Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Fajitas" data-source="post: 5447008" data-attributes="member: 377">Apologies for the delay, but the story you’re about to hear requires some explanation...As I think we mentioned, WisdomLikeSilence and I had a baby last year.  The plan was that we’d take a little break on the game when the baby was born, and start playing again after a few months.In order to keep up the story momentum, I planned to run a little PBEM (play-by-e-mail) adventure over those months we were off.  Thus, in the last adventure before we broke, I set up a political intrigue story, something that could be done entirely through role-play and some skill challenges—things that work pretty well on-line.  I figured we’d play it out over e-mail and pick up the adventuring when we got back.It was a good plan.  Until I failed to get the PBEM going.  Having a newborn baby, it turns out, is kind of a lot of work. So when we finally came back to play, I had this political intrigue story to pick up.  I figured I’d adapt my PBEM into the gameplay for the first session, wrap the political plot up that first night back and then move along.  Ha.The gameplay for the political intrigue story was based off of something a friend-of-a-friend <a href="http://www.wordstudio.net/" target="_blank">Will Hindmarch</a> had come up with.  The idea was a series of interlocking skill challenges.  Completing a challenge provided some benefits toward completing other challenges, but also unlocked new skill challenges that would then unlock further challenges and so on.  The goal was to provide lots of things for any character to do, with a wide variety of clever ways to approach any given problem.The initial idea was that the characters would, in game, be able to deal with the intrigue in a week or two and then move on, but at some point I decided it was ridiculous that this nearly impossible task could be accomplished in so short a time.  So I decided that this would be a summer-long task.  This readily suggested a structure wherein each player got to take one skill challenge action per in-game week, over the course of 13 weeks.But that also didn’t seem quite right, because some tasks (like trying to make enough of a social splash to gain an audience with the Head of the Peerage) take time, while other tasks (like actually convincing the Head of Peerage to join your side) are more or less real time.  So I split the skill challenges off into Tasks, the normal, time-consuming, one-a-week challenges, and Events, which were more or less instantaneous.  Then I came up with skill challenges.  Lots and lots of skill challenges.Not every skill challenge was the same.  Some were standard X Successes before Y Failures; some were more direct “Accumulate Z points”.  Some were physical, some social, some somewhere in between.  Some were open to all players; some had to be undertaken only by a specific player.  Some characters had character-based bonuses on certain skill challenges.  I tried as hard as I could to make them all different, lest this become painfully repetitive.Whatever the hell I was doing, it rapidly became clear that it needed a name other than “the Skill Challenges”.  Something bigger.  More ambitious. It became the Skill Cascade.Here’s how it worked.###Skill Cascade RulesEach player may make 1 roll for 1 Task once per week.Relevant Encounter Powers may be used 1/week.  If used in a Task, they may not be used in any other encounters that week.  At-Will Powers may be used any time. Daily Powers may be used once over the course of the Cascade; they will recharge, however, if you take a week off (i.e. make no roll for the week).If Combat occurs during the Skill Cascade, you start a combat with all your powers as normal; use of powers in Combat does not affect their usability in the Cascade.Rose can be used to Aid Another 1/week, OR she can use a scroll to cast a Ritual as her action.Action Points may be used to either:    Make a second roll on any challenge, OR reroll a roll you don’t like.    You regain your Action Points only if you take a week off.    Use of Action Points in the Skill Cascade has no affect on their usability in combat.Bennies    Bennies are awarded for use of a skill you are NOT TRAINED in or for a really clever, creative, or awesome Skill Cascade moment.  Bennies grant a +2 bonus on ANY skill challenge roll that may be used AFTER the dice are rolled.Scrolls    As an action, you may scribe 4 scrolls in a week. You must pay the market cost of each.    You may use 1 scroll as your action per week; Other Modifiers    +2 for creative use of skills-2 for using the same skill the same way twice in a challenge###And, for those who are really curious, the initial open challenges were the following:Initial Open ChallengesPRIESTHOODArrest the Mother Superior of the Church of Kettenek in the City of Cauldron.LANDSDo ??? to meet with the Head of the Ring of LandsMILITARYDo ??? to meet with the Head of the Ring of the MilitaryPEERAGEDraw the attention of the Head of the Ring of the Peerage by building a reputation as socially meaningful heathen newcomers to Cauldron.BORDERSArrange a meeting with the Head of the Ring of Borders using the recent diplomatic incident with Pol Henna as a pretense.ADEPTSMeet with the Head of the Adepts to convince him to support you in your effort to go the Long Way around the Circle.MEET EHKTIAN COMMUNITYBuild a good reputation with the local Ehktian churches to attempt to secure a meeting with the Head of the Ehktian Church.MEET ALIRRIAN COMMUNITYBuild a good reputation with the local Alirrian churches to attempt to secure a meeting with the Head of the Alirrian Church.MEET SEDELLAN COMMUNITYBuild a good reputation with the local Sedellan churches to attempt to secure a meeting with the Head of the Sedellan Church.LEARN SOVEREIGN CULTUREStudy Sovereign culture with the Adepts to improve your social awareness (grants a bonus to all Sovereign Social Checks)RESEARCH THE PROPHECYTake advantage of the Adepts’ Library to try to learn more about the various prophecies you have receivedIDENTIFY TIDE INQUISITORSIdentify Tidesmen within the Inquisition.INFORMATION CHECKSGain intel and insight into relevant people and situations (grants a +2 bonus to all dealings with those individuals)Ladies and Gentlemen… welcome to the Skill Cascade.</blockquote>

Verification