D&D General Skill challenges: action resolution that centres the fiction

[AbdulAlhazred]

With what has been presented to me they are pretty much the same thing. The only "differences" are:

1. tracking a number of success and failures until some "goal" resolution is met.
2. asking each PC what they are doing to contribute to achieving that number of successes.

Instead of #1, each success or failure affects the next step in the scenario until the scene is resolved. Since each PC can be contributing at the same time, this is not necessarily "linear" as people might think.

Instead of #2, the resolution is not binary as varying degrees of success is certainly possible.

In either case, you are making a series of skill checks, each of which can affect the scenario in information gained, interactions, etc.

Now, adding a pre-generated "structure" and options (if a PC does this and succeeds, it is one more success towards their final result) I can see (as I commented above) being helpful to novice or struggling DMs, but otherwise I would agree with this:



Anyway, again thanks to all for outlining the differences. Of course, depending on the scenario, it could be a "solo" skill "challenge" (if indeed, such a thing exists?) or involve multiple party members. But, then again, combat can also be solo (a scout encountering resistance) or involve more PCs (typical combat).

I have found in combat certain players, PCs, and classes will contribute more; and in the other pillars certain players, PCs, and classes will contribute more. I don't expect a balance between the three pillars and players, PCs, or classes, as everyone plays their PC differently.

Yeah, but I still think there's a point that is missing from this discussion, which is that a 4e SC IS AN ENCOUNTER, it has a definite start, end, goals, and costs associated, and the GM is pretty much obligated to treat it as such. That encourages the advancement of the player's goals (or not, if they lose) in a fairly discrete and understandable way. Far too often in 5e games I've run into this sort of icky slippery thing where nobody is quite sure what has been accomplished, and all of a sudden the GM is throwing consequences at you that undo a lot of progress, or simply seems to never really get the point that some goal should be adequately reached by now. This is pretty common, and not just with less capable GMs (though obviously if you are, say, a new GM it is even more likely).

With the SC case, we won the SC, we got what was entailed in success. It is now clearly ours and we are going to keep it, unless we put it to stake for some reason. It can be a much cleaner method. Its also, when properly articulated, a fairly straightforward thing to implement.

And yes, there are certainly 'solo SCs' there's really very little issue with making them scale from 1 to 5+ PCs.

 

[clearstream]

I don’t know how you read it, but I intended it exactly as as I wrote it.

1) There is a play that exists where GMs have preconceptions and they intend to map those preconceptions onto the gamestate and fiction by imposition.

2) There is a play whereby the process of (1) (the imposition of a GM’s preconceptions upon gamestate/fiction) is neither transparently codified in the text of play nor inferable by the players. The experiential quality of this for the players is “arbitrary GM fiat.”

---

Let’s come at this another way. Any given conflict is an obstacle course with a starting point + an endpoint + an array of intervening obstacles. What is an easy analogue for this in life? A hole of golf.

Alright. A hole of golf has:

* A tee box (starting point).

* A pin location on a green (an endpoint).

* An array of intervening obstacles (fairways, rough, sand traps, out of bounds, burs, trees, etc).

One way in which I feel the golfing analogy may be not quite right, is that it's possible to see TTRPG play more in terms of performance than competition. What I mean is that it is the journey, not the destination, that counts.

We can be interested in the imagination, choices, and portrayals that participants commit. I think in many of the greatest sessions it's those, and not how we reach a conclusion, that matter. I'm probably forced to have that view because I hold freeform play equal (if different) to mechanistic play.

Now you can configure the realization of this “hole of golf” in TTRPG terms in a myriad of ways. But someone or some system process is deciding on each element…and they’re doing it at some time (pre-play or during play):

STARTING POINT

* The GM can preconceive and prescribe the starting point before play.

* A non-GM player can prescribe the starting point (either via GM prompt or system procedure) during play.

* The play itself can naturally evolve from one end point to generate a new, emergent starting point during play.

