# Skill Challenges: Bringing the Awesome



## loseth (Apr 13, 2008)

So we've seen how skill challenges work (roughly). If you're not familiar, have a look at Harr's example below. So I ask, what are the top three things you will do (table rules, preparation, house rules, whatever) to help bring the awesome when you run skill challenges?

Oh, and in before 'I'll ban them from my table!'   




			
				Harr said:
			
		

> It's a simple guideline for structuring a non-combat scene, meant to be a help in deciding when to begin rolling and when to end. It is also a prompt to help communicate to the players 'be creative, come up with unusual action and ideas to put your strongest skills into use'. I myself found it extremely useful.
> 
> Ultimately it would depend on your DMing style, I guess. If you are experienced as a DM, if you have no trouble with identifying interesting conflicts of skill, setting a good pace and knowing when to move on so the game doesn't drag and people get bored, if your players are proactive enough that they have no problems knowing where to go and what to do and all agree on what to do as a team in a timely manner, then the system is going to seem of little value, but then again a DM with skills and a group like that, doesn't really need a skills challenge system, they can do just fine with 'what do you do?' and adlibbing.
> 
> ...


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## Jack99 (Apr 13, 2008)

loseth said:
			
		

> So we've seen how skill challenges work (roughly). If you're not familiar, have a look at Harr's example below. So I ask, what are the top three things you will do (table rules, preparation, house rules, whatever) to help bring the awesome when you run skill challenges?




Wait and see what the DMG says/includes?


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## AZRogue (Apr 13, 2008)

If they work as well as in Harr's example, I'll be extremely pleased. In any event, I'm still waiting patiently for the DMG to crack that sucker open and take its stuff.


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## loseth (Apr 13, 2008)

Jack99 said:
			
		

> Wait and see what the DMG says/includes?






			
				AZRogue said:
			
		

> In any event, I'm still waiting patiently for the DMG to crack that sucker open and take its stuff.




Can't wait...need skill challenges now...must have skill challenges...


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## Celebrim (Apr 13, 2008)

There are two reasons why I'd never use the skill challenge described:

1) It requires an metagame announcement.  To me, saying 'This is a skill challenge with general skill DC 18' or anything like that ruins the scene.  It ought to be implicit that everything is a challenge if the players want it to be.
2) If the specific challenge is 'disarming the trap', then a skill challenge disarms the trap (as is shown from the example) even if the PC's take no action to do so until after they win the challenge.  I've got no problems with taking specific actions to make other specific actions easier, but I do have a problem with specific actions replacing other unrelated specific actions.  I likewise have a problem with a challenge failing before it fails, in as much as playing it this way could have resulted in 4 failures foredooming things before the players really did anything.

I'm just failing to see how the system part of this encounter made it better.  Isn't it enough to discover the problem, come to understand the dangers, and then take action to remedy the problem without a tally system?


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## mach1.9pants (Apr 13, 2008)

Psssst hey Ioseth, come over here man....
Quietly quietly, just come in this alley here.

well, ya know, I can't get any 'skill challenges' for ya now, they just aren't any on the streets yet.
What? Yeah, I know, I know. But the lite version just doesn't give you the same thing man...not the full monty.

But what I can getcha is some of these 'challenges and stunts' from Iron Heroes. They should, ahhh, keep you goin' until you can get a fix of the real thing. Mmmm? Yeah people swear by 'em, they give you that cinematic high man! Not the same I know, but if you really need that next high _right now_ I am the man to get one for you....


He he. He'll be back for more; I guarantee it!


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## GoodKingJayIII (Apr 13, 2008)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> I'm just failing to see how the system part of this encounter made it better.  Isn't it enough to discover the problem, come to understand the dangers, and then take action to remedy the problem without a tally system?




I took the anecdote as describing a situation that might have otherwise been disorganized and disjointed.  Announcing a skill challenge might break the scene for you, but for Harr it did the opposite.


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## mach1.9pants (Apr 13, 2008)

GoodKingJayIII said:
			
		

> I took the anecdote as describing a situation that might have otherwise been disorganized and disjointed.  Announcing a skill challenge might break the scene for you, but for Harr it did the opposite.



Yeah that is how I took it as well, Harr describes his group as having previous problems with this sort of thing. I like the idea behind it an may use the system for a 3E pre-trial but you won't see me announcing 'skill challenge start' and 'skill challenge won'. Not our style but if I have a trial I will discuss with the players before how I am to run it. 
But I like the base idea


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## Green Knight (Apr 13, 2008)

Wow, that was a great post. So what thread was Harr's post from, so I can see the full context?


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## Celebrim (Apr 13, 2008)

GoodKingJayIII said:
			
		

> I took the anecdote as describing a situation that might have otherwise been disorganized and disjointed.  Announcing a skill challenge might break the scene for you, but for Harr it did the opposite.




Yeah, I can kinda see that.  It certainly provides structure which is going to help if you are unsteady arbitrating non-combat challenges.  And, if foreknowing that you can contribute changes the player's attitude from disinterest to interest, then this increases emmersion rather than reduces it.  

But it is very much going to depend on the group.  My background includes alot of horror roleplaying (CoC, Chill), so I don't feel I need to be told to be involved when combat isn't occurring.  But if you have players whose background has convinced them that non-combat time is boring, then some sort of announcement acting as much as anything as a break with the past is going to help things.  

But, even so, this is still designing solutions for problems I don't have.


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## Primal (Apr 13, 2008)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> There are two reasons why I'd never use the skill challenge described:
> 
> 1) It requires an metagame announcement.  To me, saying 'This is a skill challenge with general skill DC 18' or anything like that ruins the scene.  It ought to be implicit that everything is a challenge if the players want it to be.
> 2) If the specific challenge is 'disarming the trap', then a skill challenge disarms the trap (as is shown from the example) even if the PC's take no action to do so until after they win the challenge.  I've got no problems with taking specific actions to make other specific actions easier, but I do have a problem with specific actions replacing other unrelated specific actions.  I likewise have a problem with a challenge failing before it fails, in as much as playing it this way could have resulted in 4 failures foredooming things before the players really did anything.
> ...




1) I thought the *player* sets the DC by choosing how "hard" he wants the challenge to be? In that sense I'd say that 4E succeeds, although in a "rough" and somewhat limited fashion, encouraging a more "narrative" style for out-of-combat challenges (of course, most Indie RPGs do this in a more elegant and coherent fashion, but it's a good start).

2) This is actually how many Indie RPGs encourage the players to brazenly metagame and "think out of the box". In Dust Devils, you can even always use your highest skill in conflicts, *if* you manage to bring it into the story in a creative and credible way. In my experience this has encouraged creativity and immersion in the story. However, if the DM lets pretty much anything fly without any adjudication (i.e. the players are not required to describe how the skill would apply in the situation), it's a valid concern that the Skill Challenges turn into a routine roll using your highest modifier in any situation.  

I'm very much against 4E, but the Skill Challenge system is actually one of the few things I like. It may not suit everyone's style, but my campaigns would probably benefit (storywise) a lot out of it. If (and that's a *BIG* 'If') my group will ever try 4E, I'm definitely going to use this system.


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## AZRogue (Apr 13, 2008)

The 4E system won't be for everyone, I'm sure. Some groups already have an effective way to negotiate out-of-combat scenes that they will prefer. That's a good thing.

My group, however, are not big "roleplayers" with the exception of one in particular, and another (not so much). For example, if they ever get into the story enough to start speaking in character they will instantly stop and start looking around to make sure the windows are shut and no one is snooping in on them. They're not that comfortable doing it, though sometimes they get so immersed that they just start. For the most part, though, they don't see the point so they purposely pull back from doing it and are big on just making a Skill check and getting the RP moment "over with". 

In my 4E-Lite playtests I've tried the skill challenge as best as I understand it and it has made a big difference for my group. I do, actually, announce a Skill Challenge (though I haven't announced a DC before, not sure if you're supposed to). They invariably sit up straight and treat the challenge like "something-that-matters" and, lo and behold, they don't seem to mind speaking "in-character" during the challenge because it helps them describe what they're doing. Their immersion increases, IMO, and they know that there's a goal they're trying to achieve beyond combat, which is usually their favorite part. 

I haven't noted this change to them as no one else has said anything and I don't want to rock the boat by making them aware if they aren't already, but I love it. It provides a structure which seems to help us (them, I mean) focus instead of treating the event as a "boring part" between combats. In the past it was always left to my group's two roleplayers to act out of combat while the rest of the guys smoked or grabbed drinks waiting for them to do their job. Now (and I've ran a total of 3 skill challenges at this point) they have all been involved.

So, I would say that if the real skill challenge system is roughly the same as the one we've inferred from the tidbits we've seen then it will work great for my group. I can understand if it's not that needed for most people, but I, for one, am grateful as it seems to provide a structure that encourages my group to roleplay a lot more. 

My problem right now is how often should I include a skill challenge? And, what's an appropriate event for a skill challenge? Should I use them only for events like finding a way through a swamp with no roads? Or should I include them for such mundane things as finding information on a particular NPC in town? So far I've limited them to "bigger" things and am curious what the DMG says on the matter. There may be times, such as researching info on an underworld contact who MAY hear about it and not take kindly to the snooping, where it's easy to decide a challenge is appropriate, but without the element of danger, or a negative result, I'm not sure if it's needed. Once again, I'd really like to read the DMG and the advice is has.

None of that made any sense, I'm sure, as it looks like a long ramble to me, but there it is.


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## WhatGravitas (Apr 13, 2008)

mach1.9pants said:
			
		

> I like the idea behind it an may use the system for a 3E pre-trial but you won't see me announcing 'skill challenge start' and 'skill challenge won'.



I don't really see that people are announcing skill challenges - that sounds artificial and breaks the immersion.

I rather see it as codified form of dealing with a situation in a free form way. Like... people are describing 1E. You didn't rolled for "Disable Device", you instead said what you were doing with the trap. Skill challenges are similar - present a situation, let the players invent ways how to handle it, then use the system to transform their ideas into a fair and codified attempt in-game.

Instead of "roll for X", you now rather present "that's scene X, what do you want to do?".

And I think that's the key to using them properly, present situations, let the players/PCs deal with the situation at hand.

For example, I can see how that system facilitates solving murder mysteries: Instead of letting the players guess/puzzle, now they describe what they are doing... like looking for witnesses (Gather Information), doing an autopsy (Heal), studying the surroundings (Perception), trying to access the city watch archives (Diplomacy) and so on. But now it relies of the abilities of the character, instead of the riddle-solving power of the player.

Cheers, LT.


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## Cadfan (Apr 14, 2008)

[hong]
"Roll for initiative!"

Whoops.  
[/hong]

Actually, I very well might start declaring "Skill challenge... GO!" because my groups usually include newer gamers, and a little push now and then goes a long way.  But I can't see a problem going seamlessly into these things.  If you describe what's going on well enough, its easy for the party to grasp the situation.  All they really have to know is that they're using skills in a situation where they're opposed by someone or something else, that succeeding at their skills is good, and that failure is bad.


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## Hussar (Apr 14, 2008)

I'm also hoping that the section for this includes LOTS of advice.  I can see this being a real sticking point for a lot of people.

I also think that this will really help a lot of tables.  It keeps everyone involved instead of breaking down the roles into combat guy and skill guy, which seems to happen a lot IME.

Like a lot of things, I can see a real range in how this will be handled at the table from, "Ok guys, skill challenge, DC X you need Y successes, everyone roll." to more deeply immersive experiences.  And that's groovy.  You need to walk before you run.  For those of us with lots of RP experience, it will be a fairly easy shift.  For newer players, they can learn to RP with a bit of training wheels help.  

Not a bad thing.


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## Cadfan (Apr 14, 2008)

You know, I wrote that "roll initiative!" comment as a sarcastic jibe at how we all happily accept huge, immersion breaking beginnings to fights, but we won't accept immersion breaks on skill challenges.

But now that I think about it, saying "roll initiative!" is probably the best solution.  I have to figure out some way to decide who goes first, and rewarding a high initiative score seems fair.  It should work fine once I train my players not to immediately kill everything that moves whenever they hear those two words.


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## Celebrim (Apr 14, 2008)

Primal said:
			
		

> 1) I thought the *player* sets the DC by choosing how "hard" he wants the challenge to be?




I think that the player choice of difficulty modifies the base difficulty.



> In that sense I'd say that 4E succeeds, although in a "rough" and somewhat limited fashion, encouraging a more "narrative" style for out-of-combat challenges (of course, most Indie RPGs do this in a more elegant and coherent fashion, but it's a good start).




I disagree.  I think you can support different styles of play with a single ruleset, but generally dislike the notion of different rules sets within the same game system supporting who knows what.  I think that adding incoherency to the rules greatly out weighs any additional ability to support narrativist play.  So IMO, this is a step backward.



> This is actually how many Indie RPGs encourage the players to brazenly metagame and "think out of the box".




This isn't even really my worry.  I'm not really worried about gamist concerns like whether or not having even a single skill focus would largely invalidate a skill challenge.  What I'm really worried about is the issue of causality.  That is, can players predict what the set of likely outcomes an action are without the stakes being explicitly set?  In my judgement, the described system has causality problems in that not touching the trap can cause it to blow up.  In fact, merely talking about the trap can cause it to blow up, in some cases before the players even learn that there is a trap.  Likewise, merely talking about the trap can physically disarm it.  To a certain extent, because the outcomes are precircumscribed, what the players do or propose to do is hense irrelevant and the outcome doesn't have to procede logically from the propositions.  Ultimately, no matter what they do or propose to do, some causality occurs that isn't directly caused by in game physics but rather by out of game mechanics.  The logical connection is built back in as needed.  I'm not a strict fortune at the end sort of player or referee, but not only does this tend to go too far for me, but it's jarring to have this 'fortune a good bit before the middle' in a game which tends towards 'fortune a good bit past the middle'.  

