Challenge the Players, Not the Characters' Stats

[GlaziusF]

Here is a filtering question: Playing 3E or 4E, if a player with a movement of 30' (or 6 squares) asked to stretch that to 35' (or 7 squares), would you allow it, say, with a -2 to actions until the beginning of their next turn, or would you simply disallow it?

I understand that the game is about saying yes, but I hazard that few would allow this modification. The rules simply don't allow it, although, the modification does not seem to be completely unreasonable. (My read of the rules is that you have to run to go at all further than your base movement, which is a big step up from a hustling on a single move.)

Well, the Run action only buys you two more squares of movement in 4E, so moving an additional square? Yep, that's Run, not Walk.

Here is another filtering question: You are chasing an airship, and a rope tied to and trailing the ship moves past you. You ask the GM to be allowed to grab the rope, as a kind of AOO, as it moves past you. Would you as GM allow that?

Uh, yeah. You can ready any action, and making a grab is a standard action, so you can ready a "grab the rope" action in response to the rope moving into grab range.

You couldn't make a grab as an opportunity attack on the rope, since those are limited to basic melee attacks without special feat bonuses, so you'd have to spend a standard action before the rope moved past you in order to ready the grab. If there were a situation where you only had one round to grab onto the rope before the airship was gone and couldn't ready an action, I'd house-rule that you could retroactively burn an action point to have readied that action.

 

[justanobody]

But which of Diplomacy, Acrobatics or Arcana is the correct skill? You (the player) tell me (another player, or the GM).

Using Diplomacy: "Remember that time we were visiting the Wizards' Guild in Greyhawk? And I was buttering up that Burglomancer specialist? She told me a heap of old magical passwords - I try them all." The player rolls Diplomacy (probably at a hard DC - it's a pretty far-fetched story!) to see if this is true.

Using Acrobatics: "As the Watcher in the Water writhes about with its tentacles, I dodge at the last minute so it smashes into the door and breaks it." That might be a hard DC as well.

Using Arcana: "I speak a spell of opening". Medium DC. Or "I speak a spell of recall, to remember all the passwords and riddles I've learned over the years". That's more interesting and more clever- let's say a Medium DC with a +2 circumstance modifier.

You cannot use diplomacy on a door. You are just going to talk it into opening? Well this door the proper password does open it, but other than that no amount of discussion with the door, trying to anger it, or make it afraid of you will not. I would look at a player trying to use diplomacy on an inanimate object and reply simply: "Are you stupid?"

Acrobatics might be a bit more feasible, but it seems maybe the door was built with intent to prevent things from getting in so easily. We are talking about dwarves that fashioned the mines and everything else within them, do they would not make something so easily broken by something that lives right outside the door. While you could jump about dodging tentacles, there is nothing that says your acrobatics will even cause the tentacle to reach the door, or fly in that direction, assuming it was making a smashing attempt at you int he first place.

Arcana would allow you to read the magic runes to begin with. After that you would really need to solve the riddle. If Arcana provided that the runes and door were magicked by elves, then maybe you would try the elvish word for friend to open the door.

Still you just need to pick the right skill. Obviously arcana is the right choice, or best choice for opening a magical object, and if you don't go into depth of what word to use, you can still just make a few arcana checks and get past the drivel that this riddle is and get inside the door quicker without having to screw with some riddle.

That is why the skill checks were added to the game in this fashion for those that don't want to wait, but takes away from other players who might want to try to solve the riddle. Also as a DM it undermines the effort put into creating such if a player can just skate by with rolling some dice. The only person who could end up happy on all accounts is the one that rolled the dice to beat the DC for the skill checks, if that is how the door was opened. The other players and DM are left with little entertainment. I know a few people that would do just that, because they don't like puzzles or riddles, or non-combat.

That is why you shouldn't challegene the stats to allow those types of players to take something away form others.

Say your group has two heavy combat lovers, one shy person that likes riddles, and 2 people that like chitting and chatting with the locals. You have enough people to attempt the tasks without the dice, so work the group mechanic more than the roll mechanics. Leave out the roll mechanics save for the very last resort, and make it clear int he book, that the roll mechanic is there for the very last resort, but other things should be tried first.

