Alternatives to map-and-key

[Crimson Longinus]

What you’re describing doesn’t really sound different than how D&D 5e works, or any other trad game.

Except that the GM would present each of those skill checks individually. In the case of a skill challenge, it’s just more formalized… and the players have input.

It is very different. See my prison escape example. In skill challenge the players have less input, as no matter what they do, they have to roll the predetermined amount of successes and the GM keeps framing obstacles until they do that or fail enough.

And here you say it. It’s the transparency that you have an issue with.

Only in the sense that it lays bare the hollowness of the skill challenge mechanics.

What suggestions for alternatives to map & key style gaming do you have?

Now that it has been clarified that it means literal map and key, I can do that.

Prep situations. Prep NPCs with goals and motivations, give them plans. Create situations rife with conflict, preferably ones where there is nuance and who is right and who is wrong is not obvious. Include elements the characters might care about or which speak to their values and desires. Once the board is set* introduce the character in the mix, and play the situation and NPCs with honestly, expressing their nature as genuinely as you can.

* A metaphorical board.

 

[Campbell]

You don't stop running the game because you are in a skill challenge. The individual actions/roll still change the situation state, alter how difficult things are and have their own consequences beyond success and failure of the larger skill challenge. You still bring it every moment of play.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Ok. Then I definitely do not think "map and key" is the default. Perhaps @Micah Sweet understood it more broadly as well?


So you then agree with me that in skill challenges no solution is better than other and what the players do do not matter? So it is just a mechanical framework to prompt fiction generation?

I did understand it more broadly. My understanding was that much of the active, "on camera" parts of the setting is mapped out in at least a general sense (be that a dungeon, city, wilderness region, etc) such that when the party goes somewhere, the GM pretty much knows what's there most of the time. GM notes, in other words. It may or may not be a literal map.

 

[hawkeyefan]

It is very different. See my prison escape example. In skill challenge the players have less input, as no matter what they do, they have to roll the predetermined amount of successes and the GM keeps framing obstacles until they do that or fail enough.

The main difference I see is that with the skill challenge, the number of successes and failures are set and known ahead of time. The players are aware of the success or failure conditions.

The method you’re describing keeps that hidden from them. And that seems very important.

You describe the SC process as hollow because the players are able to declare how they address the challenge. And that it is not hollow if the GM is deciding these things and keeping the overall process hidden from them.

Your assumption here is that only the GM is capable of deciding how a challenge may be addressed. Another is that the players will somehow try to always “spam” their highest rated skill. That players are not able to restrain themselves from tying to persuade a cliff face.

I think those assumptions are flawed.

Prep situations. Prep NPCs with goals and motivations, give them plans. Create situations rife with conflict, preferably ones where there is nuance and who is right and who is wrong is not obvious. Include elements the characters might care about or which speak to their values and desires. Once the board is set* introduce the character in the mix, and play the situation and NPCs with honestly, expressing their nature as genuinely as you can.

How do you know what elements the characters might care about?

I did understand it more broadly. My understanding was that much of the active, "on camera" parts of the setting is mapped out in at least a general sense (be that a dungeon, city, wilderness region, etc) such that when the party goes somewhere, the GM pretty much knows what's there most of the time. GM notes, in other words. It may or may not be a literal map.

This description, if phrased more concisely, would sound something like “we play to find out what’s in the GM’s notes”. But we all know that is seen as insulting… can you explain the difference?

 

[The Firebird]

The method you’re describing keeps that hidden from them. And that seems very important.

You describe the SC process as hollow because the players are able to declare how they address the challenge. And that it is not hollow if the GM is deciding these things and keeping the overall process hidden from them.

It isn't about being hidden or not. It's about whether the player's action declarations make a significant difference in resolving the obstacle or not. In the skill challenge case, they will always need N checks, so clever solutions or approaches the GM hadn't thought of don't mean anything. As long as an action is minimally acceptable, one success, one tick.

In the map-and-key case the relationship between the action declarations and the fiction is much more important because there is no arbitrary threshold to pass the obstacle.

This description, if phrased more concisely, would sound something like “we play to find out what’s in the GM’s notes”. But we all know that is seen as insulting… can you explain the difference?

If all we were doing was "playing to find out what's in the GM's notes", then the GM would never be surprised during play. But they are, all the time, in map-and-key play.

 

[Hriston]

A possible alternative to map-and-key as described in the OP, and possibly somewhat resembling the way "best interests" are generated in IAWA, at least structurally, can be found in the "Terrain Selection" system from Chainmail which forms the rules for combat of D&D (1974). Here's the system in its entirety:

TERRAIN SELECTION​

Often it becomes difficult to devise new terrain for a battle, and we have found the following system to be useful:​

A. On a number of 3" x 5" index cards draw the following:​

1. Two with rivers​

2. One with a marsh​

3. One with a pond​

4. One with a gulley​

5. Two with woods​

6. One with rough ground​

7. Four with variously shaped hills​

8. Eight blanks​

B. Each opponent draws up to four times:​

1. The weaker or defending side draws first.​

2. Terrain is placed anywhere on the table at the drawing player's option.​

I think a system like this can be applied more generally, not just to the introduction of battlefield terrain on a literal map but to randomly generated content in general, as something to be introduced by all players rather than the GM only. I'm thinking specifically of random dungeon generation as well as random encounters.

