Was AD&D1 designed for game balance?

[Vyvyan Basterd]

The "skill challenge" as presented assumes a few odd things, such as that using one's perception where there are no bandits somehow tells you something other than that you see no bandits at your current location. Why is it less silly to make a Perception check before picking a route than it is to bound along like a giant grasshopper? IMHO, they apply equally as presented -- which is to say, not at all.

I think we're laboring under an example of a skill challenge that isn't particularly good. Of course PCs are going to use perception to foil a potential bandit ambush. That's how the rules in general are applied when the ambush actually starts! So it's not really appropriate to use in a skill challenge to figure out what road to use to avoid bandit attacks.

I think you are looking at this wrong. The Perception check made in the context of a skill challenge isn't a matter of what the character perceives right at that moment, but instead a measure of how perceptive the character is during the execution of the party's plan.

Why would a player even imagine that bounding would help? Because his reading of the skill challenge formula suggests that it would!

This is why I suggest not letting the players realize they are in a skill challenge. Players look for ways to use things to their best advantage and have their characters act in unnatural ways sometimes. Unless you're going to take control of their character you have to let them do stupid things and mock the silliness in-game.

Moreover, let us assume momentarily that the DM knows where the bandits are. Presumably, then, scrying on their location reveals the bandits, and scrying elsewhere does not. If you know where the bandits are, they should be relatively easy to avoid. Why bother with the "skill challenge"? If you know where they are not, that knowledge can help you pick your route, but why would the PCs not have to still pick their route? "If they're not at Dead Man's Valley, they're probably in the Singing Wood. We cut off the road there to the east, giving the Singing Wood a wide berth." Again, if the bandits are in the Singing Wood, why bother with the rest of the "skill challenge"? If they are not, how did the scrying actually help the PCs?

It was mentioned that there are different approaches to this. Plotting out exact movements of the bandits and then plotting out the exact route the PCs take would not require a skill challenge. That challenge is more tactical. The skill challenge instead presents a more abstract resolution. I prefer the abstract only because I do not wish to spend too much time detailing the land between Greyhawn City and Ruins.

This just smacks of the "quantum states" approach that 4e seems built around. The bandits are in/not in the area you pass through based on your skill checks.

Or it is abstract. How many 1E DMs with a random bandit encounter chart like the one in the module knew where the bandits were? You didn't even know how many there were and of what kind or whether they would even show up (1 in 6 chance). This was an abstraction back then and the skill challenge changes it into a different kind of abstraction now.

I have no problem with random encounter frequency being reduced through skill use....woodcraft, for example.....but the idea that a set encounter changes locations because the players decide to have their characters march down the King's Highway, and, hey, they made X successes before Y failures, sets my teeth on edge.

Well luckily the example was based on random encounters, not a set one.

Moreover, the supposed strength of the "skill challenge" system is that the players get to use the skills thier PCs are good at, rather than (as in all other skill-based systems) the ones that obviously apply.

No. That is not a strength of the system. The strength is in the framwork it provides the DM to fairly and consistently adjudicate non-combat encounters. It is not an exercise in trying to find a use for your key skill in every circumstance.

Frankly, I fail to see anything that "skill challenges" are an improvement on from complex skill checks in 3e.

I'm not familiar with 3E complex skill checks. But no one has been arguing skill challenge vs. complex skill checks, so why would you even bring it up?

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

We can agree to disagree on this one. I think that it was, initially, meant to take the place of the process, but that WotC modified this subsequently when they realized that wasn't what players wanted.

Whatever the original intent was, their use has evolved, even in WotC published material.

Still, if you look at this thread (and others), it becomes obvious that (1) some DMs do announce skill challenges, and (2) some of the ideas as to how they should be resolved feed directly into the criticisms levelled against them.

Poorly written skill challenges and DMs who don't use them in a meaningful way should not condemn the framework. It would be akin to saying that module B1 was atrocious and therefore BD&D is terrible too.

I think, had the designers understood how much players would latch onto them, skill challenges would have been given a lot more thought upfront.

Well they didn't, get over it. If you don't want them like Ariosto, then the lack of original effort means nothing to you. And if you do want to use them there is alot of growth and advice on how to make them relevant and interesting now.

