Actual play: my first "social only" session

[S'mon]

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?

In Rescue at Rivenroar there's an SC to find the dungeon. Succeed - you find it. Fail - you fight a wandering monster, then you find it. That kind of thing.

 

[S'mon]

...After GMing mostly Rolemaster for many years - which is very skill roll intensive if played in its default style - I feel that, by combing the 4e mechanics with the advice from games like HeroWars/Quest and BW, I'm finding a nice balance between no checks - which, like I replied to S'mon, I feel defaults to excessive GM force - and check mongering. Roll the dice, but only when it counts!

I just got through reading this big post properly.

1. Interesting about you using HeroW/Q advice. I remember I played some Heroquest years ago (2004?), and simple task resolution was fine, but I absolutely *loathed* the extended task resolution system. I cannot emphasise enough how much I hated it. If that is the kind of model that informed Skill Challenges, no wonder I dislike them.

2. DM "force" - this seems like an inappropriate word here, certainly as pertains to my own style. In social stuff I take a very relaxed approach, frankly I am *looking* to be persuaded by the PCs. If the players engage at all, and it is any way at all plausible, then they are likely to be successful - certainly moreso than if they had to rely on the luck of repeated dice rolls. PCs who step on up to a social challenge IMCs win at least as often as they do in combat challenges (albeit my players might say that was not all that often).
I think by 'force' you are talking about 'fiat' again, as with your 'mother may I' - all ways of saying that PC success is at the DM's judgement, whereas a Skill Challenge constrains him. I suppose so, but I'm far more likely to be frustrated at a mechanistic approach forcing PC failure than forcing PC success.

 

[S'mon]

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.

This seems like a good approach. We seem pretty close in many ways, I think in practice we both favour player empowerment and shun railroading. It's just you seem to take a different path to get there.

 

[S'mon]

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).

You were talking to me here, Francis? I know you've told me previously I should ignore SCs, and I've generally taken your advice.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

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.

Yeah, I pretty much abandoned that as a formal approach a while back. There were various problems with it. You never did manage to capture more than a fraction of the more obvious things players would try, and if the challenge didn't go pretty much exactly the way you envisaged it then the information was useless, and even worse the DM was always encouraged to try to railroad the thing back into the zone where his stock Skill X does Y would be relevant again.

Now, that doesn't mean you can't note some obvious uses and results for skill checks. You just have to be careful that you don't blind yourself in the process.

I am more prone to noting the resources and difficulties that exist within the situation. What can the players see? What can they attain that will help them along the way? What additional hurdles can come up? It is sort of like needing to put terrain in a combat encounter. The pictures pemerton is talking about are a good example, a source of information (or at least a clue or thread to follow). The way people dress, speak, and act can often be resources in social challenges. If the Duke is dressed richly you learn something about him. If his rich dress is threadbare you learn even more. Of course you can require checks for pcs to observe or acquire some of these resources.

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] Classic line by the Mage/Invoker at the end there!

I've actually got questions independent of the skill challenge format:

Was Derrik's player a "slayer" type and was he having fun the whole session? If ao how do you think you accomplished that?

With social skills, I'm assuming you have some roleplaying lead up to the moment where a check is made? Do you give a +/- modifier to the social skill check depending on the roleplaying effort the player makes?

And with having different goals (propriety, secrecy, investigation, and later instigation), how did you incorporate the possibility that they might succeed at one but fail at another? Was that entirely circumstantial as to the roleplaying or did you have some mechanic?

Btw, thanks for sharing!

 

[pemerton]

In Rescue at Rivenroar there's an SC to find the dungeon. Succeed - you find it. Fail - you fight a wandering monster, then you find it. That kind of thing.

As you describe it, that sounds awful.

Was Derrik's player a "slayer" type and was he having fun the whole session? If ao how do you think you accomplished that?

Not really a slayer type, although he likes combat - the whole group does (but the wizard player perhaps the least).

Derrik's player likes the story behind his PC. And he enjoys engaging with that in play. So for both him and the player of the wizard (who is similar) I tend to put in elements that relate to their backstories. For the paladin and drow sorcerer, it's more about their themes/commitments (Raven Queen, chaotic arcane power) than their backstories as such - though with the drow that comes out too.

I think Derrik's player was enjoying himself - although he wasn't doing much rolling in the skill challenge he was doing enough talking, because of the social situation I described and the fact that I was using him as the "weak point" to focus the pressure.

The player of the paladin probably participated the least in the SC, but he had led the interrogation of the cultist earlier. The player of the sorcerer probably participated the most in the skill challenge - pretending to be drunk, etc (and there was more of that that I left out of my writeup) - at least up until Derrik took the proactive role as it came to its resolution.

My table is also fairly friendly to metagame discussion. So at various points the players were talking about how to keep their secrets from Paldemar, what they should say and so on. And Derrik's player was as involved in that as the other players.

