The "real" reason the game has changed.

[pemerton]

So all classes don't have a power that can "push"? If they do, then that taste is lost.

Look, I'm really at a bit of a loss here as to how familiar you actually are with 4e. Some of your posts have a tone which suggest a high degree of familiarity. Others make me think, as Hussar does, that you don't know much about the system at all.

So I can't tell if the question I've quoted is meant to be rhetorical or not.

Assuming that it's not, then the answer is: all PCs have access to the Bull Rush power, which allows a STR-based push that deals no damage. The sorts of PCs from the PHB who are likely to have a STR that makes this tactic have a viable chance of success are some Clerics (melee-based ones), some Paladins (non-CHA based ones), Fighters, some Rangers (two-weapon ones), some Rogues (brual scoundrels) and Warlords. Most of these would have some access to class-specific powers with generally better forced movement effects (often combined with damage). I think Fighters would probably have the best such access, as they tend to be the most controller-y of the weapon-using classes.

So the fact that all classes have access to a power that can push (namely, Bull Rush), and that a number of classes might be able to make good use of that power, and that most of those classes might also have access to class-specific powers that grant forced movement, doesn't change the fact that, in play, the different classes play pretty differently, giving rise to interesting tactical options.

The party that I GM has a polearm-wielding dwarf fighter, a generalist wizard, a drow sorcerer, a cleric|ranger-archer and a CHA paladin. In combat, the fighter is the most obvious controller, using a combination of reach and forced movement to shape the melee situation. The paladin tends to hold the line and lock up one foe (or sometimes a few foes for a brief period) - but while he can mostly soak their attacks (through a combination of marking and immediate actions) he can't control their movement very well. He also does some healing and buffing. The wizard tends to make ranged attacks which are a mixture of multi-target damage and control, including some terrain effects, teleportation and dazing. The sorcerer can operate both at range and in close - he uses his drow darkness ability to shield him and grant combat advantage, and does a lot of damage with a little bit of secondary control (including a little bit of forced movement). The cleric|ranger's main function is to do damage with bowfire, and he also does some healing - more than the paladin, but not a huge amount more.

Now of course, in any given combat, the paladin could try bull rushing, the wizard could try punching enemies up close using fists, the ranger could draw a sword (he carries two, and has a reasonable AC) and charge into melee, etc. But it doesn't happen. Each PC is built to emphasise certain strengths and weaknesses. Some of that is determined by class selection, and some by subsequent power and feat selections. The PCs don't come across remotely the same at the table, even though all have at least some access to forced movement powers.

That's not to say that sometimes strange things don't happen. In the last session a combat started in which the sorcerer ended up holding the front line - due in part to an attack from the rear which left the paladin in the wrong position, and in part because the fighter was down to about 20 hp with no surges left, and hence was hiding in the middle of the party attacking with reach over the sorcerer's shoulder. One time, the wizard not only got an opportunity attack (using his Tome of Replenishing Flame as an improvised weapon) but he hit and critted on that attack, and therefore actually killed the monster in question (I let him have the +2d10 fire damage from his Tome, on grounds that when you crit with a Tome of Replenishing Flame as an improvised weapon it has undoubtedly burst into flame in the face of the enemy.)

But when things are going optimally for the party they are not relying on the wizard to kill things in melee, or on the paladin or archer to be in charge of the forced movement.

(And in case someone comes in to say that PC differentiation applies only in combat, I should mention that the PCs are very different in skill challenges also - the wizard a scholar and diplomat, the paladin a diplomat and priest, the sorcerer (a DEX/CHA build) a manipulator and sneak, the fighter a tongue-tied and ignorant athlete, and the cleric|ranger a wilderness scout. Which is not to say that the dwarf doesn't from time to time find himself trying to bluff or be diplomatic. It's just that when those times come, it tends to mean something unexpected happend to throw the party of their standard operating procedure.)

 

[pemerton]

I don't have the latter.

The former states right off the bat:
Setup: For the NPC to provide assistance, the PCs need to convince him or her of their trustworthiness and that their cause helps the NPC in some way.
Level: Equal to the level of the party.
Complexity: 3 (requires 8 successes before 4 failures).
Primary Skills: Bluff, Diplomacy, Insight.
Bluff (moderate DCs):...
Diplomacy (moderate DCs): You entreat the NPC for aid in your quest. First success with this skill opens up the use of the History skill (the NPC mentions an event from the past that has significance to him)....

I don't need that, and I don't want that. It demands a lot of work I don't want, and in return delivers nothing but a lot of restrictions I don't want. There's not a single appealing thing here for me.

