Skill challenges and tactical choice

[Cadfan]

I don't think the point of skill challenges is to play a minigame. I think the point is to create a framework for resolving a challenge using skill rolls. The real "game" is the verbal interaction between players and the DM. This is not that unusual in RPGs.

 

[Harr]

It's a pity we didn't get any really good sample challenges in the book. But the foundation is there. It sounds like a cop-out (and I guess it is from the point of view of someone trying to learn it from the DMG) but skill challenges are as good as you make them.

Like said above, the genius of it lies in how flexible they are. They never tell you, you HAVE to do it this way. If you wanna to make a challenge where only a few skills work in in a narrow constricted way, and some others auto fail, do that. If you want to make a challenge where any skill may or may not be applicable, depending on whether the player can convince you or not, you do that.

Similar with the amount of tactical choice, do you want players to consciously choose from easy medium or, hard, or do you want them to explore what's what on their own... do you want to give +2/-2 for success or failure, do you wanna give double success for a hard success, or double failure for an easy failure, and so on.

The crux of it is that the entire section is way too general and tentative to really communicate what's possible to the reader. I believe the designers might have deliberately written it that way and left it very open like that because they knew perfectly well that they don't yet have the experience or technique to take it farther, and would rather leave it open than constrict it in such a way that would fall flat (and that turns out to be a good decision, since most of the sample challenges are just so bland).

I'm sure this part of the game will see further exploration and refinement over the future DMG volumes. Right now it's clearly in its infancy.

 

[hcm]

This is implicit in any kind of skill check framework, though. The players are going to make suggestions about what they want to try, the DM is going to map those suggestions to skill checks etc *snip*

What you describe are not true tactical choices for the players, since they are totally in the hands of the DM -- i e the player might think he's going for option 1, but the DM rules option 3.

@Cadfan: But where is the challenge? What have *you* (the player) accomplished? Right now, as written, a player could answer 'I guessed what skills the DM thought should work, and I was lucky rolling the dice', which is not much of an accomplishment imo. What I am looking for is a system where the player can answer 'I made the optimal, non-evident choices using the rules of the system, *and* I roleplayed them'. That would be both a tactical and a roleplaying accomplishment.

To me there is no conflict between an interesting, tactical system and a system that supports roleplaying (preferably in a challenging way). At least not if you don't go overboard on the tactical side, which we are certainly not doing here so far.

 

[Harr]

The real "game" is the verbal interaction between players and the DM. This is not that unusual in RPGs.

This is the real secret of it, I think. The actual spark of a good challenge is nowhere to be read in the rules or in the preparation. It comes from the banter/negotiation that arises naturally from the situation. You always get stuff like this, this is a loose paraprashing of a scene we had a while ago when I first tried out 'skill challenges' as I had understood them (it's actually from the same game as my other 'trap-dryad' example:

(players are in a forest glade trying to convince a druid to let some captive children go)

DM: The druid is frowning and waiting for you to say something.

P1: I use my acrobatics to jump around and do flips and impress him.

DM: haha, no, you can't do that.

P1: hehe.. what if I climb up a tree really well, will that impress him?

DM: Nope.

P2: Ok forget it I'll just use my diplomacy then...

DM: ...well you can't just 'use diplomacy', you have to try to convince him of something. What do you want to convince him of?

P1: That I can climb trees really well.

*everybody chuckles*

P2: No ok but seriously, I'll tell him that P1 is like a master of the forest, that he can be extremely valuable as a servant to someone like a druid, IF he agrees to let the children go.

DM: But... he's *not* a master of the forest. He's a dirty street rat.

P1: heheh yep..

P3: Whatever, so I'll tell him a story of how P1 was born and raised among a pack of wolves.

DM: That's with bluff then.

P3: Yeap.

Dm: Hmmmmm.. alrighty then... heh. What the hell, fine. P1, you're gonna be giving me a hard athletics AND a medium Nature... P2, you're gonna use a medium diplomacy to make our friend the offer, P3, hard - very hard- bluff check, and, uh, P4, you wanna do something too, or do you want to wait and see what happens?

P4: Errr I'll smile and nod my head along with P3's story and corroborate everything he says.

DM: Fine... you aid P3 with another Bluff.

P1: haha seriously we're seriously gonna do this??

P2: yeah man!

DM: Ok, be clear on this though, if you succeed, you are agreeing to become this druid's servants for at least one job he might want you to do. It might not be pretty.

P3: Or we could betray him and kill him after he tells us where the children are.

Dm: Whatever. Let's start with P1, Athletics roll?

So long story short they failed the challenge and had to kill the druid with no idea where the children were, but the challenge itself was very fun to go through. And you can see, none of this is really TOLD through the DMG's rules, but it's there, hiding. The magic comes from the dynamics that come out IF you keep to the loose challenge structure and keep it light and fun.

(PS, before everybody piles on with deductions and "logical" arguments and extensions of the theorem and whatnot, yes there are many MANY things going on and being communicated here that I don't have time or inclination to detail out, and if something seems like it makes no sense at all, I can assure you it did make sense at the time. I wrote out the parts that support the point I'm trying to get across which is that unlike combat, the "challenge" in skill challenges comes from the interaction between players, not from the actual rules. This is not a replacement for actual play.)

 

[Harr]

What you describe are not true tactical choices for the players, since they are totally in the hands of the DM -- i e the player might think he's going for option 1, but the DM rules option 3.

Hm, I guess the answer to that would be, there are really no true tactical choices here. That was never the intention. It manages to be fun, engaging and challenging without needing to have 'true tactical' choices. Just story and flavor ones.

To me there is no conflict between an interesting, tactical system and a system that supports roleplaying (preferably in a challenging way). At least not if you don't go overboard on the tactical side, which we are certainly not doing here so far.

Well now that really sounds interesting. I would genuinely love to hear how that would work.

 

[mneme]

I was noticing this as an issue in the first prerealeases, but hoping they had an answer to it in-book. No such luck.

But adding tactical complexity is easy, at least at first blush; just have the PCs accumulate 1 failure every round no matter what they do, or even just set a round-based time limit on when they automatically fail the challenge if it's still going on. This way, there's a running clock -- and there's a distinction between "try something you know will work" vs "try a skill you're not sure will work, but which might work better", vs "aid, giving up your chance to add to the success count but also not accumulating a failure". In a way, this is kinda like combat; the PCs get their licks in, but the bad guys do to, so the PCs can't just take the bruisers down with at-wills, but instead have to spend some effort.