Skill Challenges: Bringing the Awesome

[Primal]

There are two reasons why I'd never use the skill challenge described:

1) It requires an metagame announcement. To me, saying 'This is a skill challenge with general skill DC 18' or anything like that ruins the scene. It ought to be implicit that everything is a challenge if the players want it to be.
2) If the specific challenge is 'disarming the trap', then a skill challenge disarms the trap (as is shown from the example) even if the PC's take no action to do so until after they win the challenge. I've got no problems with taking specific actions to make other specific actions easier, but I do have a problem with specific actions replacing other unrelated specific actions. I likewise have a problem with a challenge failing before it fails, in as much as playing it this way could have resulted in 4 failures foredooming things before the players really did anything.

I'm just failing to see how the system part of this encounter made it better. Isn't it enough to discover the problem, come to understand the dangers, and then take action to remedy the problem without a tally system?

1) I thought the *player* sets the DC by choosing how "hard" he wants the challenge to be? In that sense I'd say that 4E succeeds, although in a "rough" and somewhat limited fashion, encouraging a more "narrative" style for out-of-combat challenges (of course, most Indie RPGs do this in a more elegant and coherent fashion, but it's a good start).

2) This is actually how many Indie RPGs encourage the players to brazenly metagame and "think out of the box". In Dust Devils, you can even always use your highest skill in conflicts, *if* you manage to bring it into the story in a creative and credible way. In my experience this has encouraged creativity and immersion in the story. However, if the DM lets pretty much anything fly without any adjudication (i.e. the players are not required to describe how the skill would apply in the situation), it's a valid concern that the Skill Challenges turn into a routine roll using your highest modifier in any situation.

I'm very much against 4E, but the Skill Challenge system is actually one of the few things I like. It may not suit everyone's style, but my campaigns would probably benefit (storywise) a lot out of it. If (and that's a *BIG* 'If') my group will ever try 4E, I'm definitely going to use this system.

 

[AZRogue]

The 4E system won't be for everyone, I'm sure. Some groups already have an effective way to negotiate out-of-combat scenes that they will prefer. That's a good thing.

My group, however, are not big "roleplayers" with the exception of one in particular, and another (not so much). For example, if they ever get into the story enough to start speaking in character they will instantly stop and start looking around to make sure the windows are shut and no one is snooping in on them. They're not that comfortable doing it, though sometimes they get so immersed that they just start. For the most part, though, they don't see the point so they purposely pull back from doing it and are big on just making a Skill check and getting the RP moment "over with".

In my 4E-Lite playtests I've tried the skill challenge as best as I understand it and it has made a big difference for my group. I do, actually, announce a Skill Challenge (though I haven't announced a DC before, not sure if you're supposed to). They invariably sit up straight and treat the challenge like "something-that-matters" and, lo and behold, they don't seem to mind speaking "in-character" during the challenge because it helps them describe what they're doing. Their immersion increases, IMO, and they know that there's a goal they're trying to achieve beyond combat, which is usually their favorite part.

I haven't noted this change to them as no one else has said anything and I don't want to rock the boat by making them aware if they aren't already, but I love it. It provides a structure which seems to help us (them, I mean) focus instead of treating the event as a "boring part" between combats. In the past it was always left to my group's two roleplayers to act out of combat while the rest of the guys smoked or grabbed drinks waiting for them to do their job. Now (and I've ran a total of 3 skill challenges at this point) they have all been involved.

So, I would say that if the real skill challenge system is roughly the same as the one we've inferred from the tidbits we've seen then it will work great for my group. I can understand if it's not that needed for most people, but I, for one, am grateful as it seems to provide a structure that encourages my group to roleplay a lot more.

My problem right now is how often should I include a skill challenge? And, what's an appropriate event for a skill challenge? Should I use them only for events like finding a way through a swamp with no roads? Or should I include them for such mundane things as finding information on a particular NPC in town? So far I've limited them to "bigger" things and am curious what the DMG says on the matter. There may be times, such as researching info on an underworld contact who MAY hear about it and not take kindly to the snooping, where it's easy to decide a challenge is appropriate, but without the element of danger, or a negative result, I'm not sure if it's needed. Once again, I'd really like to read the DMG and the advice is has.

