Skill Challenges: Please stop

[Barastrondo]

AKA: "Mother-May-I" Gameplay.

At its worst, yeah. I tend to see it as "gaming the DM", which is kind of unavoidable.

Well, lemme back up a bit. I think that most every RPG out there hinges on the players and the GM being in some sort of accord. The more that the players can anticipate what the GM is looking for and trying to enforce, the better shape they're in. I don't mean this in a bad way (though it can go there, depending) -- for instance, in a James Bond game, the players who are thinking in terms of an espionage movie and its tropes will theoretically be doing well, because that's what the GM is looking for. Similarly, if the GM says "I'm running a four-color superhero game based on Astro City" and the players decide to all create grimdark '90s antiheroes made of gun-katanas, it is not unfair of the GM to say "guys that is totally not what I was talking about." So yeah, this accord is pretty pivotal.

The sort of play Robbins describes strikes me as ideal when you have a play group that's been together for a while, and when everyone knows and anticipates the GM and the way he tends to set up information dumps. However, some players are still going to be better at it than others. For instance, my wife talks to me all the damn time, frequently about gaming. She knows some of my foibles inside-out, like "Ethan is highly critical of hereditary rulership" or "This Gormenghast vibe means NPCs are highly tradition-minded, so appeals for a new way of doing things are not as successful." This gives her something of an advantage when knowing what questions to ask and what details to look for. So in a game where she's playing alongside someone who doesn't know me as well (which is probably anyone else), rolling dice helps level the playing field a bit.

TL;DR version: It's valid advice, but I think it's advice that's of variable utility depending on your gaming group. Some groups may do better with dice as an equalizer.

 

[billd91]

I'm talking about 4E only. I wasn't aware of any skill challenge mechanic in SWSE. In what ways is the presentation there better?

Galaxy of Intrigue expands on many of the elements of skill challenges initially presented in 4e with plenty of sample skill challenges developed right from the movies so it's really easy to see how the concept of a skill challenge could play out. There is also a fairly extensive example of play that, I think, makes it clear that the players can be driving the use of skills while the GM decides, based on their input, whether or not a use of a skill contributes to the success of the challenge. There's also a number of options for what successes and failures really mean in a skill challenge. Successes could ameliorate previous failures rather than add to the number of successes, for example, which might be really useful if failures were causing the loss of resources (such as when the number of failures may mean the number of ships lost from a convoy navigating through a treacherous region of space).

If you think that the skill challenge structure is too rigid or contrived, I think Galaxy of Intrigue may well have the power to change your mind.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Oh slippery slopes, you are my favorite thing to slide down!

Please remember the Eric's Grandma rule when responding to this post!

 

[Piratecat]

I've found a great balance with a successful check that tells the player something odd, but lets them figure out what.

"We search the library for hidden treasure. Perception check 32."

"You find something a little odd. You find a book that's obviously been thumbed and used a lot, judging from the binding, but it's on the top shelf corner - too high to easily be grabbed."

"I check it for traps and to see if it opens a secret door. Perception 27, Thievery 25."

"No obvious traps. You'd have rigged it with a tripwire, but there isn't one there. Not a secret door trigger either, as it comes right off the shelf."

"What's the title?"

"A History of Dung Beetles."

"I open it."

"The interior is a solid black hole."

"Cool, it's a bag of holding in a book!"

I do the same for traps. Tell them something is odd after a successful roll, let them consider that a bit, then only require more rolls if they can't suss it out themselves. We're having more fun doing it this way, even if it means an occasional automatic success in the skill challenge.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Thanks for the XP re: being open-minded.

Be aware, though, that being open-minded doesn't just mean that you accept the potentials of something, but also that you can see the pitfalls. Open-mindedness works both ways.


RC

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Something I'm interested in trying in my game is give the characters different types of role-playing opportunities created by their skill checks. In a "round" of a skill challenge, I'd ask each of the players how they want to contribute to the situation at hand, essentially choosing a skill that they want to implement.

