Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Rel" data-source="post: 4838497" data-attributes="member: 99">Rather than track # of successes or failures, I've taken to visualizing a &quot;meter&quot; in my head.&nbsp; It starts at zero.&nbsp; Each failure makes it drop by one and each success it goes up by one.&nbsp; If it get to X then they succeed and they fail if it gets to -Y.Tonight I ran an impromptu Skill Challenge that the players unknowingly suggested.&nbsp; One of them said, &quot;It sounds like we're about to do a skill challenge&quot; and I thought to myself, &quot;That's a GREAT idea!&quot;&nbsp; So I made one up on the fly.&nbsp; It worked out pretty darned well.My players come up with creative ideas pretty well.&nbsp; I think that may have to do with how I described Skill Challenges to them at the outset of the campaign.&nbsp; It's a description that I paraphrased from a (sadly) forgotten ENWorld poster.&nbsp; Basically I told them:&nbsp; &quot;Skill challenges are where you trick me into letting you use your really good skills to solve the problem at hand by coming up with creative ways to apply them.&quot;My other favorite thing about skill challenges is using them to navigate through sections of the game where I don't want to have to roleplay through a long, complex series of events to get from A to B.&nbsp; That can sometimes bog the game down.&nbsp; So instead doing it as a skill challenge lets me break it into chunks and give them hints leading from one part to the next by way of successful skill rolls.A good example of this might be them investigating a murder at the king's castle.&nbsp; What you want is for them to eventually find their way into the dungeon below and deal with the Wererat Cultists.&nbsp; But you can run a skill challenge where they use Insight to notice the Prince acting mysteriously.&nbsp; Then a Diplomacy roll lets them discreetly ask the Queen about the Prince's behavior.&nbsp; She tells them that he spends a lot of time locked in his quarters ever few weeks.&nbsp; A Thievery roll lets the PC's gain access to the Prince's rooms where they find some strange robes hidden in the back of the closet.&nbsp; A Religion roll reveals that these have symbols of a ancient cult on them.&nbsp; A Perception roll allows one of the PC's to recall having seen a similar robe on the desk of the Captain of the Guard.&nbsp; An Intimidate check allows them to bully their way into his office and reveals that the robes were found down in an older section of the dungeons and they go there to find a secret door.My point is that waiting for the players to ask the right people the right series of questions in order to unlock this mystery might take several hours of roleplaying.&nbsp; But by using successes from skill checks as an &quot;excuse&quot; to give them hints then you guide them along the path to where the main part of the adventure is.&nbsp; And of course you can throw them a few red herrings along the way to account for their failures as well.&nbsp; It seems to be a really useful narrative tool to me.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Rel, post: 4838497, member: 99"] Rather than track # of successes or failures, I've taken to visualizing a "meter" in my head. It starts at zero. Each failure makes it drop by one and each success it goes up by one. If it get to X then they succeed and they fail if it gets to -Y. Tonight I ran an impromptu Skill Challenge that the players unknowingly suggested. One of them said, "It sounds like we're about to do a skill challenge" and I thought to myself, "That's a GREAT idea!" So I made one up on the fly. It worked out pretty darned well. My players come up with creative ideas pretty well. I think that may have to do with how I described Skill Challenges to them at the outset of the campaign. It's a description that I paraphrased from a (sadly) forgotten ENWorld poster. Basically I told them: "Skill challenges are where you trick me into letting you use your really good skills to solve the problem at hand by coming up with creative ways to apply them." My other favorite thing about skill challenges is using them to navigate through sections of the game where I don't want to have to roleplay through a long, complex series of events to get from A to B. That can sometimes bog the game down. So instead doing it as a skill challenge lets me break it into chunks and give them hints leading from one part to the next by way of successful skill rolls. A good example of this might be them investigating a murder at the king's castle. What you want is for them to eventually find their way into the dungeon below and deal with the Wererat Cultists. But you can run a skill challenge where they use Insight to notice the Prince acting mysteriously. Then a Diplomacy roll lets them discreetly ask the Queen about the Prince's behavior. She tells them that he spends a lot of time locked in his quarters ever few weeks. A Thievery roll lets the PC's gain access to the Prince's rooms where they find some strange robes hidden in the back of the closet. A Religion roll reveals that these have symbols of a ancient cult on them. A Perception roll allows one of the PC's to recall having seen a similar robe on the desk of the Captain of the Guard. An Intimidate check allows them to bully their way into his office and reveals that the robes were found down in an older section of the dungeons and they go there to find a secret door. My point is that waiting for the players to ask the right people the right series of questions in order to unlock this mystery might take several hours of roleplaying. But by using successes from skill checks as an "excuse" to give them hints then you guide them along the path to where the main part of the adventure is. And of course you can throw them a few red herrings along the way to account for their failures as well. It seems to be a really useful narrative tool to me. [/QUOTE]

Verification