Excerpt: skill challenges

[Thasmodious]

Jeebus, are you people still going on about this?

Look, it's simple. Its ONE example of a skill challenge. In that ONE example, the imaginary DM decided that intimidation would be counter productive. That was not a statement on the effectiveness of intimidation in all negotiations, or some method of railroading players, cutting off options or robbing the situation of roleplaying. All it is, is an example of how the DM can define the parameters of a skill challenge, adding to the tactical depth of the encounter. Not every skill is going to work in every case. Some skill challenges will be really open, some others will be more narrowly defined. The DM is still there, in person. The challenge is not being applied by a computer overlord. If a player RPs an attempt at intimidation so well he convinces the DM it should work, the DM is free to allow it, even though he wrote in his adventure notes, "intimidation counts as a failure".

It's like a combat encounter - there's a near infinite variety to what you can do. You can fight in an empty 10x10 room over a pie or in a 300' radius cavern with multiple levels, bridges, tunnels, pools, lava and anything else you can think of. The DM sets the parameters of every combat encounter, and he will set the parameters of every skill challenge. That isn't the same thing as railroading, it's called adventure design.

 

[Voss]

Where in reality it might go something like:

DM: The duke has granted an audience with you.
Player 1: I use Diplomacy Attack 1.
DM: You loose 10XP, and from now on roleplay or you will loose more.

You can take the roleplaying out of any aspect of D&D, but usually a player who constantly does so is one who you might not want at your table.

You might. But there isn't any indication given that the core rules have that expectation. He is quite correct that you could run the skill challenges, as presented, as a series of 8-10 dice rolls in under 60 seconds.

So, Jasperak, in answer to your original question, Yes, you can handwave the roleplaying part of the encounter. Its kind of sad, but as presented, you totally can.

 

[Rechan]

Jeebus, are you people still going on about this?

I'm pretty much convinced that some people are bound and determined to look at every single thing that comes out with brown-colored glasses. I'm shocked that when we were given a glimpse of feats, there wasn't an outcry that these were the only feats we would have.

These excerpts aren't word for word. They are trailers for 4e rules. "How ever will the PCs solve the problem with these rules? FIND OUT IN JUNE!"

 

[Lacyon]

Really, what from the excerpt says that I have to say anything other than I use my Diplomacy Power?

Nothing.

Likewise, nothing in 3E says that you have to say anything other than "I roll Diplomacy."

Likewise, nothing in 2E says that you have to say anything other than "I convince the dude to help me."

Whether or not this is acceptable practice depends, as it always has, on the (typically unspoken) customs and preferences of an individual playgroup.

 

[Fanaelialae]

You might. But there isn't any indication given that the core rules have that expectation. He is quite correct that you could run the skill challenges, as presented, as a series of 8-10 dice rolls in under 60 seconds.

So, Jasperak, in answer to your original question, Yes, you can handwave the roleplaying part of the encounter. Its kind of sad, but as presented, you totally can.

This isn't any different from any past edition of D&D though, so why should it matter? I've never seen any rules forcing one to role play. If I crack open the skills chapter of my 3.x books there's virtually nothing on the subject (of RP).

A group RPs because they want to (or not). This just gives a solid mechanical framework to underlay all that RP, which is all the rules have ever done, to the best of my knowledge.

 

[Jasperak]

Hi Jasperak,

First off, you crack me up.

Secondly, the rules can't force you to roleplay. That was true in 3E and its true in 4E. The main difference now is that more than one skill (and skill check) is involved in any given non-combat encounter AND the entire party participates (instead of just The Face or The Skillmonkey doing all the social heavy lifting).

If you really hate skill challenges that much, I'm confident that binary opposed skill checks are still in the game. Honest.

Laterz.

Thanks. I don't hate Skill Challenges so much as I am concerned with the ONE template that we saw from the INCREDIBLY SHORT excerpt, there was not a single sentence leading me to believe that there would be any benefit to actually role-playing the encounter instead of roll-playing it.