In my experience, at time 0 the game designer to some extent describes a situation, and one of the participants has curated that game design for the group and in many cases further developed the situation. Generally speaking, the imaginative qualities of that situation are impactful: if it's well considered, our play will more likely go on to be interesting. In the case of a Torchbearer game for example, through curation the starting point might be somewhere in Middarmark.

At time 1 and onwards, I don't really see your first option (GM preconceives) happening: we're all looking to continue our stream of play. In golf, perhaps each hole can be seen as a discrete sub-game? The players committed at the outset to some number of holes and they will play them in the sequence presented. Where TTRPG can be episodic, I think we can have

• a participant continues to curate and may further develop the situation
• at the same time, players alone decide what they will do next

The group upholds player-fiat so that as you say, "The play itself can naturally evolve from one end point to generate a new, emergent starting point during play." The traces of previous play are normally influential on what happens next, so I think it lacks the discrete nature of the next golf hole. (I'm not holding up your analogy just to nitpick: I'm hoping to use it to show why I think looking at play in that light might not be quite right. Or perhaps it's better to say, accepts a limit that needn't be imposed.)

ENDPOINT

* The GM can preconceive and prescribe the endpoint before play.

* The GM can pronounce that the conflict has reached its endpoint “by feel” and declare a winner.

* System declares that the conflict has reached its endpoint by codified Win/Loss condition and declare a winner by following its procedures to their conclusion.

If I understand your first option here correctly, then I think that yes, we do see a lot of that in traditional play. It's more or less the norm for published adventures, which is a great shame in my opinion because it by no means has to be.

I think the second and third options both have their merits. There are GMs I would trust over the results of some game systems, but that's more of an aside. Our experience of play is the journey, not the destination. The requirements of the outcome are simply this: picturing it, we felt inspired and our journey was enthralling.

That's on the one hand. On the other hand, I think we can also have

• The conflict reaches its endpoint through a form of negotiation, where we work to shape the fictional position so that it must follow.

OBSTACLE COURSE

* The GM can preconceive and prescribe the array of obstacles before play.

* The GM can move through an improvised array of obstacles “by feel” without budgetary/procedural constraint.

* System procedures and budgetary constraints guide and bind a GM in their improvised generation of the array of obstacles.

I agree that the last term can help the play: it's good when a system guides a group in their improvisation. I don't especially see the need for "bind", but I suppose that's because I am assuming principles are in play that bind everyone at the table. I wouldn't pick out whichever participant accepts the burdens normally associated with GM for binding, especially.

In some cases, I would favour the first option. Where groups lean into heavily tactical play with a game system designed to support that, there can be substantial gains in satisfaction in well-crafted obstacles. I am not speaking here of any sort of encounter that will be relocated to inevitably be in front of the group. And many games now take a lighter-weight approach that can make it easier to develop satisfying obstacles on the fly (although less satisfying, for those who want heavily tactical play!)

Again, freeform play would generally not have a budget/procedural constraint, and pretty much what the group values is the focus on feel. To the extent that TTRPG play is an artform, I'm less dismissive of working by feel over working systematically. On the other hand, it's not ideal if the "feel" favoured by one participant in a privileged position of authorship overwhelms the feel that would be favoured by another participant. One possible resolution to this conundrum is different but equal privileges... but that doesn't work out in every case. @Campbell here and elsewhere lays out pretty well some of the reasons why.

Tying it back, I don't think what you have said in your latest justifies a fundamental position of antagonism and distrust toward a participant who takes on burdens to arbitrate and guide, and perhaps to work on world rather than character. I feel it is always hard to really be justified in a position that starts out with such negative characterisations, and the validity of your actual thoughts doesn't seem to require them!

And then of course, I definitely sustain the virtue of freeform play, which commits me to disliking any thesis that systematically determined conclusions to chains-of-resolution are inevitably better.

 

[pemerton]

That is a problem solved for a long time, which is just using mechanics to describe the problems at hand, its what statblocks have been used for, and are still used for.

