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

[pemerton]

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.

<snip>

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 think your examples are illustrations of bad design. Which fits with @AbdulAlhazred's remarks, upthread, about the poor quality of 4e modules. There also seems to be a high degree of GMs not actually following the rules, which - as I've quoted twice no in this thread - don't say these skills only.

The best way of thinking about notes for a skill challenge is like a tactics section for a combat encounter. It is ideas on what to say and do, as GM, if things unfold in a certain anticipable way. It's not a script.

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.

This seems like a more subtle instance of the same problems of design and GMing.

In a skill challenge, the GM has to present the players with a reason to declare actions for their PCs. That is, the GM's narration has to make it clear that something bad is going to happen, adverse to these PCs' interests, if they don't act. In the case of your forest example, the GM has to actually narrate the hazards that are impeding your progress. So if you don't act, you won't be able to go on!

That framing is also what, then draws the different players into the challenge. In a combat, we don't ask why the wizard is getting involved, dragging down the fighter - we get the wizard involved by making them the target of threats, and providing opportunities for them to do useful things. A skill challenge is no different, when we're talking at this level of abstraction.

 

[pemerton]

I'm sorry.

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

Yet many people play and enjoy HeroWars (and the updated versions HeroQuest) - probably Robin Laws's best game; Prince Valiant - in my view Greg Stafford's best game; Burning Wheel and Torchbearer, which use this framework for Duel of Wits (BW) and for all extended conflicts (TB); and (drum roll) D&D combats, which also use exactly this structure (that's what hit points are).

I mean, asking "Why can't I win in the scene if there are still successes to be accrued" is like asking "Why can't I kill the Orc if it still has hit points left". At the level of structure, they're identical.

 

[CleverNickName]

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

There were a few moments like that for us too. The monk punching a dragon out of the sky (knocking it prone while flying, if I'm remembering right) was the one that made my players all roll their eyes.

 

[darjr]

Yet many people play and enjoy HeroWars (and the updated versions HeroQuest) - probably Robin Laws's best game; Prince Valiant - in my view Greg Stafford's best game; Burning Wheel and Torchbearer, which use this framework for Duel of Wits (BW) and for all extended conflicts (TB); and (drum roll) D&D combats, which also use exactly this structure (that's what hit points are).

I mean, asking "Why can't I win in the scene if there are still successes to be accrued" is like asking "Why can't I kill the Orc if it still has hit points left". At the level of structure, they're identical.

All great games. But I don't recall any of them proscribing fun.

 

[pemerton]

All great games. But I don't recall any of them proscribing fun.

I don't know what you're talking about. Setting aside technical nitty gritty, extended contests in HeroWars and a skill challenge in 4e D&D are the same resolution framework. That's why the best GMing advice I read for 4e included both the original HeroWars rulebook and HeroQuest revised.

 

[Lanefan]

We have to. We have been being harassed, bullied and told how no fun we are for liking 4e since the ancient Edition Wars...

Someone has got to - and I mean got to - write an adventure module where the premise is that the party has to find the graves of the ancient Edition Warriors and lay their souls to rest, lest they rise again and wreak havoc on the world.....

 

[darjr]

Sorry didn't mean the word "proscribing" meant "ordering".

 

[pemerton]

Sorry didn't mean the word "proscribing" meant "ordering".

I got that. My post stands. What do you think is the structural difference between a skill challenge - you can't get what you want while there are successes still to accrue and a HeroWars extended contest - you can't get what you want while their are action points remaining on the other side?

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think your examples are illustrations of bad design. Which fits with @AbdulAlhazred's remarks, upthread, about the poor quality of 4e modules. There also seems to be a high degree of GMs not actually following the rules, which - as I've quoted twice no in this thread - don't say these skills only.

The best way of thinking about notes for a skill challenge is like a tactics section for a combat encounter. It is ideas on what to say and do, as GM, if things unfold in a certain anticipable way. It's not a script.

This seems like a more subtle instance of the same problems of design and GMing.

In a skill challenge, the GM has to present the players with a reason to declare actions for their PCs. That is, the GM's narration has to make it clear that something bad is going to happen, adverse to these PCs' interests, if they don't act. In the case of your forest example, the GM has to actually narrate the hazards that are impeding your progress. So if you don't act, you won't be able to go on!

That framing is also what, then draws the different players into the challenge. In a combat, we don't ask why the wizard is getting involved, dragging down the fighter - we get the wizard involved by making them the target of threats, and providing opportunities for them to do useful things. A skill challenge is no different, when we're talking at this level of abstraction.

Except in the example presented, how are you supposed to encourage players other than the blindingly obvious ranger to take actions?

 

[pemerton]

Except in the example presented, how are you supposed to encourage players other than the blindingly obvious ranger to take actions?

I don't know what the hazard were. But things I think of: you step in quicksand; an animated vine entangles your legs; a monkey grabs something from your backpack and is jumping back into the trees; "you think you might recognise this place from a story your mentor told you . . ."; etc, etc.