Your reference here is not to the example of play, but the descrition of the skill challenge preceding it.

You read it as a set of restrictions. I read it as analagous to a GM's encounter notes - the GM has described a set up, and made some notes as to the likely options the players will choose for their PCs, and how these might play out. It's a bit like the sample scenarios at the back of the narrator's book for HeroWars, which describe some scenarios, the contests that are likely to arise within them, and how a GM might handle them being played out.

The most striking thing here is that the GM has decided that the first time a PC succeeds in generating some sympathy from the NPC (via successful use of the diplomacy skill), the NPC will reflect on a relevant historical fact, which the PCs can then build upon to further get the NPC onside. This is analgous to notes for a dungeon room that say "Orlaf the ogre will genrally attack, but if a PC attempts to parley by mentioning that s/he once new Orlaf's brother Rolaf, Orlaf will delay his attacks by at least one round."

Some people thinks those sorts of encounter notes help play. Others don't. Personally I don't mind making a few such notes in advance, if I think of something that seems like it will be interesting at the table. I've never prepared a skill challenge in the same degree of detail as the publihsed examples do, but then in nearly 30 years of GMing I've never written up a location in the same degree of detail as published modules do, either.

 

[Ariosto]

You read it as a set of restrictions. I read it as analagous to a GM's encounter notes - the GM has described a set up, and made some notes as to the likely options the players will choose for their PCs, and how these might play out.

I read the freaking rule book, the designers' own explanation of their intent, the plain instructions.

Never mind all that, though.

I've got no need for "something analogous to" whatever I actually find useful, when I can -- much more easily -- have what I actually find useful instead.

Why should I go through all that jive to prepare a "4e skill challenge encounter" if I'm not going to run a "4e skill challenge encounter"?

The whole contraption is a self-referential self-justification. Why all the work? To make a 4e skill challenge encounter. Why do we have to jump through these hoops? Because that's the 4e skill challenge encounter I made. Yes, but why do we need a 4e skill challenge encounter? Why can't we just play out whatever actions we choose to undertake, and make whatever rolls those actually happen in the event to require?

No reason, as far as I'm concerned. As I have already said: It adds nothing I need, want, or find in the least appealing.

 

[pemerton]

Not in the tradition of role-playing games with which I have been very well acquainted, starting with Original D&D and including the majority of commercially published ones until (I think) sometime in the 1990s.

Of course, people who have never known anything but stuff like the crap that TSR and White Wolf and others started to shovel out in the late '80s, the "illusionism" and "thespianism" and yadda yadda -- people who take that as normative and simply "the way it's done" -- can impose that on any game they please.

Ariosto, I've been playing the game since 1982. I started on Moldvay Red Box. As far as I can tell (by comparing you posting record with my own knowledge) I know the 1st AD&D rules as well as you do. I also know and have played RQ, CoC, Rolemaster, Classic Traveller, Pendragon and Stormbringer/Elric, to name some RPGs that fit your description of "commerically published RPGs until the mid 1990s".

I know the way in which a skill challenge resembles skill-based action resolution games, and the way it differs from them. I've pointed out those differences in great detail in my posts upthread.

But the notion that skill challenges are intended to play like a 2nd ed/White Wolf railroad is ludicrous. You seem to be extracting this from the phrase "Setup: For the NPC to provide assistance, the PCs need to convince him or her of their trustworthiness and that their cause helps the NPC in some way." As if the GM has forced the players into this setup. When it is obvious to anyone who reads the 4e DMG that the presupposition here is that there is an NPC whose help the PCs are trying to obtain.

From the fact that my dungeon key contains an entry "Room 10: 3 orcs who attack on sight" it doesn't follow that any PC will be attacked. Maybe they won't go to the room. Maybe they won't be seen. Heck, maybe they are seen but get of Mass Charm first, or through some other stratagem bring it about that the orcs don't attack on sight.

Likewise, if the PCs never find themselves needing to persuade an NPC to provide help, the negotiation skill challenge won't come into play. (And for those who missed it the first time, the passage I quoted from DMG2 makes it utterly explicit.)

The difference from traditional games isn't the presence or absence of railroad. It's the structure in terms of DC setting and relationship between successful skill checks and resolution. And this isn't an "innovation" borrowed from 2nd ed AD&D or White Wolf. It's very obviously borrowed from "indie" games like Burning Wheel, HeroWars/Quest, The Dying Earth (that one may techncially not be indie) etc.

The table of Loyalty Base Modifiers has 66 possible values, in 10 categories, if I have not erred in counting. These have largely to do with prior behavior toward the creature in question.