If I'm going to play a game where we figure out what the outcome is before we figure out the propositions that produced it, I'd like to have a coherent structure for it and not do one thing in one situation and one thing in another.


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## VannATLC (Apr 14, 2008)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> This isn't even really my worry.  I'm not really worried about gamist concerns like whether or not having even a single skill focus would largely invalidate a skill challenge.  What I'm really worried about is the issue of casuality.  That is, can players predict what the set of likely outcomes an action are without the stakes being explicitly set?  In my judgement, the described system has casuality problems in that not touching the trap can cause it to blow up.  In fact, merely talking about the trap can cause it to blow up, in some cases before the players even learn that there is a trap.  Likewise, merely talking about the trap can physically disarm it.  To a certain extent, because the outcomes are precircumcised, what the players do or propose to do is hense irrelevant and the outcome doesn't have to procede logically from the propositions.  Ultimately, no matter what they do or propose to do, some casuality occurs that isn't directly caused by in game physics but rather by out of game mechanics.  The logical connection is built back in as needed.  I'm not a strict fortune at the end sort of player or referee, but not only does this tend to go too far for me, but it's jarring to have this 'fortune a good bit before the middle' in a game which tends towards 'fortune a good bit past the middle'.
> 
> If I'm going to play a game where we figure out what the outcome is before we figure out the propositions that produced it, I'd like to have a coherent structure for it and not do one thing in one situation and one thing in another.




Um.. What?

Seriously, much of your arguments, while well worded, concise, and apparently valid, seem to fall down, in that I fail to see how it is an argument against the rules, as opposed to an argument against a given DM's capability.

It is a DM's choice to break causality in such a fashion. It is not an artifact or a predisposition in the rules.

In the above scenario, the players could walk on, nothing would happen, and the dryad would eventually die when the corpse was triggered by natural action.

Under your general complaint, the corpse-trap could be triggered by the Dryad taking umbrage at the player prescence. There are many and varied things that would *not* break causality, and if something *does* then its poor play on the DM's part.


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## smathis (Apr 14, 2008)

I'd go a couple of ways with it.

First, I doubt I'd give the players the option to choose the difficulty. Sure, there's Easy/Normal/High. But to have a player say something like "I'm going to triple somersault up to the roof, Easy difficulty" just doesn't sit right with me. And it bugged me in the playtest. There was never an incentive (not a single one) for a player _not_ to choose Easy difficulty.

Generally, I would say most things fall in the realm of Normal but, for example, my Halfling trying to get the City Guard to let him pass using Diplomacy should have been High difficulty.

So I think the DM should choose the difficulty based on the circumstances.

That said, I don't know if I'd run a Skill Challenge with an individual PC -- unless it was something like a Trial or needing to cast a Ritual while the other PCs fought off something trying to disrupt the Ritual. When I played, we ran 6 individual Skill Challenges. That was a little overkill, IMO.

Outside of that, I'd run them all like I would in one of them indie games.

Each roll the player and I would set stakes. The roll would resolve those stakes. I would be using house-rules for Levels of Success so complications would invariably result, making the Skill Challenges all the more interesting.

The majority would be group Skill Challenges, with each player making a roll towards the overall objective in turn. These would be things like trying to investigate a murder or infiltrate a stronghold of some sort (Oceans 11 style, of course).

Then I would have individual Skill Challenges but I'd only condense them in the event that it really was something like one PC needed to do a very specific and important thing while the rest of the party did something else. An example might be one PC researching a spell while the other PCs did a separate group Skill Challenge to investigate the location and habits of some beastie.

One thing to remember about these (much like Extended Contests in HeroQuest) is that they don't have to be within a specific time-frame. You could have a Skill Challenge with one of the PCs lasting multiple sessions with adventures in between each roll.

Or significant time could pass between each 'round' of a Skill Challenge. Such as courting the daughter of a noble. A week could conceivably pass between each roll. Whether the party does anything within that timeframe depends on the adventure.


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## hong (Apr 14, 2008)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> To a certain extent, because the outcomes are precircumcised,




Somehow, I dont think you mean "nerfed".


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## hong (Apr 14, 2008)

And ffs ppl, it's "causality".


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## Celebrim (Apr 14, 2008)

VannATLC said:
			
		

> Um.. What?




Errr... Ok.



> Seriously, much of your arguments, while well worded, concise, and apparently valid, seem to fall down




See, now that is what provokes me to say, "Um... what?"  If it is apparantly valid to you, then it can't also seem to you to fall down.  Seeming to 'fall down' implies that to you the argument is apparantly invalid.



> ...in that I fail to see how it is an argument against the rules, as opposed to an argument against a given DM's capability.
> 
> It is a DM's choice to break causality in such a fashion.




Everything is the DM's choice, including breaking the rules.  My point is that the rules as described can break causality (or rather, break forward causality).  It is the DM's choice to adhere to this mandated causality break or not, but if he doesn't adhere to it then he is also perforce choosing to break the rules.  And I'm asserting that the fact that the rule is written such that the DM is inclined to break it to maintain causality and/or versimilitude is a condemnation of that rule.



> In the above scenario, the players could walk on, nothing would happen, and the dryad would eventually die when the corpse was triggered by natural action.




Yes, but that isn't exactly what I'm talking about.  Situations like that are fairly easily covered as '6/4, failure to accumulate 6 success after 24 hours (or whatever unit of time) consitutes failure in the challenge.'  That's not a big problem.  Let me give a couple of examples of what I consider problems:

1) The character uses Perception to note the wound sowed up.  He then immediately proposes to use his Heal to perform a careful autoposy on the wound, and then follows up this with an immediate proposition to use Thievery to carefully remove the device without damaging it.  All of these are successful, but we now have only 3 successes accumulated.  Per the rules, the device isn't disarmed and the challenge isn't over, but we are now physically further along in the process as we were in the scenario where by this point the party could not fail the challenge.  Does the DM demand three more successes per the rules, or does he decide to wave the remaining three challenges per his common sense?  If the latter, what did he need the rules for in the first place?
2) The party is confused but cautious.  They make four knowledge and insight checks to try to figure out what is going on before getting closer to the body.  But do to some bad luck, these checks are all unsuccessful.  At this point, per the rules the challenge is a failure and the trap should 'spontaneously' go off (or some event should happen or be invented to cause it to go off, which is fundamentally the same thing).   Yet, at this point less time has transpired than in the described scenario where they reached the point where nothing they could do would fail.
3) Same thing, the party is confused but cautious, only this time they have a string of good luck and accumulate 6 insight/knowledge successes before every coming closer to the body or the three.  At this point, per the rules, nothing they can do would cause them to fail - no matter how inept or incompotent they might be at skills to actually disarm the device.  At this point they've done nothing to actually remedy the situation and the actual physical act of removing the device has yet to be accomploshed, yet they are farther along to success than someone who may have actually done so.  Per the rules as described, what should happen if the party just leaves at this point?  Per the rules, haven't they disarmed the device?  Is the intent to do something the same as doing it?  
4) Suppose the first proposition of the party is something utterly inappropriate, like 'I go and chop down the body with my battle axe.'  This action would certainly at some point set the device off, and yet when offered in the first place is it impossible for this proposition to catastrophically fail?  Does the universe inevitably intervene to prevent the character from doing something which would invalidate the challenge?  If it would, would it also do the same thing if the players intent was to cause the challenge to fail?

As you can see, with the 6/4 constraint added to the situation, causality becomes hazy and conditional in a way that has nothing to do with DM ineptness.  This is easily seen because if we remove the 6/4 constraint and remove the 'skill challenge' context, we never find ourselves in a situation where 'successful proposition A' doesn't lead 'logical consequence B' and the DM doesn't have to invent 'run time' exception handling or retroactive events to explain the consequences of success or failure. 

Please keep in mind that I'm not saying that the DM _can't_ successfully invent explanations, nor am I saying that it is impossible to adhere to the rules and also provide a logical framework.


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## Hussar (Apr 14, 2008)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> /snip]
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Of course he would require three more successes.  You still haven't disarmed the ENCOUNTER.  A further three failures would see the dryad attack, for example.  Depending on how much poking and prodding the PC's do, it could still set off the trap.  

Note, the skill challenge is not limited to one single element - the trap.  The skill challenge includes all elements in the scene - the trap plus the dryad.



> 2) The party is confused but cautious.  They make four knowledge and insight checks to try to figure out what is going on before getting closer to the body.  But do to some bad luck, these checks are all unsuccessful.  At this point, per the rules the challenge is a failure and the trap should 'spontaneously' go off (or some event should happen or be invented to cause it to go off, which is fundamentally the same thing).   Yet, at this point less time has transpired than in the described scenario where they reached the point where nothing they could do would fail.




Nothing in the scenario above is time constrained, so, the amount of time they take is irrelevant.  The trap going off spontaneously could easily be one result of four failures.  The dryad getting more and more frantic as the PC's gather around the trap to check it out and then getting antagonisitic is another.  Heck, on the fourth failure, a crow lands on the corpse, pecks out its eye and the trap goes off.



> 3) Same thing, the party is confused but cautious, only this time they have a string of good luck and accumulate 6 insight/knowledge successes before every coming closer to the body or the three.  At this point, per the rules, nothing they can do would cause them to fail - no matter how inept or incompotent they might be at skills to actually disarm the device.  At this point they've done nothing to actually remedy the situation and the actual physical act of removing the device has yet to be accomploshed, yet they are farther along to success than someone who may have actually done so.  Per the rules as described, what should happen if the party just leaves at this point?  Per the rules, haven't they disarmed the device?  Is the intent to do something the same as doing it?




Again, you equate Trap with Scene.  They have enough successes to defeat the scene.  Thus, nothing that happens afterwards will be bad.  Perhaps the trap is a dud.  



> 4) Suppose the first proposition of the party is something utterly inappropriate, like 'I go and chop down the body with my battle axe.'  This action would certainly at some point set the device off, and yet when offered in the first place is it impossible for this proposition to catastrophically fail?  Does the universe inevitably intervene to prevent the character from doing something which would invalidate the challenge?  If it would, would it also do the same thing if the players intent was to cause the challenge to fail?




I imagine that the DMG will include advice on how to handle this.  It's no different really than if you want to bang on the trapped chest - it goes off.  You failed, not because of the 4 failures, but because you chose not to accept the skill challenge at all.

But, say you shoot the body down with an arrow.  The body falls and bursts open.  Now, how does the dryad react to this?  Suppose that you now get six successes and calm the dryad down.  Did you succeed or fail the skill challenge?  The trap is disarmed and the dryad is friendly.  I'd say you succeeded.



> As you can see, with the 6/4 constraint added to the situation, causality becomes hazy and conditional in a way that has nothing to do with DM ineptness.  This is easily seen because if we remove the 6/4 constraint and remove the 'skill challenge' context, we never find ourselves in a situation where 'successful proposition A' doesn't lead 'logical consequence B' and the DM doesn't have to invent 'run time' exception handling or retroactive events to explain the consequences of success or failure.
> 
> Please keep in mind that I'm not saying that the DM _can't_ successfully invent explanations, nor am I saying that it is impossible to adhere to the rules and also provide a logical framework.




In an RPG there is no such thing as causality.  Only what the DM rules happens.  If something is unknown to the players, then it does not exist as far as the players are concerned.  It's more of a quantum approach to the game - everything has occured can be known, but, until such time as it has been resolved, all bets are off.

And that applies to the DM as well.  

But, in the end, Celebrim, the problem is that you have artificially narrowed the challenge to exclude all the actors.  There is the trap AND the dryad and they are both included in the skill challenge.  There is no one right way to solve the skill challenge and there can be any number of possible resolutions that range from catastrophic failure to perfect success.

I can really see this shift requiring a lot of reevaluation of how we DM because D&D has never been presented in this way before.


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## VannATLC (Apr 14, 2008)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> See, now that is what provokes me to say, "Um... what?"  If it is apparantly valid to you, then it can't also seem to you to fall down.  Seeming to 'fall down' implies that to you the argument is apparantly invalid.




Yes it can. That's what 'apparently' _means_.



			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> Yes, but that isn't exactly what I'm talking about.  Situations like that are fairly easily covered as '6/4, failure to accumulate 6 success after 24 hours (or whatever unit of time) consitutes failure in the challenge.'  That's not a big problem.  Let me give a couple of examples of what I consider problems:
> 
> 1) The character uses Perception to note the wound sowed up.  He then immediately proposes to use his Heal to perform a careful autoposy on the wound, and then follows up this with an immediate proposition to use Thievery to carefully remove the device without damaging it.  All of these are successful, but we now have only 3 successes accumulated.  Per the rules, the device isn't disarmed and the challenge isn't over, but we are now physically further along in the process as we were in the scenario where by this point the party could not fail the challenge.  Does the DM demand three more successes per the rules, or does he decide to wave the remaining three challenges per his common sense?  If the latter, what did he need the rules for in the first place?



This is valid. And curious. I am thinking about it, but under your example, nobody has actually dealt with the device yet.. but I get where you are coming from. Under this set of circumstances, based on what we currently know, I'd be assigning 2 checks for some of those actions, as an 'easy' check.



			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> 2) The party is confused but cautious.  They make four knowledge and insight checks to try to figure out what is going on before getting closer to the body.  But do to some bad luck, these checks are all unsuccessful.  At this point, per the rules the challenge is a failure and the trap should 'spontaneously' go off (or some event should happen or be invented to cause it to go off, which is fundamentally the same thing).   Yet, at this point less time has transpired than in the described scenario where they reached the point where nothing they could do would fail.




See below. As per successes, so with Failures. Also being aware we are discussing, in absolutes, a system we haven't seen most of yet.


