The main reason I am looking for new ways to do stuff, is my players are overly analytical, and the first skill challenge I ran was immediately followed by a discussion about math:
"Well, see, the probabilities of passing vs failing really are static DC's, therefore it is a simple function of comparing what each player can do against the avg DC's... So, if at the beginning of each skill challenge we all roll intiative to see who goes first, assume a percent chance of 50% that we roll a 10 or better, it would be easier to just look and see if we pass or fail the challenge based on such numbers... and just skip the whole thing..."
Irritating at best, but he has a point... there needs to be more dynamics involved in a skill challenge, otherwise it is merely a statistics class...
The next session - simply tell them that you have calculated the statistical probabilities of their adventure, determined that they would have succeeded on the adventure, give them their experience and treasure and pack up your books.
Maybe they will get the point then....
Its ALL just an exercise in applied statistics.
That said, I have seen few skill challenges that are actually interesting and dynamic as written and no part of published adventures needs more reworking than the skill challenge. In our group, at least, the problem is that we aren't used to having authorial control over the story.
For most players, the traditional D&D model has been:
DM/Players establish a goal
DM sets challenges in front of the players
Players find ways to overcome those challenges.
For 'amorphous' skill challenges the model is:
DM (and often less so the players) establish a goal
Player must create a challenge based on limited information
Player must explain how their character will overcome that challenge.
And this is difficult for most players (myself included). As a DM I tend to fix this by creating a number of specific challenges I can present the players with, but I can see an argument (mostly by those who like more story-tellerish games) that if we could shake the traditional model we might end up with a better game. I dunno.
For example in a recent game we were tasked with sneaking into a Temple as a skill challenge.
Pre-4E this situation might have been modeled by the DM describing the setting and left it up to us to find a way in (either through skills or combat).
In a more traditionally modeled skill challenges the DM might present a series of concrete skill tasks that the players must overcome and allow the individual players to choose which tasks they will attempt (DM: "There is a narrow tree branch extending over the temple walls, and a small, locked door in the rear of the complex." Player: "I will attempt to use Acrobatics to balance while I move across the tree branch.")
In the amorphous skill challenge (the ones which seem to dominate published works, based on my limited experience) the
Player must come up with a concrete skill tasks. DM: "You see a Temple surrounded by a high wall". Player: "I look for a tree with a branch extending across the wall and use my Acrobatics to balance as I move across the wall.").
And this is simply too foreign to too many of us. We are too locked into the model where the DM sets up the world and the players work with what the DM gives us. The DM may give clues, mentioning a tree next to the castle walls without mentioning the branch going over the walls. But it is the DM who determines that the branch is there, not the player.
(The other problem lies with the consequences of failure: They are too easy. The consequences of failure in combat are (or can be) death. The consequences of failure in a skill challenge are rarely so obvious. Failure should not result in the players being unable to complete the adventure, but they must have a real consequence. And (as in the case of our last adventure) forcing another level-appropriate combat encounter on the party isn't really a consequence. In fact, I think one member of our group even sees it as a reward. For the skill challenge to have tension, it must have a real and visible consequence for failure. Not an unknown benefit/penalty on an unanticipated future combat (as it has in another skill challenge I have seen. If the reward for success/ penalty for failure for a skill challenge at the start of the adventure is going to be (unbeknownst to the players) whether or not the players are going to get a surprise round in the final encounter of the adventure, the designers have failed to give the players a reason to care about the skill challenge.
And players quickly figure out that skill challenges like this rarely have consequences that really matter.
Try making the consequence of failing at the skill challenge actually be
failure. Give them an alternate approach. And make that alternate approach harder/more expensive/whatever. Make them wish they had succeeded (and don't use the full, PCs-can't-fail, errata either).
If Skill Challanges are going to be
challenges they should carry consequences just as do the combats. To do otherwise is equivalent to making all combat encounters be balanced for characters of half the party's level.
Carl
