Actual play: my first "social only" session

[AbdulAlhazred]

Ok, so SC's are basically anything you want them to be?? As to knowing when a goal is achieved or not, shouldn't that flow organically from the interactions? I mean if your players have rolled 3 failures, yet one player has a cool idea that makes sense and can still achieve the goal... should it end?

Ultimately I find it hard to praise a system that, for all intents and purposes, boils down to "run it however you want to." ... since that's basically what everyone was doing before skill challenges. Maybe I'm expecting more or looking for something that just isn't there, but it's not hard to expect more when you have people praising the SC mechanics. However I think your definition of them being just guidelines much more acceptable.

I think in the great majority of cases you can stick with the N success before 3 fails basic structure, but sometimes you'll elaborate on that substantially or subvert it in some fashion.

I would just say that 3 failures should indicate a narrative path that leads to failure. People usually seem to grapple with the actual SC system's evil shadow twin, the 'pile of rolls system', which is a sort of totally degenerated SC where you just roll checks until you pile up what you need or fail with no real narrative structure and thus usually no real rationale for what happens. In a few fairly trivial SCs you can do that and it works OK, but it isn't really the way you would want to run most SCs.

When the SC has a narrative and the PCs hit that third failure it would be narratively explained as an end-point of the challenge. If a player has some great idea for salvaging the situation then it could be handled as a check to erase a failure or it could simply be something that happens beyond the scope of the SC. In the later case the party is presumably suffering failure consequences, but they could mitigate them if their plan is good enough. That might effectively turn failure into success, or at least 'not failure'.

I think the thing is many people somehow expect a system that provides a detailed process for things outside of combat, but there is just never going to be such a thing in reality as there are too many radically different 'out of combat' things. You could build a number of different systems if you can identify classes of challenges that meaningfully use the same rules. OTOH these can turn into straightjackets too, and probably won't cover all cases adequately. SC was just an attempt to say "OK, here are a few things that can be reused in a lot of situations" It won't do everything, but it also won't get in the way much because you can just change any part of it as you see fit and not have to feel like "why am I not using the social combat system here." or somesuch.

 

[S'mon]

For many years, I went with the "diplomacy is just done with a real conversation between GM and players" route. Eventually, though, I observed that (a) certain players could persuade certain GMs every time, while others were unlikely to have their contribution accepted, and (b) even though I (naturally - and not necessarily accurately) thought myself quite objective and dispassionate in my own judgements, I felt more inclined to accede to some players than others.

For me, therefore, what the skill roll (and skill challenge) system in 4E does is it makes me engage with ideas that, at first, I might dismiss due to my own prejudices, my own way of looking at the world, or my own "match" with the way the idea was worded. Or, it makes me look for a way in which an idea I instinctively like might fail, or is flawed.

I find that a useful discipline - but I can see that it's not for everybody.

I think some players are certainly more persuasive than others - I think it's ok they succeed more often at diplomacy, just as the players who are good at the combat mini-game do better in combat. I think if a DM is biased in the sense that they can't say no to their spouse or best friend, maybe a rules framework helps a bit. I'm more the kind of guy who'll kill my wife's PC to show how unbiased I am, though - and if I don't kill my best friend's PC it's only because I've killed so many of them over the years (25 years!), well Upper_Krust has got really good at not dying in my games!

 

[Balesir]

I would be interested in hearing from you or permeton, how the actual skill challenge mechanics foster this. I guess I'm a little confused since it seems the actual skill challenge rules are used very loosely, with supplemental material from other games, or as a basis for alternate rules, and this makes it hard for me to see the benefit that the actual skill challenge mechanics as designed by WotC, bring to these types of situations vs. the "roleplay and roll" method alot of games default to. If anything it seems you all have had to modify running skill challenges to get what seems to amount to the same net result.

Speaking for myself, I regard the skill challenge system (so far) presented by WotC as incomplete. I would love to see a lot more - the ability to create non-combat encounters that are every bit as tactically involving as combat encounters would be ideal, for 4E.