We know this to be true, but a lone person coming into D&D thinking they know what they are doing, only to be given a whole PHB worth of explanations and errata might not be too happy that the book didn't tell them this to begin with and made it appear you only needed to roll dice. It could completely change their outlook at the game and have it be something they may not enjoy after all when not done as presented in the book.

I prefer to err on the side of caution with these things in regards to new players, and even older or lazy ones.

Again, a single player need not be the one to complete the skill challenge so you can challenge the players, and rely on the other people in your group of players more than the dice.

I think Justanobody wants to play an RPG that has RPG elements and is arguing for such. Saying Storytelling game elements are enough to satisfy him won't work.

When combined with the rest of your post to define the storytelling aspect, I think that RPG elements is what he wants also, or he would be playing Vampire LARPs.

You don't roll dice to get the merchant to bring his prices down using diplomacy skill. I as the DM am the merchant right now, so convince me why I should lower my prices. Haggle with me. Entertain the DM as much as the DM entertains you as a player. Don't make the DM just someone that looks up rules in the books, and rolls for you enemy during combats. Let the DM enjoy the game too.

ways you can use your skills

Anyone spouting this off, please try using something else to defend your position. I assert that picking the skill to roll for IS a way to use the skill. Otherwise you are not using the skill, but it is just sitting record with any modifiers on your character sheet. It is a minimalist approach.

Please provide me with several examples from the PHB that tell otherwise how to use your skills without rolling dice to complete a skill challenge. Every passage I read keeps including "skills checks", which is dice rolling. Where does it describe the non-dice rolling method to complete a skill challenge?

I have to really object to this statement - nothing about the rules is preventing the ability to run free-form roleplaying challenges and scenarios. That is simply outright incorrect. While I disagreed with your previous claim - that the rules discouraged such activity - I could see how you could get that impression.

But there is absolutely nothing stopping a DM from running a free-form puzzle or social event.

It is all about how the system works. Powers target defense. Inanimate objects don't have these will defenses, or whatever to use these powers. There is no equivalent for every power in the form of a ritual. The rules don't even allow for it. Don't you think that maybe Gandalf would have tried blasting the door down if he were a frustrated D&D player's character? He didn't in the stroy because he thought the dwarves to be alive inside, and didn't want to destroy their property. Hindsight is of course 20/20 for both the read and the characters of the story after that point.

It is how you can approach the situation or challenge, with what is provided. The nature of codifying everything in a format where you have a rule for everything with little to no give on certain thing means you have fewer choices to take when trying to do something.

It is like the old debate about using Magic Missle on a door. Some claims it works because it does damage to the target, while others claim being magic in nature their is no physical force to damage the door. Now there are more things like that in 4th, which limits the things you can try in challenges. The more you have defined, the less there is to do freely.

Why couldn't you open a door with a fireball in NWN? Because it wasn't programed as such and building were indestructible objects such as most inanimate objects. You could with a good scripter cut some fire wood form a tree, but the tree will remain you cannot cut it down, climb it, etc. D&D shouldn't have restrictions on what you can try like a computer does, because a computer does not have the capabilities of the human imagination.

That same fireball in PnP could easily blast away a door. This is why you have less when you define more. Tell me how you can use the new fireball outside of combat and for some skill challenge using it with its stat block, and the way powers work?

 

[Mallus]

I will go so far as saying that its impossible to narrate while roleplaying, and as a GM I switch between the two as the situation demands.

I'd call that a switch between 1st person limited and 3rd person omniscient narration... but I suspect, in practical terms, we're talking about the same thing.

 

[The Little Raven]

Anyone spouting this off, please try using something else to defend your position.

No. You flat out claim the book doesn't say exactly what that passage says, and then provide zero evidence for that claim (and even go so far as to intentionally reword our evidence to support your claim). It is written proof that our claim is correct and that your claim is wrong.

It would be like me saying "3e requires you to roll for hit points at 1st-level" and then when people quote the 3e PHB where it says that you use maximum HP at 1st-level, I dismiss it because it contradicts me by saying "Use something else for your defense."

I assert that picking the skill to roll for IS a way to use the skill.

And your assertion is wrong. Saying "I use Nature to succeed." says nothing about the method by which you are using Nature to meet the challenge. All it says is that you have selected a skill, but you have not actually thought about the ways in which the skill is used to meet the challenge.

