Skill Challenge Play Examples?

[LostSoul]

I don't see a problem with PCs always using trained skills. I guess it's because I'm not concerned about success or failure as much as I am in having a dynamic and changing situation.

 

[Infiniti2000]

So, do you simply not have players that look towards their strengths? I can't imagine having a dynamic, intense scenario and not use, say, diplomacy when the situation calls for it. And yet, e.g., your PC sucks wind at it. To make this worse, another PC is awesome at it, but who didn't happen to think of your cool usage of the skill.

That creates a bad situation for everyone involved. You're (we're) assigning modifiers that have nothing whatsoever to do with the nice, dynamic situation that we're trying to create. The ranger PC without diplomacy can't suddenly take over the conversation because he'll fail miserably at the rolls, despite the fact that (still e.g.) the player himself is the best one for the job, is excited about it, and everyone's having a blast as he roleplays it well.

 

[Tai]

I ran a few skill challenges in a campaign I was doing that worked quite well. One of the ideas I used was prep-cards. For example, in the first session, someone had been murdered in the village square, and the party were looking for clues. One of the players used diplomacy to try and talk to the villagers about it. So, I gave two of the other players prep cards for an elderly married couple with a tendency to bicker to be the NPCs for the encounter. When the player asked about the murders, he made a check, and I gave out additional cards for the NPCing players for success or failure on a check. I find it's a good way to keep players who don't have as many useful skills for this particular challenge in the loop, and avoid the unfortunate GM-talking-to-himself problems you get with multiple NPCs in the room.

For skill challenges in general, I think that the most important thing to do is to make sure you have a scenario for both success and failure. It might not be the way the skill challenge plays out - it's important never to undrestimate the capacity of players to derail your plot - but if you don't have an interesting scenario for what will happen if they fail, you shouldn't be running a skill challenge.

 

[LostSoul]

I2K, I'm not sure I understand. Do you want to give me a hypothetical example of what you mean? That might help me out!

 

[Nebulous]

I actually haven't enjoyed skill challenges too much (that might come as a surprise considering I spent so much time developing my own challenge system).

That DOES surprise me. I've found the default challenges very lacking and skipped them mostly. I used Obsidian and found it pretty good, but i found the players STILL trying to use their best skills all the time.

Do you allow Aid Another in Obsidian? Anyway, i'm still lukewarm about the whole thing. I'm coming to believe that running a good skill challenge takes much, much more creativity than the dice rolling would indicate. And that just takes practice or natural talent.

 

[Infiniti2000]

I2K, I'm not sure I understand. Do you want to give me a hypothetical example of what you mean? That might help me out!

What we've experienced and what I can only understand from the rules is that it only pays to use your trained skills. Simple mathematics is that +5 is much better than +0.

So, what can you do, or what do you do to encourage players to use their crappy skills? I play a ranger and I'm not trained in diplomacy. Yet, if we're actually role playing I can come up with some great stuff--for no reason. It absolutely doesn't pay for me to try and role the skill challenge properly. I have NO motivation whatsoever to get into it and focus on the challenge itself instead of how I can use my 5 trained skills. I frequently come up with great ideas and instead of following them through and being rewarded I fail, sometimes miserably. Or, worse IMO, I "hand off" my great idea for someone else to execute; which basically amounts to "I say what he said!"

Unfortunately, there's no system to account for this. It could be something like all unmodified rolls (so everyone is effectively equally trained in all skills) or perhaps just use your ally's modifier, so instead of him rolling on your idea you roll as him.

 

[Garthanos]

perhaps just use your ally's modifier, so instead of him rolling on your idea you roll as him.

Well the person who has the idea is probably the best one to express and elaborate on it... it seems reasonable that the character most competant at the activity is the one in game that had that idea.... what difference is this from --- > "what he said" ?

 

[Saeviomagy]

So, what can you do, or what do you do to encourage players to use their crappy skills?

You could always increase the number of required successes and then hand out 1 automatic success for a good idea, and then have the roll on the idea add another one, instead of changing the success chance on the roll based on the idea:

ie:
the ranger with good ideas and bad skill gets 1 success from his idea
the paladin who mumbles "I try diplomacy" and rolls with a big bonus also gets 1.