I apologize to all for my snark; it comes as much from 3e as well as this excerpt with regards to social encounters. I look forward to seeing more info, but right now I am not impressed.

And really I participated in ONE RPGA event. The DM was such a moron that I wanted to boil everything down to a simple die roll, because he had the adventure running abilities of a sandwich. Game Parlor, Chantilly VA 2002.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

It's not a railroad. It's a cave-in blocking a tunnel through the mountains. The players can still choose from a few other alternate paths. Railroading is when all the alternate paths are closed except for the tunnel through the mountains (or whichever road the DM wants the PCs to take).

True. Besides, I don't think railroading is even bad in all cases. A lot of people on these boards shout "Railroad!" all the time like its the end of the world.

(I'd like to state in advance that although some of my ideas may be similar to some of the ideas presented in the 4e DMG, that I'm not trying to break my NDA for anyone who might be reading this. A lot of them are common sense and things I knew about role playing long before I read it. Please don't hurt me.)

That being said, let's move on.

The idea of designing and running an adventure is fairly simple. You, as a DM, are supposed to come up with framework and basic "shell" of the adventure. The players interact with that shell and provide the details.

It's a lot like a choose your own adventure novel. As a DM, you design a "problem" or "conflict". Then you present the idea to the players. There are large portions of the adventure that you'll be able to predict in advance as they will be so obvious or completely out of the player's hands.

For instance: There is an evil wizard who is trying to take over the world. In order to do this, he has summoned a Demon Prince who will eventually provide him with an army of demonic creatures to take it over. However, he has to do something for the Demon Prince first. He must provide the Prince's minions with a large amount of humans to be used as food. The wizard doesn't want to draw too much attention to him so he has paid some slavers for that many slaves. Problem is that the slavers don't have that many. So they are traveling around the country kidnapping people who are walking down the road or in the middle of the night in alleys.

So, you have the plot of an adventure.

Next, you need a framework of how an adventure will likely play out: The PCs are in a city when they hear rumors about people going missing mysteriously. They will likely investigate and be lead to the slavers who will give up the wizard who the PCs will track down and defeat.

That's the basic framework. It plays out in a couple of different modes:

Exploration: The players interact with their immediate environment. You narrate what their environment looks like, what the NPCs around them do, and answer questions.
Combat: The players battle some enemies.
Decisions: The players are given the choice as to which direction the plot takes(either short term or long term)

The point of all this?

Players aren't supposed to be able to make decisions ALL the time during an adventure. They don't get to decide what the NPCs do, they don't get to decide what rooms look like, they don't get to decide what happens to them if they choose to go left rather than right. In all those cases, it is up to the DM to "railroad" them. It is only at the Decision points that the PCs are given the choice of which way to go or what to do.

How does this all relate to Skill Challenges? Well, one thing to keep in mind is that a Skill Challenge should be run in Exploration mode. In the same way that you would describe a room of a dungeon and allow the players to interact with it, so should a skill challenge provide the players a chance to do something, have the results of the action explained to them and try something else.

Some skills might never be used because the chance to use them doesn't come up in the running narrative of the skill challenge. I think that's the key to understanding them. At least it was for me. I can say that running skill challenges has not been easy for me. It is a whole new skill to learn and it requires thinking in a bit different way than I am used to.

 

[Torchlyte]

And if they did then it would be an automatic fail right? This entire template is based on a situation in which "for the NPC to provide assistance, the PCs need to convince him or her of their trustworthiness and that their cause helps the NPC in some way."

If you change the scenario then the template no longer applies.

Refer to this exchange:

I'll grant you that, lacking context, that's reasonable.

Nonetheless, if the context of the adventure is that the PCs' liege lord (Baron Somethingorother) sent the PCs to investigate the borderlands and told the PCs to try to earn the duke's trust and aid, then it makes sense that failing to do so would result in failure of the challenge.

I'd say that it's really a matter of perspective.

