Excerpt: skill challenges

[Stormtalon]

Why are we assuming long term aid? I certainly didn't. My scenario was "tell us what we want to know." There are no prolonged troop deployments or long-term goals which require the Duke to stay helpful. So I don't buy your "Intimidate wouldn't work in 3.x", because clearly it would it my scenario.

Ummmm, because the encounter template being referred to explicitly states that the scenario revolves around winning the Duke's trust so he will provide aid, possibly in the form of men and materiel? That's long-term aid in my book. This isn't a "Grill the Duke and pump him for info so we can get on our way," situation. It's a "Befriend the Duke and hope to hell he will finance our expedition or at least provide escorts and a writ of passage through territory X."

 

[kclark]

I'm wondering if this whole Intimidate debate might be solved by the idea of a "false positive" result. Sure you can use Intimidate on the duke, you might even convince him to give into your demands, however you have not proved yourself trustworthy and therefore although you get the aid requested, you get it with stings attached, or dagger in your back at some inconvient time... so you seem to succeed at the skill challenge, but actually fail it.

I like the idea of "false positives"... I wonder if there would be a way to work in "false negatives" too...

Love this idea.

A fun "false negative" would be the duke rejecting your seemingly convincing arguments and entreaties. Despite your best efforts you end up getting rudely ushered out of the audience chamber with the duke bellowing at you to never show your face here again. Reality is the duke suspects one of his closest advisors and does not want to let on that he suspects him. So he sets up this ruse and sends the one man that he knows he can trust to rendevous with the party. The duke knew his trusted man couldn't handle everything by himself, but the party actually convinced the duke that they could.

I think a scene like that could be fun to roleplay every now and then. The group seem to be doing everything right yet everything seems to go wrong. That right there should set some cogs spinning in their heads and you can choose to use the trusted man as the instigator of the party getting involved, or just be the reward for winning the social encounter as the trusted man can pull some strings along the way that they would not have been able to otherwise and get them on their way to the borderlands and stomping some lizardmen. Or best of all both, do some lizard stomping and now you got a fun hook that they can pursue afterwards.

 

[Ingolf]

By extension I suppose all the folks that Intimidate does work on just really love being bullied.

The Duke also doesn't like being lied to, so he's immune to Bluff.

Isn't the point of Bluff that the target doesn't recognize it as a lie, though? And isn't it fairly obvious when someone is trying to intimidate you?

He also doesn't like having to capitulate under any circumstances-- he's used to getting his way and he's just not the sort of person who is ever going to give an inch, no matter what-- so he's immune to Diplomacy.

That's a perfectly valid if annoying personality trait. I've known people like that in real life - as has any parent of a two-year-old. It makes for un-fun NPCs, though, as any interaction with them feels like the DM is just stonewalling. But on occassion even that might be appropriate.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the DM deciding that certain skills just will not work in certain situations, and the people screaming "railroad" don't understand the term. I am all in favor of the players taking some measure of control over the narrative - I love it, in fact - but that doesn't mean I have to let them do whatever they please, whenever they please, no matter how nonsensical it is.

Try to bully the head of the Duchy in my campaign and you can bet your sweet ass you'll be talking to the jailer in short order.

 

[Spatula]

Player: "I swear by my life, no man may besmirch my honor and live. I don't care if you are surrounded by your guards, nor even that I may lose my life in the bargain, but if you dare question my trustworthiness again, I will cut you down where you stand."

DM: "The Duke is taken aback, but clearly impressed by your manner. After a moment he laughs. Standing up, he claps you on the back. 'By the Gods, man, I wish I had a captain among my guard with such balls!'"

Eh, I don't think that being prickly about your honor really qualifies as an Intimidate check. The PC isn't trying to convince the Duke that the Duke's life is in danger, so much as impressing on him that the PC is prepared to die to defend his own honor.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I'm wondering if this whole Intimidate debate might be solved by the idea of a "false positive" result. Sure you can use Intimidate on the duke, you might even convince him to give into your demands, however you have not proved yourself trustworthy and therefore although you get the aid requested, you get it with stings attached, or dagger in your back at some inconvient time... so you seem to succeed at the skill challenge, but actually fail it.

I like the idea of "false positives"... I wonder if there would be a way to work in "false negatives" too...

I think that's the idea. The PCs are not neccessarily supposed to know how much successes and failures they got. (That's also why a "total" failure doesn't mean the adventure stops, they just don't get what they wanted, and the individual skill checks and the narration combined with it can explain what will go wrong later...)

 

[Celebrim]

Gee, we've devolved into a thread about what the intimidate skill means.

