Rodney Thompson: Non-Combat Encounters

[Spatula]

Except this is how things occur now. The article suggests that you encourage imaginative thinking by finding ways to make the character's skill checks useful and successful. If all your History checks ever reveal is that you are sure that nothing of the sort you are seeking exists, you will quickly become discouraged from using that skill. Just remember that success comes in different forms and that old phrase "be careful what you wish for." Success couple with new tangles based on a player's decisions make for a layered, dramatic game.

Except that leads back to the problem that only one skill matters, the character's best one. At some point you have to say that a particular skill does not match a particular problem. If a skill is never useful, the player won't use it. If a skill is always useful, the player won't ever use anything else, because it's his/her highest bonus.

Anyway, rather than rehashing the narrative-simulation debate, of which there's already many many pages of discussion here (http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=220605), I would like to say that this was possibly the first really good, interesting, and informative designer post that I've seen so far in the 4e runup. This is what they should be publishing on DDI, not the "whee! mine carts are fun!" foolishness. Thanks to Rodney for writing it, and I hope to read more in the same vein in the future.

 

[Goobermunch]

Except that leads back to the problem that only one skill matters, the character's best one. At some point you have to say that a particular skill does not match a particular problem. If a skill is never useful, the player won't use it. If a skill is always useful, the player won't ever use anything else, because it's his/her highest bonus.

Anyway, rather than rehashing the narrative-simulation debate, of which there's already many many pages of discussion here (http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=220605), I would like to say that this was possibly the first really good, interesting, and informative designer post that I've seen so far in the 4e runup. This is what they should be publishing on DDI, not the "whee! mine carts are fun!" foolishness. Thanks to Rodney for writing it, and I hope to read more in the same vein in the future.

Except that the onus is on the player to devise a legitimate and believable reason for the skill to be useful under the circumstances, rather than on the DM to come up with a excuses for PCs to use their skills in the game.

--G

 

[Spatula]

Except that the onus is on the player to devise a legitimate and believable reason for the skill to be useful under the circumstances, rather than on the DM to come up with a excuses for PCs to use their skills in the game.

I'm not sure how that contradicts anything that I said.

 

[Cyronax]

Since you're inventing a passage in the PHB, I'm going to invent one in the DMG which advises how to handle such a situation.

Isn't there such a thing as objective reality in a campaign though?

I am fairly creative as a DM in adjudicating rules, but in certain situations there are only a few or one way to proceed in a certain tactic.

Letting the PCs willy nilly determine hard facts about the environment of the setting seems like an insult to players IMO. The challenge of D&D is that it is exciting to overcome challenges that the DM hasn't specifically tailored or hand-waved for that particular party or PC (that in addition to roleplaying their characters and enjoying a day with friends).

Your argument strikes me as following along the lines that the PCs will never ever encounter a challenge that is outside of their strictly equated CR/EL level.

C.I.D.

 

[Cyronax]

Except this is how things occur now. The article suggests that you encourage imaginative thinking by finding ways to make the character's skill checks useful and successful. If all your History checks ever reveal is that you are sure that nothing of the sort you are seeking exists, you will quickly become discouraged from using that skill. Just remember that success comes in different forms and that old phrase "be careful what you wish for." Success couple with new tangles based on a player's decisions make for a layered, dramatic game.

Why is telling a player 'no that skill is not relevant in this situation' a bad thing? Why would it discourage them in the long run from using it?

Your argument only holds up if the DM continually divests a specific skill from any use. In that one case I agree with you, but in my experience many skills are useful at different times but not all the time (unless you count something like Sense Motive with liberal/creative usages attached).

One of the players (a fighter) in my campaign took a few ranks in a homebrew skill, Knowledge (Military) (a class skill for figthers among others). He uses it on occasion to EXTREMELY great effect (as in revealing key weaknesses in some of their foes, but often its not relevant to day-to-day dungeon delving. He asks if he can use it a lot, because he saw how effective it was when it was appropriate.

C.I.D.

 

[Irda Ranger]

The solution does not have to be as effective as the Hide check.

