D&D 4E Ben Riggs' "What the Heck Happened with 4th Edition?" seminar at Gen Con 2023

[AbdulAlhazred]

Can a dragon crush a pc by landing on them? Yes? It's kinda wild you think that's a non sequitur.

He doesn't think its a non-sequitur. He thinks it is exactly how pretty much every GM in existence actually runs it, for the same reason that 4e does what it does, because it makes for a better game. 4e doesn't say that fiction has no weight. It just says "you will have a better game if you can reconcile the fiction and the game mechanics without constantly overriding the mechanics" that's all. If a 4e ancient huge dragon comes crashing down on top of the PCs its perfectly reasonable that they get crushed! I mean, they're heroes and it probably won't just wipe them out, but presence of mind, luck, and just sheer toughness will be tested!

But please, that the rules advise that maybe you find a way to work the fiction and depict 'I knocked an ooze prone' somehow such that the prone condition takes effect, is that really such a big ask? I mean, I ran 4e constantly for almost 10 years, it never became an issue. Ooze showed up now and then, and I ever remember one getting knocked prone at least one time (I think it was a black pudding). My brother made a joke about how it must have had a 'plasm spasm' and he was just happy he got an attack bonus on the thing on his turn.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Denegrate?

As a mechanic when it came out the math was wrong. How many times did they rework it? Three times? Within the Living Forgotten realms writers WotC pretty much had to demand that skill challenges be included.

How many videos did Mike make explaining it? More than any other mechanic.

How many debates and discussions where there over using combat powers during skill challenges or just clever tactics vs rolling skills?

I find many folks who like skill challenges are using them not as presented originally but some version of it that came later on in 4es lifecycle.

Are you really going to tell me it was so great as first conceived?

Denigrate? Like it’s a person?

Well, a lot of people said the original math didn't work. But then I got into a game with a guy who posted on rpg.net. He was of the opinion that the original SC rules were exactly right and designed well! He backed that up too. I mean, I don't tend to agree with him, but he ran them as written and by gosh his SCs were solid as heck! So, yeah, these things are surprisingly subjective and prone to individual variation in terms of what works for whom.

I find SC (and I mean by that the ones now found in the Rules Compendium) to be an excellent mechanic. Its just not super fine when applied to a more trad approach to play and employed naively. OTOH it works at least as well as things like BitD clocks. In fact I prefer the 4e solution, at least for the type of play 4e seems to do best.

 

[cbwjm]

I only had a vague idea of how skill challenges worked. I kind of ended up ignoring them until 5e when I wanted something basic for a chase (because I wasn't expecting a chase scene and I couldn't figure out the chase rules for 5e). I ended up just using death saves but with skills which, I think, is more or less how they worked in 4e but with variable numbers. I guess a large part of what I couldn't figure out was when to use them.

It's not just 4e either, different RPGs have similar systems (thinking specifically of Icons and Fabula Ultima) and I'm still not 100% clear on them. Probably gonna have to keep reading to figure them out and hope they run okay during play.

 

[pemerton]

Fiction doesn't matter to rules adjudication, because the game encourages you to make up something so the rule as written makes sense. Thus, the rules trump the fiction. You can make the fiction important to your game, but it's not important to the rules.

4e DMG pp 73-75:

You describe the environment, listen to the players’ responses, let them make their skill checks, and narrate the results. . ..

When a player’s turn comes up in a skill challenge, let that player’s character use any skill the player wants. As long as the player or you can come up with a way to let this secondary skill play a part in the challenge, go for it. . . .

However, it’s particularly important to make sure these checks are grounded in actions that make sense in the adventure and the situation.​

Fiction is fundamental to the framing in skill challenges. And as the result of each check is narrated, there is new framing and hence new prospects for skill checks to be declared.

