DM needs advice Skill Challenge - To Tell or Not to Tell

[Trythos]

Hi all, i've been RPing for around 5 years DMing for about a year and a half, so compared to you lot i'm probably quite new at this =)

Anyway, the issue at hand is that i've got a game on tomorrow, and have pretty meticulously planned out a long skill challenge, only to stumble upon one BIG question:

Should I tell them they're having a skill challenge?

Alright here's the situation at hand. I'm gonna be DMing a group of new players, all old gaming buddies of mine that have decided to give DnD a go. I'm their dedicated DM, at least till they master the player aspects of this. Anyway, this is their 4th session if i'm not wrong, and the second skill challenge they've encountered, the first of which they knew was one.

The adventure i'm playing right now is published, mostly cos they're new so I decided to bring them through easy with Keep on the Shadowfell. Unfortunately, since I myself have played through this a while back, this became boring for me FAST. Deciding to have a bit of fun, i've made it so that they managed to collapse the first level of the Dungeon, and instead built a castle hanging in the midst of a huge 'bottomless' cavern, chained to the roof of the caverns - an idea I have always wanted to try out (and hopefully they try to break those chains hehe). But thats beside the point, the other thing i've decided to change was instead of the dead rising in the graveyard, and since this was a world we ALL worldbuilt together as a group, I brought up something from the lore and to cut a long story short, now theres a small undead army at the gates of Winterhaven.

Party consists of:
1 Diplo Heavy Paladin
1 Diplo and Bluff heavy Cleric
1 Arcana heavy mage
1 crazy insane berserker (my min-maxer powergamer who's surprisingly good at roleplaying)


I've made it so this is a large encounter split in three. First, the preparation, many options to do many things i.e. heal the wounded (either spend 2 healing surges or do a small skill challenge), prepare arcane wards and artillery (have a tower in the middle of winterhaven, valthrun's tower, and made it so that it has something akin to a mirror of Archimedes if i'm not wrong, where it amplifies magical spells to act as artillery)(arcana checks here), reinforce the gates (strength, choice between the gate or walling up the waterway entrance, convincing knights on a quest to join (diplo check), and helping out the tacticians by scouting the enemy army (stealth and perception).

Second, the Seige, whereby the players each choose different locations (the mage most likely manning the arcane artillery that hopefully was completed in preparation) and different challenges are placed at these locations (i.e. Duel before the gates with enemy champion, getting the men to stand their ground before the undead horde, killing the seige monster (most likely job of artillery), healing the wounded in the triage, and pushing against the main gates as the battering ram hits it (strength, must last for a few turns)

Lastly, the Boss fight, where they smash Ninaran (the elf archer leading this) into bloody pulp. Note that they're all around lvl 2 going on 3.

Of course, if they choose to think of other methods/ checks to solve these, by all means, I wont be telling them to give me any rolls, they can come up with methods themselves and then justify.

Each section is supposed to build on the other, changing the circumstances and the difficulty.

And so i'm all ready to go, cept now i'm struggling with the thought... should I tell them it's a skill encounter, or just place the situations and events before them and hope they react to them in inventive ways? Furthermore, I have a strange feeling I may be pandering to the party's skillset, which is a HUGELY argued method of DMing. I could throw in a few dexterity and theivery based skillchecks, but man... they'll be in trouble there.

The other thing is i've given the paladin a big bonus on diplo (background in exchange for a few losses he had to make), and the mage for arcana (same) and slight ones for athletics for the berserker barbarian. I hope those won't throw them into thinking only of using those skills... any way to counter that, or jolt them into being inventive? They're generally good players, they know to RP despite this being their fourth session only, they CAN get inventive. I just need to push them more in that direction.

Oh and any thoughts on the scenario would be nice =)

Thanks in advance!

 

[S'mon]

IME skill challenges should only be used as a DM's-side tool to aid resolution. They really break immersion, so I'd say don't tell the players.