You can disagree, of course, but I think it does have to be as effective. The meta-steps are this:
1. DM states the issue/difficulty/challenge (aka, "You are being chased by guards.").
2. PC states the Skill he wants to use to solve this problem, and narratively describes (perhaps generally, perhaps broadly) (a) how it would solve the challenge (this is "Application") and (b) what "Success" looks like.
3. DM decides if the Skill/Application can achieve the described Success. This is a binary decision - Yes/No.
4. If the answer to #3 is yes, the PC rolls. The table could look like:

0-4: Failure
5-9: Success, but with new complications
10-14: Basic success (Achieves result described by PC)
15+: Success, with added bonuses

Or whatever. Maybe those numbers change depending on the general skill of the foe you are trying to defeat ("Dragons in pursuit" is worse than "City guard in pursuit"), but Success is Success.

This of it like an attack roll: whether you're using a spell, a sword, a fist or your opponent's torn off limb, you just have to beat AC to hit. Hit the number, achieve success.

Or even better, one PC uses his History check to determine that a sewer grate exists. Another uses his Streetwise check to relate the tenuous relationship of street gangs in a neighborhood in the area. Another uses a Sneak check to get past some guards that are patrolling in the area. Then uses his Bluff check to try to incite a street skirmish between gang members in the area. The party uses the diversion to get past the guards and into the old sewer tunnels.

This is a good example of "linked skill uses", which is key. If you look at my meta-steps above, the DM might binarily decide that "No, the Skill/Applications described can not achieve the Success you are looking for; but it can get you half-way there if you can also make a Thievery check."

Or whatever. Social Encounters are always going to be fuzzier than combat. You'll have to expect a certain amount of negotiation between the DM and the PCs about what the various Skills can be applied to and the types of Successes they can achieve.

 

[ruleslawyer]

I think you're conflating two vastly different things there, Cyronax. One (the CR/EL issue) is players metagaming, and the other (using is players assuming shared control of the narrative, using game rules designed for that purpose.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Isn't there such a thing as objective reality in a campaign though?

Once it has been explicitly stated, yes. Before that, no. It's like Schroedinger's cat that way. Any "fact" about the world which does not contradict any previously laid down "fact" could be true.

Letting the PCs willy nilly determine hard facts about the environment of the setting seems like an insult to players IMO.

It seems like: 1. Cooperative world design; 2. A huge burden off the DM; and 3. Emotional buy-in by players ("I made that!"); to me.

 

[Surgoshan]

Isn't there such a thing as objective reality in a campaign though?

I am fairly creative as a DM in adjudicating rules, but in certain situations there are only a few or one way to proceed in a certain tactic.

But then the only way your players get to be creative is if you do a whole crapload of planning. This takes some of the onus off the DM and puts it on the shoulders of the players. It sounds like, by the method you're advocating, the players' choice is between risking your method or guaranteed failure at something you hadn't planned because you don't want them to do that. This way you can sketch out a more freeform world and then have the players help you fill in the details as the game is played.

This is in keeping with one of the gleemax blogs that was linked somewhere here; the DM's job is being made a whole lot easier.

Edit: And now people have said it a whole lot better than I did, and before I said it.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Letting the PCs willy nilly determine hard facts about the environment of the setting seems like an insult to players IMO. The challenge of D&D is that it is exciting to overcome challenges that the DM hasn't specifically tailored or hand-waved for that particular party or PC.

Your argument strikes me as following along the lines that the PCs will never ever encounter a challenge that is outside of their strictly equated CR/EL level.

I've never run an encounter outside of the strictly equated CR/EL level. This is because I want the PCs to win.

It really is a difference in playstyles again. If your goal is to simulate a reality exactly, then you are going to have a point where the PCs do something to piss off someone who is WAY too powerful for them and they are all going to die. They are going to accidentally wander into that dragon's lair they didn't know was there and end up lunch.

If your goal is a story based one then you simply don't write that sort of thing into the story.

For instance, if the point of your story is that the PCs will eventually find the Great Seal of Pelor and use it to unite the villages in the surrounding area and then defeat the evil dictator then it would be silly to have a CR 25 dragon guarding the entrance to the temple where the Seal is located. The PCs will die and the story won't reach its ending. Not unless you already have a plan for how the PCs will get around the dragon.

From a simulationist point of view it makes perfect sense to say "But the people who sealed the temple forever realized no one should ever wield the power of the items they put inside it, so Pelor blessed them with a dragon who made his lair in the entranceway so that no one could ever get inside." And to have the dragon there when the PCs arrive and kill them.

The same idea transfers over the skill challenges. In the end, you WANT the PCs to pass it so the story can continue. So you want them to be able to use their best skill to get to the end. It won't work in every circumstance, but it will work a lot of the time.