Where does it describe the non-dice rolling method to compelte a skill challenge?

It doesn't because skill challenges are specifically designed to use a series of skill checks in order meet a challenge, if the players can present an acceptable method of using the skill for that challenge.

You keep making these claims about only having to pick a skill and roll, but you have provided exactly zero evidence that the books say that. One of the basics of debate is that when you make a claim, you back up that claim. You have not done that, you have merely dismissed the evidence that other people have presented. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but everyone is not entitled to their own facts.

 

[MrMyth]

It is all about how the system works. Powers target defense. Inanimate objects don't have these will defenses, or whatever to use these powers. There is no equivalent for every power in the form of a ritual. The rules don't even allow for it. Don't you think that maybe Gandalf would have tried blasting the door down if he were a frustrated D&D player's character? He didn't in the stroy because he thought the dwarves to be alive inside, and didn't want to destroy their property. Hindsight is of course 20/20 for both the read and the characters of the story after that point.

The FAQ, I believe, mentions allowing powers to target inanimate objects if the DM feels it is acceptable. Even within the core rules, this is precisely what page 42 is for - letting you handle situations the rules don't directly address! If the DM feels you don't even need to make a check, that is simply works, than the rules are also fine with that - check out the advice on 'saying yes' on page 28 of the DMG. And hey, if you want even more guidance, check out the rules for damaging objects on page 65 of the DMG.

It is how you can approach the situation or challenge, with what is provided. The nature of codifying everything in a format where you have a rule for everything with little to no give on certain thing means you have fewer choices to take when trying to do something.

Except 4th Edition specifically has made attempts to step away from "if the rules don't say it, is doesn't work." DMG page 28, page 42 - these are all about letting people try actions not codified in the rules. The PHB doesn't go into as much detail with this, but right from the start says: "You have almost limitless control over what your character can do and say in the game."

Even in the rather codified skill rules in the PHB, you have the section on "Acrobatic Stunts" which basically tells players they can try almost anything they can think of.

Why couldn't you open a door with a fireball in NWN? Because it wasn't programed as such and building were indestructible objects such as most inanimate objects. You could with a good scripter cut some fire wood form a tree, but the tree will remain you cannot cut it down, climb it, etc. D&D shouldn't have restrictions on what you can try like a computer does, because a computer does not have the capabilities of the human imagination.

And, interestingly enough, 4E is not a computer game - and is run by a DM who not only is capable of saying "Yes" to non-codified actions, but is even encouraged to by the core rules.

You are inventing restrictions that just aren't there.

That same fireball in PnP could easily blast away a door. This is why you have less when you define more. Tell me how you can use the new fireball outside of combat and for some skill challenge using it with its stat block, and the way powers work?

Option 1: Use the rules for damaging objects on page 65 of the DMG. A wooden door has a 5 Reflex and 20 hp - the wizard makes his standard attack with a fireball and sees if that is enough to take the door out.

Option 2: Use the rules for breaking down doors on page 64 of the DMG. A wooden door is DC 16 to break down - simply have him make an Intelligence check instead of a Strength check to break it with magic instead of brute force.

Option 3: Use the guidelines for 'Actions the Rules Don't Cover' on page 42 of the DMG. Choose an appropriate check for the PC to make - which could be an attack roll to blast the door down, an Arcana check to direct the magic properly, or a Dungeoneering check to identify the door's weaknesses. Assign a DC - perhaps you feel blasting a wood door with fire should be an easy task for a level 5 wizard, and so give it a DC of 13 (or 18, if you decided to have him use a skill for it.) Have him make the chosen check against the chosen DC, and if successful, the door is blasted down!

Option 4: Say, "Heck, you're willing to unleash a ball of fire against a simple wooden door? Sure thing - your power blasts it into so much kindling!"

Option 5: Say, "Hmmph. You thought it would be easy, huh? You unleash the spell, little realizing that the damp dungeon air has saturated the wood over the centuries. After your blast, the walls are scorched and a few flames lick feebly at the door, but it stil stands in your path."

Oh, and if this is being done as a skill challenge (say, to escape a castle), if any of the above result in the door being burnt down, I'd award 1 success towards the completion of the skill challenge - or possibly more, depending on the circumstances.

