Two Example Skill Challenges

[Celebrim]

And warping due to player interaction and problem-solving, instead of whatever the DM deems to be the "right" answer.

Can or can not the DM determine whether or not a skill or particular usage of the skill is appropriate to the situation?

If he can, then that is absolute power and a DM with the inclination can keep warping the environment until he gets what he deems to be the right answer.

 

[D'karr]

The environment isn't supposed to warp at all.

That's the problem. Remember, there is NO spoon.

 

[ThirdWizard]

The environment isn't supposed to warp at all.

Matter of opinion.

Last session, the PCs in my game raised an army to assault a temple in Acheron. What's in the temple? I have no idea! I haven't written it yet! But by golly we'll find out when they assault it. Same thing; different scale.

 

[pemerton]

Can or can not the DM determine whether or not a skill or particular usage of the skill is appropriate to the situation?

If he can, then that is absolute power and a DM with the inclination can keep warping the environment until he gets what he deems to be the right answer.

Not being a playtester, I haven't seen the DMG. But there are any number of existing RPG texts that discuss how to GM mechanics of the same general character as skill challenges. I imagine that professional game designers, before writing up their own advice on GMing such mechanics, would look at those other texts and see what they do and don't get right. Part of that, I assume, would include addressing the balance of power between GM and player arbitration of skill usage.

In HeroWars, it is the player who nominates a skill and explains its relevance to the situation, and the GM who assigns a difficulty to the manoeuvre based on his/her assessment of the situation and the player's explanation.

A feature of extended contests in HeroWars, which seems not to be present in skill challenges, is this: success or failure is measured by reference to the exchange of Action Points between the contestants, and starting APs are determined by skill rank in the initial skill used (regardless of any penalties imposed on that skill for difficulty). But it is possible during an extended contest to change the skill being used (assuming a suitable narration by the player can be given). The following tactic is therefore called out in the rulebook as a good one: start a contest with your best relevant skill (even if difficult) to get a good set of starting APs, and narrate your use of the skill in such a fashion that the opponent has to use a skill in which they have a comparatively low rank (and thus get few APs). Then, once the contest is underway, change to a skill which (after difficulty mods) will have a better chance of success than the initial skill.

This mechanic establishes a nice balance between player and GM - because even if the GM is a little harsh on the player in terms of difficulty penalties, the player can still get the AP benefit of starting with his or her best relevant skill before shifting to a skill that the GM thinks is more suitable. And the player's narration also affects the skill (be it of an NPC, or the world at large, which in HeroWars has skill ranks) that the GM can use to oppose the player.

I'm looking forward to seeing what the DMG has to say about, and what mechanical devices (if any) it suggests for, achieving a similar balance.

This is precisely why I think the system isn't actually for novice DMs either. The whole 'Schrodinger's Trap' nature of the skill challenge system requires a very skilled extemporaneous DM to run it convincely, without self-contridiction, and without confusing the players. I'd never give as advice to a novice DM, "Just make things up as you need them."

But 1st ed AD&D style action resolution - that is, no dice-based mechanics but simply player/GM negotiation, with the GM having the last word - is perhaps the worst system for giving the GM excessive power, because (in practice) it almost always requires the GM to "make up" the consequences of unforseen actions (whether performed by PCs or NPCs).

A formal mechanical system, which distributes narrative authorisation by reference to dice rolls whose results are themselves evaluated by reference to some sort of player-GM distributed narrative control, seems to me no more likely, and probably less likely, to produce arbitrary and/or abusive GMing.

And the idea that it is difficult to explain to novice GMs I also think is unfounded. Of course you wouldn't use language like "distribution of narrative authorisation" - but the idea that, in a game, what the players may do depends upon their dice rolls and how those interact with various pre-determined numerical values (skill ranks, number of successes/failures specified by GM) is a pretty basic one. Likewise, I think, the idea that one can describe (narrate) different outcomes based on how the dice rolls turn out.

