Skill challenges: situation vs system

[Piratecat]

Two things that can be done: Do not work it in rounds, and have only those who wish to participate do so.

When I ran one the other day, I made sure that there was always something that anyone could do; this mostly meant Aid Another, but that's okay. I encouraged people to make skill checks by having bad consequences (continuing attacks) each round, ensuring that they'd want to have the challenge over with as quickly as possible.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Two things that can be done: Do not work it in rounds, and have only those who wish to participate do so.

That's one of the flaws of the current system: there's no incentive for you to take part unless you're good at the task.

A better system is one where the challenge racks up failures in some time-based way (ie - each round X failures are racked up, or each round the challenge makes skill tests and racks up failures if it meets a DC etc), while the players make rolls to rack up successes. That means no matter how bad you are, you don't hurt your team by participating.

 

[Mephistopheles]

Something like that. Make it objective based for each step rather than just the whole challenge. Each step should be as general as possible and the PCs can accomplish that goal anyway they wish.

I like the development track idea for skill challenges to represent an actual progression of events rather than the abstract successes before failures. I'll most likely base my challenges on that kind of model if I decide to run a 4E game or write an adventure for it. Thanks for the input.

Great thread, thanks Mephistopheles. "Skill challenges" lumps a lot of different ideas together, and should have been approached in a more individuated way, for example with separate headings for "timed challenge", "PC vs NPC challenge", "on the fly skill challenge", etc. I'm hoping we'll see this in the DMG2, even though it should have been in the first one, or at least offered free on-line. The skill challenge "system" D&D players recived in a non-solution - it's uninteresting, poorly designed, and improperly used subtracts from the game. However, the *idea* behind it has so much potential, and hints that D&D is evolving.

I agree. I definitely think a section with some general guidelines on different ways to play out different situations would have been more helpful than presenting a system and expecting people to shoehorn situations into it.

This case it's combat, not a role play. That said, the ah-ha that struck me is to give the players some of the information around the skill challenge. This could allow players to come up with their own tactics. For me, as a player, this was the big puzzle piece that was missing. The second ah ha is to some degree it could be run like combat, with rounds and turns. This will get everyone involved through aiding or other needs.

That's a big part of what I was trying to get at. I find that play flows a lot more naturally when players are thinking about the situation in terms of what they'd try to do if they were in the shoes of their character and then using the rules to resolve the action, it's also going to leave the floor open to creative solutions rather than simply going through the motions of the skill challenge.

 

[Bleoberis De Ganis]

I was hinking of doing something along the success track idea, but instead using a sort of tree type structure.

Each Point in the tree has Success and Fail end points. If you earn a fail you move towards the left side of the tree (left branches) where the DCs and options become more difficult. A Success moves you towards the right side of the tree where the DCs and options become better.

At the bottom of the tree, the end of the skill challenge, you either earn a fail or success. The further over the left, the worse the consequences of failure. The further over to the right the better consequences of success.

Something like that. But I have to keep in mind that each point needs to be as general as possible to allow imagination and options. Make it too specific and it is basically railroading, too linear, imagination stunting and leaves the DM stuffed when it comes to having to improvise in sticky player actions.

EDIT: Oh, and for the sake of improve allow side jumping along the same line. If it doesn't count as a success or failure and progress down the tree, allow a side step to either improve or worsen the trail the PCs are going down. This would count as negating a failure in the standard skill challenge.

Might take some designing, however.



EDIT 2: Just checked - far too many points to be possible. Must think of another degrees of success(failure) mechanic.

 

[Bleoberis De Ganis]

just read this:

Mediocre Tales » Blog Archive » 4ed Skill Challenge as Combat - of the Fair to Middling Game Master

Along with the post above about making skill challenges work like combat, it made me think that perhaps each element in a success track could be considered a monster that needs bashing into submission. A failure track could be considered the monster smashing back.


Each Monster could have hitpoints. Perhaps effects and conditions such as ongoing damage. Ongoing Damage: Social Humiliation 5. Make save (witty retort.)

Just some more thoughts.

 

[Nameless1]

I read the same article. The thing that I didn't like was the addition of a HP mechanic. It complicates the whole thing for no real gain.

I have been thinking about this for a while, and my best idea up to this point is that each obstacle in the challenge could be given a certain nimber of successes to complete, the default being one success. Disable a lock? One success. Sneak into the courtyard past the guards? Three successes. Make the Visier seem like a jackass in front of the princess? Two successes. If a monster is an obstacle in the challenge, it takes one to three (or maybe more) successes that make sense (attacks, maybe skill checks, maybe attribute checks) to overcome or kill it. This makes any challenge a series of mini challenges, without a set order that you would need to do them in.

I use the Obsidian Challenge rules to encourage every player to participate, even if they are not well suited to it. For a short synopsis on Obsidian, you count successes but not failures, and the characters have a set number of rounds (default is 3) to complete the chalenge before it is over. In my working hack of this, I have decided that instead of a set number of rounds, I will add in a different mechanic for determining when the challenge ends. Either a timer track, where a saving throw type 50-50 chance adds failures until the critical number are failed, or in a combat type challenge, just use the same 50-50 save mechanic at the end of each round to determine if healing surges are lost. This creates a variable timer instead of the static timer of Obsidian, and you can add in objective consequences as time goes on.

The Skill Challenge rules were probably one of the things I most anticipated with 4e, and the only way that I have been able to enjoy them is when I started using the Obsidian Challenge rules by Stalker0. His rules are great for most situations, and I am currently trying to adapt them a little for a little more granularity in success/failure as well as mod them to include combat that is more narrative focussed, and ignores a lot of the regular combat minutia. The 4e combat rules are fantastic, but there are times that I want a more narrative way or resolving conflict. Skill challenges could fulfill that. I just need to work out the kinks.

 

[Ryujin]

Skill challenges were always my least favourite part of the game, because they felt too forced; 'round and 'round in circles, rolling dice. Then came the revelation that not EVERYONE had to take part in EVERY CHALLENGE. It never really did make a lot of sense for the wimpy Warlock to be carrying rocks, when there were other things he'd be better off doing.

These days we play it fairly free-form, but with the skills generally stated up front. in social skill challenges we just roll play it out, with the GM making rolls at points that are appropriate based on what is said or done. Screwing up and getting caught out might well block one avanue of questioning during an interrogation, for instance (captive sees through the deception), then we need to come up with an alternate method of attack. It's not just mindless, "I bluff him, then I intimidate him, then I'll bluff him again." We're voicing our bluffs and methods of intimidation and the GM considers the merits of the angle used, adding or subtracting a modifier to the roll on the fly.

Even the completely uncharismatic members of the party get into it by trying to explain how their support actions play out. They can't just say, "I roll a 12 and support!", they have to outline what they've done in order to aid the primary character. On one occasion (and only one) the GM allowed the Rogue character to support an intimidate roll by saying, "I'm a Drow." Usually it requires much more effort, like when I was bluffing while interrogating a high level evil Cleric by saying that I couldn't hold the party's Barbarian back much longer, while he in turn gnashed his teeth and foamed at the mouth while 'trying to force his way past me' to the prisoner by way of making a support roll.

It makes for a much better time, overall, and makes you feel like you actually earned that few hundred experience points.