Skill Challenges: Bringing the Awesome

[Professor Phobos]

Lacyon - That's a much clearer definition of when a skill challenge is appropriate than I could have come up with. However, how many situations have that sort of binary outcome?

Let's take the classic skill challenge (Escape from Sembia's "GET OUT OF TOWN!"). The obvious binary outcomes would be: You manage to flee/You fail to flee.

But this is, to my mind, gross oversimplification for no real gain. What about some of the party getting caught, and some not. What if one guy gets ... eaten by a ravenous halfling street urchin? It seems like too much of the possible fun is lost by the abstraction of "Make your rolls, if you get X out of Y, you're all free."

Hmm. Good point. Maybe subdivide the skill challenge? If I have three PCs, and they're fleeing guards, I say: "Skill challenge!" For the whole group, they're 6/3. Each individual PC is, however, at 2/1. Two successes to escape, one to get caught.

I'd probably allow successes to transfer, since it's a group deal- so that a PC with a failure can be "rescued" by a PC with a success, and the chase resumes.

As an example (with only two PCs, because I am lazy) let us say that our two Gentleman Thieves have just been discovered by a quartet of guards in a Noble Lord's bedroom stealing his prize jewels.

Forgive me if I don't have the skill list memorized, I don't.

DM: "What do you do?"
PCs: "Run away!"
DM: "Skill challenge!" (behind the screen, I write down 4/2-2/1)
PC1: "I leap out the window to a nearby rooftop." (Acrobatics)
PC2: "I jump off the balcony to the street below." (Athletics)
Say both succeed. It's now 2/2-1/1.
DM: The guards split into two groups- one jumping onto the rooftop in pursuit, the other two jumping down to the street to give chase.
PC1: "I turn and push the guards off the roof!" (Athletics)
He succeeds, the guards fall and land comically on a manure cart. His skill challenge is over.
PC2: "I crawl into a sewer grate!" (Dungeoneering)
He fails! A guard grabs his leg and drags him back!

PC1 has escaped, PC2 has been caught.

I'd probably allow PC1, however, to notice PC2's plight and voluntarily stay in the skill challenge to help out.
PC1: "I distract the guards with cutting insults!" (Diplomacy)
He succeeds- and that success transfers to PC2, undoing his previous failure and allowing him another shot to escape.
PC2: "I run to a nearby wandering priest of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and request sanctuary with the special secret code phrase for doing so used by that church." (Religion)

He succeeds! Unwilling to offend the Flying Spaghetti Monsterite, a powerful sect in this city, the guards retreat.

5 skills have been used (Dungeoneering, Religion, Diplomacy, Acrobatics and Athletics" for a 4/2 skill challenge, but the Diplomacy roll "cancels" with the failed Dungeoneering roll, so there's still a net 4 successes.

Depending on the particular circumstance, I might have to extend the skill challenge- if PC1's actions put him at risk of further pursuit. Or I might not. Even if he had jumped down to aid PC2, the Spaghetti Monsterite could have granted both sanctuary.

I think it's probably best to view the # of successes/failures metric as a guideline that can be adjusted on the fly.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Phobos - Sheep in the pen is a simple example. You can come up with plenty of analogous ones that people couldn't take 10 on.

Lacyon - That's a much clearer definition of when a skill challenge is appropriate than I could have come up with. However, how many situations have that sort of binary outcome?

Let's take the classic skill challenge (Escape from Sembia's "GET OUT OF TOWN!"). The obvious binary outcomes would be: You manage to flee/You fail to flee.

But this is, to my mind, gross oversimplification for no real gain. What about some of the party getting caught, and some not. What if one guy gets ... eaten by a ravenous halfling street urchin? It seems like too much of the possible fun is lost by the abstraction of "Make your rolls, if you get X out of Y, you're all free."

I just don't see that many scenarios where there is a clear-cut success/failure. This might make more sense in a module, or a very linear plot...but in a (and here I reveal my shameless elitism...=( ) more roleplaying-oriented game, this type of mechanic doesn't seem to make sense to use.

-Cross

Why are you assuming binary failure/success? The last time I read an designer example on the topic, it seemed to imply that there is a continuum of results. There is something that is more like a success (the players get what they probably wanted out of the situation, but it might cost them something) and something that is more like a failure (the players didn't really get what they wanted out of the situation, and they might get into (more) trouble for it now or later).

In the Escape of Sembia scenario, even a failure might result in an escape, but it's possible that the enemy is close on their tracks, that their names are known, or that they will have to face a stronger opposition at a later time.

 

[Storm-Bringer]

It is true that any implementation of knowledge in a dice-based skill system will result in uncertainty about whether a character knows certain facts until the dice are rolled. It can't be any other way.

The implementation of knowledge skills does not seem to have changed.

Not really. History (Orcs) is much different than History. The former assumes a general knowledge of Orcish history, so knowing this hero or that chieftan is likely. But knowing the Goblin Ritual of Tribal Acceptance is right out. With the latter, you have equal chances of both.

Having a skill that covers the breadth and depth of everything that occurred before now is far too broad. Much like Athletics really shouldn't cover Fencing, Jousting, Football and Swimming, although it usually does.