			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> 3) Same thing, the party is confused but cautious, only this time they have a string of good luck and accumulate 6 insight/knowledge successes before every coming closer to the body or the tree.  At this point, per the rules, nothing they can do would cause them to fail - no matter how inept or incompotent they might be at skills to actually disarm the device.  At this point they've done nothing to actually remedy the situation and the actual physical act of removing the device has yet to be accomploshed, yet they are farther along to success than someone who may have actually done so.  Per the rules as described, what should happen if the party just leaves at this point?  Per the rules, haven't they disarmed the device?  Is the intent to do something the same as doing it?



I cannot remember where, unfortunately, but I recall somebody with a WoTC marker indicating that not all successess are necessarily successes, if they are not withing the DM-decided idea of appropriate actions. This extrapolates to failures, as above.


			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> 4) Suppose the first proposition of the party is something utterly inappropriate, like 'I go and chop down the body with my battle axe.'  This action would certainly at some point set the device off, and yet when offered in the first place is it impossible for this proposition to catastrophically fail?  Does the universe inevitably intervene to prevent the character from doing something which would invalidate the challenge?  If it would, would it also do the same thing if the players intent was to cause the challenge to fail?




Again, assumptions regarding the text of the actual rules, as opposed to the fuzzy ideas we've actually seen.

Also, initation of combat is going to be a cessation of a Skill Challenge, in any situation I can readily forsee. In the instance you've given, I'd give the party a second to intervene, then proceed with the effect of chopping down the tree.



			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> As you can see, with the 6/4 constraint added to the situation, causality becomes hazy and conditional in a way that has nothing to do with DM ineptness.



And I still disagree. Nothing I've suggested as a method to overcome your objections breaks causality. There is a larger requirement for a DM to think of their feet, and examine their challenges with a finer eye. 


			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> This is easily seen because if we remove the 6/4 constraint and remove the 'skill challenge' context, we never find ourselves in a situation where 'successful proposition A' doesn't lead 'logical consequence B' and the DM doesn't have to invent 'run time' exception handling or retroactive events to explain the consequences of success or failure.
> 
> Please keep in mind that I'm not saying that the DM _can't_ successfully invent explanations, nor am I saying that it is impossible to adhere to the rules and also provide a logical framework.


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## Cadfan (Apr 14, 2008)

What counts as a "success" is defined by the DM.  In the trap scenario, if you're worried that the party will attempt six different knowledge checks and the trap will magically disarm itself, you just have to stop defining knowledge checks as successes after the first or second.  Sure, they might succeed at the skill roll, but they've remembered everything relevant, so there's no "success" to be gained through that route.

I rather like the trap scenario, and I really like the way the knowledge check factored in.

Think of it from the perspective of the players.  They encounter something odd.  One character remembers that what they've encountered resembles a certain historic trap.  Based on this information, they engage in a several step process of disarming the trap.

It only breaks verisimilitude if you let it break verisimilitude, and I've given up any shred of sympathy I once had for people who do that.  You want to screw over your own game, be my guest.


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## Celebrim (Apr 14, 2008)

Hussar said:
			
		

> Of course he would require three more successes.  You still haven't disarmed the ENCOUNTER.  A further three failures would see the dryad attack, for example.  Depending on how much poking and prodding the PC's do, it could still set off the trap.




Which rather neatly evades the point, which was that for a given scene, a very direct path might end up tying up more loose ends than a less direct one while racking up fewer successes.    

And as a whole, you spend alot of time arguing for something I'm not really arguing against.  See the last comment of the post you are responding too.  Yes, of course you can create various post hoc rationalizations and descriptions within the system that are logical and from the players perspective consistant.  I freely concede that.  In fact, the existance of these explanations is necessary to understand my concern.  The fact that you tumble out claims like, 'the amount of time they take is irrelevant' and 'The trap going off spontaneously could easily be one result of four failures' and 'on the fourth failure, a crow lands on the corpse, pecks out its eye and the trap goes off' and 'Perhaps the trap is a dud' as an argument against my concern leads me to think I'm not explaining my point well enough for you to understand what it is.

Seriously, you think 'Schrodinger's trap' is an argument against my concern that causality is now fuzzy?



> But, in the end, Celebrim, the problem is that you have artificially narrowed the challenge to exclude all the actors.




No, that isn't the problem, because as soon as you start saying things like 'In RPG's causality don't exist' and 'It's more of a quantum approach' then AFAIC you've conceeded my point.

After conceeding my main and larger point to me, talking about how my problem is that I haven't mentioned the dryad (or the possibility of a crow arriving) in a particular example is rather much nitpicking.



> There is the trap AND the dryad and they are both included in the skill challenge.  There is no one right way to solve the skill challenge and there can be any number of possible resolutions that range from catastrophic failure to perfect success.




This is a feature of RPG's rather than a feature of the skill challenge resolution system.



> I can really see this shift requiring a lot of reevaluation of how we DM because D&D has never been presented in this way before.




And it is really ironic that after spending your post telling me how wrong I am (while conceeding pretty much everything too me), you end in this way, because isn't this my point?  Isn't my point ultimately that the skill challenge system requires you to DM in a way that is not only different from how D&D is normally ran, but which is different from how the mechanics of the rest of 4e D&D requires the game to be run?  Hense my complaints of 'incoherency' and all the rest?


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## Saeviomagy (Apr 14, 2008)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> 1) The character uses Perception to note the wound sowed up.  He then immediately proposes to use his Heal to perform a careful autoposy on the wound, and then follows up this with an immediate proposition to use Thievery to carefully remove the device without damaging it.  All of these are successful, but we now have only 3 successes accumulated.  Per the rules, the device isn't disarmed and the challenge isn't over, but we are now physically further along in the process as we were in the scenario where by this point the party could not fail the challenge.  Does the DM demand three more successes per the rules, or does he decide to wave the remaining three challenges per his common sense?  If the latter, what did he need the rules for in the first place?



This was a fault with the DM's description. If the trap is the only element in the scene, and it takes 6 successes to overcome it, then obviously the result of the third success shouldn't be "the scene is effectively over".

Which, apart from anything else, it's not. At the end of your described scenario, your players are holding a dangerous, still armed device. Again - another thievery check shouldn't immediately disarm the trap.


> 2) The party is confused but cautious.  They make four knowledge and insight checks to try to figure out what is going on before getting closer to the body.  But do to some bad luck, these checks are all unsuccessful.  At this point, per the rules the challenge is a failure and the trap should 'spontaneously' go off (or some event should happen or be invented to cause it to go off, which is fundamentally the same thing).   Yet, at this point less time has transpired than in the described scenario where they reached the point where nothing they could do would fail.



Well, for a start, each failed insight check should be described in some way as making things worse. Giving radically wrong information, and the like.

If you can't imagine a way that that could happen, then perhaps that skill check should be ignored for the purposes of the challenge. Under 3e's skill system, the limit is 1 knowledge check each on each knowledge the characters have, and if you fail, you just don't gain anything useful.


> 3) Same thing, the party is confused but cautious, only this time they have a string of good luck and accumulate 6 insight/knowledge successes before every coming closer to the body or the three.  At this point, per the rules, nothing they can do would cause them to fail - no matter how inept or incompotent they might be at skills to actually disarm the device.  At this point they've done nothing to actually remedy the situation and the actual physical act of removing the device has yet to be accomploshed, yet they are farther along to success than someone who may have actually done so.  Per the rules as described, what should happen if the party just leaves at this point?  Per the rules, haven't they disarmed the device?  Is the intent to do something the same as doing it?



Again - each check should be having some impact. If you can't think up an impact that the check should be having, then it's probably not an appropriate check. Under 3e there's a similar limit (ie - how much info has the DM prepared). Chances are most DMs do this anyway - there's info available, and the first few decent rolls on slightly appropriate knowledge checks get anything that might help.


> 4) Suppose the first proposition of the party is something utterly inappropriate, like 'I go and chop down the body with my battle axe.'  This action would certainly at some point set the device off, and yet when offered in the first place is it impossible for this proposition to catastrophically fail?  Does the universe inevitably intervene to prevent the character from doing something which would invalidate the challenge?  If it would, would it also do the same thing if the players intent was to cause the challenge to fail?



The action counts against a failure. The body falls and starts leaking gas. One or more characters pass out within the gas cloud. Con checks allow other characters to hold their breath and rescue them.

Once a certain amount of dice rolling is done, the encounter is over.

The key thing is - it's easy for the DM to, as you've described, let an encounter just go on and on and on, giving the players no feedback about progress in the positive or negative, and in the end resulting in a boring time being had by all.

I feel that the x/y system just encourages a DM (and players) to think about non combat encounters in terms of progress, and if something isn't making things progress, he handwaves it and moves on.


----------



## Celebrim (Apr 14, 2008)

VannATLC said:
			
		

> Yes it can. That's what 'apparently' _means_.




I'm not struggling with the meaning of 'apparently'.  I'm struggling with how to the same person a thing can be both apparently valid and apparently invalid at the same time.  But let's not get derailed on that.



> See below. As per successes, so with Failures. Also being aware we are discussing, in absolutes, a system we haven't seen most of yet.




The system I'm discussing is the described system (by the OP), not the system as written by WotC (which we obviously haven't seen).  I can discuss the described system, as we have 'seen it'.  The two may differ, but nonetheless, I think it reasonable to suggest that the two systems will have much in common.



> I cannot remember where, unfortunately, but I recall somebody with a WoTC marker indicating that not all successess are necessarily successes, if they are not withing the DM-decided idea of appropriate actions. This extrapolates to failures, as above.




Yes, but comments of this sort yet again raises the question, [if what propositions advance the counters is up to DM fiat] what does the skill challenge mechanic give me that I wouldn't have without it?  Is it only to remind DM's and player's that different skills could contribute to the resolution of problems?


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## VannATLC (Apr 14, 2008)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> Yes, but comments of this sort yet again raises the question, [if what propositions advance the counters is up to DM fiat] what does the skill challenge mechanic give me that I wouldn't have without it?  Is it only to remind DM's and player's that different skills could contribute to the resolution of problems?




Yes. It is.

It was something missing within the 3e rules, something that lead to the vast majority of games I observed, as being combat driven, with ocassional dialogue, and the odd class, (Mostly the rogue/bard/trained person) overcoming a trap or some such.

This is a codified mechanic, presumably with guidelines, that will enable a DM and his players to formulate meaninful, interactive, and non-combat based situations.. much like the example given did for Harr's group.

Yes, it was perfectly possible to do this previously.

No, it was not, in any way, shape, or form, encouraged in the RAW.


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## Celebrim (Apr 14, 2008)

Saeviomagy:  You seem to be of the mistaken opinion that if you could show that the scene could be arbitrated in a logical fashion according to the rules, that you will have done harm to my point.  



> This was a fault with the DM's description. If the trap is the only element in the scene, and it takes 6 successes to overcome it, then obviously the result of the third success shouldn't be "the scene is effectively over".




It can't be the fault of the DM's description, because the PC doesn't know what the stakes of the challenge is.  The PC in my example is just doing what seems logical to him.  My point isn't being made against the specific example.  Rather I'm trying to show that the number of successes you garner isn't necessarily related to how far you appear to have gone towards solving the initial problem.  The key clause is, "we are now physically further along in the process as we were in the scenario where by this point the party could not fail the challenge"  It should be obvious that in general, this can happen, and that preventing it from happening would make a skill challenge look increasingly like traditional D&D challenge resolution.



> Which, apart from anything else, it's not. At the end of your described scenario, your players are holding a dangerous, still armed device.




Irrelevant.  At the end of the described scenario, the party is farther along toward disarming said dangerous still armed device than the party which per the rules cannot fail to do so.



> Well, for a start, each failed insight check should be described in some way as making things worse. Giving radically wrong information, and the like.




So what.  My point is that the paranoid party had adopted a purely passive approach to the problem - they were just going to think about it.  This thinking about it corresponds perhaps to the described events Insight, History, and Nature checks (and perhaps other similar ones).  But the point is that they were going to continue to think about it regardless of how long it took.  One party merely by thinking about it, solved the problem.  Another party (perhaps the same party in a parallel universe), merely by thinking about it it, didn't.  Yet both took the same in game physical actions, namely, none.  



> If you can't imagine a way that that could happen, then perhaps that skill check should be ignored for the purposes of the challenge.




It probably should, but that means that we've returned to accepting that some sort of finite set of relevant actions are required to resolve various problems.  At that point, why bother having skill challenge mechanics?  Likewise, if we are ever ignoring skill checks, haven't we returned to the case (whether this is a fair description or not) of "an encounter just go on and on and on, giving the players no feedback about progress in the positive or negative, and in the end resulting in a boring time being had by all."?


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## Celebrim (Apr 14, 2008)

VannATLC said:
			
		

> Yes. It is.




Well, that was easy.  I don't normally expect to win arguments.

Ok, so if the whole mechanical system boils down to some simple bits of advice:

1) "Say 'Yes'.  Reward players for using passive skills appropriately."
2) "Provide oppurtunities for using diverse skills."
3) "Ask for skill checks when they are appropriate, and reward players for being skillful."

Was it really necessary to have a fundamental shift "requiring a lot of reevaluation of how we DM because D&D has never been presented in this way before."?

Doesn't that seem to you as more trouble than it is worth?



> It was something missing within the 3e rules, something that lead to the vast majority of games I observed, as being combat driven, with ocassional dialogue, and the odd class, (Mostly the rogue/bard/trained person) overcoming a trap or some such.




Bad GMing is not a result of a rules set and won't be fixed by one.  The way I see it, the vast majority of 4e games will be combat driven with occassional dialogue and the odd skill check to overcome some non-combat obstacle.   However, 'meaningful, interactive, and non-combat based situations' have been possible in D&D since before we had a unified skill system, much less skill challenges.



> No, it was not, in any way, shape, or form, encouraged in the RAW.




It seems to me that the problem is solve then by encouraging good design, and not by adding a subsystem that is at odds with the rest of the game systems design paradigm.


