So its all about combat again?

[Crazy Jerome]

It's all raw narrative. The only difference is between "bad narrative" (deus ex machina in Fairy Tale, and "You make progress without completing the task" in 4e SC's) and "Good Narrative" (like "You accomplish X with your skill check, but there's still Y, Z, and Q left").

Good narrative is better than bad narrative, but narrative itself doesn't address the fact that SC's are mechanically dull, and rely on narrative as a crutch to cover that up.

That's one way to read the SC. And if you read them that way, then yeah, the only thing you have to cover it up is the narrative razzle-dazzle. I refuse to call that "good narrative" anymore than I call the typical used-car salesman patter "being sincere."

Not all narrative is created equal. Some of it is patter. Some of it springs from the mechanical interaction with the fiction. Given a background with the BW (or similar) mindset, it isn't difficult to take the SC as written and make the narrative so spring. It's not terribly robust, but it isn't difficult.

So no, I disagree that it is "all narrative". That's like saying that 4E marking, various "taunt" mechanics, and what a MMORPG uses are all "aggro". I'll try to provide an example later.

 

[I'm A Banana]

So no, I disagree that it is "all narrative". That's like saying that 4E marking, various "taunt" mechanics, and what a MMORPG uses are all "aggro". I'll try to provide an example later.

Yeah, I think I'd say that, too. Again, there's definitely a difference between good narrative and bad narrative (and good aggro management and bad aggro management), but narrative alone doesn't cover up the flaws of SC's for everyone. It may make them more palatable, but it's still mechanically quite shallow, no matter how awesomely you describe the results of that die roll.

 

[jadrax]

Can someone xp this for me? I need to spread it around etc etc.

Also- I have to admit that I'm tempted to stat this thing up, I just can't decide for which edition!

It is just a Peryton, stats already exist in most editions. ;o)

 

[pemerton]

I have never seen a skill challenge that was either fun or believable without a hefty dose of DM fiat to make it work. Here's what I've seen happen any time the DM runs a straight-up skill challenge

<snip>

What we have here is a mechanical system which is both rigid and mindless. There are no decisions to make, and no way to think "outside the box" and get an advantage.

Well, my experience is quite different from yours. And I linked above to some actual play reports of skill challenges I've run.

I particularly don't agree that there are no decisions to make. My making decisions, the players can change the situation, and therefore change (i) what skills can be brought to bear, or (ii) what the consequences of failure might be. That is exactly getting an advantage by "thinking outside the box".

I think the mechanics of an SC are functional, and part of what was lacking was any tactical or strategic decisions in the SC on behalf of the PC's, since the PC's mostly didn't have abilities that could be used on an SC aside from skill checks, and mostly didn't have active opposition.

The active opposition has to be provided by the GM's narration. (As it would be in "players roll all the dice" combat.)

As for tactical/strategic decisions, it's about using skill checks to change the situation so as to be better able to engage it.

My experience doesn't match that. My experience with skill challenges have mostly been good--albeit with a hefty does of DM adjudication to insert those decision points. I took it as a given when I first read the rules that each roll would affect the situation--and thus "evolve" the skill challenge, as a natural extrapolation of the mechanics and their purposes.

I'll grant that the rules didn't teach this very well

<snip>

Just the BW concepts of "Let it Ride" and "Say Yes or Roll the Dice" applied consistently to skill challenges make them immeasureably better, and pull much of the pressure off of the "narrative razzle-dazzle". That's not an accident, since the purpose of those BW concepts is to mechanically enhance the narrative and focus on the parts that matter.

Yes. Both to the poverty of the advice (and the much better advice/techniques of narration found in BW, and the other games I mentioned above also) and to the decision points being introduced via adjudication of the checks as the situation unfolds. What I would add is that the rules do talk about this second thing - I quoted them above - they just don't give much advice on how to actually do it. (It's as if the rules said, in relation to combat encounters, "use balanced and interesting mixes of opponents ad terrain" but didn't give the detailed advice on monster roles, terrain types etc, and left it all as an exercise for the GM.)

