Any New Info on Skill Encounters?

[Domon]

but the design should protect you from them anyway.

i don't think so... being a friend should

 

[Nytmare]

i don't think so... being a friend should

A rule with that much grey space in one of the base rules will be impossible to play constructively in a convention setting. Not everyone in the world is lucky enough to only play the game with only friendly non-rules lawyers.

 

[hong]

A rule with that much grey space in one of the base rules will be impossible to play constructively in a convention setting. Not everyone in the world is lucky enough to only play the game with only friendly non-rules lawyers.

Convention games can have their own guidelines, just like Living Greyhawk has/had a bunch of extra rules on top of those in the PHB. Besides, playing in a con is like PUGing; you goes in, you takes your chances.

Actually, IIRC Mearls said that the DMG won't require people to use their skill system, and if you do, there's many ways in which you can use it. Which suggests there won't be any one mandated way of doing things.

 

[Nytmare]

Which suggests there won't be any one mandated way of doing things.

Very cool. Do you remember if that was an article, or a podcast?

 

[pgmason]

I really rather like what I've heard about this resolution system. It's nice and rules light, and its fast. Nothing slows down a chase scene like counting squares on a grid. I guess it comes down to what I see as the point of a game - for a group of people to collectively have fun telling a story. For me, it doesn't matter whether the alley has a secret door or not (unless I want them to get caught for plot reasons, or unless I want the NPC thieves guild to make contact with them, in which case the doors open, and someone's beckoning them in). The alley only exists when the players are looking at it. It's sole purpose is to be the alley which the players run down. As a GM, I don't want to have to write encyclopedic notes about everything my player might come across. I don't especially want to have to prepare anything at all. I want to play the game with them.

 

[ThirdWizard]

I played out a skill-based diplomacy challenge this weekend and it went great. I had written out a bunch of examples, but I didn't need any. The PCs had to convince a dwarven thane to send troops to their cause (as I mentioned earlier in the thread) and they figured out ways to use their skills to try to convince him. I gave a maybe two minute explanation of how it worked and it played out intuitively in game with lots of role playing and back and forth, with results/reactions being based on the die rolls.

The first person used a Nature check to impress the thane with his knowledge of hobgoblins and their militaristic ways, the second used bluff to convince the thane that the dwarves were in peril from the hobgoblins, there was a failed History check to try and remind the king of the old dwarf/human alliance, and then an Insight check to remind the thane about how his people were warriors with no war. With four successes ans one failure, the thane was convinced enough to send an emissary.

I was kind of worried, but it worked very well.

 

[hbarsquared]

I suspect, especially once 4E is released and we all know the mechanics of the system, we will hear plenty of stories like this one.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Majoru Oakheart -

Since you were one of the few to run this encounter, do you have any other inside information for us? What some of the upfront advice may have been? Were there any predetermined DCs? What did the write up say about the three avenues to complete the goal (Marketplace, Busy Street, etc.)? How much was guided by the adventure, and how much by the players themselves?

I wish I could provide more. I can't though. Maybe later.

 

[jaer]

I don't want "I use diplomacy with an easy roll, tell me how I get past the guards."

Nor do I, and this was one of my concerns.

and I don't want "I diplomacize the captain of the guards with a bribe so that he escorts me out of the city and gives me his horse."

This I can handle with a "how much are you offering" and setting the DC appropriately high. My disconnect with this approach is, what is the result of failure? If the PC wants to do this, and scores a really high roll, but not quite enough to make it, what is the baseline result? Utter failure and the guard clubs yous ("it was going so well until you said you wanted his horse, too!") or particial success ("there is no way the guard is giving you his horse, but he will help you get out og the city").

In our specific game, we did not choose easy, medium or hard. We did not know the difference. We described what our characters wanted to do and consulted with the DM if we could. HE DECIDED whether the action was appropriate and advanced us towards the goal. HE DECIDED whether the specific skill use was appropriate or not. And finally HE DECIDED what the difficulty of the action would be based on what the action was, not the other way around.

<SNIP>

I don't really know where this notion, that the players somehow "magically" shaped the environment to something that it was not, comes from. The descriptions the players used were appropriate for the description of the setting they were given. This whole interaction occured without a map. It was all based on DM description.

I believe this notion is coming from people reporting having a completely different experience than you did, and having DMs ask them if they were rolling Easy, Medium, or Hard DCs. I could be mistaken on that, but easlier posts sounded like the players were declaring that, not the DM.

If the players are saying "I want to do X" and I, as the DM, decide the difficulty of the DC, they make the roll, and I describe the out come, that is fine with me. That is a skill system I would use out of the box without isssue (and it's pretty much what goes on now...they say what they want to do, and I judge how hard it is and set a DC).

A "I want to make an easy diplomacy check...what happens?" approach is definitely a lot more than I want to deal with because I need to come up with the scenerio that creates the easy DC, describe what the PC is doing, and the end results of the failed or successful attempt. That's more than I want to deal with on every skill check!

But from your playtest experience, D'karr, it sounds like the game doesn't assume that sort of skill usage, thank goodness. It could very well list out several ways to use skills and all the DMs at DnDXP simply picked the method that they thought they would be able to handle best, hence the disconnect between players' experiences.

 

[Domon]

A rule with that much grey space in one of the base rules will be impossible to play constructively in a convention setting. Not everyone in the world is lucky enough to only play the game with only friendly non-rules lawyers.

i don't think ANY role has EVER helped me defend myself from bad convention players. usually, if they don't like a rule, they play it bad running the game for everyone, or start complaining.

they kind of people i like to play with, even at conventions, won't need any protection rules. sules should provoke play, non protect it...