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## WalterKovacs (Apr 14, 2008)

I like the idea of the x/y concept. A lot of groups will go into a "routine" of trying every possible skill until they figure it out. With a sort of "limit" on not just the number of failures, but also the ammount of actions they can take towards the "goal", they need to figure out the best path to the goal. If the players aren't able to disable the trap after having acheived the 'right' number of successes, then at least some of the actions haven't really been 'helping', and thus wouldn't count as successes. Jumping ahead [i.e. going straight to disabling a trap without getting TO the trap, or figuring out WHAT the trap is] would be difficult, making the number of successes relevant. For a trap like this you need to:

Notice the trap
Figure out that it's a trap
Figure out what kind of trap it is
Get to it
Get it down
Disable it

The 'last' success is disabling it, but you need to do the other things in some sort of order to be able to complete the challenge. Which skill you use in some cases is interchangeable. And, there are chances of failure at various points. Instead of relying on a "fail by 5 or more causes something bad to happen", an accumulation of failures results in a failure of the challenge. The trap is set off, or in the case of a social encounter, the person is no longer willing to talk with the party, etc.

Also, the idea of initiative is a good idea. I've been in a few parties where out of combat, suddenly everyone wants to do "stuff", and it becomes a game of whoever can get the DMs attention does as many things as possible. On Saturday, for example, someone kept making an Open Lock check so many times in a row, without anyone else acting apparently, that they set off high level security systems. It would, in this system, be a single character failing the same skill check 4 times in a row and failing the skill challenge for the party before anyone else had a chance to act. With initiative or some other "you are in a skill challenge" announcement, than you can get a discussion, either in character or out, of who should do what. Perhaps the "first" success, for example a passive perception to notice the 'trap', or some type of diplomacy check to set up a meeting with an important NPC, sets up the skill challenge, at which point the PCs should 'know' they are in a skill challenge. 

And, having played a rogue, as much fun as it is to see a door, then say "I take 10, 23 on my search, I take 10, 20 on my listen at the door, I take 10, 25 on my disable, I take 10, 25 on my Open Lock, everyone ready? open the door", not to mention the "wall crawl" looking for hidden doors ... I like the idea of traps being designed as a group effort and an encounter unto itself instead of just a single roll and either you get past it or not.


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## VannATLC (Apr 14, 2008)

I'm not sure why you think it is at odds with the rest of the system.

Its mechanically similiar to combat, after all. It is functionally no different from the Narr tendancies enshrined in Encounter and Daily powers. 

*shrug*

You're seeing problems I don't think actually exist.

I think the problem from 3e and prior is best solved by codifing a flexible non-combat, party interactive system.

Which is what they have done.


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## WalterKovacs (Apr 14, 2008)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> Errr... Ok.
> 
> 
> 1) The character uses Perception to note the wound sowed up.  He then immediately proposes to use his Heal to perform a careful autoposy on the wound, and then follows up this with an immediate proposition to use Thievery to carefully remove the device without damaging it.  All of these are successful, but we now have only 3 successes accumulated.  Per the rules, the device isn't disarmed and the challenge isn't over, but we are now physically further along in the process as we were in the scenario where by this point the party could not fail the challenge.  Does the DM demand three more successes per the rules, or does he decide to wave the remaining three challenges per his common sense?  If the latter, what did he need the rules for in the first place?




Well, seeing as the person is able to perform a careful autopsy while the body is still hung up is quite odd. It would require someone getting the body down from the tree, or AT LEAST, the person getting up to the body to perform a very difficult autopsy on a corpse hanging from a tree. There should probably be some skill checks involved. Also, after the autopsy, you still have no idea WHAT the device is inside. Some sort of skill check would be required to let the Thievery skill know how to remove the trap succesfully.

Basically, in this example, the players have metagamed/handwaved a number of skill checks out of the sequence. They've made assumptions about the trap, instead of using skill checks to verify those assumptions.



> 2) The party is confused but cautious.  They make four knowledge and insight checks to try to figure out what is going on before getting closer to the body.  But do to some bad luck, these checks are all unsuccessful.  At this point, per the rules the challenge is a failure and the trap should 'spontaneously' go off (or some event should happen or be invented to cause it to go off, which is fundamentally the same thing).   Yet, at this point less time has transpired than in the described scenario where they reached the point where nothing they could do would fail.




In this case, it isn't that the trap spontaneously goes off. It is that their accumulated failure has lead to them being completely WRONG in their assumptions, and any skill checks they make to "succesfully" disable the trap will instead cause them to set off the trap.



> 3) Same thing, the party is confused but cautious, only this time they have a string of good luck and accumulate 6 insight/knowledge successes before every coming closer to the body or the three.  At this point, per the rules, nothing they can do would cause them to fail - no matter how inept or incompotent they might be at skills to actually disarm the device.  At this point they've done nothing to actually remedy the situation and the actual physical act of removing the device has yet to be accomploshed, yet they are farther along to success than someone who may have actually done so.  Per the rules as described, what should happen if the party just leaves at this point?  Per the rules, haven't they disarmed the device?  Is the intent to do something the same as doing it?




At this point, they have apparently figured out the absolutely best way to disable the device. They can now perform a series of very simple skill checks to disable the device safely. In the previous example, they THOUGHT they had reached this point, and in their carelessness, set off the trap.



> 4) Suppose the first proposition of the party is something utterly inappropriate, like 'I go and chop down the body with my battle axe.'  This action would certainly at some point set the device off, and yet when offered in the first place is it impossible for this proposition to catastrophically fail?  Does the universe inevitably intervene to prevent the character from doing something which would invalidate the challenge?  If it would, would it also do the same thing if the players intent was to cause the challenge to fail?




If the party chooses to intentionally set off the trap, then it is possible to do that as well. And of course, chopping down the body with my battle axe would require a certain number of skill checks to get AT the body in the first place. Also, there could be skill checks made by the REST of the party to prevent their insane barbarian from "disabling the trap".

In general, the 6/4 concept is they must succeed at skill checks that are "working towards" success in the encounter, and the 4 would failing in those particular skills. It is possible, outside of the x/y for complete failure, or time wasting, if the actions are not "working towards" success in the encounter.

Thus, the DM as arbiter, requires that their player explain how the skill they are going to use will work towards the success of the encounter. Otherwise, it will either have no net effect [time waster], or it will possibly be counted as one or more failures [as the actions risk setting off the trap, or making them appear stupid/rude/etc in a social situation].


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## pemerton (Apr 14, 2008)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> Yes, of course you can create various post hoc rationalizations and descriptions within the system that are logical and from the players perspective consistant.  I freely concede that.  In fact, the existance of these explanations is necessary to understand my concern.  The fact that you tumble out claims like, 'the amount of time they take is irrelevant' and 'The trap going off spontaneously could easily be one result of four failures' and 'on the fourth failure, a crow lands on the corpse, pecks out its eye and the trap goes off' and 'Perhaps the trap is a dud' as an argument against my concern leads me to think I'm not explaining my point well enough for you to understand what it is.





			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> Rather I'm trying to show that the number of successes you garner isn't necessarily related to how far you appear to have gone towards solving the initial problem.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> At the end of the described scenario, the party is farther along toward disarming said dangerous still armed device than the party which per the rules cannot fail to do so.



The key phrase is "how far you appear to have gone" - later on you elide this into "the party is farther along" whereas, to remain consistent, you should probably say "the party appears to be farther along".

What is required here is to ensure that narration - whether by player or GM - does not produce the _actuality_ of having gone on further than the structure of the skill challenge permits. The burden of this probably falls on both players and GM. It can be facilitated by one or more of the following: (i) somewhat abstract specifications of the situation by the GM (canvassed by you in a thread a few weeks ago involving an escape from a dungeon); (ii) directors stance narration by players or GM to introduce extra gameworld elements (ravens, dud traps etc) to explain outcomes; (iii) a willingness to acknowledge a gap between appearance and reality - it may have [/i]seemed[/i] that the PCs had resolved the encounter, but in fact they hadn't.

This does require abandoning any assumption of causality in respect of a given skill check. The total causal effect can't be known until the whole challenge is resolved.



			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> Isn't my point ultimately that the skill challenge system requires you to DM in a way that is not only different from how D&D is normally ran, but which is different from how the mechanics of the rest of 4e D&D requires the game to be run?  Hense my complaints of 'incoherency' and all the rest?



I don't see the difference from other components of 4e (contrary to some others I think there is a radical difference from earlier editions of D&D - not only is there a defined structure for resolving non-combat encounters by the accumulation of a pre-defined number of successes, but there is a structure that, as you have shown, can only work if assumptions about the relationship between action resolution and in-game causality and about metagame narration rights are radically revised).

The complaints about healing surges - "I can't narrate the consequences of a 'killing' blow until I know the result of the PCs stabilisation check" - and the complaints about per-encounter powers - "I can't explain why this power is not available every round unless I impose arbitrary narration about the successful opening up of an opportunity by 'reality-warping' PCs" - have a very similar character to your observations about skill challenges and causality.

4e is adopting widespread FiTM action resolution. Whether it will be able to make it fully coherent, given some of the lingering simulationist-seeming mechanics (eg 5 minute rest to renew per-encounter powers, and perhaps task-oriented flavour in the skill descriptions) we won't know until we see the rulebooks. But it's not obviously incoherent to me.



			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> One party merely by thinking about it, solved the problem.  Another party (perhaps the same party in a parallel universe), merely by thinking about it it, didn't.  Yet both took the same in game physical actions, namely, none.



Not quite. Both groups of players (the actual and the counterfactual) made the same skill checks. But as a result of the actual group _succeeding_ at those checks, they earned the right to narrate their PC's successful disarming of the trap - with no more rolls required once the challenge had been succeeded at (I am assuming here that once the challenge has been won, the GM is obliged to "say yes" to the rest of the players' narration of their success).


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Apr 14, 2008)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> Well, that was easy.  I don't normally expect to win arguments.
> 
> Ok, so if the whole mechanical system boils down to some simple bits of advice:
> 
> ...



It's amazing how simple things can be if you boil them down to your essence.

I mean, think of it - how long did it take humans to figure out wheels? But they're nothing more than a round thingy! How could the Atztecs miss that?! And it's so incredibly useful to transporting lots of heavy stuff - think of the new possibilities for trade and construction!

Or money - "Okay, instead of giving you a fish that rots in a few weeks for your fine piece of pottery, I give you this shiny piece of metal with the picture of our King on it. It's a promise that I will give you a fish in 3 weeks, when you need one. You can also go to someone else and get a fish, or an apple, or maybe a knife from him. Simple, yet awesome."

Or, say. role playing. "Okay, so I define what I play in this game with a set of numbers, and I roll dice to see if I succeed at stuff? And I can use this to pretend to be an Elf, kill monsters and take their stuff? I don't have to simulate a real world battle that happened many decades ago?"


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## med stud (Apr 14, 2008)

A skill challenge might be a about getting an audience with a king or merchant lord in a short time span. The players know that the PCs are in the right place; they know that it takes a long time to get an audience the "honest" way. I will just ask the players: "How do you do to get an audience?" Then it's up to them to come up with ideas and what skills to use for those ideas and I will allow/veto usage of skills before they try. Using History to come up with an idea of what people traditionally hold power in courts? Works. Using Diplomacy and bribe an official? Easy check due to the bribe, works. Using Bluff to seduce the merchant lords daughter, making her put in a good word for the PCs? Hard check, high effect, disastrous if you fail, but it works. OTOH, using Athletics to show the merchant lord how good you climb? Doesn't work. Something like that.

The nice thing here is that the players most likely will feel that they have accomplished something when they get the audience. A skill check takes 10 seconds to make and a series of straight up Diplomacy rolls is just boring. This way you can make a story out of this, creating a sense of dynamics. I also expect to get positively surprised by the players, making it fun for me as the DM.

But, from what we know, skill challenges sounds like something you use when a situation is open ended enough. If you have one problem with one solution, there is no need to bring in everyone and try to force some contrived solution to the problem with a challenge. Climbing a wall? Use Athletics one at a time, you don't cross the wall until everyone make it. Picking a lock? One PC uses Thievery, the others can't contribute. Like it always has been, really.


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## LostSoul (Apr 14, 2008)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> 1) The character uses Perception to note the wound sowed up.  He then immediately proposes to use his Heal to perform a careful autoposy on the wound, and then follows up this with an immediate proposition to use Thievery to carefully remove the device without damaging it.  All of these are successful, but we now have only 3 successes accumulated.  Per the rules, the device isn't disarmed and the challenge isn't over, but we are now physically further along in the process as we were in the scenario where by this point the party could not fail the challenge.  Does the DM demand three more successes per the rules, or does he decide to wave the remaining three challenges per his common sense?  If the latter, what did he need the rules for in the first place?




Player: "I swing my great axe at his face!  Ah, I hit!  24 damage!"

DM: "Your axe sinks into his flesh and his head rolls off.

...

Oh crap.  He has 30 hit points left."


I guess that's a problem, too, eh Celebrim?


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## AllisterH (Apr 14, 2008)

smathis said:
			
		

> I'd go a couple of ways with it.
> 
> First, I doubt I'd give the players the option to choose the difficulty. Sure, there's Easy/Normal/High. But to have a player say something like "I'm going to triple somersault up to the roof, Easy difficulty" just doesn't sit right with me. And it bugged me in the playtest. There was never an incentive (not a single one) for a player _not_ to choose Easy difficulty.
> 
> .




Wouldn't it be the other way round. The PC says I'm going to attempt an easy challenge and then the PC gets to describe however he wants to describe it. Thus, a person can triple somersault up the roof even if he wants. 

The disadvantage of taking an easy challenge I imagine would be mostly time limited and how many successes you can generate in a time frame.


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## Mercule (Apr 14, 2008)

Hussar said:
			
		

> Of course he would require three more successes.  You still haven't disarmed the ENCOUNTER.  A further three failures would see the dryad attack, for example.  Depending on how much poking and prodding the PC's do, it could still set off the trap.
> 
> Note, the skill challenge is not limited to one single element - the trap.  The skill challenge includes all elements in the scene - the trap plus the dryad.
> 
> ...



