Skill Challenge Play Examples?

[Pbartender]

I notice that Piratecat seems to have found that "open" challenges work well - meaning that he declares the relevant skills and what they do.

To quote Rel, though... "Know your players." In my group, "open" challenges kills the fun of them. Nobody ends up describing anything, no one uses anything but the most obvious skills, and characters without the best modifiers in those skill either sit out or Aid Other.

Boring.

For most challenges, I do what Quickleaf suggests...

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.

I provide descriptions and suggestions to encourage my players toward certain skills and action that might give them successes. If the players come up with something that's not on the skill challenge list, I improvise.

Incidentally, I think that the "use my best skill or try to avoid participating" tactic is purely produced by the original skill challenge mechanics' limited failures before the entire challenge is failed. It's like telling players that if they miss with their attack, the entire party loses a healing surge each. Suddenly you're not going to have people with slightly sub-par attacks taking part in the combat. Trying and failing is worse than not trying at all.

There's plenty of ways around that, as well... For example, not too long ago, I had a skill challenge involving a parley with a red dragon in its lair -- a volcanic cave.

In addition to the usual social skills, every now and again, I had everyone in the group make an Endurance check... how well can our heroes maintain their composure in the midst of overwhelming heat and noxious volcanic fumes? In this case, the number of PCs making the check determined success or failure: Out of a group of six playres, if two or fewer failed, then it counted as a success. If two or fewer succeeded, then it counted as a failure. Anyone failing their individual check lost a Healing Surge.

 

[Saeviomagy]

There's plenty of ways around that, as well... For example, not too long ago, I had a skill challenge involving a parley with a red dragon in its lair -- a volcanic cave.

In addition to the usual social skills, every now and again, I had everyone in the group make an Endurance check... how well can our heroes maintain their composure in the midst of overwhelming heat and noxious volcanic fumes? In this case, the number of PCs making the check determined success or failure: Out of a group of six playres, if two or fewer failed, then it counted as a success. If two or fewer succeeded, then it counted as a failure. Anyone failing their individual check lost a Healing Surge.

...
That doesn't change anything at all: if a character doesn't have good social skills (or whatever skills are acceptable for the challenge), the party would still stand a better chance of success if he weren't there. Each time his turn comes up, he has to sit there and know that it's his useless hide that is breaking this for his group.

In fact, by explicitly having endurance checks called for, you're reducing the the possibility that a player can say "It's real hot in here, right? Well, my character can use his endurance skill to show the dragon that he can tough it out!". Even if you as a DM would accept it, a lot of players will feel that they're double-dipping.

Now, if instead of the original 3 strikes and the party is out, the challenge continued until X successes OR someone passed out from the heat, that would be different. Participation can no longer WORSEN the scenario, only improve it. Even if a player is reduced to praying for a long shot, only good can come from him or her rolling.

 

[Saagael]

I've been DMing a group for about a year now, and have only done two or three skill challenges; mostly because I'm nervous they won't be entertaining. Incidentally, it's mostly my lack of knowledge that keeps them from being interesting.

One of the best ways to make really dynamic, evolving situations is to just let the dice sit on the table. When players are forced to roll the dice it's as if their characters are leaving everything to chance (with a modifier). Realistically the characters would never feel that way. If they think they have something good to contribute, then they will open their mouth. I encourage that participation, so I like to let the dice sit on the table for most social encounters. It forces the players further into the shoes of their character. If they can't think of anything to say then I'll let them roll a diplomacy check (there is always a knowledge discrepancy between players and characters).

The only time I would use skill challenges are for extended tasks (multiple days) or non-deadly obstacles; I don't want the player to die because he failed to jump the chasm. Social encounters are much easier to role play out, rather than base off of die rolls (singular die rolls to convince the shopkeep to lower costs, or gain some information around town, or sneak into the nobles private quarters I do use).

One skill challenge I'm looking forward to using is a couple day long siege coming up in game that will require the players to take part in preparing the fortress and then defending it. What the players do is up to them, though I've outlined basic ideas for them to fall back on. This system was introduced in an article in Dungeon Magazine, btw. The challenge is made up of three challenges, each requiring 6 successes before 4 failures. There's the tactical command, artillery fire, and defending challenges. I have six players, so that's two on each challenge (they can divy themselves up differently, this is just for planning purposes). For each challenge there's a primary and secondary check. The primary check offers the success or failure, while the secondary check gives advantages.

