D&D 4E The "We Can't Roleplay" in 4E Argument

[Nagol]

Oh, it is performance. But I'd really rather not have the most important part of it be how high the player rolls on a d20 always using the same base number. I'd far rather a skill challenge using:

• Diplomacy - pick a performance tailored to the target audience
• Bluff - how believable can you make your story
• Intimidate - make them laugh, make them cry, make them scared
• Insight - notice when to change the pace or when they are getting bored
• Endurance - whatever the performance is, it is epic. And physically demanding.
• Secondary: History/Streetwise/Arcana/Religion/Nature/Dungeoneering - fill in details to draw people in

Skills like that allow you to actively craft the performance and reflect what you are doing. Much more evocative than perform/perform/perform/perform. Especially if it comes down to a single die roll.

In most cases, the form of the performance is set so Diplomacy's role is usually not available (Blatant Beast demands a story it hasn't heard before, the devil come to you with a take it ot leave it challenge against your best skill, etc.). There are a few stories where the protagonist offers the challenge, but they are more rare.

Bluff, Intimidate, and Insight might be appropriate, but they don't matter unless you have sufficient (read very high) skill at the base task. Intimidate Death all you want, if you can't match its chess-playing skill, you are going with it right now.

Playing chess against Death may be epic, but it is hardly fatiguing with its pair of moves then break to think.

 

[Ryujin]

If you're dead-set on making it a 'perform' challenge then what about using base attributes, with characters having an appropriate background having a lower difficulty (or ability to take part, at all)? INT for technical ability, WIS for selection of material, and CHA for putting 'heart' into the performance?

Not everything needs to be a skill.

 

[Nagol]

It's easier to simply not use this trope in 4e or if the trope is one held dearly by the group, to use a game system that offers better support.

 

[Jhaelen]

Why not? It is precisely the skill that is in question: can you out-fiddle the Devil in Georgia? Can you outplay Satan's chosen guitarist? Or from other mythologies, can you sing a song or recite a poem so sad that your beloved is returned to the living? Can you tell a story entertaining enough or a joke funny enough to save your life?

I don't buy it. The thing is: When would you as a DM use such a 'skill challenge' in one of your games?

About the only situation when I've ever seen something like this in a D&D game was when the DM was trying to be nice to the poor bard player, whose character was rarely of much use to give him a chance to shine and profit from his higher-than-necessary performance skill.

Also, the absence of such a skill doesn't mean you cannot use similar contests:
In Earthdawn there exists a monster called 'Spectral Dancer' which is a kind of ghost that can be put to rest by impressing it with your dancing performance. And guess what? It's defeated by making Charisma tests! So, there's no dancing skill required at all*.

Finally, regarding the 'telling a joke' contest: Does having a 'joke-telling' skill make such a contest fun? Imho, for such a contest to be fun, you absolutely _must_ act it out, i.e. have your players tell the jokes. It's one of the situations, I'd never roll a die for.

Myself, I'm actually annoyed by rpg systems that have overwhelming lists of skills which rarely see any use. The Dark Eye (Das Schwarze Auge) rpg is one such culprit. It even uses 'meta-skills' that are derived by calculating the average of several otherwise useless 'basic' skills to get a skill rank that can be used for something meaningful. *blech*

*Since Earthdawn uses an open-ended skill list, you could actually choose your character to have a dance skill which the DM would probably allow to be used in place of the Charisma check.

 

[Imaro]

The swordmage has story flexibility to word it in whichever way he would like. Maybe he placed a confounding hex on the enemy's weapon hand that causes it to waver if he doesn't attack the swordmage. Maybe he cursed the enemy such that his vision blurs when he's not focused on the swordmage. Maybe he conjured a magical dancing shield to follow the enemy and help deflect his blows should he attack the swordmage's allies. Or perhaps the swordmage taunted his enemy with words laced with arcane power, magically encouraging him to attack the swordmage.

All of the above are options, all of them make sense both flavor-wise and mechanics-wise, and all of them make it clear to the enemy affected by the mark that he is, in fact, marked by the swordmage.

Dannager, we then run smack back into the problem that I have with every creature knowing what the effect of powers are on them... how do you know this if you've never encountered a swordmage before, or never had magic cast on you? This is probably my last post on this subject because it does boil down to aesthetics of game design as opposed to any godd/bad scale. But I am hoping the same way I can understand why this wouldn't bother you in the least... you can understand it does grate at my nerves as far as immersion and cohesiveness go in the game. I'm hoping that instead of trying to call into question the fraility of my immersion you are instead actually interested in understanding or at least able to accept that for me it makes the game harder to take seriously on an immersive level.

4e does this purposefully in almost every case. We are given the tools to craft the story, but those tools are made flexible enough that players have the freedom to adjust them to fit the circumstances of the narrative.

