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

[jbear]

Well I don't know what combination of keys I just hit or how it even happened but I managed to swallow a pretty long and detailed post. And i'm not going there again tonight.
So let's see if I can be more conscise and get to the point.

To me, the essence of a skill challenge is about keeping things dynamic, rewarding engagement with the challenge, having exciting consequences for failure that complicates and changes the situation in a way that the PCs have to resolve that failure before they can continue doing whatever they were trying to do. I often set the difficulty of a skill check depending on what everyone is doing as a whole. Yes, 'the Face' IS good at bluffing, but the sharp eyed captain of the guard is also observing his twitchy friends while they talk.

Step A) Everyone describes to me what you are doing and how
Step B) I'll tell you what skill I want you to roll and give you a bonus for good ideas or even lower the DC for great ideas based on what you just told me
Step C) The result of these checks sets the difficulty of the Face's attempt to convince the guard of whatever fib he is about to let slip from his glib tongue.
Step D) The result determines the direction the action of the challenge takes.

I announce when a skill challenge has begun once it is underway (first meaningful roll is made). I also impose my norms on how players resolve a challenge. No one gets away with 'I use diplomacy on the guard', or 'I roll diplomacy'. I'm not interested in what they want to roll, I'm interested in what they do and say and how they go about that. That quite often requires a demonstration, especially with social interactions. Once again this is rewarded or penalised as I deem fair.

What I don't announce is the Primary and Secondary skills. I describe the situation. The plaers decide how they are going to deal with that situation. When the players ask me more things or begin to act, well the challenge has begun. They find the way to resolve it. I have a few possibilities thought out before hand and usually certain events that will happen at certain points to further complicate things. And I have thought out beforehand possible complications that could occur should they slip at certain points to make sure the players are actually challenged by the challenge.

I don't think it is the fact whether you announce a challenge explicitly or not that make or breaks a good skill challenge. It's what you do with the challenge after that which makes it fun, challenging, tense or memorable. My playstyle is not total immersion. I enjoy the fact that it is a game. I prefer immersion to be more like being at the beach or at the pool, you take a dip just at the right time and it's wonderful, and then back out to relax on the towel or in the deck chair charging up for the next dip. This helps avoid wierdness. This is my preference. Each to their own. But I'd say it was a fairly safe bet that any of my players would say that the skill challenges I've put them through have been fun, exciting and memorable.

 

[surfarcher]

My new group has one player who's played 4e before, and she hasn't played it a lot.

Nothing pulls togethor a group of adventurers who don't know each other togethor like an attack on the town sooooo at 3am... A string of combats with a skill challenge running across it, starting after the first encounter.

Some of the players have read about skill challenges but none never played one.

Queue my speech "OK the town is under attack. You've decided to help defend it. While you aren't fighting you'll want to think about how else you can help out the town. Normally I won't tell you this but this is a skill challenge. Normally I use a skill challenge as a way of tracking how close you will be to achieving some kind of goal and it'll be something you don't knwo about. But this is your first one so I'm letting you know up front, don't expect this kind of head's up for the next one."

ANyway that seems to have worked nicely

 

[Wednesday Boy]

To me, the essence of a skill challenge is about... ....having exciting consequences for failure that complicates and changes the situation...

Insightful post overall but I think this is one of the best points. Failing the skill challenge should throw an interesting roadblock at the characters but should not stymie them altogether. If failing a skill challenge makes for a more interesting story, the players will be more likely to be creative with their actions instead of sticking to the skills they are most trained in.

 

[Jhaelen]

I never announce them and so far it worked very well except once: It involved overland travel and for some reason noone thought to do anything but the mandatory Endurance check each day. I blame my lackluster description of their surroundings.

The next skill challenge (trying to get a group of npcs to cooperate with them) worked like a charm again, though one player got suspicious afterwards and wondered why I took everything they had said and done so seriously.

That's when I first explained to them the concept of skill challenges and mentioned that this had actually been their third skill challenge in that session.

 

[TikkchikFenTikktikk]

Since reading David Mamet’s Master Class Memo to the Writers of The Unit I essentially run my games as a succession of skill challenges.

SO: WE, THE WRITERS, MUST ASK OURSELVES OF EVERY SCENE THESE THREE QUESTIONS.

1) WHO WANTS WHAT?
2) WHAT HAPPENS IF HER DON’T GET IT?
3) WHY NOW?

THE ANSWERS TO THESE QUESTIONS ARE LITMUS PAPER. APPLY THEM, AND THEIR ANSWER WILL TELL YOU IF THE SCENE IS DRAMATIC OR NOT.

...snip...

EVERY SCENE MUST BE DRAMATIC. THAT MEANS: THE MAIN CHARACTER MUST HAVE A SIMPLE, STRAIGHTFORWARD, PRESSING NEED WHICH IMPELS HIM OR HER TO SHOW UP IN THE SCENE.

