Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="JamesonCourage" data-source="post: 6570331" data-attributes="member: 6668292">I think if I wanted to do these things, I wouldn't run this skill challenge framed in the same terms you used, then ("find a secured shelter, safe from the elements and predators, where she can stow the children"). I've had the PCs run through various wilderness travel skill challenges before, and I tell them that we're going to see how banged up they get along the way; I'd probably frame it the same way here. "You're going to find shelter, but we're going to see if you lose any of the children along the way." You still have the tension right now (your A) and it puts something the character cares about at risk (your B). It doesn't hit your C (where the players can try again), because they find shelter at the end. But that just means we can move the game forward, so I'd probably go with it knowing that.I agree, which is why the skill challenge system in my game uses objective DCs that the players can look up, and has its formula laid out in the book (how to determine how many successes before 3 failures). The PCs can attempt to go into skill challenges based on certain things they know will likely come up (based on various scenarios that are explicitly resolved using the skill challenge system, complete with lists of skills and uses of those skills to use).I think this is transparent and player-empowering, whereas I find the 4e skill challenge method mostly transparent, and not at all player-empowering (that is, explicitly giving the players the power to make things happen in the fiction without the GM's approval or permission -at least, according to the rules as written).I don't know how easy or hard it'd be, but I'm guessing that there would be too many other conflicts between that player style and my own GMing style for it to easily determined. As a GM, I'm not looking for any player to co-author my world. It's mine, and you get to play in it. It's a creative expression, and I'm going to make it how I envision it. There is no room for any other author. If players ask if they can do something, or make a certain type of character, or whatever, I do try to work with it, but I have zero problem saying "nope, find something else" just to please myself.I think the kinds of players that are looking for the opposite of "participationist" play would probably already be clashing with the GMing style I just outlined. So I think it'd be really hard to tell if they would have problems with my hypothetical "illusionist" skill challenge style or just my GMing style, generally.I've looked it over, and even incorporated a type of Dungeon World-inspired "moves" system for my 4-page superhero RPG that I use every couple of months for one-shots. I'm not going to look over anything again right now, but if you think anything in particular stands out when you do post that DW conflict, I'll look over that bit then.</blockquote>

Verification