Actual play: my first "social only" session

[Neonchameleon]

I don't honestly think you personally need skill challenges. Their primary function is a pacing and difficulty mechanic - something you've got a good handle on as a DM. But for a new DM it's nice to have an intermediate scale resolution system there - and some prepared DCs that just work and feel right. And if you make each of the first two failures into a complication, it adds a lot to the scene. But in practice it works best IME as a mix of training wheels and improvised DMing (I don't think I've preset a skill chllenge ever).

 

[pemerton]

I don't think I've preset a skill chllenge ever

What do you mean by "preset a skill challenge"?

When I plan a skill challenge, I assign a level and a complexity (obviously subject to modification as appropriate if and when we get to it in actual play). And I might make some notes on the situation, and/or on what might happen with various checks. (In this case, I had made notes about the family history behind the paintings.)

Is that the sort of thing you mean by "presetting"?

The actual resolution of the challenge - what checks the players make, what actions in the fiction these correspond to on the parts of their PCs, how the fiction unfolds - isn't known (can't be known!) until play takes place.

 

[wedgeski]

I think that this was to a significant extent a function of making it a maximum complexity challenge. The mechanical constraints of that made us all - but especially me, as GM - work to keep the scene alive. Which then created the "space" in the fiction for this sort of change in orientation - both the players' orientation and their PCs' orientation - to occur. This creation of "space" is another reason I like a skill challenge-style mechanic. I haven't had the same sort of experiences with the "method acting" approach to GMing. (Not that every social skill challenge involves this sort of transformation. Sometimes the players are pushing for the same thing at the end as they were at the start.)

Most excellent and insightful.

 

[Neonchameleon]

By preset I'm thinking of the sort of thing you see in published modules, tightly nailing down the allowable skills and the purposes they can be used for. Which is depressingly common and negating much of the benefit of the challenge mechanics.

 

[Stoat]

How much information about the mechanics of the challenge did you give the players? Did they know you were running an SC? Did they know what complexity the SC was? Did you set up primary and secondary skills beforehand? Did the players know what DC's they needed to hit to get a success?

 

[pemerton]

That sounded like a very high quality encounter, nice job.

Most excellent and insightful.

Thanks!

 

[Riastlin]

In the first social skill challenge I ran (using Stalker0's Obsidian system), I stopped the challenge once the required successes had been achieved. When thinking about that later, it was clearly a mistake. It was not a natural stopping point and even if the group had achieved their goal, I should have let it finish (with no chance of failure) and simply have additional successes provide additional benefits (which could be information, assistance, etc).

Yeah I've made the same mistake myself. Now I try to remember the "Rule of Fun" and just keep in mind that as the DM, I should never let the rules or mechanics get in the way of fun. So what if the party has already achieved enough successes? Just keep the scene going if everyone is having fun.

I also have taken to using the round system for Skill challenge. Rather than having a straight X successes before 3 failures, I instead set a lot my skill challenges up in stages or rounds. Each round is treated more or less like a combat round with each PC making checks. At the end of the allotted number of rounds, the PCs need to have X successes, irregardless of the number of failures. However, as the failures pile up, more complications crop up.

Ultimately of course, you can always just go with the flow and even if you have planned to do something as a SC you can simply let the scene play out, asking for the occasional check, etc.

To the OP: sounds like it was an excellent session! Hopefully I can sometime pull off a similar session with my group -- though they tend to be more interested in combat. My group likely would have said something along the lines of "Is there a reason we are not simply bashing the wizard's skull in?"

 

[S'mon]

I know that what I'm saying here is a bit controversial, because it tends to imply that the "method acting" GMing approach is really "mother may I" railroading. I'm not meaning to generate such a strong implication.

It may be 'Free Kriegspiel' if no dice are used, and that could derogatorily be termed 'Mother May I' because you are relying on the judgement of the DM. I usually run it semi-free kriegspiel, using dice to resolve uncertainties.

But I don't see what is inherently Railroading about it, you can railroad here if you want but then you can railroad anywhere, including in 100% crunch/rules based gaming. Skill challenges can seem railroady to me because they push everything down a track to a predefined success/failure outcome - and the most railroady ones say "Failure: Try Again" until Success is achieved.