<snip>

In 1st ed. AD&D, it is made plain that no amount of dice-rolling is going to accomplish certain things even with one's own most loyal henchmen (including some given special attention because players are likely to try to "game the system" in certain ways).

In a "loyalty" skill challenge in 4e one would expect the GM to have regard to prior behaviour towards the creature in determining complexity and DCs. (Like the DMG says, "more so than perhaps any other kind of encounter, a skill challenge is defined by its context in an adventure.")

Also, in 4e, some things can't be accomplished despite dice rolls. For example, in the negotiation skill challenge you cited, the GM has determined that no amount of dice rolling can intimidate that NPC.

At the end of the day, in any of those games, it is still up to the DM to interpret the subjective quality of response and combine it with the particulars of PC proposition and NPC interests to determine the details of appropriate resultant behavior.

This is also true in 4e. The GM is the one who has the job of determining the consequences of a successful skill check (as per the rules text quoted by me upthread).

The difference is that the rules of 4e impose certain constraints upon the relationship between such decisions, and the pattern of successful and failed checks. Thus, if the GM has decided to run an encounter as a complexity 4 skill challenge, the first successful diplomacy check, no matter how successful and no matter how erudite the PC's entreaty for friendship, is not going to end the challenge. Why not? Well, it's the GM's job to work that out. Maybe the NPC harbours a secret grudge that somehow needs to be brought out and resolved. Maybe the end of the speech was overshadowed by a loud explosion from a nearby earthquake. The GM may have worked some of this out in advance, and may work some out on the spot (just as GM's have been doing with encounters since the beginning).

How does a GM determine the complexity of the skill challenge? Sadly, the rules are mostly silent on this, and so leave it up to the individual GM. I take my cue from HeroWars/Quest, and treat it mostly as a pacing issue - how much time do I think it might be worthwhile to spend on this in the game?

LostSoul, in his 4e hack, does it differently. He treats the complexity of a social skill challenge as depending upon the intial result on the reaction dice. (I don't use reaction dice in my own game.)

Sometimes it also makes sense to be guided by the complexity of the situation - if what is at stake is simply moving from point A to point B without incident over the course of a couple of days, there may simply not be enough game elements or player interest avaiable to support more than a complexity 1 challenge.

How does a GM decide on the complications that unfold in the course of the challenge - whether it's a failure to be persuasive enough, an erupting volcano, a secret grudge, or something else that means the first successful diplomacy roll doesn't resolve matters completely? Again, the rules are sadly silent on this. Again, I take my cue mostly from HeroWars/Quest, and to a lesser extent from The Dying Earth and Burning Wheel also.
So I introduce complications that seem to arise naturally from the unfolding dynamic of the fictional situation (like a failure to be completely persuasive), or that will engage some other part of the game that is interesting and relevant to one or more players (like a secret grudge) or that will bring to light some otherwise unrelated element of the gameworld that seems like it might be exciting and engaging (like the erupting volcano).

Now I get that you don't like this system. Fine. Why might someone else? Maybe they like how it facilitates pacing. Maybe they like how it helps produce engaging and dynamic situations. Maybe they like that it helps them reduce elements of "mother may I" or GM fiat in resolving social conflict. For me, it's all of the above. After many years of Rolemaster's Interaction Skills table, with its vague descriptions, complete lack of guidance in setting difficulties, and complete randomness as far as pacing is concerned, I feel like something a bit different.

 

[pemerton]

Why should I go through all that jive to prepare a "4e skill challenge encounter" if I'm not going to run a "4e skill challenge encounter"?

The whole contraption is a self-referential self-justification. Why all the work? To make a 4e skill challenge encounter. Why do we have to jump through these hoops? Because that's the 4e skill challenge encounter I made. Yes, but why do we need a 4e skill challenge encounter? Why can't we just play out whatever actions we choose to undertake, and make whatever rolls those actually happen in the event to require?

No reason, as far as I'm concerned. As I have already said: It adds nothing I need, want, or find in the least appealing.

Who said you should play 4e? No one on this thread, and to be honest I don't recall anyone on any thread I've participated in telling you that you should play 4e.

Why do others find it worthwhile? I've stated my reasons repeatedly, including in my previous post. It's not self-referential self-justification. It's about using a technique pioneered by other games (HeroWars, The Dying Earth etc) to resolve some issues that some (even many, I would say) RPGers have had with pacing and action resolution outside of combat encounters since the earliest days of the hobby.

Maybe you don't have those issues. Fine. But what's objectionable to you about those who do writing and/or playing games that resolve them?