I will then ask them to roll their check, and I will determine how successful that roll is. If it successful or very successful, I would tell those players that they did (or are doing) a good job, and for them to roleplay appropriately. Hopefully they will do their best to roleplay the result, and my DM filter will adjudicate the attempt appropriately.

For whoever rolls poorly, or very poorly, I will ask them to roleplay an appropriate unsuccessful attempt. They get to choose how they foul up, despite their best intentions.

I'd like to see a social interaction occur between the party and the NPCs after each player has an idea of how they contribute. In a "meet the noble patron family" scenario, let's say the flirtatious bard rolled poorly for Diplomacy, and so chooses to roleplay the inability to avoid staring at the the Baroness' chest as he's expounding upon how useful the heroes will be if the Baron would hire them. The Baron looks like he's getting pissed.

The rogue however knew he rolled well on Bluff, and so uses it to successfully distract the Baron from the bard. "Psst, my friend Llellewyn the Loquacious here has lazy eyes. Two of 'em in fact. Four, when he wears his spectacles. Poor crooked-eyed bastard has a voice like a dwarven metal band though. Now how much is the reward for the gnoll demon cultists? We sent them straight to their underlords. What to you mean, what gnolls? You didn't know? Boy, do I have a story for you." (Success)

The low-Cha, Low Int barbarian chose History (he's a role-player!), and accidentally rolled very well on his History check. So he gets a chance to portray how he thinks his arrogant, vapid warrior helps out. He says he remembers a battle that his grandfather spoke of. "Hey. You are of Clan (House) Hartmaster? A Hartmaster clan-chief led many warriors, including my grandmother to slaughter the orcs at Vangerdeth Vale 40... or 80 winters ago. Something like that. My grandmother said he had mighty thews. So are you him? You don't look too old for an old guy. You look tough, though. We should break staves later, cuz I think I can take you. Where is the food?"

The Wizard botches his Arcana check to impress everyone, and therefore he decides that he is going attempt to light the noble uncle's cigar, and accidentally catch the uncle's robes on fire with a particularly explosive flamefinger. "Wow! That was not supposed to happen. Here, let me clean that off with my mystical presti- oops. Nope. The water just does not make it better. My most sincere apologies. I'm rather used to destroying bloodsucking vampires and malevolent, baby-stealing scarecrows with cascades of fire. I'll stand over here, and instead use my immense talent for the Art against your foes. It's better this way."

I like the idea of giving the players some variety in role-playing opportunities. Instead of saying. "OK, give me your best shot to try and convince the Lord to hire you." Then he belts out an impressive speech, and then roll a 1 on his Diplomacy check. Come on, where is the verisimilitude in that? So I say...why not roleplay the roll? What do you think?

Right, exactly what I've been saying. Do it just like combat. Pick an action, roll a check, narrate the results. In an SC this will be more back-and-forth than using some standard power in a combat, but the general concept works fine.

And call me old school if you want, but I want dice in my peanut butter. Remember, there are static DCs and passive checks for "the perceptive cleric spots something" that doesn't need dice, that's exactly what it is there for. Active checks OTOH are the players driving the game through the agency of their characters. Sure, fate is involved. There are also a lot of unquantifiable factors in any reasonably complex action. Like I said above, you can definitely work a success or failure in a lot of different ways, and it can spin into all sorts of possible new avenues.

One thing that helps a lot is for the DM to have a fair amount of detail to his notes about a situation, especially a social one. There should be a number of NPCs potentially involved, different motivations, various little details that the players can latch onto and use to hang narrative off of, etc. For example, in Convincing the Duke:

Put a painting on the wall. Describe the rather threadbare condition of the room's furnishings. Have a priggish advisor that doesn't like the cleric's patron god. Have the Duke's daughter burst in to complain about her wardrobe for the big ball tomorrow. Any of that plus a sentence on the other 4 people in the room's personality and one on their motivations or needs. Then you will have a LOT less problems with the SC. It will just FLOW if you let it.