This is rather like prestige classes in 3e. They were, at first, for DMs. They were in the DMG, after all. But what did they become?

A powergamers wet dream?

That's why I advocate for keeping the SC as a DM tool, used wisely, to provide fun non-combat encounters that have equal weight to combat encounters. Not just shooed away with fiat or a single die roll.

 

[AllisterH]

Oh, the designers themselves didn't have a handle on skill challenges completely at the time of the DMG1. You're right RC to compare it to PrC in that initially, I don't think they realized exactly what they were doing 100%.

However, DMG2 shows that they have a much better handle on it. Indeed, there's a section that talks about "transparency" of one and Mearls actually recommends NOT announcing a skill challenge unless the players are totally lost.

Also has good advice on alternatives to the skill challenge such as the group check or skill tests.

Contrast DMG2 (22 pages -10 pages of advice/info/rules and 10 pages of sample skill challenges)

vs

DMG1 (4 pages - 4 pages of advice/info/rules and 4 pages of examples)

BTW: How the hell did we end up from the OP to 4e skill challenge?

 

[billd91]

The problem is that yours is not particularly better.

The initial example used History (as does yours). Nature is an improvement, but how Streetwise is going to help you now that you are on the road, or how you are going to successfully Bluff bandits you haven't encountered is just more Grasshopper Bounding.

Moreover, the supposed strength of the "skill challenge" system is that the players get to use the skills thier PCs are good at, rather than (as in all other skill-based systems) the ones that obviously apply.

Appropriate knowledge-based skills (History, Nature, Local[?]) give the players the means to make informed choices. Everything else? Grasshopper Bounding.

There you would be wrong. Bandits usually exist within a local population of supporters or other people knowledgeable about them. Streetwise is a way to get information from those people in the small towns that dot the landscape or from travellers on the road. Bluff works against the same population, giving the bandits' network of information gatherers and mark spotters the impression that you're not worth the effort.

Your discounting of skills like that is a failure of imagination, something that the skill challenge, thought out in advance, can help to prevent on the DM's part.

Frankly, I fail to see anything that "skill challenges" are an improvement on from complex skill checks in 3e.

They're frankly not that different from them, true. Just promoted to being part of the core rules instead of a supplemental suggestion in the experimental rules book.

 

[billd91]

I think you are looking at this wrong. The Perception check made in the context of a skill challenge isn't a matter of what the character perceives right at that moment, but instead a measure of how perceptive the character is during the execution of the party's plan.

I don't think I'm looking at it wrong. If the skill challenge is to avoid bandit encounters by finding a better route, then using perception to foil the ambush in place says tha the challenge has failed, they've picked the bandit-ridden path, and now have to deal with it. By then, perception is too late.

Now, if you were involved in foiling an ambush that's in place, then I don't think a skill challenge is the way to run it. You'd deal with a full-on encounter. Maybe perception will help you detect it, stealth or other skills help you get around it, combat ability help you fight through it, but by then I don't really think it's a skill challenge as much as it's a potential combat encounter that can be dealt with in a mix of combat and non-combat tactics.

 

[billd91]

The degree of reliance on quantum states -- and with it, the decrease in player choices being meaningful in determining outcomes -- is.

IMHO, at least.

YMMV.


RC

If the PCs have come up with a good plan - a good use of skills to overcome a skill challenge in charting a bandit-free path - they've made meaningful choices that determine the outcome of their actions. If not, then I pull the bandit encounter out of my pocket and lay it out on the table. That's not really less meaningful than me putting the bandits on road A and giving the PCs the choice of taking road A or B.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Well luckily the example was based on random encounters, not a set one.

Was it? Where was this stated? I apparently missed it.

That is not a strength of the system.

Here we agree.

I'm not familiar with 3E complex skill checks. But no one has been arguing skill challenge vs. complex skill checks, so why would you even bring it up?

Because it is relevant. I wasn't aware that there was a permission-only clause on EN World towards being the first to bring things up. Is it in The Rules?

It is clear to me that skill challenges were built out of complex skill checks. The question of which works better is relevant. After all, complex skill checks should work in 4e just fine.

IMHO. YMMV.

Whatever the original intent was, their use has evolved, even in WotC published material.

