Alternatives to map-and-key

[chaochou]

There is no "shorter path"

Indeed. The question is revealing in that one would only ask it if one is unable to conceive of play other than railroading.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

1. What does the GM base his decision to require 3 successes before 5 failures instead of 5 successes before 7 failures. Deciding one vs the other seems a bit arbitrary?

2. Every action the PCs take is of equal weight to resolving the skill challenges and thus isn’t contextual to the specific PC action chosen.

3. The generated fiction isn’t contextual either. If less successes ‘should’ otherwise get them to their goal then the DM is mandated to invent a reason it doesn’t simply because it’s a skill challenge.

To me this is trading strict mechanical structure for less fictional structure, less fictional grounding.

Skill challenges are better understood as a shared fiction generation exercise that allows for player contributions to be digested toward a given output, instead of a gameplay mechanism. The limited tactical space is the point; by not privileging any particular action declaration over any other the space for what actions can be declared is wide open.

If anything, "challenge" might be the wrong word. They aren't fundamentally about making good decisions to best achieve the goal, they're about structuring the fiction in service to whatever question is put at stake.

I've long had a criticism that SCs are a bad "game," because the impact of player decision making on achieving a goal is so low and limited, but that's not the design purpose that's being served here. If anything, it's the inverse; by roughly standardizing the impact of any given decision, there is no incentive directing the kind of actions players should take, and the resulting fiction can be significantly more varied.

Yeah, this is why I always found them unsatisfying as presented. They simply do not do what I want them to do. The "gameplay" becomes about inventing reason to let you roll your best skills, which to be frank, I don't think is the most interesting way to generate compelling fiction either.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

There is no "shorter path". The idea of a skill challenge is to establish a degree of "weight" to the attempt to achieve some overall goal. The complexity of the challenge shapes pacing - eg complexity 4 or 5 means this thing won't be resolved quickly - and hence degree of focus/attention that play will give to the overall stakes of the challenge. Within the challenge, the GM's job is to narrate consequences that respond to each check, while keeping the challenge alive until the final resolution.

Which makes it very "mechanics first, fiction as colour." If the player invents something clever that should resolve the situation then and there, it cannot be done as we have not rolled our predetermined amount of checks. Same with character doing something massively disastrous that would make the whole effort instantly fail. So instead of engaging with the fictional situation as people in it would, we are just following the mechanics and inventing some fluff to justify the dice rolls.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

So I am not quite sure how literally I should understand "the map and key" in the OP. Because I don't think that this is literally how most gaming even in D&D and similar games work. But like others have pointed out, maps can be understood more broadly, nor they need to exist physically, they can be merely mental. So if we understand this as more broadly as predetermined situation with certain predetermined triggers, then sure, that's how most of trad gaming works. I rarely do "dungeon maps," I however often prep situations with the key players and parts predefined. Or is that supposed to be the "event play?" I did not quite understand that, nor did I understand how it is prone to be railroady. It has danger of being so only if there is just one "correct" solution, and that rarely is the case. When I prep situations, I usually do not have any particular "solution" in mind.

As for "best interests" and such, I think having NPCs with goals and motivations which may (and often will) conflict wit those of the PCs is something every even remotely competent GM does, so I am a bit at a loss what the takeaway from this was supposed to be.

 

[TwoSix]

Which makes it very "mechanics first, fiction as colour." If the player invents something clever that should resolve the situation then and there, it cannot be done as we have not rolled our predetermined amount of checks. Same with character doing something massively disastrous that would make the whole effort instantly fail. So instead of engaging with the fictional situation as people in it would, we are just following the mechanics and inventing some fluff to justify the dice rolls.

I mean, if a player has some sort of saved up resource (like a boon or favor, or a magical item, or a powerful spell), such that introducing it into the narrative would obviate the entire challenge, then I (as a GM) would end the skill challenge and mark it as successful.

Likewise, if there’s sort of perfect narrative beat introduced, such that the table agrees it would make sense to “finish” the challenge, then it would also make sense to by consensus end the scene challenge and move forward.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, this is why I always found them unsatisfying as presented. They simply do not do what I want them to do. The "gameplay" becomes about inventing reason to let you roll your best skills, which to be frank, I don't think is the most interesting way to generate compelling fiction either.

And in which type of game would it NOT be true that this is a goal of the players', or at least a strategy! I don't send my wizard out to melee the enemy in 5e, do I? I don't attack an opposing force in a time and place in which victory for them is assured, do I? In 4e the GM is the arbiter of what is possible to accomplish, with which skills, at a given point in the SC. The players may indeed plan such that they hope and expect these will be the ones that are their strengths. Just like in other D&Ds.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Which makes it very "mechanics first, fiction as colour." If the player invents something clever that should resolve the situation then and there, it cannot be done as we have not rolled our predetermined amount of checks. Same with character doing something massively disastrous that would make the whole effort instantly fail. So instead of engaging with the fictional situation as people in it would, we are just following the mechanics and inventing some fluff to justify the dice rolls.

