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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Stalker0" data-source="post: 4318518" data-attributes="member: 5889">The Nuts and Bolts of the Obsidian System (Version 1.0)This section is just detailing how and why the system does what it does. This is all COMPLETELY OPTIONAL INFORMATION! Please don't feel that you have to read this to understand the system.Why the name Obsidian?I would love to tell you all it represents the polishing of a rough system into something smooth and wonderful or something like that. But the honest answer is it popped in my head, and it sounded so cool to me I had to use it!Changing the Paradigm, why did I choose to create Obsidian?Unlike my other skill challenge system, Obsidian represents a very different way of thinking about a skill challenge. People may be wondering why I went this direction, especially considering how much time and effort (and snacks!) went into creating my other system.The answer is NOT that I’m unhappy with my other system. I think it is a great step forward in the skill challenge progression, under the paradigm of success/failure complexities.The answer is that as my group started playing skill challenges, several things came out that they disliked about it. It had nothing to do with my tweaks to the system, but more to the core mechanics of the system, which are as follows:1)    For most skill challenges, every player should get the opportunity to use one of his best skills.My group had several problems with this. First of all, we don’t like the idea that everyone is awesome at every moment. It goes to the quote from the “Inevitables” movie, “If everyone is special, no one is.” While we like the idea of every player participating in a skill challenge, we didn’t want every player to participate equally every time. The fighter should be great in physical time challenges and not so great in social ones. However, one of the benefits of 4e that we like is that because the skill discrepancy isn’t as large, while a fighter isn’t as good in a social scene as the rogue perhaps, the difference isn’t so large the fighter may as well not be there. He can still help, just not as much.Further, we noticed that players trying to use their best skills started feeling “mechanical”. In 3e when we would do a “social challenge” the party would talk to the duke, we would roll a diplomacy check, and be done with it. In 4e the wizard is thinking how his arcana will work, the fighter is trying to think of some crazy thing to do with athletics, the cleric wants to talk about his god as if that will automatically help, while the rogue just sighs and rolls diplomacy. In the challenge, we wanted people to be roleplaying and rolling diplomacy, intimidate, and bluff checks. And if every character isn’t the best at that, that’s okay, the party should still have a good chance of winning the challenge.2)    A player’s effort can actually hurt the party. A failed roll can “ruin” the challenge for the group.In combat, generally the worst thing a player can do is do nothing. He misses with his attack, doesn’t take any hits, and just basically contributes nothing to that round of combat. However, in the standard skill challenge, you can do worse than that. Your rolls can actually hurt the party’s chances of success. In the worst case scenario (complexity 1 for example), two players can end the challenge before the other players even have a chance to go.We noticed at our table that players didn’t like that. In some cases, the players would rather have not gone then rolled badly for the challenge. Aid Another is a fix for that, the problem is aid another is such a powerful mechanic mathematically that if you allow it freely the math gets screwed up. Don’t allow it, and the failure problem raises its head.With these problems in mind, I set out to create a brand new system that would keep the core benefits of the skill challenge system (multiple rolls for success and failure, everyone participating) but could knock out these drawbacks.No more complexities, the 3 Segment SystemIn doing work on my other skill challenge system, I learned something early on. Complexities are…complex! Mathematically when you start messing with complexities things get hairy very fast. This system is no different, and so I was prepared to delve into the depths of crazy math once again.But wait I said! Does it have to be that way? One of the things my group wanted was “not everything should be a skill challenge”. Sometimes its okay for the party’s face to say a few words, roll a diplomacy check, and everyone goes on their way.That led to the first structure of the Obsidian system:OBSIDIAN POINT: A Skill Challenge should represent a significant encounter to the party. Quicker actions should be handled by single skill rolls.With this in mind, I tossed complexity 1 and 2 challenges as too fast for a skill challenge. So I begin work on fewer complexities. But then I thought back to Problem 2 listed above. There’s nothing less fun than a player not getting to go in an encounter, yet with the standard system this will happen from time to time. I did not want the same issue to happen in my system, and suddenly things started coming together:OBSIDIAN POINT: Time with the DM is one of most important “fun currencies” a player has. While each player will not have equal success in every skill challenge, they should have equal time.I decided right then and there that complexities would go out the window. Instead, there would a single, solid system around everything was based. And so the 3 segment system was born. And it provides a load of advantages:1)    Consistency: When a DM calls for a skill challenge, every player knows what they are doing. They will describe their actions, roll 3 checks, and the DM will total it up and determine victory or failure. The DM has a core building block to work with, allowing him to focus more time on describing the challenge, and less on determining the mechanics.2)    Mathematically Elegant: Once I took out the complexity factor in the math, everything became much smoother. I no longer had to consider rules that would act differently at different complexities. Everything is tailored to the 3 segment system.3)    Easy to Scale: The core system provides a “building block”, one a DM can combine with multiple blocks to create as large a challenge as he wants. Further, the system is easy to scale to larger or smaller parties.4)    Equal Time: Every player receives the same number of rolls. While some players will naturally do better in certain challenges, every player gets the chance to describe his actions and see the results.Player Options, Injecting a bit more Fun My goal was to keep the game very simple to the players. They are to focus on the roleplaying, and let the system act as a backdrop. However, I wanted to give them a few things to do above and beyond just roll a die.Primary Skill: If your researching ancient text in a library, athletics isn’t going to help you. Players are encouraged to use knowledge skills for such a challenge, and I wanted to provide an incentive for that. In addition, some skills are better