Not all narrative is created equal. Some of it is patter. Some of it springs from the mechanical interaction with the fiction. Given a background with the BW (or similar) mindset, it isn't difficult to take the SC as written and make the narrative so spring.

the BW drive, which is roughly that the rules are there to set up hard boundaries in certain key places so that you can be a regular Rat-Bastard DM within those confines--and make the players work hard for what they want.

Another yes. With a skill challenge, furthermore, because the players role all the dice, the "rat bastardry" has to be introduced by the GM's narration. Narrate a situation in which the PC's world will come tumbling down unless they act - in which case the players will think about how they can engage the situation, pick up their dice, and start declaring actions!

When they describe their actions I tell them what skill to use (I never let someone just say "I roll bluff") and I work out whether it's core or assistance and the difficulty.

So, a combo of narrative razzle-dazzle, and a few tweaks to the system (assistance, and resolving complications).

The "tweaks to the system" are described in the DMG. They're not tweaks - they're core. As for "narrative razzle-dazzle", comparing BW or HW/Q style adjudication to (say) GM fiat to keep a PC alive in a 2nd ed Dragonlance game strikes me as a pretty odd comparison or equation of techniques.

 

[Hussar]

In my opinion, skill challenges do remove complications because they are so rigid. You need 4 successes before you get 2 failures and you succeed. Period.

If the party has to infiltrate a costume ball at a noble's mansion I'd not frame that as a skill challenge, but simply let the players act out their plan, and see if it succeeds, reacting to every action according to its outcome. Say they fail their attempt to make costumes - so what? They can repeat it as long as they have time for it. That should not count against them. But failing to blackmail the major domo into giving them access? Or failing to forge the invitations? That can have consequences, requiring them to react to that. completely. How many different tasks they need to complete is something even the GM cannot say in advance so how could he/she set a given number of successes in advance?

The problem with this is, many GM's and I include myself in this, don't know when to stop. Just how much detail do I need to include here? And, if every "event" is a pass/fail, then the odds of success become too low.

Note, that there are different SC frameworks. It's not just 4:2 or 9:3 or whatever. There's a range. So you should be able to take a situation and then pick the framework to match. Not the other way around. Don't say, "I need a 9:3 skill challenge here, let's do that." It's, "Ok, we need to infiltrate the ball. It's a pretty difficult thing, so, eyeballing it, we'll say 9:3".

And there's nothing wrong with pulling the eject lever early. If the PC's do something fantastic (or fantastically bad), end the skill challenge. An SC is not meant to be a rigid, lockstep event that you must not deviate from. Just like in combat, you can have the baddies run away or stop fighting, you can have the SC end early.

 

[Hussar]

Keep in mind that, in early editions, the term "Monster" meant Any creature that isn't a pc. The guy you're buying armor from? Monster. The king giving you your mission? Monster. The dwarven pilgrims on the road? Monster.

In fact, here's the "Elven Forest" example wandering monster chart from the 1e MM2:



*Clearly this is a typo; it's probably supposed to read "Falcon, Small".

So you'll hit a "probably combat" encounter on a 5, 9, 13, 15, 17, 19 or 20, and a "probably not combat" encounter on a 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16 or 18. Of those, you have "probably talking" on a 2,3, 4, 7, 8, 16 or 18.

So, yeah- wandering monsters might be combat related, but interaction or exploration options are equally likely on a well-thought out encounter chart. Heck, some had things like "landslide" on them, too!

It's been a while, but, I don't recall the DMG wandering monster tables being quite this friendly. Of course, "elven forest" is probably the most friendly place you can be. As I recall, a number of the random encounters were far more combat related, particularly any of the Dungeon Random tables.

But, hey, it's been a really long time, so I'm willing to be proved wrong here.

