My first Skill Challenge

Hello everybody. I'm a newbie (and I mean it) DM from ex-soviet republic Belarus (sorry for my poor english). I've never played D&D before. But I've heard about it a lot and have listened the PA podcast, which inspired me to play D&D with my friends, who have never played before either.

I've run about a dozen sessions so far. And in couple of days there will be my first skill challenge. (laughs)

Currently I'm hosting 4ed "Slaying Stone" 1st lvl adventure and (spoilers?) the challenge is "SNEAK INTO GORIZBADD".

I've read all theory info on challenges in DMG and DMG2, but still don't clearly understand how to run it best.

My biggest question is about challenge presentation to players. I would rather not tell them: Here is the challenge, those are skills, go for it! Before this day we were roleplaying everything. I presented the conflict or an obstacle or variety of choices to make or just described the scene. And I dont' know what to do with this challenge.

There are 3 branches of it - 3 ways to enter Gorrizbad. (I think I can post one part of it without having legal troubles?)

The adventurers have three paths they can take to sneak into the goblin town: Go in through the front gate, cross the river nearby and enter the kobold slum, or navigate the woods and cross the river to enter some ofthe farmland. The front gate has the greatest penalty for failure but is easiest to succeed at; the slum isn't too risky but requires more skill; the forest is very difficult to get through but lets the characters skip to more important areas of the town.

Level: 1 (100 XP).
Complexity: 1 (4 successes before 3 failures).

Primary Skills: Acrobatics, Athletics, Bluff, Insight, Stealth. Acrobatics (DC 10; maximum 1 success): The character helps the party navigate a difficult path. Athletics (DC 10; maximum 1 success): The character helps the party bypass an obstacle.
Bluff(DC 10; maximum 1 success): By distracting foes with a diversion, the character makes it easier for the party to bypass them.
Insight(DC 15; maximum 1 success): After observing a couple patrols, the character figures out their patterns and helps the party cross when patrols will be lightest.
Stealth (DC 10; maximum 1 success): The character
helps the party move undetected through the town.

Secondary Skills: Perception.
Perception (DC 10): The character sees danger coming and grants a +2 bonus to the next check a character makes. A failed check applies a -2 penalty instead.

FOREST
Skill Alterations: Nature
Special: Any time a character makes a skill check as part of this skill challenge. another character must Simultaneously attempt a DC 15 Nature check. If the Nature check fails. the party loses its way and gains 1 failure. In addition, the next skill check made as part of the skill challenge takes a -2 penalty.
Special: The party needs to cross the river. After the group gets 1 success. have each character make a DC 10 Athletics check. Ifanyone fails, the party gains I failure (total, not per failed check). Otherwise, the party gains 1 success. Either way, the characters cross the river.
Success/Failure: The characters can go directly to the shrines, the markets, or anywhere south of those locations if they succeed at going through the forest.

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I see how I can run this part of adventure by improvising as usual and using this info above only as a structure guide. I would just ask players what would they like to do, and count some skill checks failure and successes and then depend the exit point on it. (The more successes, the closer they will stealth to the goal.

But I feel that it's not how the challenge designer wanted it to be. I mean how do I present structure to players. How do I explain that they should stick to it (or otherwise challenge will break, right? and becomes just a guide, just tips, not structured challenge). I mean how to tie this challenge into regular gameflow without limiting their freedom and sticking to certain game mechanic structure?

OK so before I'm lost completely here are more specific questions:

• How to present challenge structure without breaking the suspense, the illusion of a game?
• Why would they want to use those skills? Should I invent obstacles for them? Should I simply prevent them from getting into the city before they reach 4 successes?
• How to make them swim the river on their 2nd skill check (if I understand challenge correctly)?
• They navigate forest, they swim the river, they pass the guard - thats 3, I need 6 situations max to make room for skill checks? or how should I run it?

So if anyone can show me examples (like adventure log of some sort) that will help me to do it correctly I will be very appreciated. Examples of how to describe situation to players, of how their natural choices ties into presented skills and structure of challenge.

Fhew... Yes, I'm confused. I understand that there is not only one right way to run this, but still... You can ask me questions, if I express myself not clearly enough.

Thank you, roleplaying comunity!

Don't feel bad, this is the whole core of the art of SCs and you have articulated it quite well, so I think you understand the issues. Your English is quite good too BTW, no need to apologize for it at all. I wish most English speakers would do so well...

Generally my approach to running SCs is very narrative. I think this is really how they should be run in almost all cases. Say with the SC above I'd imagine it going something like this:

DM describes what the PCs know about the town. Presumably they are already motivated to get in and have enough information to pick one of the three approaches, so the SC itself begins when they decide to sneak in through the woods (for example).