I stopped reading 4e materials past the Core core, so I don't have first-hand knowledge of its evolution, although I have heard as much. Still, the examples one sees on EN World do not lead me to believe that the evolution has been sufficient yet.

Or, at least, not sufficient to warrant the hype.

Poorly written skill challenges and DMs who don't use them in a meaningful way should not condemn the framework.

Agreed, if there is strong evidence that they are in the minority. Otherwise, what we have is the kernel of a mechanic that has yet to sprout into a fully fledged tool.

That some people have sprouted it on their own should not be taken to support the framework, either.

I would also argue that conversations like this are useful for the designers, should they happen to read them. Who knows? Perhaps the seed of a Dragon article appeared in your last post!

That's why I advocate for keeping the SC as a DM tool, used wisely, to provide fun non-combat encounters that have equal weight to combat encounters. Not just shooed away with fiat or a single die roll.

I agree with your advocation.

That the check is not the result of fiat, though, is a (perhaps welcoms?) illusion.

Oh, the designers themselves didn't have a handle on skill challenges completely at the time of the DMG1. You're right RC to compare it to PrC in that initially, I don't think they realized exactly what they were doing 100%.

However, DMG2 shows that they have a much better handle on it.

I would be interested in reading that text, but am not going to buy another hardcover for a game I don't play. So I will just accept your word.

BTW: How the hell did we end up from the OP to 4e skill challenge?

I think it goes something like this:

1. Was 1e designed for game balance.
2. What do you mean by game balance?
3. You know, like what 4e has. That's the only definition of game balance there is.
4. I am fairly certain that there are other types, and that some parts of 4e's game balance damage other types of game balance.
5. For instance?
6. Skill challenges.

Etc.

Now, I don't hold that skill challenges are necessarily a bad thing. But I do argue that I have yet to see an example of a skill challenge where said challenge is the best mechanic for the job, out of the mechanics already devised and available to the designers of 4e.

On this or on a forked thread, I would love to see an example of a good skill challenge. By a good skill challenge, I mean one that is (1) not Grasshopper Bounding, and (2) not better served by other mechanics.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

There you would be wrong. Bandits usually exist within a local population of supporters or other people knowledgeable about them. Streetwise is a way to get information from those people in the small towns that dot the landscape or from travellers on the road.

What people? You are adding material to the example presented. This is no different than perceiving the bandits from miles away because you make a Perception check. Until the PCs encounter people, you are Grasshopper Bounding.

This feeds into Ariosto's argument about skill checks being used to avoid interacting with the world. If the PCs run into fellow travellers, or run into small towns, they can interact at that point. However, their initial statement was that they would stay off the road, right?

You are also, BTW, feeding into Ariosto's argument, where the PC skill checks begin to define the world, as opposed to reacting to the world as presented.

Your discounting of skills like that is a failure of imagination

And then the Godwin comes out.



Colour me unimpressed.


RC

 

[billd91]

What people? You are adding material to the example presented. This is no different than perceiving the bandits from miles away because you make a Perception check. Until the PCs encounter people, you are Grasshopper Bounding.

Not if the PCs trek cross country a little way to consult with the farmers a few miles away. Castle Greyhawk isn't so remote that this is not possible considering farm children sometimes skirt the outer bounds of the location according to at least one of the modules in which it has appeared. That's looking at the resources and skills they have and putting leverage on them to make them useful without being silly. That's a mark of good play.

This feeds into Ariosto's argument about skill checks being used to avoid interacting with the world. If the PCs run into fellow travellers, or run into small towns, they can interact at that point. However, their initial statement was that they would stay off the road, right?

You are also, BTW, feeding into Ariosto's argument, where the PC skill checks begin to define the world, as opposed to reacting to the world as presented.

Or they use the skill checks to inspire a way to interact with the world. To find ways to bring their skills to bear.

And then the Godwin comes out.



Colour me unimpressed.

In fact I was unimpressed with your statement that you could only think of knowledge skills being of any use. Looking at the situation like you're building a skill challenge can give DMs a focus for thinking of the ways a skill could be used in a situation that isn't obvious.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

I don't think I'm looking at it wrong. If the skill challenge is to avoid bandit encounters by finding a better route, then using perception to foil the ambush in place says tha the challenge has failed, they've picked the bandit-ridden path, and now have to deal with it. By then, perception is too late.