A player with a character that can implement his good ideas would get 2.

 

[Turtlejay]

What we've experienced and what I can only understand from the rules is that it only pays to use your trained skills. Simple mathematics is that +5 is much better than +0.

So, what can you do, or what do you do to encourage players to use their crappy skills? I play a ranger and I'm not trained in diplomacy. Yet, if we're actually role playing I can come up with some great stuff--for no reason. It absolutely doesn't pay for me to try and role the skill challenge properly. I have NO motivation whatsoever to get into it and focus on the challenge itself instead of how I can use my 5 trained skills. I frequently come up with great ideas and instead of following them through and being rewarded I fail, sometimes miserably. Or, worse IMO, I "hand off" my great idea for someone else to execute; which basically amounts to "I say what he said!"

Unfortunately, there's no system to account for this. It could be something like all unmodified rolls (so everyone is effectively equally trained in all skills) or perhaps just use your ally's modifier, so instead of him rolling on your idea you roll as him.

This is leaving rules far behind and delving into roleplaying, where I am not really qualified to give advice. I'll give it a shot, however...

I think this situation is part of playing a character. You build someone, a whole person, and you sit inside their head and drive them around. So if you are playing a Ranger who is no good at Diplomacy, then think "what would he *do* instead?"

Make a skill check that reflects what your tongue-tied or ill mannered outdoorsman might contribute to sensitive negotiations. Perhaps it is a key piece of information (Dungeoneering or Nature) or a whispered observation to the face (Insight or Perception). That is part of the challenge of the game, right?

This might also be why skill challenges aren't for everyone. When you build a character, it has a defined role in combat. No matter what, 90% of the time you know you can contribute when you are killing things. Social and other interactions. . .not so much. You might feel like you are missing out if the party has an 'encounter' and you don't have a defined role. Another thing that changes is failure. In combat there are three clear options: 1)win 2)run 3)die. It is more complicated than that of course, but the idea is that you don't generally lose fights. Skill challenges have the idea of failure built in to them. When is the last time you read a module and each combat encounter had a paragraph about what to do in the event of a TPK?

So. . .I'm no great thinker so I'm sure there are better analyses than that out there, but it's what I think, and I hope it helped.

Jay

 

[Quickleaf]

Great thread, thanks for starting it kaomera.

I just ran a skill challenge (my first one) using Stalker0's rules and it worked out great - I plan on running many more!

It was for a murder investigation the PCs conducted in the opening scene and I wrote 2 pages notes in advance (it was my first time DMing 4e so I overprepared). I' based the design off the skill challenge in Khyber's Harvest.

I set up the scene and began it with the PCs in the Lower Quays. However I never said they were in a skill challenge, instead just letting the story evolve naturally. Began with player to my right and went around the table letting everyone decide what they would do. I allowed a Perception check to learn information listed under Insight, Thievery to palm a piece of evidence, and a bard's encounter power bolstered a Diplomacy check to win over some dockworkers. I also improvised something on the spot as they investigated the dockworkers who looted the corpse, where the dockworkers had also stolen from each other (to explain the bard's failure on Diplomacy...opening up the rogue's Thievery). When even the Thievery attempt failed, the invoker burned a daily for an automatic success.

However, I noticed by the middle of the third round (skill challenges are divided into 3 rounds in Stalker0's rules) that the players were losing interest and getting ancy at 10 successes. Two players said they wanted to pass on their turns, so I let them and gave them an extra success for good measure. 11 successes gave them a partial success.

I've seen several suggestions to stick to larger-scale (or long-term, time wise) stuff for Skill Challenges. I'm also beginning to think that making each check a discreet thing, with it's own lesser rewards and consequences may be the way to go. Not sure entirely how to handle that, but it would tend to make the players more thoughtful about what skill checks they made (rather than just sticking to their one best skill). At best it might get players thinking of how many failures (for the overall Skill Challenge) they can risk to go after personal gains (via the individual rolls)...

Agreed. I handed out treasure cards as different clues were gathered or dropped little hints/foreshadowing at each success.