For example: In the Tactical Command check, the player uses his skills to direct troops, determine the enemy tactics, or inspire or scare allies to fight. The secondary check is perception or insight, which allows the player to determine or guess the enemy force's strategy. On a primary check success, the artillery fire check gets a bonus (the player determined what's going on in battle, so he can better direct the archers). If the secondary check succeeds, the bonus also applies to the defending the gate challenge. All in all, the players have 3 main skills for a primary check (that's 9 primary skills, I think the players can cover them), with 1-2 skills for secondary checks (not as important, but useful if a player doesn't really fit in any other roll).

 

[Regicide]

Skill challenges aren't really entertaining. I have over a foot thick of 4E DnD books on my shelf and aside from a few errated pages in the DMG, WotC has shown no or next to no support for them. They're supporting what people like. Aside from a lot of pretty pictures, probably 90%+ of the material is combat related and pretty much the rest is fluff.

We have had some fun skill challenges in other games such as Conan or in 3E, but each a tailored set of rules specific to the individual skill challenge and didn't conform to the simple guideline in the 4E DMG. Unless they dedicate even a TINY amount of space in the system to supporting skill challenges, such as, say, a good 50 pages in DMG2, they're going to remain something you're better off not using or making your own rules for as they certainly will not compare to the heavily supported combat system.

Oh noz, I said 4E wasn't a pristine bastion of perfectitude. Guess I'll be locked out of this thread. Cya!

 

[Garthanos]

Given the amount of attention given on DDi, to skill challenges I kind of expect we will indeed see plenty regarding them in up and coming books.

 

[kaomera]

Well, I'm certainly hoping that we'll see more about Skill Challenges in DMG2...

When I first read of Skill Challenges I had assumed (or at least was hoping) that they would be a way to make non-combat encounters as (or nearly as) "crunchy" and mechanically tactical as combat. Now, obviously in 4e that's kind of a tall order, but I think they missed the boat simply on the basis that there wasn't really room in the product schedule to provide the number of options for Skill Challenges that where available for combat encounters (powers, different monsters, terrain, dungeon tiles).

4e mechanics don't always (if ever) map directly to the "fictional reality" of the game world. I guess this is most obvious in the combat mechanics, where concepts like a "hit" or hp are really abstract and squares behave like circles. When I (at least) imagine the characters creeping into a dusty and dimly-lit room in a moldering dungeon, I don't envision it laid out in perfect 5' squares, nor that the characters are careful to stay in the exact center of each square. So, sometimes, you have to deal with the mechanics and then puzzle out what the results you get mean, in terms of the fiction (or role-play or story, or whatever you want to call it). The problem is that the DMG Skill Challenge rules tend to give the players one best option for proceeding mechanically, and then unless you have the fiction trump (or obscure) the mechanics things just get boring...

Failure has to be an option. The point of having different skills is that there's going to be some things that a given character is good at, and others that they just aren't. Personally I'm a bit miffed when my character's limitations are glossed over... (Not as much as when I don't ever get a chance to show off what he's good at, but still...) I agree with the idea that Skill Challenges can create an environment where failure is more acceptable than in combat encounters. I think that it's important that both success and failure (and any partial results in-between) lead to fun in the game. As I said before I really lean towards making success a bonus but not overly penalizing failure, but as long as there's somewhere interesting to go from the results of a failed challenge I don't think it matters. Of course, you will (and should) still have the players doing their best to succeed...

So, one thing that stuck in my mind is that every 4e character has something useful to offer in combat. As such "Can we kill it?" becomes the first question players are going to ask when confronted by an obstacle in play. I was thinking that it might be a good idea to have a "backup plan"... And this doesn't have to even be a backup, it might be the first option the players consider before resorting to bloodshed... But, anyway, my thought was to ask the players, before character creation, how they wanted their characters, as a party, to approach the challenges they face in play other than fighting: they can be stealthy & acrobatic ninja-types, political manipulators, con-men, whatever...

{Now: I think I should mention that I'm not fond of the way that class skills have been dealt with in 4e. It's part of the flavor built into the game, and that's OK, but I don't personally feel like 6 trained skills is a lot and I also don't agree with the idea that there are just tons of "extra" feats floating around for 4e characters that the player isn't going to be able to throw at Skill Training without losing out on anything else. As a result I'm planning on house-ruling to allow characters a much wider choice of skills, based on character concept rather than class.}

So, back to the idea of a backup plan, if every character has a t least 2 or 3 skills appropriate to the kind of solution they have chosen, and if I keep in mind that this is they kind of thing that the PCs are likely to (and that the players are going to want to) try then I think we should end up with a lot more Skill Challenges where everybody has something meaningful to contribute. Not that I won't throw other stuff at them, of course...