Here's an example, from actual play, of how this works:

Two revelations had the biggest immediate impact. One involved the PCs' principal enemy. This is the leader of the hobgoblins, a powerful wizard called Paldemar (but called Golthar in Goblinish). The PCs learned that in the town he is not known to be a villain, but is apparently well-thought of, is an important scholar and astrologer, is an advisor to the Baron

<snip>

The Baron said to Derrik, "The whole evening, Lord Derrik, it has seemed to me that you are burdened by something. Will you not speak to me?" Derrik got out of his seat and went over to the Baron, knelt beside him, and whispered to him, telling him that out of decorum he would not name anyone, but there was someone close to the Baron who was not what he seemed, and was in fact a villainous leader of the hobgoblin raiders. The Baron asked how he knew this, and Derrik replied that he had seen him flying out of goblin strongholds on his flying carpet. The Baron asked him if he would swear this in Moradin's name. Derrik replied "I swear". At which point the Baron rose from the table and went upstairs to brood on the balcony, near the minstrel.

With one check still needed to resolve the situation, I had Paldemar turn to Derrik once again, saying "You must have said something very serious, to so upset the Baron." Derrik's player was talking to the other players, and trying to decide what to do. He clearly wanted to fight. I asked him whether he really wanted to provoke Paldemar into attacking him. He said that he did. So he had Derrik reply to Paldemar, 'Yes, I did, Golthar". And made an Intimidate check. Which failed by one. So the skill challenge was over, but a failure - I described Paldemar/Golthar standing up, pickup up his staff from where it leaned against the wall behind him, and walking towards the door.

Now we use a houserule (perhaps, in light of DMG2, not so much a houserule as a precisification of a suggestion in that book) that a PC can spend an action point to make a secondary check to give another PC a +2 bonus, or a reroll, to a failed check. The player of the wizard PC spent an action point, and called out "Golthar, have you fixed the tear yet in your robe?" - this was a reference to the fact that the PCs had, on a much earlier occasion, found a bit of the hem of Paldemar's robe that had torn off in the ruins when he had had to flee the gelatinous cubes. I can't remember now whether I asked for an Intimidate check, or decided that this was an automatic +2 bonus for Derrik - but in any event, it turned the failure into a success. We ended the session by noting down everyone's location on the map of the Baron's great hall, and making initiative rolls. Next session will begin with the fight against Paldemar

Notice how the fiction matters?

Outside of a skill challenge, fiction also matters. A [cold] power can freeze puddles or ponds; a [fire] power can set things alight; you have to lie down to take cover behind/beneath a table, but not to take cover behind a tree trunk. Etc. Here's an actual play example that illustrates the point:

They then started looking around the manor - opening doors, looking through chests and bookshelves, reading the scrolls that explained the religous beliefs, using Comprehend Langauges and Object Reading rituals, etc. The most interesting thing here was their response to one particular room. As per the module, I described it as containing a mirror containing the reflection of a woman in great distress - but there was no woman in the room. They worked out that she had been trapped in there by magic, and decided to rescue her. Based on some past experience with trapping mirrors (in Thunderspire Labyrinth) they decided to teleport her out using the wizard level 7 encounter power Twist of Space - which worked. This was not something that the module had contemplated, and in the course of a pretty easy social skill challenge they were able to get a lot of the backstory of the manor from her

<snip>

They found evidence of necromantic magic (the aformentioned ogre skull, with large rubies in its eye sockets, and some old scrolls from Bael Turath). When the player of the paladin had his PC look closely again at the scroll describing the cultic burial practices and made a good perception roll, I decided that he noticed a stiffness/crustiness in the paper. Eventually, after use of Object Reading, the PCs worked out this was evidence of invisible ink. The drow then suggested that they should try and render the ink visible in the library outside the laboratory they were in, which would be more comfortable (good Bluff check). Then, lingering (good Stealth check) he pried the gems out of the skull eyesockets (good Thievery check). As per the module, this released the undead spiders inside the skull.

The combat which then ensued with these spiders was quite interesting, although they themselves were only a single level 7 soldier - the drow trying to conceal what he'd done by making Arcana checks to keep his magic quite and using Bedevilling Burst to push the spiders back into the skull. Unfortunately he rolled a 1 on his attack, and being a chaos sorcerer therefore pushed everything over, sending skull and spiders tumbling into the adjacent library. On his next turn he used Thievery to surreptitiously pocket the gems in the middle of combat, while the wizard and defenders tried to kill the spiders without wrecking the library that they were fighting in. This is my first 4e combat in which the "Rule of the Ming Vase" has come into play.