4E allows for many different approaches, and gives a wide variety of guidelines for resolving actions and rewarding player creativity. Where, precisely, do you feel it actively restricts or discourages any of the above solutions I proposed? And if it does not - what more do you want the system to do - what solution do you think should be an option, but somehow isn't?

 

[howandwhy99]

Huh?

Everything the DM says that describes the fictional setting, characters in that fictional setting, and there actions qualify as narration. What definition of narration are you using?

Wow. Okay, I think you are confused possibly by adhering to what I like to call "The Big Muddle" which inarticulately confuses a number of things including role-playing, acting, game playing, and storytelling. If you actually look up the definition of Narration you'll see that it means: (here's one way of putting it)

The act of telling or relating the particulars of an event; a recital of certain events, usually in chronological order; rehearsal.

From the way you are describing it, it would seem like every manner of speech is a narration, which of course isn't true. There are many modes of discourse where narration is only one, one which is the relation of events or a series of events. In an RPG, this only happens if you (or the GM) role-plays a character who then tells a story. The actual act of role-playing isn't telling a story at all. No more than you or I are telling stories simply by existing.

Related to that, how are people adopting fictional personae and maneuvering them though scenes in a fictional setting not, well, generating fiction ie telling stories?

Well, first, role-players are not adopting fictional personae, they are taking on a hypothetical role. They do not move through "scenes" in the same way you or I do not move through scenes in real life. Just because we are taking action hypothetically does not mean we are creating fiction. Of course, fiction has more than one meaning, so that may be the source of the confusion. Not all imaginings (thinking) are fiction as fiction relates to story, but they do qualify as fiction under one definition of the word. A lie is another kind of fiction under this definition, but that doesn't make all lies or falsehoods stories.

Can you give an example of how a Skill Challenge, or more generic skill usage could qualify as role-playing, under your you definition of RP.

To be clear, this is not my definition of role-playing. It is the one used by most English speakers outside of the RPG hobby (and by those not confused by the definition of "role-playing" within).

Skill Challenges, as Pemerton correctly shows, are not role-playing challenges, so I cannot show you how their usage could qualify as such. Skill use can be. If you go back and read my previous response, you'll see examples of both.

I love role-playing, but I honestly have no idea how you're defining the act, other than 'far more narrowly than I do'...

If you are caught up on the Indie confusion, you may be including all acting, improvisational or otherwise, with role-playing. Perhaps all theatre game playing as well. But, of course, acting is not role-playing or we'd never need two words for it. This may be one of the major points of confusion in that community.

Can you give a quick definition?

Here's another dictionary definition:

role-play·ing /ˈroʊlˌpleɪɪŋ/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[rohl-pley-ing] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
1. a method of instruction or psychotherapy aimed at changing attitudes and behavior, in which participants act out designated roles relevant to real-life situations.
2. the modifying of a person's behavior to accord with a desired personal image, as to impress others or conform to a particular environment.
[Origin: 1940–45]

Again, I think you're confusing acting and/or storytelling with role-playing.

 

[pemerton]

Actually, the Skill Challenge system is a hybrid of storytelling and game-playing with no role-playing whatsoever. You might act a little in between, but there is no role-playing going on here. Instead, this method is a game where one results in having to narrate their game choice selection to fit with the GM's story. As it is impossible to tell stories or to narrate while role-playing (or GMing for that matter), players stop playing when using this system.

<snip>

The 4E DMG is clear in its related design, it's just the design is one confusing storytelling games with RPGs. For an RPG, it is an ill fit. Bad design. The works you mention that it is supposedly derivative of are games which mix both RPG gaming with Storytelling. I would gather quite unknowingly.

I think we've had this conversation before. I tend to believe that if it calls itself a roleplaying game, if it is played by people who call it a roleplaying game and themselves roleplayers, if it is sold in shops and on websites that specialise in selling roleplaying games, then it is a roleplaying game. So HeroWars, The Dying Earth and 4e D&D all count as roleplaying games. (Just as rugby and American football count as football even though the contact between foot and ball is pretty infrequent.)

In an RPG with skills, one can open a door without a skill check by turning the knob, hack it down with some attack rolls, make several diplomacy checks to convince voices on the other side to open the door, or even roll to disbelieve the door is there at all.

