D&D General Styles of D&D Play

[Hussar]

To which my immediate question is "instead of bundling a major situation into one catch-all pass/fail challenge, why not just separate them into those many parts and adjudicate those parts one by one in a more granular fashion?".

I found this when converting and running some 4e adventures - where the adventure says "run a skill challenge for [this bit of fiction]" I either have to tease out what the component parts of that challenge are supposed to be and resolve them piecemeal or accept that the high-level resolution is going to skip over various minor bits of the fiction.

Catching up on the thread, but this is pertinent to my example above.

The reason that breaking everything into small chunks is that DM's will rule that any failure is instantly catastrophic and the entire endeavor falls apart because you failed the latest check. A Skill Challenge framework allows for more granularity in failure (since there should be two "fails" before a total failure) and even with the set up of the Skill Challenge, you can set it that failing three times still succeeds in the overall goal, but, with differning levels of costs. So, you climb the mountain, but, you're exhausted, to use the simple example. Or you infiltrate the house, discover what you were looking for, but the baddies now know who you are and are even now setting out to do bad things to you.

 

[hgjertsen]

Catching up on the thread, but this is pertinent to my example above.

The reason that breaking everything into small chunks is that DM's will rule that any failure is instantly catastrophic and the entire endeavor falls apart because you failed the latest check. A Skill Challenge framework allows for more granularity in failure (since there should be two "fails" before a total failure) and even with the set up of the Skill Challenge, you can set it that failing three times still succeeds in the overall goal, but, with differning levels of costs. So, you climb the mountain, but, you're exhausted, to use the simple example. Or you infiltrate the house, discover what you were looking for, but the baddies now know who you are and are even now setting out to do bad things to you.

Skill challenges and monster design took major steps backwards in 5E. The former because it got wrapped into an overly-basic system that leaves DMs to either say that it takes a single athletics check to scale a mountain or require incredible luck or godly plus 15 modifiers to consistently scale mountains. The latter took a step back because running monsters with no guidance and a bunch of spells sucks.

 

[Lanefan]

and here the double standard raises it's head, even if we did have a climbing wall readily available why would i be made to climb it in order for my character to perform the comparable action, i am not my character, my abilities are not theirs and theirs are not mine, and neither are you your character, i roll dice to determine how well they perform their actions so why do your words get to work by a different standard?

Simple: you can say your character's words at the table, and even if you-as-player aren't necessarily as eloquent as your character you can still get the point across, as can the DM (or another player) in response.

You can't climb a cliff at the table no matter what, nor can you cast a web spell, and most jurisdictions don't allow you to swing swords at people. Those are all things that need to be abstracted, which is where the rules come in.

It kinda boggles my mind that people object to in-character roleplaying being important in a game that's in theory built around just that.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

and most jurisdictions don't allow you to swing swords at people.

That is why I always say that in most jurisdictions, it is better to ask forgiveness than permission….

….but it’s best to not get caught.

 

[Lanefan]

I'll give a perfect example of where a skill challenge would have been fantastic in our game. Last night, the ranger decided to infiltrate a house using the Disguise Self spell. The DM then had the player roll repeated checks, every single time he interacted with anything, until such time as he failed and his first failure was catastrophic.

Which is my experience in 5e D&D every time there is any sort of complicated task.

A skill challenge framework would have worked far, far better.

It would have given the character a greater chance of success, to be sure; but that by no means equates to "working better".

Because yes, every time that disguised character interacts with anyone new it really should require another check.

 

[Pedantic]

I'll give a perfect example of where a skill challenge would have been fantastic in our game. Last night, the ranger decided to infiltrate a house using the Disguise Self spell. The DM then had the player roll repeated checks, every single time he interacted with anything, until such time as he failed and his first failure was catastrophic.

I mean, there's a reason the spell provided a bonus half the size of the RNG in 3.5. That's just a tuning problem with how effective you want illusion magic to be.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Catching up on the thread, but this is pertinent to my example above.

The reason that breaking everything into small chunks is that DM's will rule that any failure is instantly catastrophic and the entire endeavor falls apart because you failed the latest check. A Skill Challenge framework allows for more granularity in failure (since there should be two "fails" before a total failure) and even with the set up of the Skill Challenge, you can set it that failing three times still succeeds in the overall goal, but, with differning levels of costs. So, you climb the mountain, but, you're exhausted, to use the simple example. Or you infiltrate the house, discover what you were looking for, but the baddies now know who you are and are even now setting out to do bad things to you.

So the problem is that DMs are bad. Again. Believe it or not, not everything wrong in gaming can be traced to a bad DM.

 

[Maxperson]

Supported and Allowed are different things.

I can carry a toddler. = Supported.
I can let a toddler walk with me. = Allowed

Tech Support actively helps you with technical questions.

D&D doesn't support some playstyles it claims it does. It merely allows for these playstyles to be played. At best for these unsupported playstyles, there is inking of mechanics to create ones own support.

In some cases it's better that it weren't supported as the official support from TSR or WOTC was bad.

It's actually.

I can carry a toddler = Strong support.
A toddler walks with me = support.
I sent the toddler to buy me some whisky = unsupported/allowed.

If it's walking with you, you are holding its hand and/or keeping it safe from coyotes. It may not be the strongest support, but support it still is.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Skill challenges and monster design took major steps backwards in 5E. The former because it got wrapped into an overly-basic system that leaves DMs to either say that it takes a single athletics check to scale a mountain or require incredible luck or godly plus 15 modifiers to consistently scale mountains. The latter took a step back because running monsters with no guidance and a bunch of spells sucks.

I have to ask at this point: what's your preferred D&D?

 

[hgjertsen]

I have to ask at this point: what's your preferred D&D?

Generally I think I enjoy 5E the best but there are a few quibbles I have with its design in terms of making monsters difficult to run at the table and making skill checks for complex tasks feel like a big chore. I have problems with pretty much every other edition I've read the books for but I think 5E is the most enjoyable edition of DnD for me. I don't hate 4E's design though!