(As to "all that jive" - most GMs, once they've read Tom Moldvay's description of how to set up a dungeon room, don't need to tick off a checklist. They just draw a map, write down some notes about what's in the rooms, and move on. Likewise - "all that jive" involves thinking about the players' goals for their PCs in a given situation, assiging a level, and coming up with a few ideas about how the situation might unfold in an interesting way. It's not very hard.)

 

[LostSoul]

Why should I go through all that jive to prepare a "4e skill challenge encounter" if I'm not going to run a "4e skill challenge encounter"?

The whole contraption is a self-referential self-justification. Why all the work? To make a 4e skill challenge encounter. Why do we have to jump through these hoops? Because that's the 4e skill challenge encounter I made. Yes, but why do we need a 4e skill challenge encounter? Why can't we just play out whatever actions we choose to undertake, and make whatever rolls those actually happen in the event to require?

No reason, as far as I'm concerned. As I have already said: It adds nothing I need, want, or find in the least appealing.

I don't know why you'd want to go through all that "jive" (I'm assuming that you mean the steps you outline above) if you're not using the system! I don't roll up HP for AD&D monsters because I'm not using that system. Seems logical enough.

Why would I, for example, run the Skill Challenge I posted above (creating magic items)? (Please be gracious - those were the first words put down to the idea; it needs to be fleshed out!)

Two reasons come to mind: Surprise and unexpected results - no one knows how it's going to turn out - and resource management - here's how you spend GP and Time to get something you want; is that a good choice or not?

Why jump through hoops? Because the complexity creates more possibilities for surprise and unexpected results.

Why do you need a skill challenge? You don't, but it adds surprise, unexpected results, and resource management to the game.

Why can't we just play it out? To my mind, this is playing it out. Those are the steps you need to take in the setting; the setting is tied to the game, so both feed off of each other.

 

[Ariosto]

Who said you should play 4e?

Who said that I would be playing 4e if I just go about playing Traveller the way I have been since 1977? Only you and whatsisname

-- not the designers of 4e!

"Skill challenge" is not just a fatuous cutesy phrase for the hoary practice of having notes like, "gets misty eyed at mention of Saint Crispen's Day" -- to which, as I have stated, I have no objection. It is a specific and novel apparatus defined in particular terms in the 4e rules books.

Your rhetorical dodge fails regardless of your roll because it makes absolutely no sense at all.

Admin here. I wanted folks to know that Ariosto's rudeness - here and elsewhere - has been dealt with by moderators. Think of these as a good object lesson on how not to post if you want to have an interesting discussion. - PCat

 

[pemerton]

On another thread, chaochou posted this example of social conflict resolution in HeroWars:

I don't think the fact that D&D has peripheral 'talking skills' which people then find redundant makes the concept of social mechanics irrelevant. It just highlight how little they achieve in D&D.

As I said before other systems have created rich, interesting mechanics which support and enhance social encounters.

For example, in HeroWars my group were desperate to borrow some horses from a neighbouring clan. They used Persuade as the base skill, but throughout the scene said and did other things to augment that with Intimidate, Relationship: PCs Clan, Relationship: Neighbours Clan, Horsemanship, Hate Lunars, Steady Gaze, Leadership and Diplomacy.

By the end of that scene we'd knew that the tradition was for borrowed goods to be returned in five days or be considered stolen, that the steadholder had a missing brother, that there had been cattle raids in the woods close the two clans' border which were being blamed on the PCs clan, and that the steadholder was fiercely opposed to the Lunar occupying forces and might co-operate with the PCs in activity against them. All from talking round the table - no prep, just then and there.

No-one is going to tell me that that wasn't 'actual roleplaying' simply by virtue of the fact that it was supported by numerically defined skills, traits, abilities and relationships - and the mechanics for how they enhance one another.

The skills and numbers didn't reduce the situation to a dice roll - they created a framework which allowed every character to contribute, to generate arguments, threats and counters and create a whole load of new knowledge about the world into the bargain.

That's what a good social system does.

Now in the same thread chaochou has said that he's not a big fan of 4e skill challenges.

But in my experience 4e skill challenges can deliver just this sort of play (admittedly the players and GMs have to work a bit harder, because the skill list is not quite as evocative as the abilities list on a HeroWars character). And the same reasons that chaochou gives for finding the HeroWars mechanics worthwhile are reasons that I find skill challenges worthwhile.

 

[Ariosto]

Two reasons come to mind: Surprise and unexpected results - no one knows how it's going to turn out - and resource management - here's how you spend GP and Time to get something you want; is that a good choice or not?