And I guess this is great as long as one guy isn't picturing and describing a japanimation while another is assuming a mythical world and yet another is picturing and describing a more medieval based game. 4e (in so far as the core books go) doesn't seem to give a baseline on which to hang this freeform narrative so that consistency and immersion will necessarily be preserved.

 

[Neonchameleon]

In most cases, the form of the performance is set so Diplomacy's role is usually not available (Blatant Beast demands a story it hasn't heard before, the devil come to you with a take it ot leave it challenge against your best skill, etc.). There are a few stories where the protagonist offers the challenge, but they are more rare.

Diplomacy isn't for the form of the challenge, but the tone. When playing against the devil, do you try for a soft and beautiful song he will never be able to match - or do you try for a dark one and play him at his own game - or a fast and uptempo one that the Devil could play and try to bait him onto neutral ground? What is the sense of humour of the giant you are trying to make laugh with your story?

Bluff, Intimidate, and Insight might be appropriate, but they don't matter unless you have sufficient (read very high) skill at the base task.

But having the skill at the base task is more or less a binary as far as the story is concerned. Well, a trinary. And what's important to the story if you're at the "can win" (rather than the will win or the will lose levels) isn't whether you have enough skill, it's how you manage things.

Intimidate Death all you want, if you can't match its chess-playing skill, you are going with it right now.

Tell that to Esme Weatherwax! In one of the discworld books she did intimidate Death into folding in a game of poker when he had a better hand.

Playing chess against Death may be epic, but it is hardly fatiguing with its pair of moves then break to think.

There speaks someone who has never played long and high pressure chess matches. Serious stress and concentration for a six hour game with massive stakes is fatiguing however little physical activity there is. Also for the record, Emanual Lasker worked on a philosophy of "Play the man, not the board" and Kasparov beat deeper blue by changing his approach to one that would be harder for the computer to analyse.

 

[Nagol]

<snip>

There speaks someone who has never played long and high pressure chess matches. Serious stress and concentration for a six hour game with massive stakes is fatiguing however little physical activity there is. Also for the record, Emanual Lasker worked on a philosophy of "Play the man, not the board" and Kasparov beat deeper blue by changing his approach to one that would be harder for the computer to analyse.

[tangent[
I was thinking more of the chess match as seen in The Seventh Seal where they literally played two/three moves then called it for the day. The knight knew he couldn't win; he just wanted a bit more time. [/tangent]

 

[Raven Crowking]

Why not? It is precisely the skill that is in question: can you out-fiddle the Devil in Georgia? Can you outplay Satan's chosen guitarist? Or from other mythologies, can you sing a song or recite a poem so sad that your beloved is returned to the living? Can you tell a story entertaining enough or a joke funny enough to save your life?

That IS performance.

Just jumping in here because I have something relevant to suggest.

In RCFG, I set up a system where you can make multiple skill checks, where the pass/fail on the final check is the critical pass/fail. Each additional skill check is a gamble, where you set the DC and attempt to reach it, for some particular bonus. If you succeed, you get the bonus on the overall check; if you fail, you take a penalty to the same amount. Each additional skill check must make sense within the narrative as well.

So, if your character had knowledge (lower planes), diplomacy, perform (singing), and perform (fiddle), you could use the first three skills to attempt to modify your final perform (fiddle) skill check.

This is a dynamic system that forces the players to decide just how much they are willing to risk, and how far they are willing to reach. It means that a failure to understand the devil as well as you think you do can critically affect your fiddling the right tune to turn his heart. It also means that, when factors stack up in your favour, you can do much better than you otherwise could.

Finally, in situations where a group can work together, each making a relevant contribution, it beats the 4e Skill Challenge to a bloody death, IMHO and IME.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

Playing chess against Death may be epic, but it is hardly fatiguing with its pair of moves then break to think.

This would be true.....but Death plays chess-boxing!

 

[UngainlyTitan]

...
That said I still have a problem with meta game knowledge being introduced as in-game knowledge as far as immersion goes. Taking your example above... what does "knowing the swordmage marked me" actually mean in the narrative, if he had to...how would a character describe this to another character in-game. Or is this one of those places where 4e gives us all the mechanics for the game (and even introduces them to the in-game fiction in a concrete form) but then leaves us to figure out how it all fits together or to go the easier route and just ignore trying to explain it through the narrative?

Edit: Slightly altered post to express myself better.

I am going to jump in here with a suggestion, don't know if you will find it helpful or not but I view defender marks as badassery. You have been intimidated and rattled somewhat by the defenders attack and it you attack another then you are not fully committed because you are looking over the shoulder to see what that that badass dude is upto.
If you attack the defender directly then there is no distraction unless there is another badass dude present.