Excerpt: skill challenges

[billd91]

I find it notable that none of your scenarios involves immunity to intimidation. Its all role-playing. Thats the point. The immunity discourages role-playing and just going with die rolls coupled with arbitrary limits, rather than dealing with the consequences of the players' actions.

I fail to see how a particular immunity to a particular negotiation tactic somehow discourages role playing any more than not being immune would. Am I missing something about the immunity that prevents the DM from role-playing the Duke's reaction and the consequences that fall from it?

 

[billd91]

When the challenge says the Duke can't be intimidated, we don't have to read that as immune to fear. It just means that its impossible to intimidate him. We do have to read that as immunity to intimidation. Unless he's mindless or otherwise immune to fear though, this is a bit much. It's like claiming that the Duke always wins initiative because he's paranoid. Claiming that the Duke is difficult to persuade or intimidate because he percieves the PC's as inferior is one thing. Claiming that threatening a Duke has negative reprocusions is one thing. But claiming that its impossible is bad design. The only reason you'd do it is if you wanted to avoid disruptions to the plot so you are dropping hints at how you won't tolerate attempts to circumvent the established plot line by rullng any such attempt automatically fails. Personally, I'd only do that kind of thing in a tournament situation. But given how well known arguments against having absolutes in your game are, I don't see how saying absolutes are bad design for general gameplay requires a huge justification.

Let's relate this back to the example of the skill challenge. Making an intimidation check counts as a failure on the road to achieving success and a failure at the whole thing may lead to actual antagonism from him. Well, there you go. Threatening the Duke, even if the PC is successfully intimidating has negative repercussions that will prevent them from achieving the ultimate goal of the encounter - the NPCs assistance through trust and mutual gain. Instead, you get the failure option, which you will notice is left open to some interpretation and can include antagonism from the Duke.

It looks to me that the sample skill challenge really is giving you what you say you want.

 

[pemerton]

I don't know where I stand overall on the Intimidate issue, but a few responses to what has been said so far:

If all three social skills can be used equally in all social encounters, then all you are doing is splitting up skill points for no reason. If all three are the same, then there are two too many.

To reiterate an earlier point: if all three social skills are always valid in all social encounters, then there is no need for three skills.

I don't agree with this. The skills have quite different flavour/colour, and (depending on the play experience the players and GM are after) this can be pretty important.

you distinguish the skills better by having them be more or less useful depending on your chosen approach.

Importance can be RPing importance rather than mechanical/tactical importance.

In 4e demos I've run this as each player telling me how their character interacts in story form and what skill they want to use.... Worked a charm.

Sounds good to me. The different RPing implications of using different approaches (Diplomacy vs Intimidate) are important in themselves.

A railroad is "I'm sorry, but you can't attack the duke," not "when you take actions, there are consequences."

Although if the consequences are determined unilaterally by the GM, without the players being able to predict it via the mechanics (or GM forewarning) it can become problematic. (I'm not saying that this is the case for the template, which allows Insight to predict the Intimidate failure.)

On the issue of intimidate (which I can't believe is still going), I understand what both sides are saying. I do think we are caught up in the difference between whether it's possible to intimidate someone and whether intimidating that person will accomplish the goal you're after.

Except, as Torchlyte has emphasised, a successful Intimdate skill check means that the person does what the PC wants. If the Intimidate doesn't produce what the PC wants, then (as Celebrim also notes) this means it failed.

 

[Warbringer]

Then maybe that's a situation where you SHOULD permit the use of Intimidate. But not all situations fall into that rubric.

Player: Gorth holds up his big battleaxe and quietly suggests that the Duke tells them where they can find the leader of the Crimson Fist. Gorth doesn't care that the leader is his second cousin.
DM: So you're trying to intimidate into telling him you?
Player: Well I'm hinting that if he doesn't I'll get physical
DM: The Duke sneers. "You think you scare me, barbarian?"
Player: Oh. pausing ..then I swing the axe.... 20! Crit...48 damage!!!
DM: DM blinks... The Duke reels in pain, and screams for his guards. Dozens of armed men pour into the room. "You think I'd meet a mad dog like you without protection?" he yells in rage. Roll initiative.
Player: Uh, how many men was that?
DM: You don't have time to count them all. Probably two dozen, and it looks like there's more waiting behind them that don't quite fit into the room. They're armored and well equipped, though.
Player: Uh, Gorth doesn't think he can kill the Duke's entire army.
DM: Gorth should have thought of that in advance. He knew the Duke had an army, he knew he was in the Duke's castle, and he physically assaulted the Duke with lethal force of his own free will.
Player: Crap. Well, you wouldn't put a challenge in my way if I couldn't beat it, right? This is maybe a Level 6 encounter or so?
DM: Or so. Very much or so. Gorth should consider coming back in his next life as a person less prone to rash decisions.
Player 2: I put my hands up in the air and loudly proclaim that I had nothing to do with this.

funny ...