DM: Do you want to make any preparations before you attempt to sneak in?
P1: Can I examine the defenses of the town. I want to know if there are patrols or anything like that visible.
DM: Sure, make an Insight check.
P1: (rolls a check, fails).
DM: You watch for a while and notice that there are patrols. They seem to pass through the area you need to cross about once an hour (this is incorrect of course).
NOTE: I already diverged a tiny bit from the author's script here by letting the PCs make a check at the very start to gather a bit of intelligence, maybe this is or isn't really appropriate (I don't have the module so I'm not really sure what the lay of the land is).
P2: OK, we'll head into the woods, I'm going to take point and scout a little way ahead using Stealth.
DM: Sure, you can do that, make a Stealth check.
P2: (rolls, success)
DM: You're quiet. I will need a Nature check from one of you.
P3: OK, I have a high Nature bonus, (rolls and succeeds).
DM: Fine, you manage to keep your bearings, but you almost run into a patrol, apparently you were wrong about their schedule. You're now at the edge of a river. You'll have to cross here. It would be better to cross a bit upstream further but the patrol is covering that area. I need an Athletics check from each of you to cross.
P1-5: (roll dice, one player fails the DC10 check)
DM: You quickly swim across before the patrol can move closer. Joe, being a poor swimmer, is just climbing out of the water when he's spotted. A harsh voice calls out "Hey, you, stop!". You all quickly move away into the undergrowth. Hopefully you can still sneak in, but as you move on through the woods you hear some voices shouting in the distance. No doubt the enemy will be more alert now!
P4: Can I lay a false trail?
DM: You can try to do that, make a Bluff check, and someone else make a Nature check.
....

Notice I don't really define for the players what the mechanics are, I just present them as RP choices and construct a specific narrative around the mechanical part of the SC itself. If I find there is some aspect of it that doesn't fit exactly with the actions the players wind up taking then I may diverge slightly from the script if it makes sense. There are other things that might come up. For instance a player might decide to use a ritual, maybe he casts Water Walk on Joe before they start, knowing that Joe has a bad Athletics score and they will need to swim the river. In that case Joe automatically succeeds in his check at that point. Alternately Joe might expend Fey Step to teleport part of the way across the river, which should be good for a +2 on his check for instance.

If a party does diverge radically from a skill challenge then you have a few choices depending on the situation. You could have the challenge simply end. The PCs give up their attempt to enter the town and flee. Maybe the next day they attempt the main gate instead, but the guards will be more suspicious and they might have a harder time. Maybe the PCs decide to attack the patrol. In this case they've most likely lost the chance of sneaking in at all, but its hard to say, they may still concoct a way of doing so. You'll probably have to diverge radically from the SC at that point and maybe make up a new SC on the spot. Sometimes the players will simply come up with a solution that is so totally bullet-proof that it can't really fail. In that case the challenge just ends and the PCs succeed (this is going to be pretty rare).

Sometimes the approach AbdulAlhazred posted is the best way to go - most of the time really - it's the most naturalistic way of approaching a skill challenge: one where the players don't even know that they are doing it.

Sometimes a skill challenge goes well when the players DO know the mechanics of the skill challenge, you tell them its a skill challenge. Allow them explicitly to help you narrate the action, allow them to try other skills you never thought of, and how it will help them reach their goal, creating a collaborative storyline.


For either approach, whenever a skill fails, add a new challenge or complication that will have to be addressed, especially ones that require a little thinking outside the box.


Maybe instead of the planned skills and ideas the adventure puts forth the players decide to disguise themselves as Hobgoblin warriors with some captured combatants - turning it from more of a physical challenge into more of a social one. Maybe they'll need to use nature to find the right materials nearby, and a knowledge check about goblin culture to make sure they act like they should in disguise, then of course bluff checks and diplomacy or intimidate to get past any suspicious goblins.

Right. I agree with deadsmurf, there are time when it makes sense to make the mechanics of the challenge explicit. My favorite example is a chariot race. The way the mechanics map onto the situation is going to be very straightforward and explaining it to the players allows them to make it into a little strategy mini-game. Its also a situation where the parameters of the challenge probably don't vary much as it progresses, the goal is very explicit, and success/failure consequences are mostly quite easy to visualize. I like to toss one of these into an adventure now and then as players tend to enjoy that sort of thing quite a bit, but you have to be especially sure the mini-game actually works, so it can require a bit of play-testing.

I see. Thanks guys. I begin to understand the SC presentation.

I guess my main problem was, that there are skill examples, there is a goal and consequences. But there are absolutely no situations described to use those skills in.

So the main thing that confused me was that I have to come up with my own obstacles, scenes, etc. There's just a rough map and short description of consequences.

But I see now how to visualize those things, thanks to your example.

So, I empower player to make a choice, which way to go. Then we just naturally role-play sneaking into the town. I'm throwing my own obstacles and new challenges at them (using SC description as a guide), while counting failures and successes . Each success or failure is simply step towards reaching the goal or failing the challenge (literally "sneak unnoticed into the town"). And when it's enough successes I just let them enter the town unnoticed. Fhew...

Thank you. Beware of more newbie questions.

deadsmurf said:

Sometimes the approach AbdulAlhazred posted is the best way to go - most of the time really - it's the most naturalistic way of approaching a skill challenge: one where the players don't even know that they are doing it.

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I once flabbergasted a player at how smooth I handled a skill challenge.

P1: Do we have new action points?
P2: No, it was just the one fight.
Me: No, you've had a fight and a skill challenge, so you've got action points.
P2: That was a skill challenge!?