NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5656980" data-attributes="member: 42582">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 . . .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).Well, there are these things that Balesir said, and which I agree with: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.Here, I agree with AbdulAlhazred: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.</blockquote>

Verification