This is also true in 4e D&D or HeroWars. What is different in those games from (for example) Runequest is the action resolution mechanic.

All these myriad of methods involve different amounts of potential checks, target number difficulties, successes, or failures as the role-players are being tested by a real world with real people and objects - not telling a story where the results need only be thematically interesting.

Again, this is true of 4e etc (although I'm not quite sure what you mean by the roleplayers being tested by a real world - the door is not real, it is a fiction, while the roleplayers are real and they are not confronting a door, they are playing a game). But I agree in 4e and similar games the mechanical resolution of the conflict is influenced by metagame notions of "thematic interest".

I think Justanobody wants to play an RPG that has RPG elements and is arguing for such. Saying Storytelling game elements are enough to satisfy him won't work.

I'm not doing any such thing. I'm just refuting his assertion that the bare minimum for playing a skill challenge in 4e is to roll some dice and add up successes and failures - as if the flavour text doesn't matter. The flavour text (i) is a crucial input into the action resolution mechanics, and (ii) is a very significant part of the point of playing the game.

Again, telling someone who enjoys D&D to not have anything but combat encounters if they don't like to play a storytelling game is disingenuous.

I didn't say this either. I said that a person who doesn't like non-combat encounters shouldn't use skill challenges in his/her game.

It is also true that someone who does like non-combat encounters, but doesn't like narrativist play, shouldn't use skill challenges either. But this doesn't entail that playing a skill challenge requires nothing but rolling dice.

 

[pemerton]

You cannot use diplomacy on a door.

I didn't say that you could. I said that a PC can use diplomacy on a Burglomancer (a species of wizard I coined for the purposes of my post), and that when confronted with a door might remember something that Burglomancer told him/her which would be useful to open the door. In the skill challenge, the player explains how and when the diplomacy was used, as I illustrated in my example.

You are just going to talk it into opening? Well this door the proper password does open it, but other than that no amount of discussion with the door, trying to anger it, or make it afraid of you will not. I would look at a player trying to use diplomacy on an inanimate object and reply simply: "Are you stupid?"

The only person in this thread who has suggested using diplomacy on a door is you. I showed how a player might have his/her PC use diplomacy to contribute to a skill challenge involving a door - by retroacively using diplomacy on a person who has the requisite knowledge of how to open the door.

Acrobatics might be a bit more feasible, but it seems maybe the door was built with intent to prevent things from getting in so easily.

Hence, in my example, the PC acrobatically dodges the Watcher in the Water, a very strong creature, so that the Watcher's tentacles hit the door.

While you could jump about dodging tentacles, there is nothing that says your acrobatics will even cause the tentacle to reach the door, or fly in that direction, assuming it was making a smashing attempt at you int he first place.

I don't understand what you mean by "there is nothing that says your acrobatics will even cause the tentacle to reach the door." To use the language of the PHB, the player has thought of a way that his/her PC can use his/her skills to meet the challenge faced. It is now up to the GM to set a difficulty (as per the DMG, and as a number of skill descriptions in the PHB note). The dice roll will tell us whether or not the tentacle actually hits the door. As a mechanical system, that is not terribly different from when a player says "I try to slice the goblin with my sword", the GM determines the AC, and the dice roll then tells us whether or not the PC's attack succeeded.

Please provide me with several examples from the PHB that tell otherwise how to use your skills without rolling dice to complete a skill challenge. Every passage I read keeps including "skills checks", which is dice rolling. Where does it describe the non-dice rolling method to complete a skill challenge?

Like combat, it requires dice rolling (well, the DMG canvasses alternatives to dice rolling, but dice rolling is the norm). But it is not just dice rolling, any more than combat is dice rolling. In combat I also have to have my PC move, choose who to attack, choose what power to use to what effect, etc. In a skill challenge I have to choose which skill to use, and the onus is on me as a player to explain what my PC is doing in using that skill.

That is why the skill checks were added to the game in this fashion for those that don't want to wait

Is this a claim about the purpose of skill challenges? What is your evidence for it? There is no textual evidence. And the designers have expressly mentioned the influence of indie games (eg HeroWars/Quest) on their design. And those games are not intended to be used for resolving conflicts through a few quick dice rolls. If you don't want non-combat encounters, just skip them.

