A talk on the concept of "failures" in a skill challenge (no math, comments welcome)

[Mallus]

I asked some of the players what they thought, and people mentioned they were scared to fail.

In all seriousness, perhaps they shouldn't be playing a game then. The only way to win is not to play and all... Or they should be playing in a group with more... lighthearted players.

Really, it's just a game.

When your in a skill challenge, as a player, do you worry that if you roll a "weaker" skill that you are actively hurting the party's chances?

No. My groups recognize that failure can be as amusing as success.

Would it (or has it) anger you if a fellow player with a "weak" skill decided to roll instead of aiding another?

No. My groups recognize that failure can be as amusing as success.

Frankly, a person who prioritizes an imaginary victory over another real-life person's participation in the game is is simply in the wrong, unless you're playing for money, of course. Are you playing D&D for money?

 

[Tuft]

Stalker0 (and others), there is a simple modification to Aid Other than

• helps weak characters more that strong characters, making the group result spread more even.
• makes Aid Other less powerful and more useful at the same time
• gives people with high skills a small reward without them being overpowering
• makes skill use a little bit more simulationistic and less gameistic .

So, what is it? Simply:
(A) Make Aid Other a "free" action, i.e. it does not make the ones doing the aiding lose their own opportunities to roll.
(B) Don't roll against with a fixed target number 10 for Aid Other; instead only let a higher result raise a lower with the given aid modifier.

Look at it this way: If you want help with a difficult task, who do you ask? Someone with a superior skill or someone with an inferior one? When you in real life see someone helping somebody else, is it the weak that help the strong or the other way around?

This will, in my opinion, help in a "weakest link" situation, which is exactly what skill challenges who count failures are, without making Aid Other as overpowering as it is when everybody throws everything at the most skilled point man.

I suppose that running the math on this one is a bit tricky, though, as you suddenly have dice rolls that are highly dependant on each other... And the big question is still whether this is change enough to make low-skilled characters feel less of a hindrance.

 

[LostSoul]

When your in a skill challenge, as a player, do you worry that if you roll a "weaker" skill that you are actively hurting the party's chances?

No. I know that failure isn't going to mess up the game. Yeah, we might fail, but it will still be fun. I trust the DM to make something interesting happen with failure.

Would it (or has it) anger you if a fellow player with a "weak" skill decided to roll instead of aiding another?

No, not at all. If he forgot to use his awesome skill, that's fine. If he couldn't think of a way to narrate using his awesome skill, oh well. But if he makes a concious decision not to use his awesome skill for role-playing reasons, that's really cool.

edit: If a player decided to do nothing, then I might be a little miffed. I'm there to play with these people; I want to see their contribution to the game.

 

[Ydars]

You could set up skill challenges where things like trials (where the PCs are the accused) happen, or, as Morrus suggested, have some effects on magical rituals, so that the PCs end up on the wrong plane or something.

That would bring some consequences....................................

Oh and as for using weaker skills, wasn't the whole idea that Pcs should always choose a skill they are GOOD at = trained and with high stat and find a way to work that into the challenge?

The example given from the first previews of 4E was the fighter who used his History Skill to remember ancient sewers etc.

I think skill challenges are about allowing PCs to shine with their best skills, they just have to think of creative ways to use their best skills.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Lots of great ideas in this thread which I'm trying to link...

What if there are 3 types of skill challenge (not mutually exclusive)?
1. Timed challenges (X successes before Y rounds)
2. Opposed challenges (where enemies attempt to accumulate X successes before PCs)
3. Static challenges (X successes before Y failures)

Very nice, this is the right path.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I like Quickleaf's 3 types of skill challenges. For myself, I think it boils down to the DM. The DM needs to provide the kind of Skill Challenges that allow all the players to get meaningfully involved - allowing for skill uses by all players and their characters.

This isn't to say that ALL Skill Challenges should be optimally tailored to the PC's - it's just as useful of a DM'ing tactic to provide them with challenges that play AGAINST their strengths, or that play to the strengths of individual PC's in specific situations.

I'm also with Mallus in feeling that failure in a Skill Challenge is not the end of the world - the DM should design challenges so that failure merely means that a different, possibly more difficult path needs to be taken to reach one's goal.

EDIT: More to the point of the OP, I think that the failures represent a ratcheting up of tension in the Skill Challenge, and something has to provide that tension.

 

[Stalker0]

I appreciate all of the enthusiasm about "fixing" this potential "problem", but that's not what this thread is about. I want people in this thread to discuss whether its a problem at all.

Some people are saying yes, others saying no, so its not concrete one way or another.

If you would like to make changes, then by all means go to the houserule forum and write up those rules. But please leave this thread for its original intention.

 

[Stalker0]

In all seriousness, perhaps they shouldn't be playing a game then. The only way to win is not to play and all... Or they should be playing in a group with more... lighthearted players.

I don't think my players are "deathly" afraid of failing a skill challenge, its more about not hindering the party. My players like to cooperate, to help each other out, and they feel that they can actually hurt the rest of the party if they participate in the challenge.

 

[Cadfan]

Hate to say it, but there it is. "Aid Another" is not participating in a meaningful way, in my opinion.

Depends on the context. "Aid Another" in a thievery check to pick a lock is boring. "Aid Another" in a diplomacy check to convince a guard of something might involve talking, describing your characters expression, and other in game actions. The first one isn't meaningful participation, but the second one can be.

Personally, I will either not tell my players they're in a skill challenge (they're using skills, the skill challenge rules mediate how I describe their progress towards success), or else, in appropriate situations, it will be a timed scenario complete with initiative rolls. And in that context, "doing nothing" might just well make things worse.

 

[Bayonet_Chris]

Failures

Personally, I have been working under the assumption (as a DM) that a skill challenge with no failures at all is the biggest problem. I don't want the PCs to breeze through every challenge. It would be like going through a combat without spending any healing surges.

Whereas you have a built-in consequence for complications in combat (hit point loss, healing surges, daily power use perhaps), the question is really what are the consequences for partial and complete failures in a skill challenge? That is not built into the system and that is where you can make the game really interesting.

I love Quickleaf's breakdown; it is in line with my own thinking. Combat usually has some clearly defined goal and clearly defined consequence: Try to get through this room with the bad guys opposing me; if we lose, we could die. The players understand what is at stake.

The same thinking needs to be applied to skill challenges - what is at stake if you fail? The time limit and opposition variants are exactly the kind of things to up the ante.