Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Toxicity in the Fandom
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="MNblockhead" data-source="post: 8712243" data-attributes="member: 6796661"><p>Yeah, I'm a fan of skill challenges, but use them sparingly. Sometimes when you try to give everyone the spotlight equally, nobody shines. </p><p></p><p>For most things, I find that bog-standard skill checks work fine. There is a challenge, the players discuss ways their characters try to overcome those challenges. The DM calls for one or more skill checks and narrates the results. Rinse and repeat. </p><p></p><p>I find the 4e skill challenges, as I use them (based on Matt Coleville's discussion of 4e and how he uses them in 5e), good for two types of scenarios:</p><p></p><p>1. Montage scenes where you want to have consequences for player decisions, successes, and failures, but do not want a significant amount of your session to be playing (i.e.) the long travel from A to B. The sailing a ship example someone gave above is a good example. Simply traveling through the wilderness may not be, but if you are moving through enemy territory, have scouts out searching for you, etc. It can be more fun to do a skill challenge than just rolling random tables and doing the normal exploration cycle, and playing through every random-encounter combat. And it makes sense. Who's watching out for ambushes while the ranger is tracking or looking for food? That doesn't mean I <em>always</em> use skill challenges in these situations. Sometime we play it out in the traditional hex-exploration style, tracking resource consumption, rolling on random-encounter tables, etc. Sometime we just narrate it. "You've spent a month travelling to the McGuffin Palace, what happened along the way?" Sometimes we hand-wave the travel entirely. "After a month of travel, you find yourselves at McGuffin Palace." Skill checks are just another tool in my DM toolbox.</p><p></p><p>2. High stakes, complex challenges with a lot going on, especially when there is element of needing to complete something in a certain amount of time. I generally don't use this for situations like "you need to stop the evil cultist ritual before the Terrible Evil Thing is summoned. I prefer playing that out round by round. But, like I stated in my prior example, after defeating that ritual, if you need to get out of there before the temple comes down or you get overwhelmed mobs of angry cultists, I think skill challenges work well. Another example: last night I rewatched <em>13th Warrior</em>. </p><p></p><p>[SPOILER="Don't read if you have not watched 13th Warrior and care about spoilers"]After they kill the mother, there is an escape scene. They need to find a way out before they are overwhelmed by wendol. They are not familiar with the caves, there is some light combat but it is mostly trying to avoid combat and find a way out. There is sneaking, there is swinging across ledges, there is climbing down walls, there is swimming in an underwater cave, etc. It could have played out differently if they went down a different tunnel. This would be a perfect scene to use a skill challenge.[/SPOILER]</p><p></p><p>Some people are never going to like skill challenges, they will want to play everything out PC by PC, action by action. Just like some people dislike more narrative style play. That's fine. My campaign is mostly more old-school inspired with long, tactical combats, and searching the dungeon square by square. But my players have never complained about skill challenges when I used them. They are another tool to keep things interesting. Like anything, you have to know your group and what they enjoy.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="MNblockhead, post: 8712243, member: 6796661"] Yeah, I'm a fan of skill challenges, but use them sparingly. Sometimes when you try to give everyone the spotlight equally, nobody shines. For most things, I find that bog-standard skill checks work fine. There is a challenge, the players discuss ways their characters try to overcome those challenges. The DM calls for one or more skill checks and narrates the results. Rinse and repeat. I find the 4e skill challenges, as I use them (based on Matt Coleville's discussion of 4e and how he uses them in 5e), good for two types of scenarios: 1. Montage scenes where you want to have consequences for player decisions, successes, and failures, but do not want a significant amount of your session to be playing (i.e.) the long travel from A to B. The sailing a ship example someone gave above is a good example. Simply traveling through the wilderness may not be, but if you are moving through enemy territory, have scouts out searching for you, etc. It can be more fun to do a skill challenge than just rolling random tables and doing the normal exploration cycle, and playing through every random-encounter combat. And it makes sense. Who's watching out for ambushes while the ranger is tracking or looking for food? That doesn't mean I [I]always[/I] use skill challenges in these situations. Sometime we play it out in the traditional hex-exploration style, tracking resource consumption, rolling on random-encounter tables, etc. Sometime we just narrate it. "You've spent a month travelling to the McGuffin Palace, what happened along the way?" Sometimes we hand-wave the travel entirely. "After a month of travel, you find yourselves at McGuffin Palace." Skill checks are just another tool in my DM toolbox. 2. High stakes, complex challenges with a lot going on, especially when there is element of needing to complete something in a certain amount of time. I generally don't use this for situations like "you need to stop the evil cultist ritual before the Terrible Evil Thing is summoned. I prefer playing that out round by round. But, like I stated in my prior example, after defeating that ritual, if you need to get out of there before the temple comes down or you get overwhelmed mobs of angry cultists, I think skill challenges work well. Another example: last night I rewatched [I]13th Warrior[/I]. [SPOILER="Don't read if you have not watched 13th Warrior and care about spoilers"]After they kill the mother, there is an escape scene. They need to find a way out before they are overwhelmed by wendol. They are not familiar with the caves, there is some light combat but it is mostly trying to avoid combat and find a way out. There is sneaking, there is swinging across ledges, there is climbing down walls, there is swimming in an underwater cave, etc. It could have played out differently if they went down a different tunnel. This would be a perfect scene to use a skill challenge.[/SPOILER] Some people are never going to like skill challenges, they will want to play everything out PC by PC, action by action. Just like some people dislike more narrative style play. That's fine. My campaign is mostly more old-school inspired with long, tactical combats, and searching the dungeon square by square. But my players have never complained about skill challenges when I used them. They are another tool to keep things interesting. Like anything, you have to know your group and what they enjoy. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Toxicity in the Fandom
Top