Say your group has two heavy combat lovers, one shy person that likes riddles, and 2 people that like chitting and chatting with the locals. You have enough people to attempt the tasks without the dice, so work the group mechanic more than the roll mechanics. Leave out the roll mechanics save for the very last resort

That's one way to handle differences among players in a gaming group.

make it clear int he book, that the roll mechanic is there for the very last resort, but other things should be tried first.

This is not how 4e is written to be played. Like other games with similar conflict-resolution mechanics, these mechanics are not an alternative to the game. They are the game.

We know this to be true, but a lone person coming into D&D thinking they know what they are doing, only to be given a whole PHB worth of explanations and errata might not be too happy that the book didn't tell them this to begin with and made it appear you only needed to roll dice.

I don't know it to be true. In fact, I think it's false. Also, you seem to be suggesting that the only alternative to 1st-ed AD&D style play is rolling the dice with no narration. You seem to be disregarding that there is another sort of play (which HowandWhy calls "storytelling") which is what the DMG and PHB actually talk about.

Entertain the DM as much as the DM entertains you as a player. Don't make the DM just someone that looks up rules in the books, and rolls for you enemy during combats. Let the DM enjoy the game too.

The skill challenge mechanics assume that the GM, like the players, will enjoy seeing how the players use their PC's skills to solve the challenge (eg they are looking for things like the burglomancer story).

Still you just need to pick the right skill. Obviously arcana is the right choice, or best choice for opening a magical object, and if you don't go into depth of what word to use, you can still just make a few arcana checks and get past the drivel that this riddle is and get inside the door quicker without having to screw with some riddle.

If this is your idea of how to run a skill challenge, I don't think you've really seen what sort of play the system is meant to support (and which the rulebooks describe in the passages I've quoted upthread). Do you regard HeroWars and The Dying Earth in the same dismissive way? It's one thing to say you don't want to play those games. Fair enough. I don't really want to play old-school D&D. But I don't need to mock it by way of misdescription.

 

[outsider]

I haven't read most of this thread, so I don't know if this has been touched on yet or not.

The problem with "challenging the players, not the character's stats" is that it basically boils down to convincing the DM to let you do something. If there's no stats/rules for something, it all comes down to DM fiat. Personally, I always found it incredibly annoying wasting time trying to convince my DM that my character should be able to accomplish whatever I was trying to accomplish at the time. When the rules are clear cut, I know whether or not I can do something, and how likely I am to succeed, meaning I can choose another course of action if my odds don't look good.

The old school feel, to me, was always "challenge the players to persuade you to let them do things", and it was frequently frustrating for me. Player empowerment is a -very- good thing.

 

[justanobody]

I don't understand what you mean by "there is nothing that says your acrobatics will even cause the tentacle to reach the door." To use the language of the PHB, the player has thought of a way that his/her PC can use his/her skills to meet the challenge faced. It is now up to the GM to set a difficulty (as per the DMG, and as a number of skill descriptions in the PHB note). The dice roll will tell us whether or not the tentacle actually hits the door. As a mechanical system, that is not terribly different from when a player says "I try to slice the goblin with my sword", the GM determines the AC, and the dice roll then tells us whether or not the PC's attack succeeded.

I can type a lot, but not read a lot sorry, so this is what I have to respond to for now. Maybe more later...

The player can attempt to do things that may including trying to aim the tentacle at the door, but I would make that more than one check or a very high DC meaning the actuality of it happening would be very low possibility. Odds are they can jump aobut good enough, but if they don't push in the right direction at the right moment then the tentacle will not go that direction. It also leads to the other point that the tentacle just might not reach the door. There is nothing saying it is long enough. So even bouncing around the right way and causing the tentacle to go towards the door, may mean that the effort is wasted due to not being able to connect with the door with enough surface contact to do anything by piss off the thing whose tentacle it is.

The more complex the action the less likely the chance of success. Remember called shots from older editions?

I don't recall where, but an sure it was stated that the player need not be the one solving puzzles and the option for rolling dice to get out was a way to not hinder those players from playing that could not perform/act/whatever to do these skill challenges. So certain players don't look dumb to others, or there is unfair portions of the game that only certain types of people can play in....Something along those lines.