What does a "statblock" look like for persuading the Maruts that they are wrong in their belief that they need to prevent interference with the Tarrasque as it is a harbinger of the endtimes?

One possible answer to that is a level 30, complexity 5 (I think it was) skill challenge.

If you design around the idea that the players must do X to do something, or have to do X things, you will always either end up doing way too much, or railing them into a handful of solutions, this is not good.

I don't know you reconcile this with your remark about statblocks. In D&D combat, the players must do X things - ie deliver X hp worth of damage - to defeat a foe in combat. I don't think that's normally regarded as railroading.

skill challenges are simply not good. Its why whenever I see most people using them, It always works better in theory then in practice

Well I don't know what your theory is but I've posted actual play examples of my practice. They worked well.

 

[clearstream]

I feel it is always hard to really be justified in a position that starts out with such negative characterisations, and the validity of your actual thoughts doesn't seem to require them!

@Manbearcat Where I have used the word "validity" in my longer post above, I mean something like - the strongest ideas don't require the strawman. One may simply not accept the proposition that they play against GMs who exercise a harmful arbitrary-fiat, and if the argument is unchanged then that prejudice wasn't needed in the first place. And I think the important arguments are unchanged.

Skill challenges, clocks etc should be used, not just in case there are harmful, arbitrary GMs out there who we are forced to play against, but for other - better - reasons. Such as the focus on fiction suggested in the OP.

 

[pemerton]

The one thing that has to be understood is that the GM is no longer 'scripting' the challenge in the same sense, it could turn out to be 'about' something rather different than was envisaged at the start!

I think this is important, especially once the challenge gets more complex. The centring of the fiction that I mentioned in the OP permits the players (and their PCs) motivational and aspirational relationship to the fiction - how are they driven by it; how do they hope to change it - develop as the challenge itself unfolds.

I guess at a certain point development becomes inapt as a description, and what's really happening is that one skill challenge has been abandoned and another commenced. I don't recall this ever happening at my table, but I would fault anyone who did it this way at there's.

 

[Manbearcat]

@clearstream

I think you're misconstruing my posts a little bit (ok, more than a little bit) because your responses above do the following:

* Your words extend my commentary beyond the instantiation of a singular conflict to play broadly. Both my commentary and the "hole of golf" analogy fails if you extend it beyond its intended use. It is intended exclusively for the resolution of one conflict, no more, no less.

* Your words appear to assume that a given matrix of the above component parts (Starting Point - SP, Endpoint - EP, Obstacle Course Array - OCA) doesn't exist. I'm fairly confident you can run a conflict with any given matrix of the above and that it almost surely takes place in the wild. I've talked to so many GMs, I've seen so much play, I've seen so much on forums, I've read so many TTRPGs, and I've run so many games that I'm pretty nearly sure of this. Yes, a particular group of conflict matrices manifest a fair bit more common than the others, but you can find pretty much all of them without looking too hard. You can find GMs who have prescribed all of an SP, an OCA, and an EPA for a singular conflict before play and you can find any one of those prescriptive components comingled with something different.

* Your words seem to be sensing I'm making a value judgement about a given conflict matrix (one iteration among multiple that you'll find in Trad games) that I'm not. My best friend in real life is the Traddiest Trad GM possible and we talk routinely about his scenario design and his running of conflicts and his (impossible not to happen in play) reveals and his (admitted) railroading. I don't have a negative feeling about his play. I know intimately why he does it. I know that it works swimmingly for his table and I know that his players wouldn't like some of the games that I run. I also know it is but one way to design scenarios and/or run conflicts in Trad games (there are multiple…you’ll find more diversity in conflict matrices in Trad games than in other games…and that is Working as Intended for those games…I’m not making value judgements about that…but I am affirming it exists and is distinguishable from an alternative matrix of SP > OCA > EP).

