieving then? You're just designing a bunch of new skill applications that are temporarily available for one challenge. The superior option is just to design a comprehensive skill system that provides a whole palette of actions and choices players can leverage well ahead of time. If your skill system spells out a series of actions that players can do ahead of time, (perhaps in the "Skills" section of your player's guide), then what's the point of the skill challenge? Just specify the obstacles, and let the PCs figure out how best to counter them in light of whatever goal they're trying to achieve.

 

[niklinna]

You can do that in a skill challenge framework, but what are you really achieving then? You're just designing a bunch of new skill applications that are temporarily available for one challenge. The superior option is just to design a comprehensive skill system that provides a whole palette of actions and choices players can leverage well ahead of time. If your skill system spells out a series of actions that players can do ahead of time, (perhaps in the "Skills" section of your player's guide), then what's the point of the skill challenge? Just specify the obstacles, and let the PCs figure out how best to counter them in light of whatever goal they're trying to achieve.

The point of a skill challenge is to marry fiction to mechanics, just like combat rules do. But this doesn't require much beyond, "You need to get a certain number of mechanical successes over failures, however you can justify it in the fiction." Which was pretty much the thrust of my post. Skills that don't apply well according to the fiction will have less effect or have higher success thresholds. There's no need to spend an entire page of an adventure module listing specific skills and how they apply (and especially not in what order), when that stuff is pretty much second nature to most players at the table in play. But the core of translating the fiction to the mechanics remains.

 

[Pedantic]

The point of a skill challenge is to marry fiction to mechanics, just like combat rules do. But this doesn't require much beyond, "You need to get a certain number of mechanical successes over failures, however you can justify it in the fiction." Which was pretty much the thrust of my post. Skills that don't apply well according to the fiction will have less effect or have higher success thresholds. There's no need to spend an entire page of an adventure module listing specific skills and how they apply (and especially not in what order), when that stuff is pretty much second nature to most players at the table in play. But the core of translating the fiction to the mechanics remains.

My point is that this is a bad game. If strip back the improv prompt part of declaring an action, players engaged in a skill challenge are rarely making meaningful choices. There is very little reason to pick one action over another or the optimization problem is trivial to solve.

Edit: Sorry, I should clarify, I'm Heraldofi from above, I recalled I had a much older account set up with a preferred name and swapped back.

 

[pemerton]

Alright, let me pull up your crux:


I don't think I agree in total...maybe in part...but not in total.

I was trying to make sense of @FallenRX's posts. I don't know BitD well enough to have an independent opinion. If you think that the contrast I've posited doesn't hold, I'm happy to believe you. (This also serves as a reply to @AbdulAlhazred on the same point.)

I'm more confident in talking about AW, and as I posted somewhere not too far upthread I think the GM gets to exercise a control over the pacing of resolution in AW - by choosing the hardness of moves, and how much to circle or to rush up to conflict, etc - which is quite comparable to the decision about the complexity of a skill challenge and the resulting resolution, although implemented via different technical processes.