Skill challenges and the player with 'brain freeze'

[Final Attack]

I like the concept of having 6 (or so) skill challenges to determine the success of a party in overcoming a 'challenge'. For example escaping the guards using clever tactics -
1. Acrobatics to jump over a large barrier, or food cart
2. Athletics to hurl something at the pursuers
3. History to know of an old sewer system
4. Street smarts to know a 'good route' to loose them
5. Stealth to hide

As I imagine it the players would need to come up with these ideas themselves after the DM poses the problem. I know a few of my players would be amazingly creative and come up with a string of ideas using their skills. But what about those players who just can't be imaginative? Or just have brain freeze and can't see how to use any of their skills to solve the problem, let alone 6 in a row?

What can the DM do to encourage their idea processes? How do you deal with a 'brain frozen' player during a skill check?

 

[Mostlyjoe]

Give them obvious choices as an alternative. Just talk to your players and say "Well you could do this." But reward creativity.

 

[Scipio202]

Give them obvious choices as an alternative. Just talk to your players and say "Well you could do this." But reward creativity.

Or, if you wanted to make it a little harder (to make sure people still have an incentive to think for themselves) - impose either a minimum difficulty (e.g. they have to take the hard version of the skill check), or add a DC penalty if you have to give a hint.

 

[Mistwell]

We have the DMs 6 year old daughter playing in one of our 3.5 games, and most turns she says to the DM "Daddy, what are my options" and then she chooses one. There is no reason you couldn't take that approach (without the Daddy part) and just offer the player some choices if they freeze on the spot.

 

[Harshax]

What can the DM do to encourage their idea processes? How do you deal with a 'brain frozen' player during a skill check?

Sometime this can happen because the player is stalling, or because the DM hasn't described the situation clear enough. In fact, I've known some players to pretend to not understand just so the DM redescribes, and redescribes a room, and sometimes lets slip a piece of information he didn't mean to.

With 'brain freeze', I typically summarize the situation again, remind the player of the goal, and briefly touch upon what the other players have done.

"You're in a town, you can hear the guards shouting to each other as they comb the street looking for your party. Krusk has knocked over a food cart to slow the guards down, Lidda is throwing meat from the cart at dogs who are now fighting over scraps and getting in the way of the guard, and Mialee thinks there might be a sewer entrance around the next alley. What should your character do to help the party escape from the guards?"

 

[WyzardWhately]

I run my game for adults. If they want to ask for more information, or a swift recap, they can do so. If they need some rules information, they can ask for it. If they're just stuck, I start counting down from five, and at zero they get skipped.

This has an amazing effect on people who otherwise "can't decide."

 

[Fallen Seraph]

To semi go along with WyzardWhately's comment of counting down to 5. I could see in groups where you really want fast-paced skill-challenges a timer could be extremely handy.

It could things like a chase-sequence, where you have to decide the manner in-which you are going to follow the person your pursuing. However if you wait too long (this could be variable depending on how much tension you want, speed of the chasey, etc.) then instead of rolling on a DC when you decide, you get another failure notched on.