I don't have a value judgement about his Starting Point > Obstacle Course Array > Endpoint matrix for his conflicts. It is what it is. I'm not even interested in making a value judgement about it. However, I am interested in discussing 4e Skill Challenges and how they are distinct from the SP > OCA > EP of my friend (and they are quite different). That is an interesting conversation of design intent and play instantiation of various forms of conflict resolution.

 

[pemerton]

both of those things actually represent something that describes or is meant to represent the scenario in question, as a description, separate from the actions the players are supposed to take to engage with it.

4E skill challenges are meant and designed to be engaged in a very specific way, a very distinct mode of play focused on how the players resolve it not on mechanically describing the situation the players are actually in, just focused on how to resolved it, this is of the highest of importance, as it changes how players fundamentally engage with the mechanics in question, and why those mechanics actually feel good to use and not absolute terrible like 4Es.

I promise you I’m not gaslighting you…

But I have no idea what you mean above. I have zero idea what distinction you’re intending to draw between Dogs conflicts, Blades ToW or opposed Racing Clocks and 4e Skill Challenges with the words you’ve written above.

I can read the words…but I have no idea what you’re meaning.

I take FallenRX to be saying the following:

* In the case of the BitD clocks, the number of segments in the clock corresponds (in some rough sense) to the difficulty of the task/race/contest at hand;

* In the 4e skill challenge, the complexity of the challenge doesn't correlate to some "objective" feature of the task at hand, but rather is a purely metagame decision about how long the scene will last for.​

This is a core feature of 4e - the minion vs standard creature distinction is just the same, namely, at its core a metagame decision about how long the fight with the creature should last.

You also see it in BW (in some contexts - eg melee combat, social influence) and HeroWars/Quest - the choice to resolve a conflict via a single roll or an extended contest.

It is present in Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic in a more subtle fashion: the GM can extend a conflict by using Doom Pool dice to buff a NPC opponent. Of course there should be some fiction narrated to explain what the Doom die correlates to - but likewise in a skill challenge, the GM will be narrating fiction that explains why the conflict is still alive.

In the MHRP case the GM is limited by a budget - the Doom Pool is finite. In 4e the GM is not budget-limited in that way, but the more complex the GM chooses to make conflicts (via higher complexity skill challenges, or via standard as opposed to minion creatures) then the more XP the players earn - which bring treasure and levels - and the more rapidly they meet the requirements for earning action points. So the GM's "unlimited" budget feeds player-side resource development/renewal.

Threat clocks in AW are, I think, also somewhat similar to 4e in this respect - ie serving a metagame purpose rather than modelling an "objective" difficulty. A threat clock in AW progresses based primarily on the GM's narration of the fiction - moves - in response to the player action declarations as mediated (where applicable) via player-side moves. The GM can choose to use their narration to bring a conflict to a climax, or to draw it out.

Needless to say, I don't think that this technique, across these various implementations, is "absolutely terrible".

 

[Voadam]

Well, you can certainly play it that way. The original version of SCs published in DMG1 actually stated something like that, though I don't think it actually said everyone HAD to act, but that there was an initiative order (which implies some kind of round-like turn taking). There was a massive erratum of the SC rules maybe a month or two after release that obliterated that paragraph, along with fixing the number of failures to 3, regardless of complexity (in the original version it varied by complexity). Very few people seem to have really played by that 'first cut' of the system, though I suppose there were plenty of people who didn't notice the errata!

I own and have read the 4e DMG and used SCs out of there.

I remember there was discussion that the math was off and they rejiggered that later but since I was pretty much applying this to Pathfinder game situations the exact math was not important to me and I did not really pay attention to any errata specifics here.

Anybody have the errata they posted?