At the most basic level, skill challenges give a skill resolution system that is less swingy than single rolls and that generate multiple levels of success (success with no failures, success with one failure, success with two failures and actual failure after a variable number of successes). Expanding from that, just the basic system allows me to codify partial successes and partial failures and such like. Codifying these things beforehand reduces the temptation for me to (a) make the outcome all or nothing, and (b) go with my own biases regarding "good ideas" that the players have.

Adding such things as alternative "progress" metrics (e.g. using the "disease" track in modified form rather than "X successes before Y failures") and adding options for "active" opposition in SCs and more flexible and tactically rich methods of team working would all be good to see.

Finally, I should note that I play 4E, specifically, as a tactical challenge experience. I play several other systems in other modes, but in 4E I like to have tactical richness inherent in the system itself and players competing to gain kudos for the "neatest" tactical moves within that system. I think this is the mode of play 4E is best - and uniquely among the range of systems available - suited to. YMMV.

 

[Balesir]

I think some players are certainly more persuasive than others - I think it's ok they succeed more often at diplomacy, just as the players who are good at the combat mini-game do better in combat.

I think the distinction I draw is that I regard the learning of the game systems and finding ways to use those systems is part of 'the hobby' whereas learning to be (or naturally being) persuasive or having similar prejudices and modes of perception to the GM is not. I can quite see that, for some folk, persuasion is a 'part of the hobby', however - and good luck to them.

 

[S'mon]

I think the distinction I draw is that I regard the learning of the game systems and finding ways to use those systems is part of 'the hobby' whereas learning to be (or naturally being) persuasive or having similar prejudices and modes of perception to the GM is not. I can quite see that, for some folk, persuasion is a 'part of the hobby', however - and good luck to them.

Interesting distinction!

I guess I see roleplaying (speaking) in character, and having the quality of that roleplay influence the outcome, as an important part of the game, for me. There's nothing I enjoy more as a player than coming out with cool lines and having them have an impact on play. Second best is when I one-liner it and the dice gods line up behind me, eg in "Sellswords of Punjar" I finally faced the Beggar King, the man who'd killed my best friend.

Me: "You're dead to me now." - throws dagger - rolls dice - crit - dead Beggar King.

 

[Balesir]

I guess I see roleplaying (speaking) in character, and having the quality of that roleplay influence the outcome, as an important part of the game, for me. There's nothing I enjoy more as a player than coming out with cool lines and having them have an impact on play. Second best is when I one-liner it and the dice gods line up behind me, eg in "Sellswords of Punjar" I finally faced the Beggar King, the man who'd killed my best friend.

Me: "You're dead to me now." - throws dagger - rolls dice - crit - dead Beggar King.

Ah, now, that I see as something a slight bit different. If I want that kind of "cool, thematic stuff" game I would play with PrimeTime Adventures - if you haven't tried it, I really suggest you should, given your example here. PTA seems to me to be built to incentivise just this sort of thing. A very brief summary:

Each player in PTA has a number of "votes" derived from their character sheet. They can also give other players extra votes in the form of "fan mail" (which then recycles around into the GM's "Production Budget" of votes - but I digress).

A conflict in PTA involves both sides stating their aim; in the example I guess yours would be "one-shot the bandit king" while his would be "escape while humiliating you and leaving you fighting his minions" (maybe).

The player whose character is involved will then place his votes into the conflict; the GM will allocate some of the Production Budget into the antagonist's pool - and then any other player may add votes of their own (but only "one off" votes, not reusable ones) to either side.

For each vote, a playing card is drawn. Each red card counts as a success - the side with the most successes wins and the player whose vote caused the highest card to be drawn (normal suit precedence applies) gets to narrate what happens in detail, staying line with the aims and which side was successful.

This seems to me to be a very fine way to get away from the "DM controlled 'mother may I'" that play aimed at "cool ideas" tends to generate in D&D. All the players, as a group, contribute to the decision on whether an idea, comment or scheme is "cool" - and, yet, tension is provided by the element of luck (50% chance each vote 'counts'). It's really worth a try.