With social skills, I'm assuming you have some roleplaying lead up to the moment where a check is made? Do you give a +/- modifier to the social skill check depending on the roleplaying effort the player makes?

The skill check has to correspond to something happening in the fiction, that the player describes. In some cases this can be closer to the metaphorical (like when I let Derrik's player make an Athletics check to correspond to Derrik agreeing with the Baron about the priority of action over ideas), but mostly it's pretty literal - the player explains what the PC is doing, I specify what the skill is (if it's unclear, I'll ask the player to clarify - "Are you saying that in a nice way (Diplomacy) or a scary way (Intimdate)?").

Generally I don't give bonuses for quality of acting or script from a player, but will give a bonus for the way the player uses the situation, or builds on it - eg from memory, when Derrik's player had Derrik turn to Paldemar and call him "Golthar" (Paldermar's name in Goblinish) I gave a +2 on the Intimidate check, because it seemed like a powerful and natural way to push the scene to the conclusion that he wanted. Whereas, had he just said "Yes, I've told the Baron about who you really are" I would have allowed the Intimidate check, but not with a +2 bonus.

And with having different goals (propriety, secrecy, investigation, and later instigation), how did you incorporate the possibility that they might succeed at one but fail at another? Was that entirely circumstantial as to the roleplaying or did you have some mechanic?

No mechanic. I let it come out of the resolution of each of the checks. Early on, when it was clear there were plenty more checks to come, I focused on letting the players' successes count in a local sense, yet overall trying to keep up the pressure. Towards the end, I was focused more on bringing things to a climax - this is why I had the Baron ask Derrik about what was burdening him.

And at this point, instigation was emerging as the main goal. The other goals get to stay where they are in terms of the resolution - the Baron allied but brooding, the history partially revealed (mostly by the Baron's sister, which came out in one of the attempts to turn the conversation away from the PCs' exploits in minotaur ruins), the secrets safe in part, revealed in part (eg Paldemar knows the PCs know that he tore his robes in a ruin).

Because the PCs succeeded overall in the skill chalenge, I think I am obliged at least not to roll things back contrary to what they aimed for. So I think I'm precluded, for example, from having the Baron turn on them just for fighting Paldemar. Not to say that complications can't arise out of that, but they have to respect the fact that the players maintained cordiality with the Baron, and that Derrik built success on the challenge in being honest with him, as an honourable peer and priest of Moradin.

Does that make sense?

 

[S'mon]

As you describe it, that sounds awful.

Here it is, from http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/dungeon/156/156_sow_rivenroar.pdf

Level: 1.
XP: 300
Complexity: 3 (requires 8 successes before 3
failures).
Primary Skills: Perception, Nature, Endurance.
Success: The PCs reach the ruins of Rivenroar
Castle without incident. The trip takes 8 hours, plus
one hour per failed Perception or Nature check.
Failure: The trip leads the PCs right into a monster lair. Use the kruthik encounter if the PCs either
received no map or a good map from Morrik. If the
PCs ended up with a bad map, they’re going to have
the kruthik encounter anyway. In that case, let them
stumble into the hunting grounds of a cave bear.
After dealing with the monster, the PCs still
haven’t reached Rivenroar Castle. They must repeat
the task at complexity 1 (requiring four successes
before three failures) to reach Rivenroar thereafter.

It doesn't say what happens if the PCs fail the 2nd skill challenge too - does the adventure stop? Anyway I can understand what this sort of SC is aiming at, but it seems bad design to me. Conversely I'm currently running The Slaying Stone and it has more modern, 'sophisticated' SCs - which is to say I can't understand them at all.

 

[pemerton]

When I use those sorts of nature/travel skill challenges, I treat it not as determining whether or not the PCs get from A to B - they will, unless they change their minds or get captured/eaten/etc en route - but rather as determining the costs of getting from A to B. Costs in the past have included losing items in a river crossing and the rationing of extended rests.

Also, per your earlier post upthread - I think if you loathed HW/Q extended contests, you should loathe skill challenges, because I think they're quite similar in overall character (although there are important differences of detail).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, that Rivenroar thing is kaka. They had some idea of what they were trying to do and it will kinda get the job done, but the DM is going to have to work hard to make it fun and the whole end part just needs to be ignored.

Seems to me like what would be better would be something like there's another rival group looking for the same ruin. Do they beat you to the entrance? By how much? That will make a nice SC, and if the party does something like force a fight with the other group or ambush them, THEN you can let them get a combat that is a nice bonus instead of being the booby price (which half the players may actually have wanted anyway).

It is the same way with any scene in the game as it is with combat. If it doesn't DO something then don't have it, or just make it a scene you narrate and have everyone make a CON roll or loss an HS or something. Narrate through it, make sure the players don't want to sidetrack somewhere and just go.