In the 4e DMG page 74 under running a skill challenge:

"Roll initiative to establish an order of play for the skill challenge. If the skill challenge is part of a combat encounter, work the challenge into the order just as you do the monsters.
In a skill challenge encounter, every player character must make skill checks to contribute to the success or failure of the encounter. Characters must make a check on their turn using one of the identified primary skills (usually with a moderate DC) or they must use a different skill, if they can come up with a way to use it to contribute to the challenge (with a hard DC). A secondary skill can be used only once by a single character in any given skill challenge. They can also decide, if appropriate, to cooperate with another character (see “Group Skill Checks,” below)."

 

[FallenRX]

I own and have read the 4e DMG and used SCs out of there.

I remember there was discussion that the math was off and they rejiggered that later but since I was pretty much applying this to Pathfinder game situations the exact math was not important to me and I did not really pay attention to any errata specifics here.

Anybody have the errata they posted?

In the 4e DMG page 74 under running a skill challenge:

"Roll initiative to establish an order of play for the skill challenge. If the skill challenge is part of a combat encounter, work the challenge into the order just as you do the monsters.
In a skill challenge encounter, every player character must make skill checks to contribute to the success or failure of the encounter. Characters must make a check on their turn using one of the identified primary skills (usually with a moderate DC) or they must use a different skill, if they can come up with a way to use it to contribute to the challenge (with a hard DC). A secondary skill can be used only once by a single character in any given skill challenge. They can also decide, if appropriate, to cooperate with another character (see “Group Skill Checks,” below)."

I think the issue is with my point, is people dont quite understand how ridiculous and unintuitive skill challenges actually are and what they do in 4e actually is.

Simply comparing this very the actual extended skill checks/progress clocks people here are talking about, makes it a lot clearer

However you built them, it literally just boiled down to players picking a list of actions and rolling more success then failures separate from what the players were doing, or how it was going on, completely dissociated alien stuff, that require some weird initiative to handle, this was my point of contention, and why Skill Challenges are actively really bad.

 

[clearstream]

* Your words extend my commentary beyond the instantiation of a singular conflict to play broadly. Both my commentary and the "hole of golf" analogy fails if you extend it beyond its intended use. It is intended exclusively for the resolution of one conflict, no more, no less.

Definitely not deliberately! So where I say...

One way in which I feel the golfing analogy may be not quite right, is that it's possible to see TTRPG play more in terms of performance than competition. What I mean is that it is the journey, not the destination, that counts.

...then the performance or journey I mean is the sequence of contributions to the narrative within the SC, so contained within the "hole of golf". I accept that I might have extended your analogy outside what you had in mind for it (always a risk with analogies.) Apologies if so.

* Your words appear to assume that a given matrix of the above component parts (Starting Point - SP, Endpoint - EP, Obstacle Course Array - OCA) doesn't exist. I

I don't quite understand your objection here. I accepted your matrix on face value (as existing), and spoke to each part. Perhaps we have a mutual misunderstanding?

'm fairly confident you can run a conflict with any given matrix of the above and that it almost surely takes place in the wild. I've talked to so many GMs, I've seen so much play, I've seen so much on forums, I've read so many TTRPGs, and I've run so many games that I'm pretty nearly sure of this. Yes, a particular group of conflict matrices manifest a fair bit more common than the others, but you can find pretty much all of them without looking too hard. You can find GMs who have prescribed all of an SP, an OCA, and an EPA for a singular conflict before play and you can find any one of those prescriptive components comingled with something different.

For sure. I don't think I wrote anything to the contrary.

* Your words seem to be sensing I'm making a value judgement about a given conflict matrix (one iteration among multiple that you'll find in Trad games) that I'm not.

At the start of this chain I did feel a doubt about whether you were making a value judgement, so I flagged that with a question. You responded that you meant what you said, which I (mistakenly, right?) took to mean that you intended to make the value judgements that were implied (by words like "against" and "arbitrary fiat".)

The above all comes as a surprising turn to the discussion, but of course I accept that you in fact did not intend a value judgement. I think SCs can be useful in traditional play, in part because they typically already accept systematically determined conclusions to resolutions in the form of combat. That said, clocks are possibly more successful at the same job.