 

[S'mon]

This seems to me to be a very fine way to get away from the "DM controlled 'mother may I'" that play aimed at "cool ideas" tends to generate in D&D. All the players, as a group, contribute to the decision...

Yeah, but I like the "DM controlled 'mother may I'"* a lot better. It just takes a good GM.

*Edit: I prefer the term "semi-free Kriegspiel". I don't have this (post)modern problem with investing decision authority in the GM, rather than in the rules or the group.

 

[pemerton]

The (original) Skill Challenge rules to me seem like a kind of programming, they look like something a computer games designer would create. With social skill challenges they create a form of AI.

I don't (and didn't) get that vibe at all! But I did read them through the prism of the HeroWars/Quest extended contest rules . . .

If anything it seems you all have had to modify running skill challenges to get what seems to amount to the same net result.

The skill challenge I describe in the OP was run using the 4e rules as stated in DMG (basic structure), DMG2 (action points, power use, and more sophisticated treatment of secondary skills) and RC (DCs and "advantages").

(And just for clarity, only the dinner was a skill challenge. The interrogation of the cultist was free roleplaying following a successful Intimidate check, in accordance with "say yes"-style principles of not requiring multiple checks or complex resolution where nothing of sufficient complexity is at stake).

I would be interested in hearing from you or permeton, how the actual skill challenge mechanics foster this.

Well, there are these things that Balesir said, and which I agree with:

For many years, I went with the "diplomacy is just done with a real conversation between GM and players" route.

<snip>

what the skill roll (and skill challenge) system in 4E does is it makes me engage with ideas that, at first, I might dismiss due to my own prejudices, my own way of looking at the world, or my own "match" with the way the idea was worded. Or, it makes me look for a way in which an idea I instinctively like might fail, or is flawed.

I find that a useful discipline

At the most basic level, skill challenges give a skill resolution system that is less swingy than single rolls and that generate multiple levels of success (success with no failures, success with one failure, success with two failures and actual failure after a variable number of successes). Expanding from that, just the basic system allows me to codify partial successes and partial failures and such like. Codifying these things beforehand reduces the temptation for me to (a) make the outcome all or nothing, and (b) go with my own biases regarding "good ideas" that the players have.

In addition to discipline and partial successes, though, there is something else, which I mentioned upthread (post #13) - the mechanical structure generates an obligation on the GM to keep the scene alive, and thereby creates a "space" in the fiction that allows for unexpected outcomes to emerge.

Looked at in this way, the skill challenge "X before Y" approach is not an artificial constraint on the natural flow of events (as some critics sugget) but a facilitator and mandator of creativity (analogous, at least in broad terms, to the compromise element of a Duel of Wits in BW).

The OP is an example. Without the skill challenge mechanics, I don't think we would have achieved a scene in which (for the first time in many an RPG session) the PCs urinated; a PC interacted with the deserts in a meal; and the players' goal for the encounter turned around so markedly in one key respect in the course of resolving the situation.

Another, similar, example is the time when the players began by negotiating a truce with the Duergar slavers, and ended up agreeing to ransom the slaves for 300 gp to be paid over in a neutral city in a month's time.

Compare it to combat: If combat was resolved in T&T style - or even more abbreviatedly, with a single dice total from the PCs compared to a single dice total from the monsters -then combat would not include all the details that make it interesting. And there would be no scope for individual characters to change sides during the course of the fighting, for part of one side to flee while the others stay in the field, for the PCs to kill some enemies but demand the surrender of others, etc. A mandated complex mechanical structure opens up a space for surprise and creativity that otherwise is much harder to achieve.

As to knowing when a goal is achieved or not, shouldn't that flow organically from the interactions? I mean if your players have rolled 3 failures, yet one player has a cool idea that makes sense and can still achieve the goal... should it end?

Here, I agree with AbdulAlhazred:

3 failures should indicate a narrative path that leads to failure.