 

[hbarsquared]

Can or can not the DM determine whether or not a skill or particular usage of the skill is appropriate to the situation?

If he can, then that is absolute power and a DM with the inclination can keep warping the environment until he gets what he deems to be the right answer.

What's the code for the eyeroll smiley?

Of course, bad DMs can abuse their "power" and warp the environment to screw the players on a whim.

A good DM takes into account the players' wants. The skill challenge system provides a framework for both the players and DM to have input.

For instance, the DM sets up the trap like I described above. The DM "plans" for a secret trap door in the ceiling. But then a player says in the skill challenge, "I look around for a nook in the wall, maybe to find a lever like in that Indiana Jones movie." Something the DM hadn't thought of before. So the DM decides to go with it, and the encounter becomes more fun because of player input.

 

[Hussar]

The environment isn't supposed to warp at all.

I think this is the crux of the issue right here.

Why not?

IMO, there is absolutely no problem with using the dice to dictate the narrative. We do it in combat all the time. At no time, as the DM or the Player can I dictate that I cleave a creature's head off if it still has at least 1 hp. I could do max damage, boosted through the roof, crits, power attacking whatever, and I STILL cannot declare that I cut off that creature's head if it has 1 hp left.

We have no problem letting the dice dictate the environment in combat, what is the big issue with allowing it to do so out of combat?

 

[Torchlyte]

As I see it, the main debate in this thread has been whether or not skill challenges would be appropriate in a given situation... but this makes no sense. Of course a trapped door isn't going to be well simulated by a skill challenge. It doesn't have to be, just use your head to figure out where a skill challenge might be helpful.

As for the Wall of Iron example, I don't see why people feel the need to make absolute judgments there. If it would clearly solve the problem, let it. If there are other factors to consider (like the excellent example of a mage hand not making noise with the keys) than you can use the skill challenge rules to help frame the encounter. This isn't a black and white issue.

I would say that whether or not you want the environment to change in reaction to the players has no bearing on an argument over the merits of the skill challenge system. As long as you do it intelligently, you can use or not use the framework under both conditions.

Ciao.

 

[Celebrim]

Of course, bad DMs can abuse their "power" and warp the environment to screw the players on a whim.

A good DM takes into account the players' wants. The skill challenge system provides a framework for both the players and DM to have input.

Of course. However, negotiation between players and DMs provides a framework for both the players and the DM to have input. If in fact the DM can use his judgement to determine whether a skill is appropriate to the situation, then in terms of the distribution of narrative control the whole skill challenge system boils down to the same DM and player negotiation we've always had. As others have pointed out, the skill challenge system as described doesn't involve the staking of player resources versus non-player resources with control of the narrative explicitly at stake the way that it does in some other systems. There is in fact no deeper framework than the argument, whether open or implicitly, that your action is reasonable and should be judged as having some chance of success. The fantastical claims of how this system will revolutionize play and protect players from bad DMing are well overblown.

For instance, the DM sets up the trap like I described above. The DM "plans" for a secret trap door in the ceiling. But then a player says in the skill challenge, "I look around for a nook in the wall, maybe to find a lever like in that Indiana Jones movie." Something the DM hadn't thought of before. So the DM decides to go with it...

Or not.

...and the encounter becomes more fun because of player input.

Or not.

 

[D'karr]

Of course. However, negotiation between players and DMs provides a framework for both the players and the DM to have input. If in fact the DM can use his judgement to determine whether a skill is appropriate to the situation, then in terms of the distribution of narrative control the whole skill challenge system boils down to the same DM and player negotiation we've always had. As others have pointed out, the skill challenge system as described doesn't involve the staking of player resources versus non-player resources with control of the narrative explicitly at stake the way that it does in some other systems. There is in fact no deeper framework than the argument, whether open or implicitly, that your action is reasonable and should be judged as having some chance of success. The fantastical claims of how this system will revolutionize play and protect players from bad DMing are well overblown.

Or not

Or not.