Intimidate refers to the skill of getting people who do not like you and who do not agree with you to do what you want them to do anyway.

You can recognize the use of the Intimidate skill by the fact that it has a threat in it - that is the proposition stakes that if the target doesn't agree you will do something negative in responce. The threat can be as unsubtle as 'Do this or I'll beat you up', to as subtle as, 'If you don't do what I want, I won't be your friend anymore'.

One can imagine an intimidate check being, "Your Grace, if you value our friendship, then you will send your troops to Pickford."

Friends try to intimidate friends in this manner pretty regularly. Sometimes it spells disaster (failed check) and the friendship (or marriage or whatever) is over. Done regularly, and the friendship sours failed check or not. But its a natural human tactic, and we can even imagine honorable heroes like Conan or John Carter making this very sort of claim, "If you have ever valued the friendship of John Carter, then send your warships to the lost sea or else count me no more a friend."... sort of thing.

The fact that the challenge is set up such that you can only get the aid by winning the Duke's trust is itself a railroad. The challenge ought to be 'Get the Duke's Aid'. Winning his trust and support is just one way to do it. Scaring the Duke into going along by repeatedly intimidating him every time he works against you would be another, albiet probably more difficult path (assuming you are less terrifying than Zeus).

Likewise, there are middle grounds. As part of a larger social challenge, dangling carrots via diplomacy and displaying sticks via intimidate is a perfectly acceptable strategy. Maybe the Duke reacts badly to intimidation, but saying that he's immune to it is IMO poor design. Better design might be to say that intimidate has hard difficulty amd each time intimidate is used (successful or not) the DC of all charisma based checks in the challenge goes up by 2.

 

[Spatula]

The fact that the challenge is set up such that you can only get the aid by winning the Duke's trust is itself a railroad. The challenge ought to be 'Get the Duke's Aid'. Winning his trust and support is just one way to do it.

The challenge is an example with no context. Why should it be anything other than what it is? A "get the Duke's aid" challenge makes sense, too, but that's not what this example is.

 

[Fanaelialae]

That's something to remember as a DM. If the players use intimidation to get their way, they just supplied you a free plot hook that, when used, will increase immersion by showing them that their choices have real consequences. As for success vs failure, I would say it's a success if they get what they want (at least temporarily) and a failure if they get kicked out.



Exactly. The question then isn't whether or not intimidate should be an automatic failure, but whether the stated goal for the skill challenge was chosen properly. The DM is railroading because there's no reason that the PCs shouldn't be able to use intimidation to get what they want (except for "cuz I decided that the plot should go like this, guys"). If that brings later troubles, so be it. The example challenge here sucks because it makes a dumb assumption.

To quote the article:
Success or failure in a skill challenge also influences the course of the adventure—the characters locate the temple and begin infiltrating it, or they get lost and must seek help. In either case, however, the adventure continues. With success, this is no problem, but don’t fall into the trap of making progress dependent on success in a skill challenge. Failure introduces complications rather than ending the adventure. If the characters get lost in the jungle, that leads to further challenges, not the end of the adventure.

Furthermore, the Failure result states:
Failure: The characters are forced to act without the NPC’s assistance. They encounter more trouble, which may be sent by the NPC out of anger or antagonism.

It's fine if you want to define failure results for templates that you write differently, but it's fairly clear from this article that for this particular template it would be reasonable for the duke to appear to capitulate to the PCs' intimidate-based demands while in truth attempting to kill them. (The duke agrees to send his troops with you, but orders his men to kill you at the first opportunity). IMO, if the duke sends his men along simply to "take care" of the PCs, he isn't assisting them.

 

[Celebrim]

The challenge is an example with no context. Why should it be anything other than what it is?

If it was your job to publish excerpts and sample material to sell a product, wouldn't you use the best examples you had? Wouldn't you want to publish material that made people go, "Wow, this is so great!".

A "get the Duke's aid" challenge makes sense, too, but that's not what this example is.

Agreed. 'Get the Duke's aid' is a well designed challenge, and this isn't.

My point is that claiming that intimidate being impossible isn't a railroad by pointing out that the scenario was described in such a way that intimidate was at odds of the goal of the encounter is no defence, because the goal itself is then described in terms which are also a railroad. A well stated goal only explains the primary outcome in the event of success or defeat. It doesn't explain how it is to be accomplished. By definition, if the scenario states that the only way to get from point A to point B is to do this, then its a railroad.

 

[Simon Marks]

"No-one minds a railroad if it leads to awesome town" - SteveD