 

[pemerton]

By preset I'm thinking of the sort of thing you see in published modules, tightly nailing down the allowable skills and the purposes they can be used for. Which is depressingly common and negating much of the benefit of the challenge mechanics.

OK. Like I said, I don't "preset" the skills or what can be done. In this, I am simply following the advice in the DMG and the PHB (which, as you say, is the only way to make skill challenges' worthwhile). I sometimes will make notes on what will happen if something fairly obvious is tried - preplanning my page 42, if you like.

I regard those published skill challenges as analogous to the "tactics" entry in a combat encounter - advisory, not prescriptive. I think WotC could have done a better job, though, of reconciling its presentation of these with the actual guidelines stated in the rulebooks.

How much information about the mechanics of the challenge did you give the players? Did they know you were running an SC? Did they know what complexity the SC was? Did you set up primary and secondary skills beforehand? Did the players know what DC's they needed to hit to get a success?

They knew I was running a SC. As I described the initial scene, and the players reached for their dice, I expressly asked what they were hoping to achieve.

In the past I have stated the complexity, but I think on this occasion I think I didn't - but I did tell them when they were about halfway through, and then when it was getting to the climax.

I'm not sure what orthodoxy is here, but I treat it a bit like remaining hit points for a monster in a combat encounter - sometimes it suits the mood to say "One more swing will drop it!" and sometimes looser description, and player inference from that as to how things are going, works better.

I didn't predetermine any skills. I had assumed that social skills would be used, and they were. The things that were "innovated" were the couple of occasions when the players engineered for their "weak link" (Derrik, the dwarf) to be physically removed from the situation at least temporarily, and when I let Derrik's player make an Athletics check to correspond to Derrik agreeing with the Baron about being a "man of action".

With DCs, I remember noticing that the players knew they had to hit 20 (for moderate checks). Even at the time I didn't remember having said that, but I must have, because they knew. I certainly told them how much they missed by (if they did) because they had to have the option of spending an AP for +2 or a reroll.

I treat this a bit like monster defences. When the fiction clearly calls for a roll, using a particular skill, and the player is committed, I tend not to worry too much about stating the DC in advance. But when a player is looking for information to help make a call, on a skill check I generally will state the DC (not in combat - but the variation in skill bonuses across a range of options is obviously much wider than is the case with attack bonuses in combat).

Again, I'm not sure how orthodox or unorthodox my DC-stating practice is. I know in BW the obstacle has to be clearly stated - but in BW so much turns on this (advancement, how much artha to spend, etc) and the changes in success chances with each additional step of difficulty are so steep (because it's a dice pool system) that you have to to be fair. I'm not sure 4e is the same in that regard - there are fewer ways than BW to get significant advantages, and the difficulty gradiant is nowhere near as steep.

 

[pemerton]

Skill challenges can seem railroady to me because they push everything down a track to a predefined success/failure outcome - and the most railroady ones say "Failure: Try Again" until Success is achieved.

I think the players have to be allowed to set their own goals in a scene (combat or non-combat). That is my basic presmise for all my GMing. To the extent that published modules appear to vitiate this, I treat them (if I'm using them at all) as analagous to their presentation of combat encounters - this is the author's best guess as to the probably way a group of players might engage the encounter, and if they do it another way the GM has to look after it him- or herself.

For me, part of what I judge a module on is how much support it offers for a GM who has players that deviate from the author's expected approach.

I'm not entirely sure what you've got in mind with the "try again" skill challenges - are their modules with trick doors or the like where you just can't progress until you open it? - but that sounds to me like crap design. I'm becoming an ever bigger fan of Let It Ride. So if action resolution - by single check, or by skill challenge, or by combat - produces an outcome, that outcome stands until something significant happens to change the situation.

So if you can't puzzle your way through the trick door, you have to do something else (maybe bribe the doorkeeper). This also relates to "say yes" - if the GM hasn't got any alternative to offer, then s/he shouldn't have the players making checks. If the PCs have to make it through the trick door, then the only function of the skill challenge should be to see how much it costs them (in time, components, broken lockpicks or whatever).