 

[kaomera]

That doesn't change anything at all: if a character doesn't have good social skills (or whatever skills are acceptable for the challenge), the party would still stand a better chance of success if he weren't there. Each time his turn comes up, he has to sit there and know that it's his useless hide that is breaking this for his group.

Well, if you assume that the character who is bad at social skills is good at Endurance, then it definitely does matter. Even if the fighter can't score points with Diplomacy he's helping the group every time he scores on the Endurance check. If three more characters make theirs then it counts as a success, and if two more does then at least they don't accrue a failure. It's not as good as actually having a good skill to roll on, but I think it's unfair to discount the effect entirely.

Another issue is Intimidate. Intimidate seems to "get the shaft" rather often, as far as social challenges go. This does make some sense, it's not always the best choice to go around threatening everyone, but as the only social option for the Fighter I think Intimidate could stand to have a bit of love thrown it's way.

 

[Stalker0]

I think the ultimate question comes down to: What are skill challenges suppose to accomplish, and ultimately do they do that better than other mechanics?

The way I see it Skill Challenges fill two main niches:

1) Provide an avenue for characters to make heavy use of skills.
2) Provide a way to model a complex noncombat scene into a straightforward, flexible system.

To the first point, I think skill challenges do this, but I don't know if its the best way to do it. Alternatives would be stunt type systems or simply a beefier set of mechanics to explain more things you can do with your skills. While I thought the 3e Epic Handbook didn't work particularly well...one thing I loved in that book were the epic uses for skills. The fact that sense motive was useful...but if it was high enough you could actually detect alignment with it made it even more interesting!

I think 4e could be well served by that. What does a 40 bluff check in the 4e world mean? Am I just really good a lying...or have I gone beyond that and can do even more?

If players had more examples of interesting ways to use skills, then they might try to use those skills naturally as opposed to being pushed into it through the mechanical skill challenge system.


To the 2nd point, I think at times skill challenges are more of a benefit than a burden. My primary example would be a social scene. The eternal debate in roleplaying systems is: How do you mechanically model the socially inept guy who is playing the smooth talking character....without hindering the roleplay too much.

Its a constant battle between free form roleplaying and rigid mechanics...for the two tend to conflict with each other. I think in this instance skill challenges go too far into mechanics. When players are choosing skills and rolling lots of dice....they forget to talk. Having tried both sides of the coin....I think I'm happier with lighter social mechanics and more free form roleplaying. So in that regard, I would rather roll a simple diplomacy check and then roleplay from there.

 

[LostSoul]

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!"

If I understand you correctly, you are having your PC say something that sounds like it should be a success - or at least have a better chance of success than the modifier indicates?

I think there are a few ways to handle it, and the DM has to pick the one that fits best at the time.

The first is adding a bonus to the check.

The second is to give the PC an automatic success.

The third is to end the skill challenge at that point and declare it a success.


Do you have an example of something that happened in one of your games?

 

[Pbartender]

...
That doesn't change anything at all: if a character doesn't have good social skills (or whatever skills are acceptable for the challenge), the party would still stand a better chance of success if he weren't there. Each time his turn comes up, he has to sit there and know that it's his useless hide that is breaking this for his group.

In fact, by explicitly having endurance checks called for, you're reducing the the possibility that a player can say "It's real hot in here, right? Well, my character can use his endurance skill to show the dragon that he can tough it out!". Even if you as a DM would accept it, a lot of players will feel that they're double-dipping.

In my very personal experience, players without the appropriate skill (Diplomacy in this case) generally (but not always) don't say, "It's real hot in here, right? Well, my character can use his endurance skill to show the dragon that he can tough it out!" They typically say, "I don't have the right skill, so I'll sit out or aid another. Blah."

The suggestion is a way for the DM to suggest and encourage a way for the PC with bad Diplomacy, but good Endurance, to contribute to the skill challenge.

Now, if instead of the original 3 strikes and the party is out, the challenge continued until X successes OR someone passed out from the heat, that would be different. Participation can no longer WORSEN the scenario, only improve it. Even if a player is reduced to praying for a long shot, only good can come from him or her rolling.

That, by the way, is a great idea... It'd work really well for some "chase" challenges.

I'd give you XP for it, if I didn't have to spread some around first.