Wow.  I would walk away from a game that worked as you described it.  Seriously.  I cannot put into words how distasteful that system would be.  Fortunately for me, I don't think the 4e skill challenges will work like that -- mostly because I think the developers are better than that.

Don't get me wrong.  I very, very much would like to see some added structure to puzzle solving and social encounters.  Solving a trap should be more than having the rogue PC roll one or two checks against a single skill, but it also shouldn't be a simple flurry of any old skill checks, either.  In this case, not all skills are created equal.  Disable device is simply more appropriate to the situation (as is Healing, and maybe Diplomacy, depending on the defined scope) and that needs to be reflected in the mechanics.

My hopes for the skill challenge rules they, first of all make a significant non-combat encounter feel significant by expanding the scope beyond a single roll by a single character.  They should also reward appropriately prepared parties by favoring the most applicable skills (maybe success and failure with disable device counts double toward the scenario).  But, no challenge should shut out parties that don't have the exact right skill (it _is_ a game, after all).  Nor should a challenge restrict action to a single character (again with game and group activity).

So, I'd like to see things handled in such a way that a perception, healing, or knowledge(history) check would give the PCs notice that the body is trapped and count as the first success.  Disable device is the obvious choice for fixing things, so I'd count a success or failure as double value, and I could see the same argument for healing.  Since that doesn't hit the 6 success threshold set for the challenge, I might require another disable check (or alchemy, etc.) to deactivate the trap.  On the other hand, it might convincing the dryad to let the PCs close to the tree before they can even attempt to disarm it.  And there are some other factors that could probably be addressed, too.

That takes us to a place where a skill challenge is something of a mini adventure in itself, with somewhat amorphous flows.  That'd be fine so long as the system accounts for PCs occasionally taking a _passwall_-like action that "crits" the encounter (or fumbles it, as the case may be).  The system had better help DMs structure these encounters, too -- I don't want to spend an entire evening mapping out the vagaries of a single encounter.  And, I hope that it handles checks that are passive -- the samurai shouldn't have to say "I think about history and how this applies", though it's fair for the player to remind the DM about certain skills or suggest applications.

That was a lot longer than I'd meant it to be, and shouldn't be taken as my interpretation of how I believe things will be handled.  It's just a train-of-thought blurb on how things could be handled and/or some of what I see as being issues that need to be addressed for the system to be worthwhile.

Celebrim does have some extremely good points and concerns about what we know about the challenge system.  I'm looking forward to 4e and I'm to give the benefit of the doubt that it'll turn out reasonably well in this area.  I'm not exactly reassured by what would apparently please some people, though.


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## Cadfan (Apr 14, 2008)

Idle speculation- skill challenges will apply only when the party is directly opposed by someone or something.  Otherwise there will be skill DCs just like 3e.

It makes sense that way.  The DC for climbing a wall shouldn't change based on the encounter.  But it makes sense for it to change when you're really in a conflict resolution mode, and the real test isn't climbing the wall, its climbing the wall fast enough to escape from the guards. In that context, the DC for the wall is just a floor you need to beat.  The real challenge is whether you gained advantage in the overall resolution of the conflict.  And that definitely varies depending on who's chasing you.

Just idle speculation, but it makes sense.


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## LostSoul (Apr 14, 2008)

Mercule said:
			
		

> My hopes for the skill challenge rules they, first of all make a significant non-combat encounter feel significant by expanding the scope beyond a single roll by a single character.




I think you make things feel significant in a few ways:

The in-game situation is considered significant by the players (including DM, of course).
You spend more real-world time resolving the encounter.
You have a variety of meaningful choices to make while resolving the encounter.
There is some sort of reward involved with success.
There is some sort of risk involved with failure.
How the situation resolves is left unclear (to all players, including the DM!) at the beginning of the challenge.  In other words, what the in-game situation will look like after the challenge is unknown at the beginning.

From what we've seen, the skill challenges hit a number of these points but not all.  We need to see the advice (or rules) on _when_ to initiate a skill challenge, who can initiate one, and what advice (or rules) there are for failing a skill challenge.



			
				Mercule said:
			
		

> Disable device is the obvious choice for fixing things, so I'd count a success or failure as double value, and I could see the same argument for healing.




Maybe you'd grant a bonus to the roll?



			
				Mercule said:
			
		

> That takes us to a place where a skill challenge is something of a mini adventure in itself, with somewhat amorphous flows.  That'd be fine so long as the system accounts for PCs occasionally taking a _passwall_-like action that "crits" the encounter (or fumbles it, as the case may be).  The system had better help DMs structure these encounters, too -- I don't want to spend an entire evening mapping out the vagaries of a single encounter.  And, I hope that it handles checks that are passive -- the samurai shouldn't have to say "I think about history and how this applies", though it's fair for the player to remind the DM about certain skills or suggest applications.




Totally agree.


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## ZappoHisbane (Apr 14, 2008)

In regards to the example by Celebrim with the paranoid adventurers who do nothing but think about the problem, we have to remember that each check is not happening in a vacuum.  While a successfully History check reveals certain information, events can happen that spur the adventurers into action.  Perhaps a crow lands on the corpse, and the successful History check makes them realize this is a bad thing.  They must take action to shoo the crow away before it sets off the trap.  Perhaps the Dryad overhears their discussion and reveals herself after the second knowledge or insight check.  Perhaps this sort of thing only happens after redundant checks start being done, which should not count against either success OR failure.

The skill challenges provide a framework that allows all the players to get involved.  The DM still has to guide the story and players along however.  At no point should the DM have to invoke a Deus Ex Machina either for or against the players, like the crow just happening to land and setting the trap right off, or the trap falling and just happening to be a dud.

I for one am grateful for a defined structure to do this.  If you don't need it in the games you DM, who cares if it's in the DMG or not?


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## Lord Zardoz (Apr 14, 2008)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> 1, 2, and 3) Should the DM ignore the narrative with respect to skill checks if the checks used to not entirely fit the situation at hand?  If not, are these rules even needed in the first place?
> 
> 4) Should the DM ignore spectacular stupidity or implausibility, such as answering a Diplomacy check with an attack roll?
> 
> Please keep in mind that I'm not saying that the DM _can't_ successfully invent explanations, nor am I saying that it is impossible to adhere to the rules and also provide a logical framework.




There are a few ways to look at this.  One is that in addition to spinning the narrative relative to the checks for a skill challenge, the DM can also decide which skill check successes are applicable to the challenge.  Following the intent of the rules is generally better than following the rules as written in some cases, and this is one of them.  No one would say that a successful Craft (Basket Weaving) check should count as a success in a chase scene.  If the PC's are just going for a bunch of Knowledge checks, you could consider some of the checks to be extraneous to the challenge.

As for handling a spectacular failure due to the choice of a course of action, it comes down to a DM judgement call.  Some things do not work, and should not be allowed to have even a hint of success.  My own reccomendation is to allow a 'Failure with consequences'.  The players get 1 failure towards screwing up the challenge, and the guy who commited the stupid act probably incurs some real damage.

Now, given those views, should we even have the codified system in place at all?  How is it better than a DM pulling things entirely out of his arse?

Rules that do not interact with combat in the D&D game tend to fill the same role as Military doctrine, in my view.  Doctrine is what amounts to 'given this set of circumstances, these responses are typically optimal'.  Not all situations are typical, but having a default fall back plan in place allows you to respond much more fluidly to otherwise unanticipated situations.  On top of that, the system does have quite a few things going for it.

1)  It is widely applicable.  The X success before Y failures mechanic can be adapted to face to face negotiations, chase scenes, traps, physical obstacles, and library research.  Learn one rule, and you know how to run a huge number of in game situations.

2)  It is simple.  Consider these sentences.  "Decide on a number of successes and a number of failures.  To win a challenge, the players need to attain the number of successes before they reach the number of failures.  Pick a DC for Easy, Medium and Hard.  Succeed an hard check, and the players get an extra benefit on success.  Fail an easy check, and the players suffer an extra penalty".  Do you really think you will need to flip through the rule book to use these rules in play?

3)  It allows for multiple right answers.  There was an example of a pursuit challenge where one player chose Bluff for his check based on the notion of lying his way out of trouble.  Another player chose Endurance / Athletics and just tried to out run the pursuers.  This approach is a great deal better than having the DM or the adventure determine which skill check would be used.  It increases player choice at the game table in how a situation will be handled.  It also increases player involvement.

The last thing I will comment on is that it breaks immersion at the table to announce a skill challenge.  I will answer that with a question.

Is player immersion in the game more important than player involvement?

As a DM, I would prefer to have my players having out of character meta game conversations about the matter at hand to having them involved in out of game conversations about the movie they watched last weekend.  Having the players fully immersed in the narrative of the game is great, but it is pretty damn hard to pull off.  But having everyone at the table involved in the game at hand makes achieving immersion a great deal easier.

END COMMUNICATION


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## JesterOC (Apr 14, 2008)

It sure feels that traps or any other specific task is just not the right use for the new skill check mechanic.

I think that some people see this new mechanic as a great new hammer, and traps are starting to look like nails.

I have read the posts describing the rules as well as a postcast where Andy Collins describes the  process, and everything I have seen that this new mechanic is not made for the situation described in the OP.

Check out the Tome Podcast (www.thetomeshow.com) at about 33 minutes into episode 52.  Also in this interview he discusses how difficuly is decided.  He clearly states that the Players Pick the skill and the DM decides based on the situation, if the check should be easy, meduim or hard.  The player can never say "I want to make an easy check to see if I jump over the house!" (My quote not Andy's)

I think the new rules are for far more abstract things like winning an argument with a king, searching a library, or escaping guards in a fairly lage town.

If the check is smaller and more specific, then I think standard skill checks are the way to go.


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## Cadfan (Apr 14, 2008)

JesterOC said:
			
		

> It sure feels that traps or any other specific task is just not the right use for the new skill check mechanic.



I think that skill challenges are best suited for times when the party is attempting to use skills while they're being opposed by something.  They're not for individual, discrete tasks like climbing a rope.  That being said, I think that more elaborate traps can function as skill challenges.  Look at the example given above.  One player figured out information about the trap that assisted them in disarming it.  Then others used their skills in various combinations to carry out a multi step trap disarming process.  The party was opposed by a rule that said that the more you fail your skill checks, the more you screw up the disarming process and the more likely it is that the trap goes off.  For example, a character who fails an athletics check to catch the trap might jostle or drop it.  Jostle it enough, it explodes.


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## Storm-Bringer (Apr 14, 2008)

LostSoul said:
			
		

> Maybe you'd grant a bonus to the roll?



That would be inappropriate.  Choosing the 'right' skill shouldn't increase your odds of succeeding at that skill, otherwise it is one step removed from pixel-hunting the 'more correct' skills the DM has decided ahead of time.  This is only different is that encounters have a smaller chance of failure, but a larger chance of success with 'more correct' skills.

Honestly, I am not sure additional successes is significantly better, since it still falls under the 'more correct' rubric, but is at least appropriate.  Considering skills are all the same value unless they are trained anyway, there is no sensible way to give a bonus for appropriate skill use unless you overhaul the whole system.


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 14, 2008)

I really like what we've seen of skill challenges, honestly. 

The thing is, I don't think traps are an area where they'd really apply -- I don't see a Disable Device skill in 4e, and I think that's intentional. Even if this is an area where they'd apply, IIRC, the _Escape from Sembia_ stuff mentioned the "improper use of a skill," and seemed to aknowledge that not all skills should be used in all situations.

The skill challenges are also different from pure skill checks. I think for some fairly common activities, a simple check will tell you what happens. 

Skill challenges are more to make "combats" out of skill use, to turn each skill into an ability you can use to overcome the challenge in front of you and take it's stuff. It's when multiple skills in multiple situations would be used, not for a simple, static encounter.

Using that trap as base, the example skill challenge might be "uncover the mystery of the dead body." Multiple skills can be used to approach this idea (with perhaps Perception being the most obvious), and with enough "successes" they arrive at who killed it, how, why, and what they're doing. Enough successes may reveal knowledge behind it, while failures would come up empty, and the PC's wouldn't learn about what happened here. Which would make them ill-suited later when they encounter the creature who has been doing it.

This would be independant of the booby-trapped bodies issue -- if you trigger the trap, it goes off, regardless of how you came to that point.


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## Cadfan (Apr 14, 2008)

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> This would be independant of the booby-trapped bodies issue -- if you trigger the trap, it goes off, regardless of how you came to that point.



It depends on the nature of the trap.

If the trap is a "open the chest, dodge the poison arrow" variety, then whether the trap goes off is a binary condition.  Did you open the chest? [yes/no].  That's not really skill challenge suitable.

But it works alright for traps that are a bit more amorphous.  Basically, the test seems to be whether the party is opposed by something.  If you can phrase the challenge as "do X without letting Y happen" or "do X before Y occurs" or "do X better than Y does Z," and if doing X requires a multi step process, then a skill challenge seems appropriate.  In the above example, the test was "disarm the trap before it explodes," and disarming the trap was a multi step process, so a skill challenge works.


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## Mistwell (Apr 14, 2008)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> There are two reasons why I'd never use the skill challenge described:
> 
> 1) It requires an metagame announcement.  To me, saying 'This is a skill challenge with general skill DC 18' or anything like that ruins the scene.  It ought to be implicit that everything is a challenge if the players want it to be.




So you never use the words "roll initiative" in your games, which is a combat challenge?



> 2) If the specific challenge is 'disarming the trap', then a skill challenge disarms the trap (as is shown from the example) even if the PC's take no action to do so until after they win the challenge.  I've got no problems with taking specific actions to make other specific actions easier, but I do have a problem with specific actions replacing other unrelated specific actions.  I likewise have a problem with a challenge failing before it fails, in as much as playing it this way could have resulted in 4 failures foredooming things before the players really did anything.




