Failure stakes for a travel Skill Challenge

[pemerton]

You can't use permanent items - you'll get your tires slashed...

This was funny - but permanent items as staked/lost resources has actually been a recurrent feature of my 4e play.

 

[Sadras]

This was funny - but permanent items as staked/lost resources has actually been a recurrent feature of my 4e play.

I suspect it is much easier in a system such as 4e with treasure parcels. Costly but easier.

I have only green lit it once in our 5e game where I ruled an Arcana DC 30 (only time above 20) which could be fueled via permanent and consumable magical items providing various bonuses to the roll.

 

[darkbard]

This was funny - but permanent items as staked/lost resources has actually been a recurrent feature of my 4e play.

Agreed! I chuckled when I read [MENTION=22362]MoutonRustique[/MENTION]'s comment but at the same time thought of your actual play reports in which the PCs, for example, leveraged their flying tower in an SC, if memory serves (it rarely does these days). I think it's one of those remarkable instances wherein one can tell that the stakes are just as meaningful to the players as they are to the PCs! (For, as MoutonRustique notes, players hate giving up precious items in about equal proportion to their unwillingness to fail a meaningful encounter. Choosing between the two makes for great tension at the table.)

 

[Manbearcat]

I don’t have the time necessary to address the various points here, but one thing right quickly.

There are more non-thematic pressure points in 4e than is being discussed:

1) There is an assumed, rolling level-1 fungible coin (which can come in the form of, or be used to purchase, residuum, favors/SC successes, Cohorts/Hirelings in the way of Companion Characters, funding Rituals, Mounts, Cobsumables, etc). This, IMO, is one of the, if not the, most significant resources to leverage (either the actual coin itself or related assets).

2) Healing Surges (of course).

3) Recharge capability broadly or the specific recharge of a magic item or Utility.

4) Companion Characters (which may or may not be sentient things).

5) Artifacts.

 

[MoutonRustique]

To riff off an idea from The One Ring / Burning Wheel, you could give each character a number of Hope points equal to, say, half their Wisdom. When they run out of Hooe the character has succumbed to despair and has to retire.

Now your characters have a currency to wager / lose on their travels and one which has an ongoing and long-term impact.

In 4e, this could probably be folded into "death" saves - which would become more along the lines of "destiny" saves or "fate" saves (or something).

It works pretty well with the idea of a major setback, wound, despair, or etc. Of course, it would probably be a good idea to increase the amount they have... maybe 5 ?

To keep the screws on, a long rest in a safe place could allow only for the recuperation of a single "point". Players would need to complete a major quest to regain more.

Or one could tie them to milestones - or something else, but it's a cool lever.

 

[Manbearcat]

I would say, I don't normally use @Manbearcat's type of procedure because I want the challenges to represent material changes in the fictional position of the PCs. Its quite possible in his system for the end result to 'the same just one day closer' and since length of journey isn't a very important plot element for its own sake, that isn't really a material change.

So a quick thought on this:

When you say "challenges to represent matieral changes in the fictional position of the PCs", I'm reading that as "engages with/challenges theme/premise." Is that correct? Assuming that is correct, I have the following thoughts on that.

A D&D 4e game at Heroic Tier (broadly) has the following:

(The game's broad premise of)

* Danger expressed in a Points of Light way (same as Beyond the Wall, C7's The One Ring, DW).

* Discovery (for all participants, GM included) in a "what did we learn about the setting and characters this session" type of way (same as Apocalypse World, DW, Blades).

(An individual game's specific)

* Themes and premise baked into Character Theme/Background/Race/Class (these are the equivalent of Bonds and Alignment in DW).

All 3 of these are shared entirely with DW (and are the questions you address in the End of Session Move).

Therefore, so long as the fiction addresses one of those three aspects of play, I'm finding it difficult to imagine how it would fail to "engage with/challenge theme/premise?" If as the situation changes in any given Skill Challenge (be it Parley, Perilous Journey, or Other) with adversity arising around one of the 3 above, then a "material change" is happening.

Even if, ultimately, a journey is segmented into 3 stages (3 days) and one successful SC equals "one day closer", I don't see how that is evidence of neglect of theme or premise. Now, if there are no failures on moves made in a day's travel, then that also tells us something about the above 3 in the same way that all characters' succeeding on their Perilous Journey roles in DW does. The game is less interesting because failure is the machinery of challenge/adversity/more danger and more decision-points (therefore more outputs that express character and setting). But that is the just the way things go in a dice resolution system. Sometimes players come up with the nuts. Now if failures emerge and a GM sucks at dynamically changing the situation and putting interesting obstacles in the way of the PCs (we know that happens for sure as we've seen that cited as "evidence" that SCs are a terrible mechanical device)...then that tells us more about the GM than the system!

Let me know how you (or anyone else) disagree(s)?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Hey [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]!

I just mean that there's no real change in fictional positioning when a party is in a -lets say- 5 day journey when the first day is an uneventful SC that they succeed at. True, the first day of the journey is over, but it seems like a lot of procedure to go through vs a more 'high level' procedure like 'you travel for 3 days uneventfully...' (which might represent a couple of tosses of dice in a single more complex SC).

Not that anything is wrong with it, per-se. It just seems like a lot of process for little gained. If the entire focus of the game is on this sort of travel and its highly dangerous where most days are NOT uneventful, maybe that's OK, the one that is gives some contrast and the players can wipe their foreheads 'whew! we made it through day 1!' etc. This is a bit like making it down the first hallway in Tomb of Horrors without anyone dying!

But I think, even in a PoL 'travel in the darkness is dangerous and scary' you probably aren't going to run into a vast array of situation in one trip, unless it is really long. I mean, I'd hold with the general principle that a single 'chapter' like this probably can live in a single mechanical chunk of play. Its sort of a chapter and an SC can easily give it a start, a middle, and an end.