I have been playing games for decades that involve all those features, without reducing them to "fail 3 tosses for whatever, it doesn't really matter what." So, you see, that is not actually a reason.

My question, put more clearly, is What does the formalism add? What is the point of it? And what on Earth does that have to do with a role-playing game?

Why jump through hoops? Because the complexity creates more possibilities for surprise and unexpected results.

Please, please, please tell me how forcing the players into your mold creates more possibilities for surprise and unexpected results than allowing them to form and carry out their own plans. Then stop drinking the Hatter's tea.

Why do you need a skill challenge? You don't, but it adds surprise, unexpected results, and resource management to the game.

Golly gee, if only we'd known that back when we were having Magickal Mishaps and counting Bushels back in the '70s, playing Chivalry & Sorcery.

Or, for that matter, when we had tons of surprise, unexpected results, and resource management playing Dungeons & Dragons.

A skill challenge does not add any of that. It adds a skill challenge, full stop.

 

[pemerton]

Who said that I would be playing 4e if I just go about playing Traveller the way I have been since 1977? Only you

I'm not sure what you're talking about. I didn't say this. Upthread I actually said (emphais added):

This does not say that the GM sets the goal. It says the GM defines the challenge. The meaning of this is perhaps ambiguous, but I think the examples make it pretty clear that what is intended is that the GM has authority over the starting situation. Much like the GM "defines the environment" of a dungeon, by populating rooms, specifying wall and door strength, etc. This is pretty traditional stuff, I think.

This will also involve defining level and complexity. Defining level is perhaps less traditional - although it is traditional that a GM gets to set DCs, it is not traditional that the level of the encounter stipulates parameters for the GM to work within. As per my response above to BryonD, I think this is one of the key areas where 4e follows a "mechanics first, story second" approach.

<snip>

This is not radically different from many RPGs - 3E has a similar rule, I believe, and so do some anime/cinematic martial arts games, I think.

<snip>

So the notion that players roll dice and "make up excuses" has no basis in the rulebooks. The GM describes a situation. The player chooses a skill whereby s/he wants her/his PC to respond to the situation. The GM specifies a DC (or may have done so in advance, if s/he anticipated that skill use in writing up notes for the encounter). A die is rolled and the skill check result determined. The GM then narrates the consequences of what it is the PC attempted, and in doing so is obliged by the rules of the game to have regard to whether the skill check succeed or failed.

The description just given doesn't distinguish a skill challenge from resolving encounters in Travelller or Runequest, but there is a difference. The difference in setting DCs - guided by encounter level as a priority, with the ingame fiction to accommodate that, rather than vice versa - has already been noted earlier in this post. The other difference is that, by the rules, the PCs succeed at their goal if they get a certain number of succeses before 3 failures. This puts a burden on the GM to narrate the consequences of success and failure in such a way that this sort of resolution can emerge from the ingame situation. In my own experience with skill challenges, this is the most challenging aspect of GMing them (it resembles the way in which an unfolding HeroQuest/Wars extended contest must be narrated).

<snip>

Despite the errors in your presentation of (1) to (6), you are correct that there is a complicated construction that differs from what is traditional in playing an RPG like Traveller, Runequest etc.

In this post I've tried to explain what that complicated construction is, and how it differs from tradition - basically in DC setting, and in the "successes before failures" constraint on resolution.

How does saying "you are correct that there is a complicated construction that differs from what is traditional in playing an RPG like Traveller" - and many other passages in a similar vein - constitute saying that your Traveller is a 4e game?

EDIT: Were you referring to this?

The stuff about earning XP is more interesting.

<snip>

(Oddly, then, 4e is in this respect perhaps closer to Classic Traveller than to classic D&D - the aim of play is not to accumulate the most XP for the least risk, but simply to pursue the goals of the PCs within the gameworld. Level ups help shape the changing character of that gameworld relative to the PCs - that it, at higher level they will meet more demons and fewer goblins - and also give the players new tricks to enjoy, with new powers, retraining, etc. But they don't bring the PCs closer to achieving their goals, which have to be understood in purely ingame terms.)

The respect in which I said there that 4e resembles Classic Traveller is not related to skill challenges at all. It's related to "the stuff about earning XP". The point I was making is that, by the rules of 4e as written, the point of play isn't to earn XP, because (roughly speaking) XP are earned simply on a "per-real-world-time-spent-playing" basis. This is an obvious difference from 1st ed AD&D, where real world time spent playing is by no means guaranteed to earn XP. But it is also, to me at least, an obvious resemblance to Traveller, in which XP aren't earned at all. So in both 4e and Traveller the purpose of playing has to be something other than earning XP.