Broadly defined includes 'poorly defined' as well. What are the limits of Dungeoneering, for example? Anything that would be done underground? Rope use, mining practices, locating water... One skill can hardly encompass all the things you would do underground or in a dungeon environment. In a previous article, Dungeoneering was used to navigate a runaway mine cart. With applications that wide, I am having a hard time imagining where a skill would not be usable.

 

[Lacyon]

Not really. History (Orcs) is much different than History. The former assumes a general knowledge of Orcish history, so knowing this hero or that chieftan is likely. But knowing the Goblin Ritual of Tribal Acceptance is right out. With the latter, you have equal chances of both.

In either case, you still don't know anything at all until you roll the dice, unless you change the system such that rolling is unnecessary.

Having a skill that covers the breadth and depth of everything that occurred before now is far too broad. Much like Athletics really shouldn't cover Fencing, Jousting, Football and Swimming, although it usually does.

Broadly defined includes 'poorly defined' as well. What are the limits of Dungeoneering, for example? Anything that would be done underground? Rope use, mining practices, locating water... One skill can hardly encompass all the things you would do underground or in a dungeon environment. In a previous article, Dungeoneering was used to navigate a runaway mine cart. With applications that wide, I am having a hard time imagining where a skill would not be usable.

I'm not having much trouble imagining one at all. Of course, I also don't have a problem allowing PCs to use a broadly applicable skill in a variety of situations.

 

[Storm-Bringer]

In either case, you still don't know anything at all until you roll the dice, unless you change the system such that rolling is unnecessary.

But more importantly, you can definitively say what the character doesn't know, which is how you determine whether or not a skill is applicable. With History (Orcs), you can definitively say that character doesn't know much non-Orcish history, and you can definitely say they can't use that skill to recall the Three Words of Draconic Capitulation. History is including everything that could possibly be known about anything. History (Orcs) is excluding everything that isn't Orcish.

It's the scope of the skills that make the difference.

I'm not having much trouble imagining one at all. Of course, I also don't have a problem allowing PCs to use a broadly applicable skill in a variety of situations.

Then, named skills are unnecessary.

Trained Skill A: 18
Trained Skill B: 15
Trained Skill C: 14
Untrained Skill D: 12
Untrained Skill E: 11
Untrained Skill F: 9

All the DM has to do at that point is announce the challenge, and the players call out a letter while they are rolling until the success or failure of the encounter is determined, and make up a story. As mentioned elsewhere, it's writing a story about your craps game.

 

[Crosswind]

As a heads-up to those questioning why my post was assuming binary success/failure...Lacyon had suggested that a good rule of thumb as to when to use a skill challenge vs. when to use what I would refer to as "Normal skill checks" would be in particularly binary situations, where success and failure were pretty clear-cut.

-Cross

 

[Lacyon]

But more importantly, you can definitively say what the character doesn't know, which is how you determine whether or not a skill is applicable. With History (Orcs), you can definitively say that character doesn't know much non-Orcish history, and you can definitely say they can't use that skill to recall the Three Words of Draconic Capitulation. History is including everything that could possibly be known about anything. History (Orcs) is excluding everything that isn't Orcish.

It's the scope of the skills that make the difference.

And History is also excluding anything that isn't historical. No matter how broad a skill is, it can exclude something.

Then, named skills are unnecessary.

Only if you care nothing at all about describing what's going on.

 

[WhatGravitas]

All the DM has to do at that point is announce the challenge, and the players call out a letter while they are rolling until the success or failure of the encounter is determined, and make up a story. As mentioned elsewhere, it's writing a story about your craps game.

And if we take that insight, we can also extend that to combat. Attack A, Attack B or Attack C against Monster A, B, or C, made by PC Alpha.

The point is, naming the skills is always not necessary. Even under 3E: In Complex C (the Dungeon of Dire Doom), there is Challenge Point G (the Hall of Fire) with a Skill Prompt C-15 (a trap with Disable Device DC 15). This requires a PC of Type 6 (Rogue) with the Skill D (Disable Device).

Names are always just there to "make believe". That's the point of RPGs - having fun in an imaginary world.

Cheers, LT.

 

[hong]

I would be willing to bet hard money that in previous incarnations, the skills used were better defined or more specific, and skill challenge sequence was flexible enough to accommodate some 'not what the DM intended' skill use. The major problem that arises here is how the success/failure goal is entirely divorced from the skills being used, in addition to the skills being so overly broad as to be nearly meaningless. History, for example, can't possibly be a skill or knowledge in and of itself.

Of course it can.

A character can't possibly recall Helpful Factoid #386 for a skill challenge if they never read Helpful Factoid #386.

This is only important in a game where all Helpful Factoids are carefully accounted for beforehand. Needless to say, at the level of detail we are talking about, this does not happen.

A successful roll in History doesn't create the knowledge in the character's head. But because the skill is defined so broadly, that is the only way to approach it.

Nonsense. The correct way to approach it is to say that a successful roll means they _recall_ a fact of which they were previously aware. An unsuccessful roll means that either 1) they fail to recall the fact, or 2) they were never aware of it in the first place. The distinction between 1) and 2) is unobservable within the game world, and therefore unimportant even to the most ardent s*mul*tionist.

In fact, with a skill defined so broadly, there is no way to definitively say they know anything at all.

Which is a Good Thing, because it makes improvisation so much easier.

 

[VannATLC]

edit: Beaten to the punch.

I should read threads entirely before replying.