 

[karlindel]

I recommend telling the players, for two reasons:
1. The game mechanics encourage different types of actions in a skill challenge than at other times in the game. For example, normally it's good for everyone to ask to roll perception checks, because even someone with a low roll might roll well and end up with the best total, but during a skill challenge this drastically reduces the party's chances of success.
2. It breaks immersion for a short time to let them know at the start, but then the players can operate and immerse themselves within the skill challenge. If they don't know it's a skill challenge and what is involved, they are more likely to constantly ask what they can do, which breaks immersion just as much.

As far as focusing too much on the skills the characters are focused on, there are several ways to expand the skill challenge into other skills: Require a broader range of skills to be used by limiting the number of successes allowed from certain skills, allow other skills to have secondary effects, require a different skill to be used to "unlock" the option to use the skill they really want, or make an additional check requirement that uses other skills. For example, if they want to work through the night, an endurance check might be called for in addition to the skill challenge's skills in order to stay awake and alert, Perception might be called for to see new opportunities becoming available, etc.

Skill challenges that use skills that the PCs aren't focused on are fine, but I recommend against skill challenges that require only skills that the party is not good at (i.e. skills that no one has trained and no one has a good stat for, if someone has it trained, it should come up, and if someone has a good stat in it, then they still have a fair chance of success).

 

[Wednesday Boy]

I would say don't tell them it's a skill challenge. In the skill challenges that I've played in once the players hear it's a skill challenge or figure out that it is, they start looking for ways to use their best skills instead of simply reacting to the situation.

One downfall when the players don't know they are in a skill challenge is that if the dynamic doesn't change after each check, they may continue to try the same skill over and over. So I recommend having the dynamics of the situation change after each roll so the PC's actions don't stagnate and the skill challenge stays creative and interesting.

For example, if the skill challenge is countering some magic runes and the wizard tries to unravel the magic (an Arcana check), if he starts to unravel it and nothing changes because it'll take time to unravel it, he'll likely do the same thing the following round. However, if the first check causes the runes to splinter, weakening the magic, the wizard may try to find point where they converge and are weakest (a Perception check).

 

[Ryujin]

I believe in openness, when it comes to things like skill challenges. That doesn't mean that they have to be cold, dice-rolling exercises. Role play it out asking for rolls when it seems appropriate to you. That keeps role play in the fore, but permits the players to use things like utility powers, should they choose to.

 

[delericho]

The more flexible you want to be in adjudicating the SC, the less I would recommend telling them (that they're in one).

So, if you're presenting a puzzle that has essentially one solution and a handful of relevant skills (or, at least, a small number of solutions), then you're as well telling them. If, however, there are many approaches that will work (and especially if you want the players to improvise their own solution), you're better off not telling them.

The other factor is experience: the less experienced the players, the more they will benefit from the structure given by knowing they're in an SC.

 

[Tony Vargas]

In general, 4e is more 'narrative/gamist' than 'immersive/simulationist,' so if you group generally likes the feel of 4e, you should share not just the fact of the skill challenge, but the structure (successes-before-failures), primary skills (obvious skills they don't need to justify and can use repeatedly), and any special conditions you've added. This makes a skill challenge something like a mini-game-w/in-a-game. It can be a lot of fun, but it's not 'immersive' at all. OTOH, if you've been struggling to make 4e more immersive (for instance, if you don't tell them the nature of effects on them, but let them find out based on their actions), you should keep the skill challenge very much in the background, as a resolution tool for your own use. That also gives you flexibility to make the challenge much less structured, since you can adjust difficulties, aplicable skills, successes-before-failure, or whatever else on the fly as needed to deliver the level of drama/realism/challenge you're going for.

 

[Mengu]

I would tell the players, so they know the consequence of failure. In non-skill challenge situations, a player might not refrain from making untrained insight checks or knowledge checks because failing just means they don't get the information, and they can live with that. But if they're likely to accrue a failure for the party in a skill challenge with an untrained insight check, they will not (unless desperate) attempt it. That's just the way mechanics of a skill challenge work (which could of course be altered to work differently depending on your goals).

I don't think this reduces the tension in any way, if you are vivid and clear with the descriptions and keep the adrenaline going with pressure.