<snip>

I found that 4e can do some stuff I hadn't fully expected, like creative use of spellcasting (in freeing the trapped apprentice) and - because of DMG page 42 - handling the Ming Vase situation much better than some other games would (better than Rolemaster or Runequest, in my view, and probably better than 3E as well, although I'm drawing on less experience in making that call).

Although the actual play report doesn't mention it, I have a memory of the player choosing a "targets enemies" rather than "targets creatures" attack vs the spiders in the library precisely so that he would be able to make an Arcana check to avoid burning the papers with his fiery burst. (We both took it as obvious that if you're using "targets creatures" then you're just filling the whole area with flame, to the significant detriment of the books.

Another example I remember is when the PCs (as played by their players), before fighting a purple worm, obtained sacks of lime to neutralise stomach acid. This reduced their ongoing damage, when one of them inevitably got swallowed, from 30 to 20 hp per round.

To reiterate: the GM is discouraged from using pre-conceived fiction to say "no" to action declarations is not the same thing as fiction doesn't matter.

 

[James Gasik]

The issue with skill challenges were that many examples of them in adventures were basically "select one of a few skills the writer decided were relevant. Some can actually generate success, others just grant a small advantage. You need X successes before Y failures to succeed".

The worst two skill challenges I ever endured were in Living Forgotten Realms and Scales of War.

LFR: after a battle at the docks, valuable cargo belonging to a Shou merchant was damaged and she takes you to task for it. You need to convince her to let you off light, as she has the law on her side. Mostly social and knowledge skills. The DC's for many of these checks were set absurdly high, and, as my Fighter discovered to his horror, the NPC as written has this for the Intimidate option: "the NPC is immune to Intimidate"!

This meant I had no skills which could generate any success or benefit, and I had to engage directly with the DM in hopes that I would be able to do anything but contribute to our failure! I even asked the other players if they wanted me to stand up and leave the session rather than drag them down, as I was basically nothing but an anchor, dragging them down!

Scales of War: we were in combat with some kind of drakes during the skill challenge. This might sound cool, but in reality, you had a choice each turn; fight drakes or use your action to progress the skill challenge. The drakes could stun you until the end of your next turn with their attack. Multiple turns went by with the characters able to make skill checks being stunned so they couldn't roll, while only our ranged combatants were really able to do anything to the drakes. It was a miserable affair, and we only succeeded because of luck.

Most of the advice and examples of how to make skill challenges fun and dynamic were apparently completely missed by the people creating content, and more often than not, a skill challenge was thrown in for no other reason than "we have to have a skill challenge".

I remember one adventure where we had to travel in a forest. The adventure posits that the forest has many hazards. Ok, fine. But when the list of skills was presented, I asked a simple question. "We have a Ranger, he's amazing at all of these checks. Why are the rest of us idiots rolling when all we should have to do is listen to what the Ranger says, when all we can do is make things harder for ourselves?"

The DM was flabbergasted and had no good answer for me. That some characters were good at a broad base of skills and others weren't seemed to never be taken into account with skill challenges presented; especially heinous were Fighters, who mostly had physical skills, which you'd think they'd be good at, but these were penalized by their armor, which had the effect of generally making them mediocre to terrible at everything. By contrast, with the right build, you could have a Bard who is practically proficient with all skills (+5 if proficient, +4 if not)!

That's not saying that skill challenges couldn't be run well, but more often than not, they felt like the opposite of what 4e was trying to do. In combat, you have a wide range of options you can take, and thanks to knowledge checks, you can make informed choices about which ones to use. This was exciting and fun, IMO.

Suddenly out of combat, however, you are limited to a few reasonable options, if that, and everything is reduced to a single die roll each turn. This tended to be not very much fun, again, IMO.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

First off, the term "trip" defines a fairly narrow action-result sequence, most notably that the thing tripped almost always falls in the direction of whatever is tripping it (i.e. if tripped from behind you fall backwards, if from in front you fall forwards, etc.). Using a shield to tip something over such that it falls away from you is not tripping it.

Had the designers meant "knock over" I think they'd have used that term.

Never mind that were it me that shield would immediately have to save vs acid damage.....

I'm sorry, but I can barely respond to this one. You're taking the word "trip" so extremely literally, narrowly, and specifically, that I "can't even". In particular when my whole point (and earlier post) was that much of the time, a word used to describe any given mechanic has always (in any edition) been a "best-fit" word.