 

[Warbringer]

Priceless!

And proving that this is far from a railroad. A railroad is "I'm sorry, but you can't attack the duke," not "when you take actions, there are consequences."

It is a railroad when the option is not available. To say you cannot intimidate is saying that you can't attack the Duke, within the confines of social encounter

Similarly, there's nothing railroad-y about deciding that intimidate will not be successful in getting you closer to your goal.

There is a difference between having a clearly defined consequence for an action, and not allowing an action. The latter is railroading...

How many eventually decided they'd had enough and pulled out submachine guns?

edited...

Clearly intimidation only goes so far.

Especially when the encounter says it can go nowhere.

 

[Spatula]

There is a difference between having a clearly defined consequence for an action, and not allowing an action. The latter is railroading...

The clearly defined consequence is that attempting to Intimidate the Duke results in one failure for the purpose of completing the skill challenge.

 

[Fifth Element]

It is a railroad when the option is not available. To say you cannot intimidate is saying that you can't attack the Duke, within the confines of social encounter

You can intimidate the Duke. He is not immune to Intimidate. But the consequences of the intimidation, which you are free to do, are undesirable in the circumstances. It's like casting lighting bolt at a creature that is healed by electricity. You can do it, but the consequences are undesirable.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

You can intimidate the Duke. He is not immune to Intimidate. But the consequences of the intimidation, which you are free to do, are undesirable in the circumstances. It's like casting lighting bolt at a creature that is healed by electricity. You can do it, but the consequences are undesirable.

I think the problem here is that people are approaching this from 2 different angles. Perhaps I can explain both of them so there can be a little more understanding here.

Some people are saying that when you use Intimidate successfully then people do what you want, no matter what that is. It is a skill that should be usable on everyone and should be able to succeed as long as you roll high enough.

Other people are saying that Intimidate doesn't make people do what you want, it just Intimidates people and the consequences of being Intimidated are decided upon by the DM based on the character of the person who is being Intimidated(i.e. some people act violently, some crawl into a ball and beg for their lives, some people do what you asked them to, etc).

I wish I could clarify which one is what the 4e PHB says, but I can't. It seems, however, that this is, once again, a matter of playstyles. The first option is very simulationist. It is about finding the exact number required to do something and knowing that it works the same every single time that you roll well enough to achieve that result. The second is a lot more narrativistic. The skill has different effects based on the needs of the storyline that is currently going on.

 

[Celebrim]

Other people are saying that Intimidate doesn't make people do what you want, it just Intimidates people and the consequences of being Intimidated are decided upon by the DM based on the character of the person who is being Intimidated(i.e. some people act violently, some crawl into a ball and beg for their lives, some people do what you asked them to, etc).

If this is what Intimidate does, then I think it safe to say that there would be no reason whatsoever to ever invest in the skill. Afterall, if all intimidate does is cause the NPC to act in some manner which is reasonable for having been threatened according to the personality of the NPC, then you can force this behavior from an NPC at any time merely by role playing being threatening - no skill check required.

No. All three social skills cause NPC's to act in particular ways. Diplomacy causes an NPC to agree with you (or become agreeable). Bluff causes an NPC to believe in something that your character does not believe. Intimidate causes an NPC to do something that they don't want to do and which may not even be in thier interests.

Of the three, conceptually intimidate is actually the most powerful since it works even on people who don't like you. However, intimidate carries a huge drawback. Whoever you intimidate or try to intimidate becomes more hostile to you. This makes other sorts of social interaction more difficult - its harder to convince an enemy with diplomacy than a friend. It's easier to lie to someone who doesn't have good reason to be suspicious of you. Moreover, in a comparitively short time - usually not long after your out of sight or your back is turned - the intimidated person regains sufficient confidence to act on thier new found hostility. They start trying to find ways to work against you. If you turn to intimidate to try to resolve every or even most social confict, pretty soon you find yourself surrounded by enemies.

Someone suggested that intimidate had to be impossible in some situations or else there would be no point in having more than one social skill since they would then all be the same. I would think that there is a very big difference between getting what you wanted from a friendly, trusting, and loyal Duke, and getting what you want from a hostile, furious Duke who will plot his revenge on you at the first oppurtunity.

I wish I could clarify which one is what the 4e PHB says, but I can't.

Well, if 4E is written as badly as 3E's social skills, even knowing what the PH says won't clarify how it is supposed to work.

 

[Lacyon]

I would think that there is a very big difference between getting what you wanted from a friendly, trusting, and loyal Duke, and getting what you want from a hostile, furious Duke who will plot his revenge on you at the first oppurtunity.

For example, the Duke you tried to intimidate might say he's going to give you what you want and then not actually do so once you're no longer in a position to bully him.