THIS NEED IS WHY THEY CAME. IT IS WHAT THE SCENE IS ABOUT. THEIR ATTEMPT TO GET THIS NEED MET WILL LEAD, AT THE END OF THE SCENE,TO FAILURE - THIS IS HOW THE SCENE IS OVER. IT, THIS FAILURE, WILL, THEN, OF NECESSITY, PROPEL US INTO THE NEXT SCENE.

ALL THESE ATTEMPTS, TAKEN TOGETHER, WILL, OVER THE COURSE OF THE EPISODE, CONSTITUTE THE PLOT.

ANY SCENE, THUS, WHICH DOES NOT BOTH ADVANCE THE PLOT, AND STANDALONE (THAT IS, DRAMATICALLY, BY ITSELF, ON ITS OWN MERITS) IS EITHER SUPERFLUOUS, OR INCORRECTLY WRITTEN.

(This, by the way, sums up why I ****ing hate "roleplaying" buying torches. Ugh. There should very rarely be drama involved in going to the grocery store.)

Do not tell the player's they are in a skill challenge. Give them a goal, then give them opportunities to fail in pursuit of that goal. Use skill checks as the mechanic to adjudicate whether they are getting closer to their goal or failing.

Make sure you are using the updated skill challenge rules from the Rules Compendium/Essentials. It has done away with the "three strikes and you're out" rule in favor of essentially saying (hah!): failure should have negative consequences.

Running skill challenges well is an art form. If you want to get good at an art you must practice.

Your giant skill challenge is very ambitious. If you haven't been using many skill challenges up to this point, it is probably too ambitious. If you start using the skill challenge framework more you will be more comfortable when you finally drop this awesome scenario on them.

Darn, I was going to make this short. Oh, well. It's free advice!

 

[TikkchikFenTikktikk]

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

Having just given you general advice on running skill challenges, I've reread your scenario. So let me get more specific:

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?

Set very difficult DCs for those skills. Let them fail. Have NPCs suggest that no matter how diplomatic the Paladin tries to be, the timbers won't nail themselves to the gates (for example). At the extreme end, if they fail at trying different things, they fail to adequately prepare the keep. And then they and everyone they know and love dies.

place the situations and events before them and hope they react to them in inventive ways?

This.

Give them enough information that they know what they should try, or know who to go to to ask what they should try next. They are new adventurers, so they should be able to fall back on the grizzled veteran, the kindly matron, etc., for advice and instruction.

Being veteran veterans and aged matrons, they are likely to give unsolicited advice. Whether the players heed that advice is up to the players.

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

You haven't created a skill challenge. You have created several related skill challenges.

Just describing the preparation, you've listed at least five skill challenges that have serious consequences if they fail.

I don't see any reason to tell your player's they are in a Skill Challenge. They will be faced with challenges that they must use skills (as opposed to powers) to solve. No reason to be too on the nose about it.

Good luck, have fun!

 

[Trythos]

Man, it seems that I had forgotten to update everyone on what happened, really sorry about that =)

Anyway, it was awesome.
My basic idea remained the same but there was loads of improvization I had to do.

In the end, the party spent most of their preparatory phase trying to invent gunpowder... and by some miracle succeeding (well, they did describe to me the process of finding saltpeter in the town's cesspits and so on, so it was kinda believable). Following that, they chopped down a whole lot of trees, getting the workforce of the town to dig tunnels beneath the enemy lines for the whole day. Then, the barbarian and the cleric decided to go scout behind the enemy lines to find out what they were up against, upon which they almost died while kicking the nemy commander off the cliff he was standing upon while using an archaic binoculars =) They also found out about the seige engine I had planned to use against them (a death golem actually), and marked out important spots.

Oh and I used a huge map for all this, which I drew out before the session.

Anyway, the trees they chopped down were drenched in strong alchohol, of which the town had much supply of, while the empty barrels of whisky were filled with gunpowder, which they snuck beneath the enemy lines, specifically beneath the golem. They did a few other things which I cant really remember, and then they actually wrote out a long intricate plan detailing their strategy, down the the minutes...

0530 - Rousing Speech
0531 - Rosuing Speech contd. accompanied by Explosions (Gunpowder Grp1)
0540 - End Rousing Speech, Volley 1 by Archers on West Wall
0545 - First Bombardment Run by Tower
0555 - Mounted Archers Flank and Harass
0600 - Mounted Archers Retreat into City through side entrance, Break supports and collapse once through.

And so on. Eventually, they started rolling flaming barrels and trees into the foe and blowing them up, while the golem ended up legless but still clawing towards the gate. Just as the golem reached the gate, the paladin ran up, and cast his daily on it, and crit, causing a huge divine beam to blow it to bits (which was a miracle cos it was lvl 14ish)

Haha they lost the duel though, the barbarian having atrociously horrible rolls. The undead champion spared him, turning and walking back towards the enemy lines, while the mage, having none of that honor stuff, blew it to bits the moment it walked out of the protective circle.

Eventually, they won, barely, calling in a favour from a nearby Lord, and reinforcements arrived just in time.

Many other things happened, like battles in the city, defending the Lord while he was down, and Sallying Forth, which was awesome.

Anway, thanks for the help! My players messaged me later that night, telling me it was one of the best sessions they've ever had.