<snip>

When the SC has a narrative and the PCs hit that third failure it would be narratively explained as an end-point of the challenge. If a player has some great idea for salvaging the situation then it could be handled as a check to erase a failure or it could simply be something that happens beyond the scope of the SC. In the later case the party is presumably suffering failure consequences, but they could mitigate them if their plan is good enough. That might effectively turn failure into success, or at least 'not failure'.

All I would add to this is that 4e is clearly very comfortable with handling failure in a metagame fashion - eg your 3rd failed check, and now you can't get what you want because a volcano starts erupting Slave Lords style. (The example in the RC is like this, although the metagaming by the GM is a bit more subtle - rather than a volcano, some NPCs who were ticked off earlier in the challenge turn up again to bring it to an end. A weakness of the example is that there is no commentary pointing out that the GM has used a metagame strategy, rather than a skill-check-as-ingame-causation strategy, to resolve the challenge.)

And as to why one would want to do it this way - it creates finality. If the players succeed, the result is determined and the GM is obliged to respect it. If the players fail, then the GM is entitled to frame the next scene - which, as AbdulAlhazred points out, may well include dealing with the consequences of failure. (And of course, in the OP I give an account of the other option canvassed by AbdulAlhazred - the challenge has been lost, the player of the wizard has an idea about how to taunt the evil wizard further, and so he spends an Action Point to be able to make the taunt before the wizard leaves the dining hall - mechanically, it is an Immediate Interrupt on the failed skill check - thus turning the last failed check into a success and thereby changing the skill challenge overall from a failure to a success.)

And why finality? I regard it as a pacing device, to keep the game moving and to allow the GM to keep up the pressure on the players (there is a good discussion of this issue in the BW Adventure Burner, in the discussion of Let It Ride and Duel of Wits).

Again, combat in D&D has always been like that - if your PC is reduced to 0 hp, you don't get to say "Aha, but with this deft manoevre I could still win!" However clever the manoeuvre is that you're thinking of, the mechanical structures don't let you do it (unless you're playing classic D&D and have simultaneous initiative with your enemy!). Likewise with a skill challenge. If the challenge is over then the challenge is over. Think of new ways to deal with the new situation.

For approaches to play that favour exploration over "keeping the game moving" and "keeping up the pressure on the players" I wouldn't recommend skill challenges as a mechanic. Too metagamey. But then I also wonder how players with those sorts of priorities put up with hit points, which I would think are too metagamey also. Personally, if I wanted that sort of game I'd go for Runequest, or perhaps a very austere version of Rolemaster.

 

[S'mon]

Compare it to combat: If combat was resolved in T&T style - or even more abbreviatedly, with a single dice total from the PCs compared to a single dice total from the monsters -then combat would not include all the details that make it interesting.

Playing HeroQuest I was happy with the single roll to resolve combat (simple contest rules) - works just as well as single roll to climb a wall or persuade an NPC. Quick and simple. What I hated was the 'extended contest' rules, all that pointless 'bidding' and points that for me bore no relation to what was happening in-game. I think it was supposed to be something to do with how invested we/our PCs were in the outcome or something, but it just felt like a load of rubbbish to me. Whereas playing Savage Worlds recently I got to spend all 4 of my bennies rerolling the dice on a doomed attempt to stop my fellow PCs blowing up a ship by grabbing the detonator off them; which to me was a satisfying way of stating how important it was to my PC to save the lives of the people on the ship*. The rules seemed to support the narrative; with HQ they just got in the way. I think the big difference was that the HQ bidding system was entirely abstract, whereas the SW system was simulationist but with the bennies adding a dramatic element.

*Actually it was full of zombies & they'd all have died anyway.

 

[wedgeski]

Skill Challenges do tend to create really interesting discussions here on ENW. I heartily approve.

I think for me the basic contribution of the SC idea is "n successes before 3 failures". That's where the rules really start and end for me. Within that framework, there are a million ways to run a challenge ranging from the mundane (e.g. "3 checks to disable this trap") to the very sophisticated, such as pemerton's social challenge. Along that continuum the DM has an increasing role in creating the necessary complexity, drama, player involvement, skill synergy, and ultimately the narrative built as a result of the challenge itself.