Skill Challenge Crunch

[Camelot]

Skill challenges are great ways to put some mechanical order onto complex roleplaying situations. Usually, the DM and players come up with a goal they want to complete, and then create the skill challenge around that idea. But...how could you do it the other way around?

My goal is to make a way to create skill challenges starting with the crunch and adding the roleplaying on after. Think of it in parallel to an encounter with a bunch of monsters that seem like they would never work together in a place you'd never think they would live. And yet, the DM puts this encounter in front of the players and says, "Fight." I want a similar way to make skill challenges like that.

I know many of you reading this are probably cringing at the idea. However, I would appreciate it if this thread didn't become a discussion of roleplaying in skill challenges or arguments about different systems. This is my goal, so if you don't want to help, I thank you for your time, and I bid you farewell.

I don't want to use any alternate skill challenge systems (such as Obsidian) or extreme house rules; I would prefer to stick to official skill challenge systems. I just want to look at them from another angle besides the one presented in WotC material.

Any ideas on how to make this idea tangible, workable, and fun?

PS: If I am still unclear on what I'm trying to accomplish, I'd be glad to clarify.

 

[ValhallaGH]

Actually, the original skill challenge rules (as presented in the DMG 1) do exactly what you want.
That apparently wasn't their intent but it was the effect.

Good luck.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, I understand what you're aiming at, and actually it isn't a bad idea at all. At any rate its worth experimenting with. Make some skill challenges that really work well mechanically, then "skin" them. If you have a fair variety of challenge mechanics you could cover most situations that actually come up in play and present them in a nice package.

I'm game. I'll see if I can go through some SCs I've designed in the past and try to come up with a few ideas. IMHO the best way to approach it would be to design each SC to be an interesting mini-game with a few unique elements and then basically just play test it AS a game purely in the abstract and tweak it so it has interesting choices, good balance, etc.

The most interesting part is going to be at the end of the day to see how easy it is to "skin" them so they make sense from a fluff point of view when they're deployed. I'm not sure if that will be easier than mapping mechanics to fluff as people do now with SCs or not...

 

[Camelot]

Actually, the original skill challenge rules (as presented in the DMG 1) do exactly what you want.

Yes, but they are also all formatted the same way. The DMG2 presented many new ways to run a skill challenge, and I want to include as many of those as possible. Thank you for the advice and luck, my friend!

Make some skill challenges that really work well mechanically, then "skin" them.

This sounds like a good idea, thank you! I believe I can start with the ones presented in the DMGs.

I'll see if I can go through some SCs I've designed in the past and try to come up with a few ideas.

Thank you very much! I appreciate the assistance.

The most interesting part is going to be at the end of the day to see how easy it is to "skin" them so they make sense from a fluff point of view when they're deployed.

Well, you see, here's where it gets interesting. I don't want it to have to make sense. At it's basic level, using merely the guidelines from the DMG, as Valhalla suggested, for this kind of skill challenge, you pick a number of skills to be primary and a number to be secondary, no matter what they are, and then you roll the dice. If you want, you can make something up, but when the primary skills are Diplomacy, Heal, Nature, Streetwise, and Thievery, there's only a few farfetched possibilities. Our skill challenges will be pure crunch; no fluff is necessary.

I thank you both for your advice, and I'd like to hear if anyone else has any ideas.