"Trip" absolutely DOES mean "knock over", "flip", or "cause to stumble" or much more! It can even mean "throw" (like judo-throw, not baseball-throw). It can mean ANYTHING that involves leaving the target unable to move without first correcting its position, and unable to properly defend itself until it does.

IMO, if it doesn't mean all those things, then that would mean that none of those things exist in the game (or at least, have no mechanical representation) and why would we want to limit the possibilities of the game to such a level?

 

[pemerton]

I only had a vague idea of how skill challenges worked. I kind of ended up ignoring them until 5e when I wanted something basic for a chase (because I wasn't expecting a chase scene and I couldn't figure out the chase rules for 5e). I ended up just using death saves but with skills which, I think, is more or less how they worked in 4e but with variable numbers. I guess a large part of what I couldn't figure out was when to use them.

It's not just 4e either, different RPGs have similar systems (thinking specifically of Icons and Fabula Ultima) and I'm still not 100% clear on them. Probably gonna have to keep reading to figure them out and hope they run okay during play.

The key to any sort of closed scene resolution is that, as GM, you are required to keep the scene alive as long as (i) the players are still committed to having their PCs get what they want out of it, and (ii) the system win/loss conditions haven't been triggered.

This requires narrating consequences of checks which (a) honour success or failure on the check, yet (b) don't close off the scene if (i) and (ii) above both hold. The best advice I know of on this is from Robin Laws in his original HeroWars rulebook.

The effect of this is that you get extended scenes of rollicking action, or intense and complex social interaction (depending on the subject matter of the skill challenge). It's quite a different approach to play from (eg) the sort of "risk mitigation" approach that is traditional in D&D dungeon-crawling.

 

[Micah Sweet]

He doesn't think its a non-sequitur. He thinks it is exactly how pretty much every GM in existence actually runs it, for the same reason that 4e does what it does, because it makes for a better game. 4e doesn't say that fiction has no weight. It just says "you will have a better game if you can reconcile the fiction and the game mechanics without constantly overriding the mechanics" that's all. If a 4e ancient huge dragon comes crashing down on top of the PCs its perfectly reasonable that they get crushed! I mean, they're heroes and it probably won't just wipe them out, but presence of mind, luck, and just sheer toughness will be tested!

But please, that the rules advise that maybe you find a way to work the fiction and depict 'I knocked an ooze prone' somehow such that the prone condition takes effect, is that really such a big ask? I mean, I ran 4e constantly for almost 10 years, it never became an issue. Ooze showed up now and then, and I ever remember one getting knocked prone at least one time (I think it was a black pudding). My brother made a joke about how it must have had a 'plasm spasm' and he was just happy he got an attack bonus on the thing on his turn.

I ran an underwater session in 4e once, where I was asked how both the PCs and their fishy enemies were regularly being knocked prone while floating underwater. There was a beat, and then all of our heads exploded simultaneously.

We were never able to take 4e seriously after that.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

.... um, okay. But even Superman isn't trying to trip a 10x10x10 cube that weighs 62,000 pounds.

Seriously, I think that the greatest loss in institutional knowledge was the disappearance of the waterbed, because people seem to lack a knowledge of what "heavy" means.

I find the weight argument far more compelling than the "too jelly" argument. If it didn't have a denser (yet quick-sealing) membrane, I can't imagine how it could maintain its cube-shape (other than "magic" which... well, excuses anything). I knew it would be heavy, but I hadn't imagined THAT heavy. Yeah, that would be tough to trip.

 

[darjr]

The key to any sort of close scene resolution is that, as GM, you are required to keep the scene alive as long as (i) the players are still committed to having their PCs get what they want out of it, and (ii) the system win/loss conditions haven't been triggered.

This requires narrating consequences of checks which (a) honour success or failure on the check, yet (b) don't close off the scene if (i) and (ii) above both hold. The best advice I know of on this is from Robin Laws in his original HeroWars rulebook.

The effect of this is that you get extended scenes of rollicking action, or intense and complex social interaction (depending on the subject matter of the skill challenge). It's quite a different approach to play from (eg) the sort of "risk mitigation" approach that is traditional in D&D dungeon-crawling.

I'm sorry.

that looks like a tax form ordering me to have fun because the rules say so.