than others for different challenges. For example, if players are sneaking in to an orc camp, athletics may be useful, but probably not as useful as being good in stealth. I wanted to highlight that.So the Primary Skill concept was born: It gives players a carrot when the use the skills most appropriate for the challenge. And it ensures that if a player has no skill useful for the challenge, at least he will have a +2 to help him out.Bold Recovery: This is a carryover from my other system. Players always enjoy the chance to redo their mistakes, and it give players a way to comeback when they do badly out of the gate. This mechanic has gone through many revisions, and in the Obsidian system it works with an action point. The reason is the action point is a core mechanic that already lets players go above and beyond. Further, its expendable, meaning players won’t just use them willy nilly. And lastly, because if I didn’t do it, someone else would. Players are going to naturally ask if they can use action points to do something in a skill challenge. If I didn’t put an action point mechanic in the system, many Dms would just create something off the cuff. Good DMs can do that with ease, but I wanted the mechanic to be core so DMs know that a reroll with an action point is okay with this system. From there they can change it if they want.Critical Success: This mechanic is hardly new, but it works well with the Obsidian system. The way the math works out, it provides a small yet noticeable bonus to the party. And no party will forget the time Skilly McAwesome rolls 3 natural 20’s in a row and wins the skill challenge.Determine Skills Allowed, the Great DM DecisionIn any skill challenge, probably the hardest (and most contested) decision a DM will make is what skills to allow for the challenge. After all, the skill the party uses is the heart of the challenge. Further, players naturally want to win, and so will want to use the best bonuses they can get their hands on.This is the great schism between the standard system and the Obsidian system:OBSIDIAN POINT: Not every skill works in every challenge. Players should focus on their actions, and not in picking skills. Use social skills for social challenges, physical ones for physical challenges, and mental/sensory skills for information challenges.I have repeated this point in the core mechanics as well. The reason is I want the DM to feel empowered to disallow skills with this system. Its not about knocking the players down, its about giving everyone a different chance to shine and getting the players past the mechanics and into the roleplaying.Winning and Losing, the clock becomes the new villain.Nothing will stop a player’s action faster than telling him he’s about to screw the party. Whether it’s a helpful nature or simply raw peer pressure, most people aren’t going to actively hurt the party with their actions (except you Kender people, you know who you are). However, in the standard system this happens. If the player isn’t using his best skill, he might get a failure (A BLACK MARK!) for the group. Correcting this was of primary importance.OBSIDIAN POINT: The party should win and lose together. Each player should feel his rolls are contributing to the party’s success, and not in any way be a determent.Now, the reality is that failure IS a core part of the system, so the idea that individuals aren’t failing, it’s the group, is a bit of an illusion. Take a combat for example. Let’s say you have 5 players, but one player isn’t as good in combat as the others (harder to do in 4e then previous systems but still possible). The Dm throws 5 monsters at his 5 players. Next session the 5th player can’t make it, so the DM only uses 4 monsters. The party may actually do better without the 5th player.The same happens in the Obsidian system, but it’s the perception of things that is important. The party is facing a skill challenge, and needs all the rolls it can get, whether it’s the smooth talking rogue or the bumbling fighter. Further, in the standard system, the “enemy” of the party …. Is the party. The party can only lose when it rolls. That mentally encourages lack of action. In the Obsidian system, the “enemy” is now the clock, the 3 segments the players have to complete their challenge. Nothing brings a party together more than a common enemy. Every player will roll and hope for success, because in 3 segments they will have failed if they do nothing. This encourages players to be proactive, roll and win, don’t roll and fail.Partial Victory: “Its not over yet.”Keith Baker (who worked on the 3e Ebberon System) wrote an article about the standard skill challenge system. In it he mentioned one of the best ways to run the system was to include partial successes in the mix. I really took that point to heart.OBSIDIAN POINT: Not all skill challenges are win/lose. Sometimes a party completes dominates a challenge, and other times they find they have more to do. A skill challenge system should encourage further adventuring.Partial Successes give DMs a nice hook to further adventures in their campaigns. If players do really well, they can pat themselves on the back and do something different. But in many cases, the reward is more adventuring.Further, partial successes allow more gray areas for the DM to work with the party. It lets him say, “you guys did good, but not perfect”. Players can feel good that they accomplished something, yet still be hungry and hope that next time they can completely win a challenge.Also, it gives DMs a way to tweak the difficulty of the challenge. A DM may not want the players to “fail” but he doesn’t want them to completely “win” either. Partial Successes allow the DM the middle ground.Challenge Types: The Guidebook for Players and DMs alike.One of the things my group greatly desired was a system that was a bit more invisible. The players should think less about the system and more on their actions. Obsidian Point: A skill system should allow players and DMs to quickly figure out what they need to do, then forget about the mechanics and focus on the actions and roleplay of the challenge.I created the idea of Challenge Types to let the DM zero in on what kind of challenge he wanted to do, and then instantly communicate that to the players.When a DM says, “This is a social challenge”, the players instantly know they should be thinking about making diplomatic gestures, intimidating looks, or clever bluffs. Conversely, if it’s a “physical challenge” the players put the words away and think about acrobatic stunts and stealthy maneuvers.Further, it gives the DM some general boundaries on what skills are allowed. A players should expect most mental skills to be allowed in a mental challenge, but should except it when a DM says no to a nonmental skill.The Straightjacket, the danger of challenge types. Obviously the danger of challenge types is players and Dms feel too restricted by them. Its important to note that this mechanic is a guidebook, it is not the ultimate authority of the Obsidian system. Dms should always have final say over what skills work for what challenges.</blockquote>

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