Excerpt: skill challenges

[ZetaStriker]

I actually like the version that folks here were bandying about. It wasn't "Roll a random skill..." it was, "Do a little roleplaying and convince me that your skill is relevant to the challenge." I liked that. It strongly encouraged players to be engaged and creative.

I also specifically don't like what others have said here they do like: That some skills earn you automatic failures.

It's the problem of absolutes, again. You're telling me it is IMPOSSIBLE for my character to ever Intimidate the Duke? Just a flat out failure? Bad designers! Bad! It may be a semantic thing, but it's important. Crank the DC up by 5 or 10 points, but don't tell me it's literally impossible.

Overall Skill Challenges are a huge win. One of the best and biggest steps forward for the game, IMO.

Exactly what he said. I'll likely only use the Skill Challenge chapter as a guideline and houserule them into working as I imagined them... because if this except is indicative of the whole chapter, which I assume it is if they decided to use this as the preview, then their idea of Skill Challenges in awful. It's practically 'jump through the hoops the DM wants you to'.

 

[hcm]

I'm kinda worried this will mean that players just make a series of rolls and the GM tells them how it goes -- now where's the choice/tactics in that? Where's the game? Has someone seen any indication that the difficulty of the rolls are open to the players beforehand, so that they can choose the risk/chance at a specific roll? (This would make the challenge a game.) It looks like the dcs are hidden from the players. An example of this is the template with the intimidate skill. There is no tactical choice for the player; it's 'I roll intimidate -- what happens?' and the GM goes 'Ok, you fail.' The player obviously cannot calculate risk or chance in that example, for if he could, he'd never choose intimidate. No fun imo. (The character's choice "Do I dare to try to intimidate him?" is not what I'm looking for, for that kind of choices exist in any rp system and is nothing special.)

I don't see that the skill challenge is anything but a series of rolls, with no actual game-challenge for the players. I very much hope for someone (or the full skill challenge chapter) to show me wrong.

 

[Simon Marks]

There is a big difference between "If you try an intimidate the duke, you are going to get thrown out or into a fight" and hoop jumping.

Still, if people are going to object to a template they can not use a template. This isn't a mechanic, but an example. Nothing indicates it requires a house rule nor even deviating from RAW

 

[thalmin]

In both demo games in which I was involved, the skill check encounters encouraged a lot more than roll the dice. No one said "I will try Acrobatics." Instead, it was "I will try to Jackie Chan through the window." Everyone described the action or skill check in the best way to get a more favorable reaction from the DM to allow them to use that skill. There was even a note in the module for the DM that if anyone came up with a really good idea, a skill roll might not be needed. It did require imagination, both from the palyers and the DM.
I would consider that role playing and not just rolling dice.

 

[ForbidenMaster]

I'm kinda worried this will mean that players just make a series of rolls and the GM tells them how it goes -- now where's the choice/tactics in that? Where's the game? Has someone seen any indication that the difficulty of the rolls are open to the players beforehand, so that they can choose the risk/chance at a specific roll? (This would make the challenge a game.) It looks like the dcs are hidden from the players. An example of this is the template with the intimidate skill. There is no tactical choice for the player; it's 'I roll intimidate -- what happens?' and the GM goes 'Ok, you fail.' The player obviously cannot calculate risk or chance in that example, for if he could, he'd never choose intimidate. No fun imo. (The character's choice "Do I dare to try to intimidate him?" is not what I'm looking for, for that kind of choices exist in any rp system and is nothing special.)

I don't see that the skill challenge is anything but a series of rolls, with no actual game-challenge for the players. I very much hope for someone (or the full skill challenge chapter) to show me wrong.

In any given social encounter there will be more factors then whats in your post. If a PC has a really high intimidate skill and rolls really high, and still fails, then obviously choosing intimidate is is the wrong thing to do. That is how he calculates risk, by his own ability. If his attempt is poor and he succeeds then the PC knows that that particular skill is the key to the encounter. On the other hand, as state above, if his attempt is exceptional and he still fails then the PC knows that that particular skill isnt going to lead to failure.

As for it being a bunch of rolls, it isnt if you dont want it to be. You could require the PCs to actually rp their specific skill and give detailed circumstances, phrases, and actions which they are performing. For example, dont let a PC just say, "ok, I use diplomacy." Make the PC make a diplomatic statement; "You know duke, helping us out would really be helping yourself. Once those orcs are done with the city of Whitehall they are going to cross the river and raid your city. It would be best if you joined forces with Whitehall and made one quick crushing blow to the orc hord before they can do any more harm to this fair land" (or whatever).

 

[AllisterH]

Er, the setup line kind of determines what skills are applicable, is it not?

SETUP: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.


How does Intimidate actually do this? Intimidate seems like it would automatically make the NPC not TRUST the pcs...

 

[Celebrim]

LOL. Well, so much for 'narrativism' and 'distribution of narrative control'. Not only does the example skill challenge specify exactly what skills do and do not work, but it even specifies what action is involved in making each skill. That isn't to say that you couldn't run a skill challenge in a more narrativistic way (obviously some people are already doing so), but obviously that isn't the primary intent of the designers.

With that out of the way, I return to my claim that the primary point of skill challenges is to provide a frame work for non-combat challenges to be used in a tournament (or computer moderated format). The example skill challenge, for example, is easily translateable into a standard cRPG dialogue system.

 

[thalmin]

LOL. Well, so much for 'narrativism' and 'distribution of narrative control'. Not only does the example skill challenge specify exactly what skills do and do not work, but it even specifies what action is involved in making each skill.

I think it gives EXAMPLES of what might work, and examples of how they might work.

 

[AllisterH]

LOL. Well, so much for 'narrativism' and 'distribution of narrative control'. Not only does the example skill challenge specify exactly what skills do and do not work, but it even specifies what action is involved in making each skill. That isn't to say that you couldn't run a skill challenge in a more narrativistic way (obviously some people are already doing so), but obviously that isn't the primary intent of the designers.

With that out of the way, I return to my claim that the primary point of skill challenges is to provide a frame work for non-combat challenges to be used in a tournament (or computer moderated format). The example skill challenge, for example, is easily translateable into a standard cRPG dialogue system.

Heh..why am I not surprised you are here...

Anywa, all in all, I think this is good for the game as it isn't something that D&D has really thought about before. This at the minimum gives a novice DM something to work with...it may not be perfect but at least he knows from where to modify and what to change to his liking...

P.S. Um, have people forgotten this is an excerpt for an entire chapter apparently? I would assume there is more to skill challenges...geez, I can see why companies don't do previews..people basically want the entre thing

 

[Frostmarrow]

The example is too detailed but I'm not bothered. They are putting this stuff in a hard-cover book and so they feel the need to flesh it out. Skill challenges as a concept is great and I'm anticipating other RPGs to snag this puppy real soon. We're going to see lots of variations on this particular theme.

The complexity stat is interesting. I think that maybe not all possible sets of 6 (success) / 3 (failure), 5/1, 2/13, or whatever are viable and so their math-guy* have cherry picked the chart for the best ones.

In any event skill challenges is the new black. I'm looking forward to playing through them. In fact I think combat will be less common in 4E because when the DM need to jazz the game up he can chose between combat and challenge.

* What's his name again?