Now, if you were involved in foiling an ambush that's in place, then I don't think a skill challenge is the way to run it. You'd deal with a full-on encounter. Maybe perception will help you detect it, stealth or other skills help you get around it, combat ability help you fight through it, but by then I don't really think it's a skill challenge as much as it's a potential combat encounter that can be dealt with in a mix of combat and non-combat tactics.

[/QUOTE]

Perception can be used at a greater distance than encounter range. Staying vigilant and watching for trouble in the distance can alter your path. Another good reason why "choose your path" as presented by others is too limited. Continuous information could make the characters want to alter the execution of the plan midway.

Because it is relevant. I wasn't aware that there was a permission-only clause on EN World towards being the first to bring things up. Is it in The Rules?

It is clear to me that skill challenges were built out of complex skill checks. The question of which works better is relevant. After all, complex skill checks should work in 4e just fine.

Maybe it would be more relevant if you actually discussed what makes complex skill checks a better mechinc than skill challenges? I have as little knowledge of 3E complex skill checks as you do 4E DMG2 skill challenges.

I would also argue that conversations like this are useful for the designers, should they happen to read them. Who knows? Perhaps the seed of a Dragon article appeared in your last post!

I agree with your advocation.

Thank you. You've at least discussed the matter though you disagree.

That the check is not the result of fiat, though, is a (perhaps welcoms?) illusion.

Before we start a whole line of quibbling over the meaning of the word fiat, I meant a yes/no decision made solely by the DM. I know a DM sets DCs and can set them to achieve certain results.

I think it goes something like this:

1. Was 1e designed for game balance.
2. What do you mean by game balance?
3. You know, like what 4e has. That's the only definition of game balance there is.
4. I am fairly certain that there are other types, and that some parts of 4e's game balance damage other types of game balance.
5. For instance?
6. Skill challenges.

Uh, no. More like:

1. Was 1e designed for game balance.
2. What do you mean by game balance?
3. Discussion of balance then and balance now, how they can be different but the same, etc.
4. Thinly veiled attack on 4E as a game that runs from one hour long combat to the next.
5. VB the 4E Paladin reacts with a Nu-uh! Uses skill challenges as an example.
6. Swirl around the drain...

Now, I don't hold that skill challenges are necessarily a bad thing. But I do argue that I have yet to see an example of a skill challenge where said challenge is the best mechanic for the job, out of the mechanics already devised and available to the designers of 4e.

I'm not trying to find best, I'm looking for interesting to me. Is it better to run a skill challenge vs. the common sense approach of 1E? No. It's just a different method to achieve the same end goal. The 1E method allows you to, as Ariosto says, get on with the game. And that's fine and I loved that method for many many years. The skill challenge attempts to add a resolution mechanic to non-combat encounters that has only previously existed in combat encounters. I find the exploration of its use interesting now. But I'm not going to say it's better and only take offense to those trying to tell me that the common sense approach is the One True Way.

On this or on a forked thread, I would love to see an example of a good skill challenge. By a good skill challenge, I mean one that is (1) not Grasshopper Bounding, and (2) not better served by other mechanics.

Click the link in my sig, you tell me. I've 2 of 2 people give positive feedback to the exact example we are using in this thread.

What people? You are adding material to the example presented. This is no different than perceiving the bandits from miles away because you make a Perception check. Until the PCs encounter people, you are Grasshopper Bounding.

This feeds into Ariosto's argument about skill checks being used to avoid interacting with the world. If the PCs run into fellow travellers, or run into small towns, they can interact at that point. However, their initial statement was that they would stay off the road, right?

You are also, BTW, feeding into Ariosto's argument, where the PC skill checks begin to define the world, as opposed to reacting to the world as presented.

The world as presented is limited to what the DM has thought of before sitting down to the table. And you won't have presented every possible thing to the players before they sat down (or immediately following). If the players plans involve looking for local connections to the bandits and you didn't consider that possibility you decide as DM at that point whether those connections exist and therefore whether a check in that regard would succeed or fail. Nothing is the framework forces you as DM to define your game world in any way you don't want to.