Of course, this is just my tastes....

 

[Manbearcat]

But I think, even in a PoL 'travel in the darkness is dangerous and scary' you probably aren't going to run into a vast array of situation in one trip, unless it is really long.

I'm not sure what work you intend "probably aren't going to" above. Are you working under some sort of internal causality of the local biome? Are working under genre logic? I guess the primary reason I'm not sure is because I'm certain that I've run enough journey conflict in 4e, Mouse Guard, Cortex+ Heroic Fantasy Exploration, Apocalypse World (where AUF, RaS, OYB and class playbooks do the heavy lifting, unlike UaPJ in Dungeon World), DW, The One Ring, and Strike! (and others I'm omitting I'm sure) where a vast array of situations have arisen. Extreme diversity.

The second part I think I'm inherently disagreeing with is that "play to find out" isn't strongly located in journey conflicts. I'm reminded of Vincent Baker's great advice in AW's "respond with 'effery' and intermittent rewards."

"I gave Marie what she worked for, but not really what she hoped for."

Journey's are exactly this, regardless of the system. The same thing as parleys are or any kind of conflict.

The PC's can arrive whole and unscathed, or otherwise, precisely as they had hoped.

Or...

They can arrive in a myriad of combinations of other conditions where the "other" is imperfect and very so...and some or most of the time that doesn't have to just be maths driven.

Perhaps one of their mates has gone missing (or worse)?

Perhaps they discovered an unwanted truth along the way?

Perhaps a relationship (PC to PC, PC to NPC, or an outlook/perspective) has become complicated?

Perhaps they've actually created a problem in the course of a tough decision-point that will have future implications?

I guess the point is, in so many games with journey mechanics or travel conflict resolution, there are play principles and actually machinery that push play toward "new and interesting fiction has emerged whereby Gamestate START is clearly differentiated from Gamestate FINISH)"

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm not sure what work you intend "probably aren't going to" above. Are you working under some sort of internal causality of the local biome? Are working under genre logic? I guess the primary reason I'm not sure is because I'm certain that I've run enough journey conflict in 4e, Mouse Guard, Cortex+ Heroic Fantasy Exploration, Apocalypse World (where AUF, RaS, OYB and class playbooks do the heavy lifting, unlike UaPJ in Dungeon World), DW, The One Ring, and Strike! (and others I'm omitting I'm sure) where a vast array of situations have arisen. Extreme diversity.

The second part I think I'm inherently disagreeing with is that "play to find out" isn't strongly located in journey conflicts. I'm reminded of Vincent Baker's great advice in AW's "respond with 'effery' and intermittent rewards."

"I gave Marie what she worked for, but not really what she hoped for."

Journey's are exactly this, regardless of the system. The same thing as parleys are or any kind of conflict.

The PC's can arrive whole and unscathed, or otherwise, precisely as they had hoped.

Or...

They can arrive in a myriad of combinations of other conditions where the "other" is imperfect and very so...and some or most of the time that doesn't have to just be maths driven.

Perhaps one of their mates has gone missing (or worse)?

Perhaps they discovered an unwanted truth along the way?

Perhaps a relationship (PC to PC, PC to NPC, or an outlook/perspective) has become complicated?

Perhaps they've actually created a problem in the course of a tough decision-point that will have future implications?

I guess the point is, in so many games with journey mechanics or travel conflict resolution, there are play principles and actually machinery that push play toward "new and interesting fiction has emerged whereby Gamestate START is clearly differentiated from Gamestate FINISH)"

Sure, but my point is that such a Journey as Conflict is one conflict, not an endless series of them. Now, we could of course argue about how "LotR" maps onto a conflict system. Here we have the journey becoming the entire story, and clearly there are numerous conflicts within different parts of it. Even so it could hang together as a single SC in essence.

 

[Tony Vargas]

There are more non-thematic pressure points in 4e than is being discussed:

1) There is an assumed, rolling level-1 fungible coin (either the actual coin itself or related assets).

2) Healing Surges (of course).

3) Recharge capability broadly or the specific recharge of a magic item or Utility.

You have encounter & daily recharges, and Milestone up-charges (Action Points, pre-E magic-item-daily-uses, magic item powers that unlock or improve at a milestone).

4) Companion Characters (which may or may not be sentient things).

5) Artifacts.

The handling of artifacts in 4e was surprisingly good, actually.

Also consider:

Death Saves: Honestly, I don't even remember, after running variations of these under Next, where 4e left it with regards to whether death saves accumulated between extended rests or (like 5e) not. But for the version that didn't re-set your failed death saves too easily, it was a pressure point. The PC who's failed two death saves already, even if healed to full, is in a different position than one that hasn't been dropped yet, even if he's down past bloodied...

...oh, yeah, Bloodied or not.

The Disease Track. One of the few things that spanned the long-rest re-set. It was readily adaptable to handle curses or the like. Could have been used to model lasting wounds. A lot of un-tapped potential.

And, of course, Skill Challenges. The accumulation of successes creates a resource/pressure-point, success could be assigned (or taken away) by any number of things, depending on how the challenge was structured.

Sure, but my point is that such a Journey as Conflict is one conflict, not an endless series of them. Now, we could of course argue about how "LotR" maps onto a conflict system. Here we have the journey becoming the entire story, and clearly there are numerous conflicts within different parts of it. Even so it could hang together as a single SC in essence.

Heck, parts of the journey in LotR were just the backdrop scrolling along through one of Gandalf's interminable expositions.

An SC doesn't have a fixed time between turns like a round in combat, so you could even have an over-arching skill challenge that tracks success on the whole-campaign scale, be it a literal or figurative journey.