None of that made any sense, I'm sure, as it looks like a long ramble to me, but there it is.

 

[WhatGravitas]

I like the idea behind it an may use the system for a 3E pre-trial but you won't see me announcing 'skill challenge start' and 'skill challenge won'.

I don't really see that people are announcing skill challenges - that sounds artificial and breaks the immersion.

I rather see it as codified form of dealing with a situation in a free form way. Like... people are describing 1E. You didn't rolled for "Disable Device", you instead said what you were doing with the trap. Skill challenges are similar - present a situation, let the players invent ways how to handle it, then use the system to transform their ideas into a fair and codified attempt in-game.

Instead of "roll for X", you now rather present "that's scene X, what do you want to do?".

And I think that's the key to using them properly, present situations, let the players/PCs deal with the situation at hand.

For example, I can see how that system facilitates solving murder mysteries: Instead of letting the players guess/puzzle, now they describe what they are doing... like looking for witnesses (Gather Information), doing an autopsy (Heal), studying the surroundings (Perception), trying to access the city watch archives (Diplomacy) and so on. But now it relies of the abilities of the character, instead of the riddle-solving power of the player.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Cadfan]

[hong]
"Roll for initiative!"

Whoops.
[/hong]

Actually, I very well might start declaring "Skill challenge... GO!" because my groups usually include newer gamers, and a little push now and then goes a long way. But I can't see a problem going seamlessly into these things. If you describe what's going on well enough, its easy for the party to grasp the situation. All they really have to know is that they're using skills in a situation where they're opposed by someone or something else, that succeeding at their skills is good, and that failure is bad.

 

[Hussar]

I'm also hoping that the section for this includes LOTS of advice. I can see this being a real sticking point for a lot of people.

I also think that this will really help a lot of tables. It keeps everyone involved instead of breaking down the roles into combat guy and skill guy, which seems to happen a lot IME.

Like a lot of things, I can see a real range in how this will be handled at the table from, "Ok guys, skill challenge, DC X you need Y successes, everyone roll." to more deeply immersive experiences. And that's groovy. You need to walk before you run. For those of us with lots of RP experience, it will be a fairly easy shift. For newer players, they can learn to RP with a bit of training wheels help.

Not a bad thing.

 

[Cadfan]

You know, I wrote that "roll initiative!" comment as a sarcastic jibe at how we all happily accept huge, immersion breaking beginnings to fights, but we won't accept immersion breaks on skill challenges.

But now that I think about it, saying "roll initiative!" is probably the best solution. I have to figure out some way to decide who goes first, and rewarding a high initiative score seems fair. It should work fine once I train my players not to immediately kill everything that moves whenever they hear those two words.

 

[Celebrim]

1) I thought the *player* sets the DC by choosing how "hard" he wants the challenge to be?

I think that the player choice of difficulty modifies the base difficulty.

In that sense I'd say that 4E succeeds, although in a "rough" and somewhat limited fashion, encouraging a more "narrative" style for out-of-combat challenges (of course, most Indie RPGs do this in a more elegant and coherent fashion, but it's a good start).

I disagree. I think you can support different styles of play with a single ruleset, but generally dislike the notion of different rules sets within the same game system supporting who knows what. I think that adding incoherency to the rules greatly out weighs any additional ability to support narrativist play. So IMO, this is a step backward.

This is actually how many Indie RPGs encourage the players to brazenly metagame and "think out of the box".

This isn't even really my worry. I'm not really worried about gamist concerns like whether or not having even a single skill focus would largely invalidate a skill challenge. What I'm really worried about is the issue of causality. That is, can players predict what the set of likely outcomes an action are without the stakes being explicitly set? In my judgement, the described system has causality problems in that not touching the trap can cause it to blow up. In fact, merely talking about the trap can cause it to blow up, in some cases before the players even learn that there is a trap. Likewise, merely talking about the trap can physically disarm it. To a certain extent, because the outcomes are precircumscribed, what the players do or propose to do is hense irrelevant and the outcome doesn't have to procede logically from the propositions. Ultimately, no matter what they do or propose to do, some causality occurs that isn't directly caused by in game physics but rather by out of game mechanics. The logical connection is built back in as needed. I'm not a strict fortune at the end sort of player or referee, but not only does this tend to go too far for me, but it's jarring to have this 'fortune a good bit before the middle' in a game which tends towards 'fortune a good bit past the middle'.