I think you missed the point of this challenge then.  It wasn't a challenge to disarm the trap.  That's 3.5-type thinking.  You could, as one aspect of the challenge, disarm the trap.  And, a consequence of failure could be the trap going off.  But it was not only a "disarm the trap" challenge.




> I'm just failing to see how the system part of this encounter made it better.  Isn't it enough to discover the problem, come to understand the dangers, and then take action to remedy the problem without a tally system?




It's just a useful way to resolve the challenge in a manner that involved all players, and carries it out to a more full extent than a single die roll.

You COULD enter into a combat challenge without a tally system as well.  Some other RPGs do that.  This one however does not, and these types of skill challenges seem more consistent wil combat challenges to me when you add a tally system to the skill challenge.


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## Imp (Apr 14, 2008)

I like skill challenges a lot. My concern is that they seem to demand a lot of the improvisational storytelling abilities of the DM, and I can see situations where a player throws a really weird use of an unexpected skill at me and I fumble the whole thing. Sort of the catastrophic version of Celebrim's "what if they win it in three?" scenario.


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## I'm A Banana (Apr 14, 2008)

> But it works alright for traps that are a bit more amorphous. Basically, the test seems to be whether the party is opposed by something. If you can phrase the challenge as "do X without letting Y happen" or "do X before Y occurs" or "do X better than Y does Z," and if doing X requires a multi step process, then a skill challenge seems appropriate. In the above example, the test was "disarm the trap before it explodes," and disarming the trap was a multi step process, so a skill challenge works.




Sure. And in that situation, you'd rely on the DM to be able to be able to see how a player could use Diplomacy to help disarm a bomb (or rely on the player saying "I use Diplomacy to try to persuade a passerby to help!" or whatever).


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## smathis (Apr 14, 2008)

AllisterH said:
			
		

> Wouldn't it be the other way round. The PC says I'm going to attempt an easy challenge and then the PC gets to describe however he wants to describe it. Thus, a person can triple somersault up the roof even if he wants.
> 
> The disadvantage of taking an easy challenge I imagine would be mostly time limited and how many successes you can generate in a time frame.




If there was a time limit then it would have gone better. The problem was there was no time limit in our demo so the players could roll an infinite number of times until they got either 6 successes or 4 failures. So there was no incentive to take anything other than an Easy difficulty. It was actually penalizing to take anything other than an Easy difficulty.

If I ran one of these, I'd run it Forge-style.

1. DM sets out stakes of total skill challenge ("Trap goes off and the party is trapped" vs. "Party evades trap and insert some benefit here")
2. Each round, the DM and Player rolling will set stakes ("I climb up the tree to get a closer look" vs. "Your weight on tree branch introduces an additional complication.")
3. The Player establishes how she's going to resolve that conflict ("I'll roll Athletics")
4. DM will define the difficulty ("Climbing a tree? Let's see... Are you a dwarf? No? Okay, then that's Easy... DC 11.")
5. Player rolls. ("A 19. Yes!")
6. Stakes are resolved. ("I'm up on the branch. Now I'm going to take a closer look at this trap.")
7. Go back to step 2 until the NCE is completed.

I'd probably let the player raise or lower the stakes to adjust the difficulty. But I don't think players should out-and-out set the DC unless there really is some sort of time limit (and we didn't use it in the demo I played in). I wouldn't be averse to it if the rules stated something like "6/4 in no more than 8 rolls". Just something that provided any sort of incentive for a player to choose anything other than his highest bonus vs the lowest DC (which is what the players in the demo did).

I'd also pretty much limit players to choose different skills in consecutive rounds. So that the usage of the highest skill over and over and over is broken up a bit.

But we haven't seen the final rules. And I'm pretty certain that the way we played it at the demo was not correct.

So, I'll have to wait until I see the rules to say anything binding, definitive or relevant regarding how I'd use NCEs. But based on my experience, this is what I'd do with them.

Actual rules will likely change all this significantly.


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## Lord Zardoz (Apr 15, 2008)

Imp said:
			
		

> I like skill challenges a lot. My concern is that they seem to demand a lot of the improvisational storytelling abilities of the DM, and I can see situations where a player throws a really weird use of an unexpected skill at me and I fumble the whole thing. Sort of the catastrophic version of Celebrim's "what if they win it in three?" scenario.




How is the "What if they Win it in 3" problem any different than "What if my players manage to defeat the epic final encounter I had planned within one round or less"?

In general, the consensus answer to most questions is that if it wont harm your game in the long term, then reward unexpected successes of that sort by just going with the flow.

END COMMUNICATION


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## Hussar (Apr 15, 2008)

Mercule said:
			
		

> Wow. I would walk away from a game that worked as you described it. Seriously. I cannot put into words how distasteful that system would be. Fortunately for me, I don't think the 4e skill challenges will work like that -- mostly because I think the developers are better than that.




Really?  Why?  All I've done is hand a small amount of narrative control to the players (with DM approval).  In order for the players to have any narrative control though, the outcome must be fluid.  If the possible results are fixed (disarm the trap/don't disarm the trap) then the players cannot have any narrative control.

Actually, that's not entirely true.  They can have a very limited amount of control, based on very strict parameters set by the DM.  However, because the parameters are so closely set, any narrative control by the players is really meaningless.  

So, I'm failing to see where the problem is.  Unless, of course, you reject the idea of players having narrative control (which lots of games do), in which case, fair enough, this rule isn't for you.


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## Celebrim (Apr 15, 2008)

Walter Kovacs: There is no 'sequence'.  If there is a sequence in which you must do A in order to do B, then we are fundamentally doing without the skill challenge framework.

pemerton: You may be right, but I never had a hankering to play nar D&D. 

VannATLC: Dungeon crawling is enherently simulationist, with a map, and an encounter table, causality tends to only go forward, and multiple parties playing the same encounter might approach it in different ways, but they could agree upon the details of what they interacted with.  D&D is tradiationally played fortune nearer to the end, and even in its most abstract (say hitpoints) its played more near the end than not.   In the skill challenge as it is anticipated, none of this is true - fortune is nearer the beginning than the end, there isn't a map, there isn't a strict encounter table, 'A' doesn't necessarily lead to 'B', casuality works backward to maintain logical structure, and multiple parties approaching the challenge in different ways would not be able to agree on the details of what they interacted with.   

LostSoul: You are quite right to assert that hit points have always relied on a certain amount of fortune in the middle.  For many this has caused difficulties with things like lava, falling from great height, and so forth.  To a certain extent, yes, this is just moving further in one direction.

Mistwell: There is initiative all the time, I just don't usually bother to track it unless it matters a lot who goes first.  Any time that more than one player wants to do something at the same time, whether than wait for another to finish we need iniative.  We need initiave whenever the players race themselves or anything else.  There is no such thing as a 'combat challenge'.  I merely inform the players that I need to begin tracking character's order in the turn.  It's entirely up to the players how they want to approach the challenge that forces me to start tracking initiative - run away, try to open negotiations, fight, cast spells, use skills, whatever.  You can do anything you want with your turn, not just tally a skill success or failure.


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## Celebrim (Apr 15, 2008)

Lord Zardoz said:
			
		

> How is the "What if they Win it in 3" problem any different than "What if my players manage to defeat the epic final encounter I had planned within one round or less"?




For one thing, in the 'What if they win it in 3' problem the temptation is to break the rules to let the players succeed.  In the 'What if my bad guy goes down in one round' the temptation is to break the rules to prevent the players from succeeding.


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## Professor Phobos (Apr 15, 2008)

Imp said:
			
		

> I like skill challenges a lot. My concern is that they seem to demand a lot of the improvisational storytelling abilities of the DM, and I can see situations where a player throws a really weird use of an unexpected skill at me and I fumble the whole thing. Sort of the catastrophic version of Celebrim's "what if they win it in three?" scenario.




Eh, if you're no good at improvising and your players throw you a curveball, excuse yourself to go to the bathroom. Or go get a glass of water. Or say, "hey, gimme a minute to think."


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## Lacyon (Apr 15, 2008)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> Walter Kovacs: There is no 'sequence'.  If there is a sequence in which you must do A in order to do B, then we are fundamentally doing without the skill challenge framework.




This is true if and only if each of A, B, ... can only be solved by one particular skill. Otherwise you just start with step A, ask how the players want to resolve it, and allow someone to move on to step B when appropriate.


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## Hussar (Apr 15, 2008)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> pemerton: You may be right, but I never had a hankering to play nar D&D.




And that's fair enough.  But, that doesn't change the fact that if you want to give narrative control to the players, which is what this is doing, you have to relax what you see as cause and effect.  

Now, if you don't want to give narrative control to the players, then the skill challenge set up will not give you what you want.  

That doesn't make the mechanics a failure, just not to your taste.


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## Imp (Apr 15, 2008)

Lord Zardoz said:
			
		

> How is the "What if they Win it in 3" problem any different than "What if my players manage to defeat the epic final encounter I had planned within one round or less"?
> 
> In general, the consensus answer to most questions is that if it wont harm your game in the long term, then reward unexpected successes of that sort by just going with the flow.



You know, honestly, I don't see the particular problem with winning a skill challenge in 3 if you're normally supposed to win it in 6, now that you mention it. But there were others posting in this thread who did see that as a problem and I guess I was responding to that.

In re improvising in general, there are really lots of little issues that go along with a heavier improvisational burden on the DM, not just catastrophic brain failure – things like falling into cliches ("oh great, Thog, you failed another History check; the DM's going to send a crow again to set off the trap") or whatever. I don't think the emphasis on improv is terrible, just something to keep an eye on. Carry on.


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## kennew142 (Apr 15, 2008)

The skill challenge is the part of 4e I am most skeptical about. I agree with Celebrim in some respects. I have several problems with the arguments presented so far. That's why I'm waiting to see the rules in the DMG before weighing in too heavily. My group has used something akin to the skill challenge mechanic in our 4e preview games, but only as an investigation tool.

From the Traps article on DDI:



> Don't fret, rogue fans. That class and other characters trained in Thievery are still the party's best hope to shut down traps quickly and well. The goal was to make traps something that could be countered when a party lacks a rogue or the rogue is down for the count, not to mention make traps more dynamic and fun. In doing this, we quickly came to the realization that canny players, in a flash of inspiration, can come up with interesting solutions to counter even the most detailed traps. Instead of trying to anticipate these flashes though design, we give you, the DM, the ability to react to player insight with a host of tools and general DCs that allow you to say "Yes, you can do that, and here's how." We think this is a better approach than shutting down good ideas from the players for interesting story and challenge resolution, simply because you lack the tools to interpret their actions. After all, you should have the ability to make the changes on the fly that reward interesting ideas and good play. This is one of the components of every Dungeons & Dragons game that allow each session to be a fun and unique experience. Traps, like all things in the game, should embrace that design philosophy.




It would seem that the appropriate skills can be used to simply solve a trap. A skill challenge is only necessary if the appropriate skills are missing.

I'm hopeful that the Skill Challenge system will be flexible enough as written (no need to break the rules) that characters can solve the challenge if they succeed at the right combination of skills, even if they haven't made the correct number of successful rolls.

I have to add that I would never announce a skill challenge. When we used them in our games, we just asked the players what their characters wanted to do. The only proviso was that we made sure that we asked *all of the players* for their characters actions before allowing any one player to do a second action. It was free form and it worked great for us. As always YMMV.


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## Hussar (Apr 15, 2008)

Actually, I would think that skill challenge will only occur if the situation cannot be solved with a single skill check.

Take a locked door.  That's not a skill challenge.  It's a simple Theivery check and/or break the door down.  There's no challenge there, just a skill check.  The existence of skill challenges does not negate the possibility of a skill check.

A skill challenge is an extended action which will require a number of skill checks to resolve.   I imagine in the rules there will be something covering simply repeating the same skill, so no six history checks to solve the situation.  And, in fact, IIRC, they talked about that when discussing diplomacy - you couldn't simply do the same thing over and over again and get new results each time.

If a situation is a simple pass/fail, then it's a skill check - did you see that kobold?  Make a Perception check.  Did you unlock that door?  Make a Thievery check.

But, if that locked door has a riddle on it, with a guardian that will attack you if you try to force the door, THEN you might fall into a skill challenge.

Unless, of course, you simply bypass the challenge by whacking the guardian first.


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## kennew142 (Apr 15, 2008)

I think people are reading too much into it to see it as a subsystem. I'm not sure that it's necessary to announce a skill challenge, unless your players have trouble picking up the clues. I think a skill challenge is something you just fall into when it's appropriate. The X successes before Y failures model is a system for providing some way for characters to succeed when they don't have the most appropriate skills and/or powers. It shouldn't be used as a straightjacket.

It's my post; of course it's my opinion.


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## FadedC (Apr 15, 2008)

Hussar said:
			
		

> Actually, I would think that skill challenge will only occur if the situation cannot be solved with a single skill check.
> 
> Take a locked door.  That's not a skill challenge.  It's a simple Theivery check and/or break the door down.  There's no challenge there, just a skill check.  The existence of skill challenges does not negate the possibility of a skill check.
> 
> ...




Alternately you could turn an important skill challenge into a skill challenge that only involves 1 character. For example disarming a death trap or negotiating with the king could be just be a thievery or diplomacy challenge where you need 6 successes before 3 failures. The advantage to this is that it makes it less likely that a high skilled character will fail due to a single bad roll or that an incompetent character will succeed with a single good one.


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## Primal (Apr 15, 2008)

LostSoul said:
			
		

> Player: "I swing my great axe at his face!  Ah, I hit!  24 damage!"
> 
> DM: "Your axe sinks into his flesh and his head rolls off.
> 
> ...