I recently ran a scenario where the PC's were traveling in an air ship, got attacked by a dragon that damaged the ship, and was going to tear it apart. Their only way out was to navigate into a primordial storm. The dragon followed them in briefly but could not endure the winds very long and flew away. The rest of the challenge was to survive the primordial storm, and to save as many crew as possible during and after the crash landing. Once they realize there was no way they would be able to beat the dragon in this aerial fight (with an insight check after a bunch of misses, and seeing the dragon was more interested in tearing up the ship than fighting them), I started marking successes, and they knew they were in a skill challenge. That knowledge did not change the fact that players were on the edge of their seats pretty much the whole time.

 

[OnlineDM]

I am passionately of the opinion that you should NOT tell players they are in a skill challenge. Passionately!

Every time I as a player have heard the DM say, "This is a skill challenge. The primary skills are X, Y and Z..." it has been a boring, no-fun experience. Every time I only realized halfway through or upon later reflection that I had gone through a skill challenge, I had lots of fun doing some roleplaying.

As a DM I have taken this lesson strongly to heart. I have never told a player that they are in a skill challenge. I present the situation and the obstacle to overcome, and then it's up to the players to tell me how they want to overcome the obstacle. Quite often they will come up with something perfectly reasonable that's not written into the skill challenge, which is great! They'll tell me what they want to do, I'll tell them what skill to roll, and then we see the result and go from there. They might even come up with a way of completely avoiding the obstacle, which is also fantastic.

Please, for the love of all things good (or unaligned), do NOT describe a skill challenge as a skill challenge!

 

[P1NBACK]

I know alot of people don't announce SCs. That's cool. But, I've found that not announcing the skill challenge you might as well take each skill as an individual roll vs. considering it a skill challenge.

Personally, when I use skill challenges (which admittedly, is only occasionally), I prefer to tell my players upfront that they are entering a skill challenge. I don't think this breaks immersion any more than "Roll Initiative!" or "Gimme a skill check!" does.

Not only that, but I'll be explicit in setting the stakes of the challenge. Not only do I tell them they are in a conflict (the skill challenge), but I'll explain what the consequences of failure and success are and if there are any tiered success/failure results (however, I won't tell them exactly how many successes they actually need...). This is something you'll need to come up with beforehand (what the consequences for failure/success are), but you can also tweak it with input from the players. What do they want out of the siege?

When I say tiered success/failure, what I mean is that I'll do different conditions depending on how many failures you got. I'll explain this more below.

I like your idea of splitting up the challenge into phases. I've seen it done to good effect. The real key is giving them a good description to build upon.

First, the preparation, many options to do many things i.e. heal the wounded (either spend 2 healing surges or do a small skill challenge), prepare arcane wards and artillery (have a tower in the middle of winterhaven, valthrun's tower, and made it so that it has something akin to a mirror of Archimedes if i'm not wrong, where it amplifies magical spells to act as artillery)(arcana checks here), reinforce the gates (strength, choice between the gate or walling up the waterway entrance, convincing knights on a quest to join (diplo check), and helping out the tacticians by scouting the enemy army (stealth and perception).

So, this is where you'll need to announce the skill challenge. I'd simply start by saying something like, "Alright guys. The next few scenes are going to involve a skill challenge dealing with the siege. I've broken it up into three phases. The first phase is prep. If you guys have success in this phase, you'll get a nice bonus during the second phase, the siege. Failure means that the second phase is gonna be tougher and you may suffer more losses.

"Right now, the forces seemed weakened by so many wounded. The medic has set up a makeshift tent to act as a medical station, but rumors are spreading around camp that with the lack of reinforcements, the siege won't go well. You might have a chance with the mercenary knight company. Maybe not. You've also seen Valthrun around his tower cursing and in a generally bad mood. I wonder what's up with him? Joe, the fighter you are playing thinks to himself, 'Siege? With those gates? It'll be a bloodbath.' This place is in no shape to withstand a siege. If only you knew more about the enemy... So... What do you guys wanna do?"