My point is, that even on a very friendly random encounter table, you've still got a significant percentage of combat related encounters. I mean, glancing at my Basic D&D book, I see this:

1 Acoloyte
2 Bandit
3 Beetle Fire
4 Dwarf (L)
5 Gnome (L)
6 Goblin
7 Green Slime
8 Halfing (L)
9 Killer Bee
10 Kobold
11 Lizard Gecko
12 Orc
13 Shrew Giant
14 Skeleton
15 Snake Cobra
16 Spider Crab
17 Sprite
18 Stirge
19 Trader
20 Wolf

((I marked the L's for Lawful - very probably not a combat encounter))

So, here we have a LOT more combat encounters. 4,5,8 and 19 and possibly 1 are likely not combat but the rest are. So, I'm not totally far off saying that wandering monster tables are pretty darn combat oriented.

On a totally side note, I remember meeting a random trader once when I was about 10 years old, I and the rest of the party immediately ganked him. My brother, the DM, was shocked and asked afterwards why we did that.

"Well, you said he was a traitor. It's not like we're going to wait around for him to kill us in our sleep!"

Total Gazebo moment.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

And there's nothing wrong with pulling the eject lever early. If the PC's do something fantastic (or fantastically bad), end the skill challenge. An SC is not meant to be a rigid, lockstep event that you must not deviate from. Just like in combat, you can have the baddies run away or stop fighting, you can have the SC end early.

The last key piece of the puzzle to make a skill challenge really work for me was when I completely ignored preset ones. Rather, if the players started to do a series of skill checks that seemed big enough to grant XP, I'd track successes and failures (often retroactively after a roll or two). If they were in the midst of a challenge, but worked around it or abandoned it, then we went back to regular skill checks.

Going into a session, I only have a vague idea where the skill challenges will occur or what they will be about.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Which is good, but fits within the "narrative razzle-dazzle."
...
So, a combo of narrative razzle-dazzle,

What you calle "narrative razzle-dazzle" I call "running the skill challenge system as intended.

and a few tweaks to the system (assistance, and resolving complications).

Assistance is the aid other action and has been there from the get go. This is not IMO a tweak to the system. And also fits fully under the secondary skills explanation in the rules compendium (p161).

Resolving complications is also in the Rules Compendium Skill Challenge rules as one of the listed options under Advantages (p160).

And not telling the players which skills to use (as I don't) is also skill challenges RAW (Rules Compendium p158)

And from a later post:

It's all raw narrative. The only difference is between "bad narrative" (deus ex machina in Fairy Tale, and "You make progress without completing the task" in 4e SC's) and "Good Narrative" (like "You accomplish X with your skill check, but there's still Y, Z, and Q left").

I'd call the way I run skill challenges good narrative - I tell them what progress they have made with their skill checks and they know what they are trying to do. I only know the goal (and that's normally set by them not me) - the path is up to them.

So tell me. What is your problem with skill challenges? Given that everything I'm doing is part of the RAW.

 

[deadwor1d]

Just wait thank god there is no dragons in the playtest...

Hey, I had a BLAST with the 4e ramp-up white dragon encounter. Ok, so maybe this post is a little late in the thread.

I rather like the idea that there could be a dragon that is a (not completely overwhelming) challenge for lowbies, no matter which edition we're talking about.

To keep to topic, there is plenty of the other two pillars in the playtest, but the Caves of Chaos, as has been proposed, is fairly hacky slashy. It was up to the DM to flesh it out better as a mini campaign, which back in the day was just good fun. And it is up to the players to decide how they want to solve the issue of different base camps of monsters. Some went "hack 'em to bits" others "set them against each other". We see this even in the playtest now.

 

[Fenes]

And there's nothing wrong with pulling the eject lever early. If the PC's do something fantastic (or fantastically bad), end the skill challenge. An SC is not meant to be a rigid, lockstep event that you must not deviate from. Just like in combat, you can have the baddies run away or stop fighting, you can have the SC end early.

If you can leave a SC early you don't need the framework at all, but can stick to individual tasks and encounters.