Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Skill challenges: action resolution that centres the fiction
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Pedantic" data-source="post: 8738839" data-attributes="member: 6690965"><p>I feel like I did try to say that as clearly (if not concisely, because I'm quite bad at that) as possible. Someone once described my view as "player agency grows from the barrel of a gun" which I found amusingly appropriate. Agency is when you have an ability to force the game state to change in a known and specific way and you can leverage that to your benefit. High agency mechanics state declaratively what happens as a result of your action. In D&D's history spells have traditionally been very high agency, and skills have (when they've existed) tended to be low agency (and more so, if there's no way to push yourself off the RNG to achieve a given task, or we're using automatic success/failure rules on 20/1).</p><p></p><p>A good example of a high agency skill check is the 3.5 Tumble rules around moving through a creature, or avoiding an attack of opportunity. There's a specific number you're trying to hit, and you get a specific and useful ability you can leverage against opponents if you do.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I'm following, I would resolve this using actual time and distance as the limiting factors, not remapping those mechanics to checks as it goes.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I think we're talking about Eagle's Flight? I'm seeing Overland Flight as an Arcana check and a fixed speed of 20, with no roll to activate. I don't have a problem with this, but I wouldn't measure this in successes, I'd measure in time and distance.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I think we're kind of conflating two rituals here, Eagle's Flight specifies that a giant eagle spirit shows up to carry you, so I'm not sure how shapeshifting would help. I also don't really see a need to design new mechanics on the fly here, because we already know a distance and a fly speed.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I would find this annoying. The ritual should do what it says it does. We already know distance, we already know fly speed, if I can get there, I can get there, if I can't get there in time I'm going to do something more effective with my time. Perhaps because I didn't know the distance and got the estimation wrong (a mechanic I think should probably fall under Survival?), then I'm going to be very disappointed after I've flown half that time, and come back in time to rejoin my friends, Ankheg-less. If I did know the distance, because we'd just walked from there, I'm scrapping this plan and coming up with something else to do before the encounter.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I have pulled out my core 4e books (as far as I got) and I'm not entirely sure I follow that based on the rules listed there. There is no discussion of minor consequences, though there is a suggestion under Step 4: Other Conditions that there may be ongoing effects unrelated to your checks, and on page 76 a suggestion that other skill checks might come up that don't count as successes or failures, but influence other checks. The example skill challenges do suggest you might also lose a healing surge in addition to whatever else happens on a failed check, but it's a little strange that it's not listed upfront.</p><p></p><p>There is also a side note about interrupting skill challenges that suggests encounters that come in to play between skill checks in extended challenges could add to success/failures on the check, but the implication is that these links are probably not causal, or part of the formal challenge structure.</p><p></p><p>I can see how you would stitch this together into the structure you put above, but I can also see how it took several years to get there, if these rules were intended to produce the results you've delivered, particularly when reviewing the examples.</p><p></p><p>All in all, I'm not persuaded this is anything like how skill challenges were routinely run until we got further guidance, possibly with the DMG 2? I will say, the rules are notable less...formal than I recall them being. There really isn't much scaffolding around the X successes before Y failures system, and a lot of that is more focused on how to fit skill challenges into the encounter budget and align them with rewards.</p><p></p><p>But yes, I think we can agree I'm informed about the underlying structure of skill challenge presentation, and I think my criticisms around agency still stand.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Pedantic, post: 8738839, member: 6690965"] I feel like I did try to say that as clearly (if not concisely, because I'm quite bad at that) as possible. Someone once described my view as "player agency grows from the barrel of a gun" which I found amusingly appropriate. Agency is when you have an ability to force the game state to change in a known and specific way and you can leverage that to your benefit. High agency mechanics state declaratively what happens as a result of your action. In D&D's history spells have traditionally been very high agency, and skills have (when they've existed) tended to be low agency (and more so, if there's no way to push yourself off the RNG to achieve a given task, or we're using automatic success/failure rules on 20/1). A good example of a high agency skill check is the 3.5 Tumble rules around moving through a creature, or avoiding an attack of opportunity. There's a specific number you're trying to hit, and you get a specific and useful ability you can leverage against opponents if you do. I'm following, I would resolve this using actual time and distance as the limiting factors, not remapping those mechanics to checks as it goes. I think we're talking about Eagle's Flight? I'm seeing Overland Flight as an Arcana check and a fixed speed of 20, with no roll to activate. I don't have a problem with this, but I wouldn't measure this in successes, I'd measure in time and distance. I think we're kind of conflating two rituals here, Eagle's Flight specifies that a giant eagle spirit shows up to carry you, so I'm not sure how shapeshifting would help. I also don't really see a need to design new mechanics on the fly here, because we already know a distance and a fly speed. I would find this annoying. The ritual should do what it says it does. We already know distance, we already know fly speed, if I can get there, I can get there, if I can't get there in time I'm going to do something more effective with my time. Perhaps because I didn't know the distance and got the estimation wrong (a mechanic I think should probably fall under Survival?), then I'm going to be very disappointed after I've flown half that time, and come back in time to rejoin my friends, Ankheg-less. If I did know the distance, because we'd just walked from there, I'm scrapping this plan and coming up with something else to do before the encounter. I have pulled out my core 4e books (as far as I got) and I'm not entirely sure I follow that based on the rules listed there. There is no discussion of minor consequences, though there is a suggestion under Step 4: Other Conditions that there may be ongoing effects unrelated to your checks, and on page 76 a suggestion that other skill checks might come up that don't count as successes or failures, but influence other checks. The example skill challenges do suggest you might also lose a healing surge in addition to whatever else happens on a failed check, but it's a little strange that it's not listed upfront. There is also a side note about interrupting skill challenges that suggests encounters that come in to play between skill checks in extended challenges could add to success/failures on the check, but the implication is that these links are probably not causal, or part of the formal challenge structure. I can see how you would stitch this together into the structure you put above, but I can also see how it took several years to get there, if these rules were intended to produce the results you've delivered, particularly when reviewing the examples. All in all, I'm not persuaded this is anything like how skill challenges were routinely run until we got further guidance, possibly with the DMG 2? I will say, the rules are notable less...formal than I recall them being. There really isn't much scaffolding around the X successes before Y failures system, and a lot of that is more focused on how to fit skill challenges into the encounter budget and align them with rewards. But yes, I think we can agree I'm informed about the underlying structure of skill challenge presentation, and I think my criticisms around agency still stand. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Skill challenges: action resolution that centres the fiction
Top