I personally think the problem will rather be:

DM: "The Oni swings his Greatsword at you, and CRITS! 30 damage!"
Player: "Oh, crap! That puts me well into negative HPs... let's see, I'm at -19."
DM: "The Oni's greatsword cruelly cuts through your entire upper torso, nearly cleaving you  in half! Your innards are spilling out, too."  
(next round)
Player: "Ok, I'm rolling for recovery... NATURAL 20! Whoo-pee! I get up, well and healthy!"
DM: "Uh, okay, um, yeah... you get up... (oh, boy!)"
Player: "So I'm not cloven in half, right? That didn't happen, or do I get some penalties on my rolls? Or did I just insta-heal? What about those innards hanging out?"
DM: "Er... maybe we'll just skip to the next round... okay, what are you gonna do?"


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## hong (Apr 15, 2008)

Primal said:
			
		

> I personally think the problem will rather be:
> 
> DM: "The Oni swings his Greatsword at you, and CRITS! 30 damage!"
> Player: "Oh, crap! That puts me well into negative HPs... let's see, I'm at -19."
> DM: "The Oni's greatsword cruelly cuts through your entire upper torso, nearly cleaving you  in half! Your innards are spilling out, too."




Why are you creating problems for yourself?


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## Primal (Apr 15, 2008)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> I think that the player choice of difficulty modifies the base difficulty.
> 
> 
> 
> I disagree.  I think you can support different styles of play with a single ruleset, but generally dislike the notion of different rules sets within the same game system supporting who knows what.  I think that adding incoherency to the rules greatly out weighs any additional ability to support narrativist play.  So IMO, this is a step backward.




Hmmm... I see it actually benefiting gameplay, storytelling and character immersion -- therefore, I see it as a step *forward*. However, I agree with you that it probably feels weird on its own in otherwise very gamist system (or a bunch of subsystems encouraging highly-gamist and tactical gaming over story and simulation). Now, if we're talking about the *other* mechanics in 4E, I see most of them (e.g. 'exception-based' ability design, NPCs as "monsters", strictly defined 'roles', self-healing, boardgame-y tactical combat, class-exclusive "attack powers", etc.) truly being steps backward (towards AD&D and, sadly, even beyond). But if they get this one element "right" (my subjective opinion, mind you), encouraging "nar" play in D&D, it gives me hope that maybe we'll see 5th Edition focusing on less-gamist goals and focusing on other stuff besides combat in its mechanics. Honestly, I'm more than willing to admit that I think the 4E skill system does work better than skills in 3E, at least from the narrativist perspective. 



> This isn't even really my worry.  I'm not really worried about gamist concerns like whether or not having even a single skill focus would largely invalidate a skill challenge.  What I'm really worried about is the issue of causality.  That is, can players predict what the set of likely outcomes an action are without the stakes being explicitly set?  In my judgement, the described system has causality problems in that not touching the trap can cause it to blow up.  In fact, merely talking about the trap can cause it to blow up, in some cases before the players even learn that there is a trap.  Likewise, merely talking about the trap can physically disarm it.  To a certain extent, because the outcomes are precircumscribed, what the players do or propose to do is hense irrelevant and the outcome doesn't have to procede logically from the propositions.  Ultimately, no matter what they do or propose to do, some causality occurs that isn't directly caused by in game physics but rather by out of game mechanics.  The logical connection is built back in as needed.  I'm not a strict fortune at the end sort of player or referee, but not only does this tend to go too far for me, but it's jarring to have this 'fortune a good bit before the middle' in a game which tends towards 'fortune a good bit past the middle'.
> 
> If I'm going to play a game where we figure out what the outcome is before we figure out the propositions that produced it, I'd like to have a coherent structure for it and not do one thing in one situation and one thing in another.




I see your point, but I'm fairly certain that they've devoted a lot of pages in PHB (and DMG) to dealing with this issue. I *do* hope that there is some system for setting the stakes -- if not, your concern is actually valid. I could see players using their 'History' skill (e.g. to determine if that particular trap and how to disarm it is mentioned in the texts their PCs may have read) arguing about the consequences if failing that skill check blows up the trap ("I didn't touch it! I was just pouring through my tomes!"). It seems that the DM still has the final word over what happens and how, but I'm a bit concerned about less experienced players and DMs who may either abuse/misuse the system very easily.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Apr 15, 2008)

Primal said:
			
		

> I personally think the problem will rather be:
> 
> DM: "The Oni swings his Greatsword at you, and CRITS! 30 damage!"
> Player: "Oh, crap! That puts me well into negative HPs... let's see, I'm at -19."
> ...



I feel tempted to make hongs question a bit more verbose. Why are you adding flavour text to an result that doesn't make a lot of sense, considering the rules? I mean, I could understand it if he you didn't know that there was a possibility for a healing surge, but if you know it, why use flavor text that can never remain consistent? Cutting through anyones torso isn't even something that should happen in 3E without outright killing someone - or are you telling me someone* could survive this for nearly a minute, and possibly "stabilize" to get better on his own?

*) someone that is not a Troll, Annis Hag or other creature with Regeneration


But I think I should really resist this tempation. We have had a enough of this discussed already, and the matter at hand - Skill Challenges - is far more interesting.


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## hong (Apr 15, 2008)

In our Age of Worms game, the barbarian had the Mad Foam Rager feat from PHB2, which 1/day lets you delay the effect of an attack for 1 round. He'd regularly use it when an attack took him to negative hit points, often when he would be at -40 or -50. We got into the habit of describing him in this state as literally having his guts falling out while he was running away.

The funniest time was when there was an anti-life shell between him and the cleric, so he took the direct route and jumped over the shell. So you had these guts lying on top of the shell, and then slowly dripping through as they expired.


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## LostSoul (Apr 15, 2008)

kennew142 said:
			
		

> I'm hopeful that the Skill Challenge system will be flexible enough as written (no need to break the rules) that characters can solve the challenge if they succeed at the right combination of skills, even if they haven't made the correct number of successful rolls.




Let's say we have a skill challenge in a game.  It's "Convince the King to send troops to the Keep on the Borderlands."

One of the players rolls a success with Diplomacy - let's say it's the 2nd one out of 6 needed - and says, in character, "If you don't do this, we will never work for you again.  We'll leave your lands, and you can pick up the pieces."  The other players have their PCs nod in agreement.

The DM thinks this statement would have a huge effect on the King, so he says, "You know what, guys?  The King gives in to your demands.  He needs your support that badly.  You win the skill challenge."

I think the skill challenge system needs something like that.


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## Lord Zardoz (Apr 15, 2008)

Imp said:
			
		

> You know, honestly, I don't see the particular problem with winning a skill challenge in 3 if you're normally supposed to win it in 6, now that you mention it. But there were others posting in this thread who did see that as a problem and I guess I was responding to that.
> 
> In re improvising in general, there are really lots of little issues that go along with a heavier improvisational burden on the DM, not just catastrophic brain failure – things like falling into cliches ("oh great, Thog, you failed another History check; the DM's going to send a crow again to set off the trap") or whatever. I don't think the emphasis on improv is terrible, just something to keep an eye on. Carry on.





I suspect the biggest fear would be that the players manage to come up with a sequence of events that would resolve a 6/4 encounter within 3 successes, which in turn somehow leads to a massive plot derailment for the DM.  Personally though, I am not sure about how that would happen.  There is a quote by Joeseph Stalin that says "Those who cast the votes decide nothing, those who count the votes decide everything".  What the players roll may determine success or failure, but the DM decides what exactly success and failure mean.

In Combat, I like to play the rules as written, simply because the temptation to fudge the outcomes can often come back and bit you.  But Skill Challenges are not a direct analog to combat simply because the outcomes are much more flexible.  Success or failure in combat have very specific meanings.  If the players fail, they are dead, and if the succeed, your monsters or NPC's are dead, (ignoring the option to run away for the moment).  But I do not expect to run into very many instances where the results of a skill challenge are going to lock the narrative into that sort of outcome.  Skill Challenges allow for much more fluidity in outcomes.

 - The DM can decide to ignore the result of any given skill check if that skill check does not appear to be applicable.  I would not feel obligated to allow the players to win a 6/4 challenge to disarm a trap if they win 6 insight checks.

 - The Perception / Heal(Autopsy) / Theivery scenario posted by Celebrim to disarm the corpse trap may or may not work.  It really depends on the DM and the intent of the trap.  If the trap was meant as a speed bump, I would probably go with it.  If I intended the trap to be extraordinarily lethal, I could probably spin it plausibly to avoid the premature success.  Sure, the Theivery got the poison bladder out of the corpse, but now your holding a very toxic sack of poison that is probably going to burst if mishandled.  What do you do with it now?  If I needed 3 more checks, I would probably call for a balance check from the guy holding the sack to avoid bursting it, a check to determine a method of safe disposal, and another check to actually dispose of it.

 - The DM can still determine what success really means, and can modify the expected success based on how it was obtained.  If I were to set up a skill challenge for my players to obtain the cooperation of a local noble. I might expect them to use a combination of Sense Motive, Bluff, and Diplomacy to pull it off.  But if they instead use skills like Intimidate and basically coerce the noble, then instead of willing co-operation, they will get grudging co-operation.

Anyway, while I am sure there are some extreme corner cases where a skill challenge outcome could derail a game, I would be surprised if there are any instances where a skill challenge could have an extraordinarily unforseen and damaging outcome.

END COMMUNICATION


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## eleran (Apr 15, 2008)

LostSoul said:
			
		

> Let's say we have a skill challenge in a game.  It's "Convince the King to send troops to the Keep on the Borderlands."
> 
> One of the players rolls a success with Diplomacy - let's say it's the 2nd one out of 6 needed - and says, in character, "If you don't do this, we will never work for you again.  We'll leave your lands, and you can pick up the pieces."  The other players have their PCs nod in agreement.
> 
> ...





Thats a very good point.  Within the context of the skill challenge system as I understand it right now, I think that would be a hard DC Diplo check which counts as 2 successes if made.    That would leave them 3 successes left, so maybe you continue the scene and if they can get those extra 3 successes not only does the King decide to send troops, he places the party in charge of the mission and gives them some other types of aid such as potions, or extra supplies or a little known map or whatever suits the campaign.

I think there is a lot of ways to go with this and I am hoping the book has a lot of good examples of how to handle these sorts of things.


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## LostSoul (Apr 15, 2008)

Lord Zardoz said:
			
		

> - The DM can decide to ignore the result of any given skill check if that skill check does not appear to be applicable.  I would not feel obligated to allow the players to win a 6/4 challenge to disarm a trap if they win 6 insight checks.




Why wouldn't you tell the players that Insight isn't going to work here?

Why can't Insight disarm a trap?  They check it out so much that they discover how to disarm the trap, and so they do.  Something like: "Okay, that's the 6th successful Insight check.  You win the challenge to disarm the trap.  Here's how you do it."  Then the DM proceeds to describe how the PCs use their Insight into the trap's workings in order to disarm it.

I don't see why you would _need_ to make a Disarm check.



			
				Lord Zardoz said:
			
		

> - The DM can still determine what success really means, and can modify the expected success based on how it was obtained.  If I were to set up a skill challenge for my players to obtain the cooperation of a local noble. I might expect them to use a combination of Sense Motive, Bluff, and Diplomacy to pull it off.  But if they instead use skills like Intimidate and basically coerce the noble, then instead of willing co-operation, they will get grudging co-operation.




I think that you should stick to the goal - if success in the skill challenge means they obtain co-operation from the noble, then they do.  So nothing like, "You get co-operation from him: he agrees not to kill you."

I totally agree with you about how the skills they use colour success.  That's why I think stating the goal of the skill challenge should be done in general terms only.


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## Lord Zardoz (Apr 15, 2008)

LostSoul said:
			
		

> Why wouldn't you tell the players that Insight isn't going to work here?
> 
> Why can't Insight disarm a trap?  They check it out so much that they discover how to disarm the trap, and so they do.  Something like: "Okay, that's the 6th successful Insight check.  You win the challenge to disarm the trap.  Here's how you do it."  Then the DM proceeds to describe how the PCs use their Insight into the trap's workings in order to disarm it.
> 
> I don't see why you would _need_ to make a Disarm check.




Technically you would not.  It really all comes down to what the DM and players find plausible in this instance.  It may be splitting a hair, but knowing how something is broken does not necesarily mean you know how to fix it.  Along those lines, knowing how a trap works might not render you able to disarm it.  We could keep going back and forth on it, but for every situation you can come up with where pure insight may be a plausible way to rectify the situation, I could probably come up with situations where it might not be entirely appropriate.



			
				LostSoul said:
			
		

> I think that you should stick to the goal - if success in the skill challenge means they obtain co-operation from the noble, then they do.  So nothing like, "You get co-operation from him: he agrees not to kill you."




That is not quite the direction I was heading.  If the players basically intimidated and coerced the noble into co-operating, his assistance would be very half hearted.  Instead of sending his best men with you, he might pull a few random people out of his dungeon, throw a uniform on them, and send them along to help you instead.  Instead of getting potions of Cure Critical Wounds, he may give you a couple Cure Light wounds.  And of course, there is the matter of what would happen later.  They might get the help of the Noble and make a future enemy.

END COMMUNICATION


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## WhatGravitas (Apr 15, 2008)

LostSoul said:
			
		

> Let's say we have a skill challenge in a game.  It's "Convince the King to send troops to the Keep on the Borderlands."



As a side note: Getting to the king, getting an audience and so on, should also be part of the challenge, I think.


			
				LostSoul said:
			
		

> The DM thinks this statement would have a huge effect on the King, so he says, "You know what, guys?  The King gives in to your demands.  He needs your support that badly.  You win the skill challenge."
> 
> I think the skill challenge system needs something like that.



Would be nice. Or the DM could instead change the goal of the skill challenge on the fly. If they make more successes, the king sends more troops, or even get him to give them other support.

Cheers, LT.


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## LostSoul (Apr 15, 2008)

Lord Zardoz said:
			
		

> Technically you would not.  It really all comes down to what the DM and players find plausible in this instance.