If that is the context, it would be acceptable. My worry is that this was intended as a general example, and I think in that case it would encourage the wrong mindset in new/inexperienced DMs.

-------------------------------

Jeebus, are you people still going on about this?

Look, it's simple. Its ONE example of a skill challenge. In that ONE example, the imaginary DM decided that intimidation would be counter productive. That was not a statement on the effectiveness of intimidation in all negotiations, or some method of railroading players, cutting off options or robbing the situation of roleplaying. All it is, is an example of how the DM can define the parameters of a skill challenge, adding to the tactical depth of the encounter. Not every skill is going to work in every case. Some skill challenges will be really open, some others will be more narrowly defined. The DM is still there, in person. The challenge is not being applied by a computer overlord. If a player RPs an attempt at intimidation so well he convinces the DM it should work, the DM is free to allow it, even though he wrote in his adventure notes, "intimidation counts as a failure".

It's like a combat encounter - there's a near infinite variety to what you can do. You can fight in an empty 10x10 room over a pie or in a 300' radius cavern with multiple levels, bridges, tunnels, pools, lava and anything else you can think of. The DM sets the parameters of every combat encounter, and he will set the parameters of every skill challenge. That isn't the same thing as railroading, it's called adventure design.

Why don't you read the arguments that have already been presented with regards to each of your points, and then respond to them? That's how I would do it.

I'm pretty much convinced that some people are bound and determined to look at every single thing that comes out with brown-colored glasses. I'm shocked that when we were given a glimpse of feats, there wasn't an outcry that these were the only feats we would have.

These excerpts aren't word for word. They are trailers for 4e rules. "How ever will the PCs solve the problem with these rules? FIND OUT IN JUNE!"

Actually, a few of the people that are usually anti-4e liked this example. I, on the other hand, am fairly positive about 4e but think this is a bad example.

 

[Voss]

This isn't any different from any past edition of D&D though, so why should it matter? I've never seen any rules forcing one to role play. If I crack open the skills chapter of my 3.x books there's virtually nothing on the subject (of RP).

A group RPs because they want to (or not). This just gives a solid mechanical framework to underlay all that RP, which is all the rules have ever done, to the best of my knowledge.

Thats... uh... fine. However he wasn't asking about any of that. He was asking about this specific subsystem of 4e and getting a bunch of answers that amounted to 'Well, *I* wouldn't do it that way, so you can't.'

I just figured someone ought to address his actual question rather than wander off on tangents about personal preferences. And given the presentation, the answer is yes, you can ignore the RP aspect with this system. It isn't a commentary on whether its good, bad whether you could do it in 3e or while playing Tunnels and Trolls. Just an answer to whether or not the skill challenge system can reduce an RP encounter to a roll-off.

 

[ferratus]

My opinion about the skill checks is that social skills should have a "x action fails to sway this particular character". This is for the same reason that you can't intimidate or sway a PC with diplomacy if he doesn't feel like it. It forces the character to change his personality in an awkward way compared to how he usually acts.

So instead of viewing the Duke as an NPC, you should probably view him as a DMC (Dungeon Master Character). In this case, the DM wants the players to view a character who wields authority and demands respect. To be successfully intimidated by the character goes against the Duke's rank, his experience, against the power he wields, and most importantly the DM's conception of the character. I suppose you could make the DC of intimdate skill check so high that the players can't reach it... but if that is the case why not call it impossible?

I can see situations where the diplomacy might be an automatic failure, but intimidate might work. For example, you might have a revolutionary zealot who is secretly a coward. However, the bluff skill, insight skill, and other opposed skills should not be automatic failures, because they don't change behavior of the PC or NPC engaging in them.

This is simply giving the DM the tools to do what he has been doing all along anyway. Allowing the DM to act out his character the way he intends it to act. It isn't railroading, it is preventing PC's from bulldozing over every plot with a skill check.

P.S. Am I the only one who notices that the evil advisor is Scott Rouse?