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.