 

[WizarDru]

DR version: It's valid advice, but I think it's advice that's of variable utility depending on your gaming group. Some groups may do better with dice as an equalizer.

This is an important point. Folks tend to forget that different groups work differently and enjoy different styles. I'm sure some of my skill challenges wouldn't work for some groups, at all. But that's also true of our play style. We abandoned XP a few levels back, for example...and haven't missed it. We don't mind saying 'whoops, he had a -2 there, didn't he? Guess he missed, after all.' Some groups would see this as destroying the narrative.

Some weeks, we barely roll a die, due to the role-playing. Other weeks, we barely utter dialogue while we calculate how to set up flanks and who should get their mark. Most weeks fall solidly in the middle. That's who we roll. Literally. Every group is different...which is why there are and should be multiple approaches to skill challenges.

 

[the Jester]

Thanks for the XP re: being open-minded.

Be aware, though, that being open-minded doesn't just mean that you accept the potentials of something, but also that you can see the pitfalls. Open-mindedness works both ways.

Oh, absolutely! And skill challenges are a good example of a mechanic that needs a certain amount of finessing to avoid a really artificial feel. Several of the early skill challenges that I ran kinda sucked; but by learning from them (and the article series about them, and published examples, etc), I really improved my mastery of skill challenges. Just like I have over the years by learning from sucky npcs, encounters, plotlines, etc.

The thing with skill challenges, like just about everything else in the game, is that some groups will like them and some won't. For those that do, I think it's worth the effort that it takes to get good at designing and running them in a way that you and your group enjoy. Unlike combat, we haven't had much of a mechanical framework for group non-combat challenges in the past (short of the dubious example of encounter traps in 3e's Dungeonscape, which were really a preview of how traps and hazards would work in 4e anyhow). Because of this, as well as the skill challenge system's own warts as originally presented, there has been a learning curve with skill challenges.

I think I actually put more into designing many skill challenges than I do into designing a lot of combats- and this despite the fact that I usually take a very "tell me what you're doing" approach rather than the "here are your primary and secondary skills" approach.

One trick that I have found makes the skill challenge mechanic as a whole work better with my group is to run them differently depending on the circumstances. Often I don't announce that the party is in one, though they might easily pick up on it if they are paying attention (I track successes and failures with dice). Once in a while they even get a handout with the whole thing on it (well, unless I leave out some complications or surprises!). It depends on the nature of the challenge- if it's a diplomatic encounter, I don't announce it, and I call for skill checks as the characters interact, while if it's a challenge to build a raft from Underdark fungus, they'll know how many successes they need to succeed (though the pcs might think they succeed even if they fail, despite the contrary knowledge of the players).

 

[Piratecat]

Jester, I'll be yoinking a variant of your island ship challenge for my own 11th lvl party. That's great.

In fact, I'm surprised and delighted that this thread has gone from complaints to incredibly creative solutions and ideas. Thank you, you guys.

 

[Riastlin]

Thanks for the XP re: being open-minded.

Be aware, though, that being open-minded doesn't just mean that you accept the potentials of something, but also that you can see the pitfalls. Open-mindedness works both ways.


RC

Absolutely, as Jester indicates every group and every game is different. By being open minded we can all improve our games, wether as players or DMs. It can be hard, but sometimes as a DM we just need to say "Well, that session sure sucked." Its one of the reasons why I always encourage players to talk to their DM if they are dissatisfied with something that is going on because a good DM will absolutely take that dissatisfaction into consideration and should at least discuss the issue with the player.

And yes, while I love SC as a concept, I have to agree that they can be very difficult to pull off well (in part due to their being so new). This only compounds the problem if you are running a group that really isn't into the SC mechanic in the first place. (i.e. they are dubious of SC's to begin with, then they get a lousy SC thrown at them, odds are their opinion of SC's won't improve any).