Totally disagree. The situation is simply all fiction. It is just up to the GM to frame the situations as checks, or not in some cases. There are 5 levels of complexity available here, requiring 4, 6, 8, 10, or 12 successes (and thus between that number and 2 more) total rolls. It is pretty easy to make it work without any need to turn the fiction into 'fluff'.

Here's the thing that I think trips people up. This is a very solid Narrativist type mechanic. There's not some purely pre-determined fiction that has to be navigated and doled out in a specific way. The fiction is what it is. The characters are not 'in a challenge', they're just moving through their environment solving problems. At certain intervals they may achieve sub-goals. These correspond to success in the current SC at the game level. Setbacks correspond to failed SCs.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Totally disagree. The situation is simply all fiction. It is just up to the GM to frame the situations as checks, or not in some cases. There are 5 levels of complexity available here, requiring 4, 6, 8, 10, or 12 successes (and thus between that number and 2 more) total rolls. It is pretty easy to make it work without any need to turn the fiction into 'fluff'.

Here's the thing that I think trips people up. This is a very solid Narrativist type mechanic. There's not some purely pre-determined fiction that has to be navigated and doled out in a specific way. The fiction is what it is. The characters are not 'in a challenge', they're just moving through their environment solving problems. At certain intervals they may achieve sub-goals. These correspond to success in the current SC at the game level. Setbacks correspond to failed SCs.

Why are we having a challenge mechanic if the characters are not in a challenge? What does nay of this represent? Why does arbitrary number of arbitrary actions resolve the situation?

It is funny to me how a lot of narrativist mechanics really do not seem to be about the fiction to me. They're about manipulating some meta level mechanic that does not represent anything diegetic and then inventing some plausible fiction around it. But the fiction doesn't really have teeth, it is just malleable mush. I want proper fiction first, where the fiction has weight, where it is solid so that how you interact with it matters. Skill challenges are not that.

And in which type of game would it NOT be true that this is a goal of the players', or at least a strategy! I don't send my wizard out to melee the enemy in 5e, do I? I don't attack an opposing force in a time and place in which victory for them is assured, do I? In 4e the GM is the arbiter of what is possible to accomplish, with which skills, at a given point in the SC. The players may indeed plan such that they hope and expect these will be the ones that are their strengths. Just like in other D&Ds.

Yes, but as the fiction is not solid, it is more about selling the GM why you can roll your best skill.

 

[Thondor]

Why are we having a challenge mechanic if the characters are not in a challenge? What does nay of this represent? Why does arbitrary number of arbitrary actions resolve the situation?

It is funny to me how a lot of narrativist mechanics really do not seem to be about the fiction to me. They're about manipulating some meta level mechanic that does not represent anything diegetic and then inventing some plausible fiction around it. But the fiction doesn't really have teeth, it is just malleable mush. I want proper fiction first, where the fiction has weight, where it is solid so that how you interact with it matters. Skill challenges are not that.



Yes, but as the fiction is not solid, it is more about selling the GM why you can roll your best skill.

Because that's what narrativist mechanics do. They let player's directly manipulate the story in a way that only the GM normally can.

Lot's of people get tripped up on this thinking that "immersive" = narrative and for many people the meta nature of narrativist mechanics takes them out of their immersion.
They are still excellent ways of creating compelling stories -- including stories about your PC, but you are taking a more "author" like role as well as an immersed role and need to switch hats between them.

The story is the game. You as a player get to use mechanics to change it (you can literally change the world, plot, actions of other factions etc). In more trad mechanics/play the only way for a "not the GM" to change the story is to embody the character and have them do something.

 

[Thondor]

So I am not quite sure how literally I should understand "the map and key" in the OP. Because I don't think that this is literally how most gaming even in D&D and similar games work. But like others have pointed out, maps can be understood more broadly, nor they need to exist physically, they can be merely mental. So if we understand this as more broadly as predetermined situation with certain predetermined triggers, then sure, that's how most of trad gaming works. I rarely do "dungeon maps," I however often prep situations with the key players and parts predefined. Or is that supposed to be the "event play?" I did not quite understand that, nor did I understand how it is prone to be railroady. It has danger of being so only if there is just one "correct" solution, and that rarely is the case. When I prep situations, I usually do not have any particular "solution" in mind.

As for "best interests" and such, I think having NPCs with goals and motivations which may (and often will) conflict wit those of the PCs is something every even remotely competent GM does, so I am a bit at a loss what the takeaway from this was supposed to be.

As you describe what you are doing, you are primarily using Event List (or Scenario). That's how I define it anyway in this post Alternatives to map-and-key

As for the "best interests" which I generalized to Conflict Agendas, this is something that the players actively create in play. Games that feature this almost always have multiple agendas for every player and the players will often be at cross-purposes with each other.
That's the difference, sure NPCs have goals, sure players sometimes have goals in other styles of games/adventures/scenarios, but in a game that mechanizes these, it is a major part of how the game plays out. Like you can literally have a player or GM go: "we haven't had a scene about this agenda of yours this session Frank, let's do that now." Bob, "oh can I be in the scene, one of my agendas conflicts with his!"

I think all of these types can be potential used to different degrees when someone is running a game. Generally you'll have a primary method and a secondary or two.