 

[hawkeyefan]

It isn't about being hidden or not. It's about whether the player's action declarations make a significant difference in resolving the obstacle or not. In the skill challenge case, they will always need N checks, so clever solutions or approaches the GM hadn't thought of don't mean anything. As long as an action is minimally acceptable, one success, one tick.

In the map-and-key case the relationship between the action declarations and the fiction is much more important because there is no arbitrary threshold to pass the obstacle.

Sure there is. The arbitrary threshold is whatever the GM decides. I’m also not sure how “clever approaches the GM hadn’t thought of don’t mean anything”… that’s a key element. The GM offers some primary skills, but secondary skills are also allowed.

I mean… do people really think that players are going to use Athletics on the guard and Persuade on the cliff? Like, the presence of a set number of successes needed suddenly makes players make absurd requests?

But not knowing that means they make reasonable requests?

This makes no sense to me.

If all we were doing was "playing to find out what's in the GM's notes", then the GM would never be surprised during play. But they are, all the time, in map-and-key play.

I believe surprise is possible, sure…I don’t agree it’s all the time. I think it’s less likely than thjngs going exactly how the GM has expected.

Very often, it will be exactly as the GM has described in his notes. He’ll dictate the relevant skills and their DCs ahead of time based on what he thinks is plausible, and during play, will allow or disallow alternate actions… again, based on what he thinks is plausible. He’s pre-determining the means of success, or at the very least greatly reducing the possibilities.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This description, if phrased more concisely, would sound something like “we play to find out what’s in the GM’s notes”. But we all know that is seen as insulting… can you explain the difference?

The way I describe it isn't insulting to both the players and the GM? It also doesn't gloss over the degree of control the players have over the fiction through their PCs, as your description does.

 

[thefutilist]

Prep situations. Prep NPCs with goals and motivations, give them plans. Create situations rife with conflict, preferably ones where there is nuance and who is right and who is wrong is not obvious. Include elements the characters might care about or which speak to their values and desires. Once the board is set* introduce the character in the mix, and play the situation and NPCs with honestly, expressing their nature as genuinely as you can.

* A metaphorical board.

The above is very close to the standard Narrativist model for situational play but I want to emphasises a few things.

One big difference is that you almost always want to start with, at the very least, an implied connection between the agendas of the player characters and the NPC's. In other words, having an adventuring party roll into town tends to produce weak sauce. I mean it can work as long as everyone is genuinely and actually committed to nothing happening. No saying one thing 'we have the agency to not bite hooks' and yet doing another 'well there would be no game it we didn't bite, It would be rude to the GM to waste their work, and so on.' For anyone serious about this style I'd actually kill the whole idea of adventures, parties and plot hooks. Think character centric drama instead.

There is a point at which the situation is established. Normally before play but sometimes bleeding into the beginning of play. THE situation (singular) is the basic unit of play and the aim of play is to resolve it. This could take one session or many sessions. In a game like In a Wicked Age, you're limited to one session. In a game like Sorcerer you don't know how many it could take because this depends on the actions of the characters. Could be one or two or several.

Sometimes there's a broader situational question (or several) that carries on through the established situation. In Dogs in the Vineyard, each session involves the Dogs going into a town and sorting out it's troubles. This is the basic unit. Yet this experience changes the individual Dogs and their relationship to their faith. So in the next situation, we'll all see how that resolves or changes.

In a Wicked Age can have a similar dynamic. Each situation new characters are either generated or return. The situation is then played to resolution. If there are hanging threads or unanswered questions, these can become part of the next situation.

What makes this different to play that may 'seem' similar, is that we really mean it when we say the situation is the basic unit. The GM isn't introducing new stuff for purposes of pacing or to try and resolve threads. To do so is to put their hand on the scales and essentially give themselves story control. As @pemerton mentioned earlier, the atomic components are the various characters. Therefore be very wary when introducing new characters.

Usually the introduction of new characters happens via two related routes. A character already involved in the situation does something that causes someone(s) implied by the wider setting to enter the situation. For instance a murder in a small town causes the Sheriff to become involved. A rebellion in a colony outpost means a battalion of Imperial troops (and their commander) are despatched.

Minor NPC's, such as those implied by a group of people. End up becoming more important than they initially seem. For instance, a captured soldier is convinced by a player that their cause is unjust. At this point you'll have to think about who that character is and what their priorities now are. As a general rule you're doing this in response to wanting to see the situation as it exists resolve, not adding crazy stuff because it shakes things up.

 

[Piperken]

Thoughtfully considering everyone's comments. Regarding the arbitrariness of clocks:

The table was introduced to their 1st countdown clock ever this weekend. In the fiction, they'd been involved in a recent conflict moments before, were wounded and had no time for recovery.

I asked them to take a d6 and place it in front of them on "4." They immediately asked what for?

It represented roughly the amount of time it'd take for their opponents to make their getaway on a boat, which they could see. The clock began to tick.

As soon as it ticked once, they stopped attempting to cut down everyone, and focused their attention entirely on the boat.