Then, go from there. Naturally, if the PCs come up with ideas that you didn't think of, let them run with it and give them successes as appropriate. Allow them to use their skills in unique ways. For example, I once had a paladin make a Religion check to convert some kobolds to Bahamut instead of a Diplomacy check because he was trying to inspire them with a religious fable about Bahamut's origins. Encourage them to think outside the box. It's ok if they spam their "good skills" so long as they are coming up with unique ways to use those skills.

Second, the Seige, whereby the players each choose different locations (the mage most likely manning the arcane artillery that hopefully was completed in preparation) and different challenges are placed at these locations (i.e. Duel before the gates with enemy champion, getting the men to stand their ground before the undead horde, killing the seige monster (most likely job of artillery), healing the wounded in the triage, and pushing against the main gates as the battering ram hits it (strength, must last for a few turns)

Depending on how they did in the first phase, you can set up this phase in the fiction the same way.

"Alright. The sun is setting on the horizon, giving off a red cast to the sky, and you notice the burning embers of the hundreds of torches in the distance. It must be the enemy army. Time for preparations are over. As the army approaches, you can see the Boss clearly leading the army.

"We're beginning phase two. Failure means that you'll be in a world of hurt and the boss will have an edge. Success means you have fought off the bulk of the siege and you'll have the edge in the boss fight. Where do you guys want to position yourselves for the siege?"

Lastly, the Boss fight, where they smash Ninaran (the elf archer leading this) into bloody pulp. Note that they're all around lvl 2 going on 3.

Is this a phase of the skill challenge or a combat encounter at the end that you want to include as part of the overall challenge?

This might be a good time to introduce tiered successes into the challenge. You can even consider each phase as a success/failure. How many failures have they had?

None? This means the PCs have a huge advantage. Give them something good to work with. Maybe they even have some companion characters/minions to boss around during the boss fight.

One? Maybe they messed up the prep or the siege. If it was the prep, maybe there is a hole in their defenses they didn't notice before. Some of the boss' allies got in a back way. Give the boss some extra minions. If it was the siege, now they're fighting with their backs against the wall. Give the boss some terrain advantage or something.

Two? They failed at both the phases? Give the boss minions and put them PCs in a spot with their backs against the wall and no aid.

Something like that.

Furthermore, I have a strange feeling I may be pandering to the party's skillset, which is a HUGELY argued method of DMing. I could throw in a few dexterity and theivery based skillchecks, but man... they'll be in trouble there.

I wouldn't cater to the PCs skill set or try to hit their weak spots. Set up a reasonable challenge for them and let them try to knock it down. Don't expect certain results. If they lose the siege, then they lose the siege. The game can go on. Give them the option of escaping via an optional phase of a skill challenge. If they succeed at escaping, they see the town being overrun in the night, blazing and screams. Or, they might choose to stay and fight to the death. Just play your challenge you've set up. Give them choices. And, let them make the choices.

The other thing is i've given the paladin a big bonus on diplo (background in exchange for a few losses he had to make), and the mage for arcana (same) and slight ones for athletics for the berserker barbarian. I hope those won't throw them into thinking only of using those skills... any way to counter that, or jolt them into being inventive? They're generally good players, they know to RP despite this being their fourth session only, they CAN get inventive. I just need to push them more in that direction.

Like I said above, don't try to cater to certain skill sets, but also don't try to punish people for devoting their resources to certain skills. If someone has devoted many character resources to Diplomacy, they should shine when they try to use it. However, don't be afraid to put the Mage in a situation where he needs to use Athletics or the Paladin in a situation he needs to use Heal. Assume if a catapult hits the tower he's set up in, and it begins to crumble, the Mage will need to jump out to save his ass (or some other option he thinks up) and if the sergeant-at-arms gets gutted and needs to be stabilized so his troops don't tuck tail and run, then the Paladin needs to maybe make a Heal check.

Put your PCs in a situation as the event unfolds, and tell them the consequences for their actions.

"Mage, a massive ball of flame comes flying over the battlements. It's headed right toward the tower and you know it's going to do massive damage to the tower, maybe even forcing it to crumble down on you. What do you do?"

Oh and any thoughts on the scenario would be nice =)

Thanks in advance!

The scenario looks really fun! I'd be interested in hearing how it turns out! Come back and tell us about it!