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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FitzTheRuke" data-source="post: 9470953" data-attributes="member: 59816">It was never my intention to let this game stall out, so I'm going to push things forward. I was recently rereading the beginning of this game (Wow, there was some great stuff!) because I'm going to run a version of it for the customers of my game store, and I was taking notes on characters and situations that I made up that aren't in the adventure material.And I found a way that I ran a sort-of "skill challenge" that I really like. I'll use it to get this chase done. I'd wanted to use the actual 2014 Chase Rules for it, but I find that I not only don't like them, but I don't really understand them either. (Hopefully the 2024 DMG will include something like, but better done. We'll have to see).I called it a "3-Segment Challenge", which is similar to other, more recent, and surprisingly less developed ideas I've used, where I've called it, variously, a "3-Check Challenge" or a "3-Round Challenge". They're all very similar, but I honestly think that while I like the NAME, "3-Round Challenge" best, I like the METHOD of the much older "3-Segment Challenge" that I used early on in this game.Here's how it works. Each Round (or Segment) represents a different narrative piece of the Challenge, and you can plug whatever you want into it. Each round, the players roll Ability Checks based on what they are trying to do to achieve that segment's goals, and at the end of the Third Round, the DM adds up the total number of successes and checks it against a number of successes that they determined ahead of time would result in overall success, and narrates accordingly. Yes, this means that you can never "win" before the end of Round Three, but the rounds are NOT the equivalent of combat rounds, and can be differing lengths based on the needs of the story (they don't need to be the same length as each other, which is one of the reasons that I called it Segments, rather than Rounds. Perhaps the ideal name would be "3-TURN challenge" because each player gets three turns to be involved? I think I will go with that. (I'm thinking out loud and if you have little-to-no-interest in this, feel free to ignore me) - speaking of which! It is possible (perhaps even likely) that a Player might choose to opt-out of the challenge entirely, or choose to do something that might be interesting, but doesn't really have much to do with the challenge itself. That's okay! While I imagine that the set number of successes would ought to be set regardless of the number of participants (rather than float based on party size) - meaning that more PCs would generally mean that there is more chance of success. (I think that it's fair to say that there are few situations where more hands wouldn't be useful, except in the kitchen, and even then...) I think that it works.Example! THIS CHALLENGE. This challenge can be defined as "Catch Lionel before he escapes with whatever he stole from the Altar". We've already done Turn One (for the most part). Turn One is "Figure out what's going on". I'll narrate the results of Turn One in the IC in a moment. Then we'll move on to Turn Two: "Keep up with and keep track of Lionel as he tries to escape the Lodge". Then Turn Three will be "Catch Lionel before he escapes into the Forest". After which, if you fail, it will be too late. You could choose to track him, and we'll move to another sort of challenge, but he'll be gone for the time being if he gets that far. So... you'll want to try to stop him. (I think. If your character doesn't care, well, feel free to do something else).If you don't like the above, feel free to let me know, but we'll go with it for now so that we can keep moving forward. If you have comments, or suggestions, feel free to let me know here, or privately, or whatever you choose.</blockquote>

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