Since almost everything that people are reporting is that this works rather well and is making it more fun, it seems your contrariness is just for your own sake of argument.

 

[Celebrim]

I think this is the crux of the issue right here.

Why not?

Obviously, because I'm still promoting the sometimes disparaged idea that DMs should have a referee stance.

IMO, there is absolutely no problem with using the dice to dictate the narrative.

Of course not. One way of using dice to dictate the narrative is called 'a random encounter'. But the dice have an inherent referee stance. They don't care who is throwing them or what the circumstances are. So sometimes the DM has to put his thumb on the dice and overrule them when the narrative that the dice indicate is not actually good for the story. However, as the very fact that we do use dice to adjudicate combat all the time would indicate, we would not want the DM to do this as a matter of course. The rolling of dice is compatible with the DMs referee stance.

So far I haven't said anything indicating disagreement agreement.

At no time, as the DM or the Player can I dictate that I cleave a creature's head off if it still has at least 1 hp. I could do max damage, boosted through the roof, crits, power attacking whatever, and I STILL cannot declare that I cut off that creature's head if it has 1 hp left.

Agreed. But is this a good analogy for what is going on? Suppose the creature had 1 hp (only the DM knows this of course), and the player offered the proposition, "I [in the role of Sir Bob] swing my sword in a powerful attack, "Take that you fiend.". I roll the dice and it comes up some high number, "A hit, a very palpable hit.", and then finally I report that I inflicted 12 damage. All according to the rules and very above board. As the DM though, I report that, "The fiend howls in pain and rage as its vile ichor spurts from its arm. It counterattacks with blinding speed..." At this point, we both would agree that the dice aren't dictating the situation. Yet this is not a good analogy for what is going on either, you would say. You are correct, but now we need to somehow slash our two analogies in two and put them Frankenstien like back together.

Your question is, "If we can track success abstractly in combat, why can't we track it abstractly out of combat." The answer is that we are only happy in doing so because we accept that our propositions in combat are fundamentally abstract ones. "I attack the monster" doesn't wager any particular end state. As you say, we don't propose and aren't used to proposing, "I cut off the monsters head" in combat. We aren't wagering an end state. We are somewhat used to applying 'fortune in the middle' techniques here. But we also must admit that there are circumstances that many people find the 'fortune in the middle' hit points jarring in the extreme. For example, many people are extremely bothered by the falling rules. I've previously argued that the reason that this is so is that falling from a great height is a fundamentally different sort of proposition than 'I attack', in that it does explicitly stake its end stake - namely, 'You are now at the bottom'. This explicit end stake at the beginning of the proposition is fundamentally at odds with attempts to run fortune in the middle. You can do it (we've been doing it for years), but its a nagging problem for many.

It's saving grace is that usually 'falling' is not a player initiated proposition. The end stake isn't usually explicit. (When 'falling' starts turning into 'jumping off the high cliff', even more people balk at the jarring disconnect between concrete end state and abstract mechanic.)

I'm suggesting that many if not most out of combat propositions carry these fortune at the beginning conotations, both by traditional D&D convention and intuitively just based on the sort of words we use like, "I try to open the door." We don't expect to do abstract opening damage to the door. We expect it to either open or not. And further if we've seen someone else open the door in a single tug, we don't expect that its going to take us 5 tries just because we didn't spend half a minute looking at the door and talking about it before hand. When the door doesn't open after the dice indicates success, the fact that it is because the DM arbitrarily decided that it takes 6 steps to solve the challenge and inflates the difficulty of opening the door, there is a whiff of the DM adding hit points to a monster because he's decided that this combat should take more steps to win it than it has.

And actually even 'steps' is a misnomer which is indicative of a common misunderstanding of the system; I just don't have have a better more descriptive term at hand which I think is indicative of how counter-intuitive the whole process is.

Can you run everything FitM? Obviously. But if you are going to do so, then do so and don't try to cludge a FitM subsystem into the midst of the normal task resolution system.