D&D 5E skill challenges?

[pemerton]

In 5e there are now group checks.

As has been noted, this is a 4e mechanic carried over to 5e.

Skill challenges were always boring and awful because the whole process usually degenerated to its bare mechanical bones of repetitively rolling dice and tabulating the results.

skill challenges were always boring.

It does not matter what the intent is. If there's this rigid framework behind it that everyone is aware of, that framework is always going to be on everyone's mind as the challenge progresses.

I take it that these remarks about skill challenges being "boring" and "awful" are intended as autobiographical? They certainly don't describe my experience.

As for "rigid frameworks", the most rigid framework in D&D is the combat system: all those rolls to hit, damage rolls, saving throw rolls, etc. And it's on everyone's mind when they play out a combat. A lot of people don't think that makes combat inherently boring or awful.

Half the time, the players encourage it and even take the lead - once they know it's an important, XP-bearing encounter, they club together to check who has the highest scores in the most relevant-seeming scores, and have them take the lead, while figuring out which characters can reliably succeed at Aid Another checks, and which ones should sit it out.

For me, this is the same issue as any other aspect of encounter design: in a party game, how do you make all the players take part.

In combat, for instance, even if the MU player is deciding to save spells, the goblins might try and break throuh or throw spears at the back line. In a skill challenge, similarly, the GM needs to narrate the situation in such a way that the other PCs will lose something they care about unless their players start declaring actions.

Skill Challenges always read to me as a format to use that could help instruct DMs on when and how to call for checks, what checks to ask for, and to create results of successful or failed checks prior to having to invent them on the moment.

IMO, the skill challenge mechanic serves one purpose, and one purpose only. To provide a way to give consistent adhoc XP for things that are not necessarily related to combat.

I don't see skill challenges as trainer wheels, nor primarily as an XP delivery device. (In my experience, at least in 4e, you could replace the official XP rules with "gain one monster's worth of XP for every 15 or so minutes of play" and have basically the default rate of progression.)

I think skill challenges are mostly an encounter-framing and resolution device, along the lines of indie-style extended contests. It imposes a discipline on the GM to keep the scene alive unti the mechanical conditions for resolution are satisfied, which means that additional content is generated which otherwise might not be (as per [MENTION=336]D'karr[/MENTION]'s comments upthread about framing and declaring skill checks and then narrating the outcomes as input into the next framing).

The reasons for doing this are much the same as for resoving combat via extended rolls (hit point depletion) rather than a single set of opposed rolls: ie sometimes it is more fun, when roleplaying, to linger over a scene and explore some of the details.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I don't see skill challenges as trainer wheels, nor primarily as an XP delivery device. (In my experience, at least in 4e, you could replace the official XP rules with "gain one monster's worth of XP for every 15 or so minutes of play" and have basically the default rate of progression.)

I think skill challenges are mostly an encounter-framing and resolution device, along the lines of indie-style extended contests. It imposes a discipline on the GM to keep the scene alive unti the mechanical conditions for resolution are satisfied, which means that additional content is generated which otherwise might not be (as per [MENTION=336]D'karr[/MENTION]'s comments upthread about framing and declaring skill checks and then narrating the outcomes as input into the next framing).

I wouldn't call them 'training wheels' either. Skill Challenges are not a "basic version" of calling for checks... they are a formatted version as opposed to a free-form version. Both methods have their strengths and weaknesses. But my point was that a formatted version that could explain in written form in the book how, why, where, and when the checks could be called for and how, why, where, and when you parse the results is easier to get people to comprehend then just writing "When someone does something that might not work, have 'em roll and figure out whether it did or not." Explanations are always easier to grasp than no explanations.

 

[Trevalon Moonleirion]

I've had mixed results with skill challenges--I love them on paper for certain things--but in practice, I find they fall pretty flat with most of my game groups. It's entirely possible that I'm just not that great a DM, or that I'm just not setting them up / narrating them especially well.

My biggest hope for skill challenges has always been as a reasonably good way to resolve a chase. I hate chase scenes in most RPGs because they usually devolve into a mechanically boring, tedious exercise in comparing movement rates and firing ranged weapons. And for all my efforts (and some amazing efforts by some top-notch GMs that I blatantly stole from), the skill challenges I ran usually turned into the same thing, but were at least a bit easier to adjudicate.

Here's a few previous discussions I have saved on my computer on the subject:

Neat idea for a long-form skill challenge spread out over a day:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?269703-Battle-skill-challenge-ideas-plz

Chase skill challenges I was looking for a hand with:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...-a-Chase-Skill-Challenge-(my-players-stay-out!)

Piratecat provided amazing feedback in both of those previous threads. Maybe he can help us again now.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I've been running skill challenges like 4e however now that attributes are skills too I'm finding the skill challenges are really boring and even disallowing back to back skill uses are not helping I'm. Not sure what to do

The obvious thing to do with a less exciting or interesting portion of a session is to gloss over it and get to the good stuff. Call for fewer skill checks or don't call for them at all - instead ask what a PC's bonus is and give obviously trained/good-stat characters automatic success. It's entirely within your rights as DM, and it 'rewards' those characters with success. No need to use a structure that brings everyone in and lets them all contribute, as you will only be spending a few moments on the resolution - the trained PC gets his moment to shine and you move on to something fun....

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I tend to have luck approaching skill challenges, or their like, by coming up with a handful of smaller objectives, obstacles, or opportunities for the players to attempt. The more they succeed at, the better their overall result. Even so, the worst result should still let the game progress in some manner, though sometimes I need to come up with that on the fly.

These objectives might include skill rolls, or even be entirely roleplay. I don't like to limit options. They might be linear (one objective natually follows another), but they may not. Players may even come up with something on their own that I'll count as a success.

The point is, I think it's better to structure these things abstractly rather than mechanically.