If I'm going to play a game where we figure out what the outcome is before we figure out the propositions that produced it, I'd like to have a coherent structure for it and not do one thing in one situation and one thing in another.

 

[VannATLC]

This isn't even really my worry. I'm not really worried about gamist concerns like whether or not having even a single skill focus would largely invalidate a skill challenge. What I'm really worried about is the issue of casuality. That is, can players predict what the set of likely outcomes an action are without the stakes being explicitly set? In my judgement, the described system has casuality problems in that not touching the trap can cause it to blow up. In fact, merely talking about the trap can cause it to blow up, in some cases before the players even learn that there is a trap. Likewise, merely talking about the trap can physically disarm it. To a certain extent, because the outcomes are precircumcised, what the players do or propose to do is hense irrelevant and the outcome doesn't have to procede logically from the propositions. Ultimately, no matter what they do or propose to do, some casuality occurs that isn't directly caused by in game physics but rather by out of game mechanics. The logical connection is built back in as needed. I'm not a strict fortune at the end sort of player or referee, but not only does this tend to go too far for me, but it's jarring to have this 'fortune a good bit before the middle' in a game which tends towards 'fortune a good bit past the middle'.

If I'm going to play a game where we figure out what the outcome is before we figure out the propositions that produced it, I'd like to have a coherent structure for it and not do one thing in one situation and one thing in another.

Um.. What?

Seriously, much of your arguments, while well worded, concise, and apparently valid, seem to fall down, in that I fail to see how it is an argument against the rules, as opposed to an argument against a given DM's capability.

It is a DM's choice to break causality in such a fashion. It is not an artifact or a predisposition in the rules.

In the above scenario, the players could walk on, nothing would happen, and the dryad would eventually die when the corpse was triggered by natural action.

Under your general complaint, the corpse-trap could be triggered by the Dryad taking umbrage at the player prescence. There are many and varied things that would *not* break causality, and if something *does* then its poor play on the DM's part.

 

[smathis]

I'd go a couple of ways with it.

First, I doubt I'd give the players the option to choose the difficulty. Sure, there's Easy/Normal/High. But to have a player say something like "I'm going to triple somersault up to the roof, Easy difficulty" just doesn't sit right with me. And it bugged me in the playtest. There was never an incentive (not a single one) for a player not to choose Easy difficulty.

Generally, I would say most things fall in the realm of Normal but, for example, my Halfling trying to get the City Guard to let him pass using Diplomacy should have been High difficulty.

So I think the DM should choose the difficulty based on the circumstances.

That said, I don't know if I'd run a Skill Challenge with an individual PC -- unless it was something like a Trial or needing to cast a Ritual while the other PCs fought off something trying to disrupt the Ritual. When I played, we ran 6 individual Skill Challenges. That was a little overkill, IMO.

Outside of that, I'd run them all like I would in one of them indie games.

Each roll the player and I would set stakes. The roll would resolve those stakes. I would be using house-rules for Levels of Success so complications would invariably result, making the Skill Challenges all the more interesting.

The majority would be group Skill Challenges, with each player making a roll towards the overall objective in turn. These would be things like trying to investigate a murder or infiltrate a stronghold of some sort (Oceans 11 style, of course).

Then I would have individual Skill Challenges but I'd only condense them in the event that it really was something like one PC needed to do a very specific and important thing while the rest of the party did something else. An example might be one PC researching a spell while the other PCs did a separate group Skill Challenge to investigate the location and habits of some beastie.

One thing to remember about these (much like Extended Contests in HeroQuest) is that they don't have to be within a specific time-frame. You could have a Skill Challenge with one of the PCs lasting multiple sessions with adventures in between each roll.

Or significant time could pass between each 'round' of a Skill Challenge. Such as courting the daughter of a noble. A week could conceivably pass between each roll. Whether the party does anything within that timeframe depends on the adventure.

 

[hong]

To a certain extent, because the outcomes are precircumcised,

Somehow, I dont think you mean "nerfed".