Right.  I'm looking at the skill challenge as _resolving_ whether or not you can disarm the trap.  If you hit the needed # of successes, the trap is disarmed - we no longer need to roll to see if you can do it or not, because we already resolved that.  In other words, all those Insight checks mean that, in this case, knowing how the trap works means you are able to disarm it.

Whether or not Insight checks are plausible here is something that needs to be decided when the roll is made.  This could be a problem for some people who like the mechanics to "fade into the background", but I guess you could get around that by narrating the Insight check as doing nothing (i.e. neither success or failure).



			
				Lord Zardoz said:
			
		

> That is not quite the direction I was heading.  If the players basically intimidated and coerced the noble into co-operating, his assistance would be very half hearted.  Instead of sending his best men with you, he might pull a few random people out of his dungeon, throw a uniform on them, and send them along to help you instead.  Instead of getting potions of Cure Critical Wounds, he may give you a couple Cure Light wounds.  And of course, there is the matter of what would happen later.  They might get the help of the Noble and make a future enemy.




This isn't what I was thinking exactly.  What you've describe sounds great for a half-hearted success - 6 successes, 2 or 3 failures (going with 6/4) - but if it's a complete success, it should be a complete success!

If the PCs did use Intimidate, then I would have him act like someone Intimidated: he'll cooperate until the threat of force is gone, and then he'll seek payback.  This wouldn't be the case if the PCs used Diplomacy, and this would be independant of the number of successes or failures the PCs roll.

In other words, I wouldn't change the _level of success_ based on the skills the PCs used.  Only the number of successes and failures would do that.  I would, however, change the in-game situation to reflect how the PCs dealt with things.


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## kennew142 (Apr 15, 2008)

LostSoul said:
			
		

> Let's say we have a skill challenge in a game.  It's "Convince the King to send troops to the Keep on the Borderlands."
> 
> One of the players rolls a success with Diplomacy - let's say it's the 2nd one out of 6 needed - and says, in character, "If you don't do this, we will never work for you again.  We'll leave your lands, and you can pick up the pieces."  The other players have their PCs nod in agreement.
> 
> ...




Your set up doesn't sound a lot like a skill challenge to me. The challenge should involve more than a few diplomacy checks. You can have situations like this, but they should probably be solved through RP or with RP and diplomacy checks.

I also have to say that giving ultimatums to the king is usually frowned on. In some cultures it could get you killed or imprisoned. Any king who gave into ultimatums would likely be viewed as weak and ineffectual by his court. Players in my upcoming 4e campaign would be wise to remember that King Goran Drago came to power at the age of 14 by engineering a palace coup, slaughtering the regency council and purging the Druidic Church of his opposition. It would be unwise to attempt to bully him in this fashion.

As for skill challenges, I think it will be necessary for the GM to be careful in how he constructs them. Just like encounters, a skill challenge should be designed to be interesting, challenging and fun. In the example above, the challenge would likely include:

1) Discovering the correct way to approach the king
2) Getting in to see the King
3) Convincing the King of the need for troops
4a) Convincing the military advisor to  send troops
4b) OR, convincing the King to overrule his military advisor

If the King's advisors are in the room (likely at most courts), they may concerns (real, imagined or a cover for plots of their own) that could lead to them arguing against the PCs. Perhaps History, Local or Insight could give the party an idea why the advisor is arguing against sending troops. Intimidate (to make him back down), Bluff (to make him think that they know something he wouldn't want revealed), Diplomacy to ease his fears or to get better cooperation could all be useful in these circumstances.

I've said that I'm not a big fan of the X successes before Y failures approach. I've always been able to wing encounters of this sort without a system per se. But I can see that it could be helpful to GMs who aren't experienced, who aren't comfortable winging it or who like to have a mechanical system in place to provide a framework for social encounters.

To me, the best thing about this system is that it could lead to solutions the GM didn't think of ahead of time.


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## AZRogue (Apr 15, 2008)

I don't really see Skill Challenges being the default way Traps are handled. 

When I think Skill Challenge, I'm thinking of stuff like the mine cart scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, with players trying to get a certain number of successes as they hurtle through mine shafts, trying to judge which track will lead to safety, maybe swapping vehicles over a chasm, that sort of thing. Something more dynamic.


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## LostSoul (Apr 15, 2008)

kennew142 said:
			
		

> Your set up doesn't sound a lot like a skill challenge to me. The challenge should involve more than a few diplomacy checks. You can have situations like this, but they should probably be solved through RP or with RP and diplomacy checks.




Why not use a skill challenge here?  Or:



			
				kennew142 said:
			
		

> 1) Discovering the correct way to approach the king
> 2) Getting in to see the King
> 3) Convincing the King of the need for troops
> 4a) Convincing the military advisor to  send troops
> 4b) OR, convincing the King to overrule his military advisor




Skill challenges, each and every one of them! 

By making it a skill challenge instead of RP, we're going to mechanics other than DM fiat.  We're also spending more real-world time on it, making it important.  And XP is handed out, so there's a risk of failure involved.

If "Getting in to see the King" isn't something you want to focus on, it might be a simple Diplomacy check with whoever plans his schedule.  Or you might not even have a roll.



			
				kennew142 said:
			
		

> As for skill challenges, I think it will be necessary for the GM to be careful in how he constructs them. Just like encounters, a skill challenge should be designed to be interesting, challenging and fun. In the example above, the challenge would likely include:




I think what the DM really needs to be careful about is if the _in-game situation_ calls for a skill challenge.  Is the situation important to the players?  Is there some sort of conflict between the PCs and NPCs or environment?  Do the PCs risk something if they fail?

I think that, if the answer is "yes" to all those questions, a skill challenge is the way to go.



			
				kennew142 said:
			
		

> I also have to say that giving ultimatums to the king is usually frowned on.




That depends on the setting.


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## Storm-Bringer (Apr 15, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> I feel tempted to make hongs question a bit more verbose. Why are you adding flavour text to an result that doesn't make a lot of sense, considering the rules? I mean, I could understand it if he you didn't know that there was a possibility for a healing surge, but if you know it, why use flavor text that can never remain consistent? Cutting through anyones torso isn't even something that should happen in 3E without outright killing someone - or are you telling me someone* could survive this for nearly a minute, and possibly "stabilize" to get better on his own?



How many rounds is it acceptable to wait until you retcon the results of dropping to -19hit points?

Similarly, since each individual roll in a skill challenge doesn't actually advance the challenge, how many times will you be able to retcon the results until it becomes incoherent?

I am seeing this as 'fortune at the beginning', where the only way to coherently structure the encounter would be to have everyone roll their skills until the success or failure is determined, then weave a story around that.  

In the same way that dropping to -19 hit points has to wait until the recovery roll succeeds or fails to describe, the skill challenges have to wait for determination of success or failure to determine exactly what happened.  Except, once you determine success or failure, the story has no further mechanical effect, really, and the only reason it wasn't employed prior to or during the challenge is because of the meta-game need to determine the outcome before it could be accurately described.

Rather like rolling a strike in bowling.  You don't know how much it is worth until two frames later.


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## Lacyon (Apr 15, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> How many rounds is it acceptable to wait until you retcon the results of dropping to -19hit points?
> 
> Similarly, since each individual roll in a skill challenge doesn't actually advance the challenge, how many times will you be able to retcon the results until it becomes incoherent?
> 
> ...




This is only a problem if you make it one. There are plenty of descriptions you can use that don't require any retconning at all.


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## Harr (Apr 15, 2008)

Imp said:
			
		

> In re improvising in general, there are really lots of little issues that go along with a heavier improvisational burden on the DM, not just catastrophic brain failure – things like falling into cliches ("oh great, Thog, you failed another History check; the DM's going to send a crow again to set off the trap") or whatever.




This is actually a real issue in play (and no offense to anyone, but it's the *only* thing in this thread that is actually a real issue in play); when two challenges are very similar to each other, players tend to fall into repeating the last solution almost in a carbon copy of the earlier one. It's a very fast fun-breaker. Just like it would be boring to have the same fight with a gelatinous cube over and over, it's the same, only more so.

The solution is of course to never repeat a challenge in a way that is similar, to always have something completely different lined up, and that sort of thing brings quick burnout.

My solution so far has been simply to steal cool ideas from the very, very few posts on these boards that have any (though to be fair, I'm aware that content-creation is not the point around here at all) and from books. So far we have done stuff like:

- The original "young dryad about to die from poison", which I wrote up above, which was actually my idea
- A big "ship caught in a living elemental-lightning storm", inspired from these boards
- A very cool "the party must lead an army into battle using their social and war-related skills" completely stolen from these boards
- A "rescue the children from the fat druid's horrible Dance" sequence stolen from Robin Hobb's "Shaman's Crossing" trilogy
- A "cross over into the spirit realm and reach the Tree-Lady" challenge inspired from the same trilogy
- A fun "the floor turns into a big conveyor belt!" thing stolen from the WotC boards
- A straight "The town is burning, what do you do!" scene stolen from these boards
- A chase across the plains with a horde of mosquito-women close behind, courtsey of China Mieville's "The Scar"
- A "dig for treasure and see what you find" sequence on a beach whose sand is made of tiny mechanical remnants from an ancient age, from the same book

And some others. It has all worked fine, sometimes spectacularly, sometimes just OK. 

I think the main thing to avoid burnout through improvisation is to just accept that you can't come up with everything yourself, and get help from where you find it.


As to everything else in here, well, what can I say. It's one thing to sit and _imagine_ how you would logically _assume_ that something _should_ turn out _if_ you were to try it. It quite another to actually try it. Using just the bare-bones structure of the challenge system that we have right now on these boards, _none_ of the other problems brought up in this thread have ever come up in-game for us... and none of them will.

In some ways, because of things I've already explained at length; like, the thing where the stakes of that particular challenge was *not* in any way, shape or form whether the trap sprung or not (Yeah, I actually explained that, and then explained it again, in the old thread, and I won't do it again just to satisfy the chronic tail-chasing urge that comes from nebulous theorizing. This was a skill challenge that happened to have a 'trap' in it as one of its elements. End of story. Want more? Read the old thread again).

But really mostly because... they just aren't. I really don't know what to say... they aren't. Players trying to do nothing but knowledge checks to disable a trap? Doesn't happen. Players losing immersion because you ask them if they want to accept or pass on a skill challenge? Doesn't happen. Etc, etc, etc. Go ahead and try it all in your game. Yeah, you would logically assume that if you were to try it, those would be problems, and I would too. But they aren't. 

It's not a computer algorithm where you have to account for corner cases or the whole thing is going to crash. It's a guideline, and a coaching to help you as the DM keep up a pace that is fun and moves along and is interesting. And it works, if you let it work, and more importantly, if you ever even give it a chance to.

Please note that I'm not saying the system is entirely without problems; we have run into several of them. There *are* problems that arise from play; they are just nowhere even close to anything being discussed here (aside from the burnout thing, for one). But I'm not going to enumerate them, at least until I see that there are people who have played and come across them too.


Having said all that, I really look forward to the time when this stuff is all out and published, with whatever changes or corrections, and we can focus on giving each other cool ideas for interesting challenges that work and are awesome, which I believe was the initial point of this thread before it got the massive, shameless jacking that it did.


----------



## WhatGravitas (Apr 15, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> How many rounds is it acceptable to wait until you retcon the results of dropping to -19hit points?
> 
> Similarly, since each individual roll in a skill challenge doesn't actually advance the challenge, how many times will you be able to retcon the results until it becomes incoherent?



Why do you have to retcon anything. And why don't successful checks don't further a skill challenge?

Cheers, LT.


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## AZRogue (Apr 15, 2008)

Things I have in mind for Skill Challenges:

Escaping a burning building.
Finding their way out of the Underdark.
Escaping prison/captivity.
Mine car craziness, (see Temple of Doom).
Uncovering clues to find a murderer before he kills again ... that same night.
Rescuing the people trapped on a sinking Pleasure Barge.
Surviving being lost in the desert.
Getting off a mountainside before being caught by an encroaching forest fire.

Basically, so far, I've confined them to "events" and not just the mundane. I try to make sure there's SOME sense of urgency to each one I think up and obvious goals to be gained or lost. Each Skill Challenge is still special, this way, or so I'm hoping, and just as exciting as a combat and very memorable. 

So, is this the way they're done? Or are they meant to be used for a lot more things than just "action scenes" that weren't easy to pull off before? I didn't imagine them as a tool for mundane social encounters, or traps, which I have run DURING combats, or handled with just a simple skill check so far, but maybe they're just flexible enough to be used for what you want. 

All I know if that if the Skill Challenge system DOESN'T let me have my mine car madness I'm going to just keep the half-made-up system I'm using now.


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## Cadfan (Apr 15, 2008)

I'm going to adapt the skill challenge system to function for combat in certain situations, with combat scenes taking the place of skill challenges in an overall "you need X successes without Y failures" context.

It should provide an excellent way of resolving issues like a war between two armies.  If the PCs successfully resolve, say, four battlefield problems before they fail at 2, their army wins the fight.  If not, their army is routed.  This should provide the sense of immersion that players need ("do we take out the siege weaponry before it can break down the wall?  Or should we go after the wizard that's demolishing our front ranks?"), while providing me with a context that lets me keep things manageable, and still making the outcome dependent on the player's actions.  And dependent on how they resolve the conflicts, and which ones they resolve, I can use the results to generate an explanation of the situation after the fight.  If they took out the siege, for example, but didn't get to the wizard, then the wizard is still alive, and they've lost a lot of manpower, but they've retained the battlements.

Its actually better, I think, than the old flowchart options I was using from Heroes of Battle.


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## Storm-Bringer (Apr 15, 2008)

Lacyon said:
			
		

> This is only a problem if you make it one. There are plenty of descriptions you can use that don't require any retconning at all.



Such as?


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## LostSoul (Apr 15, 2008)

Harr said:
			
		

> My solution so far has been simply to steal cool ideas from the very, very few posts on these boards that have any (though to be fair, I'm aware that content-creation is not the point around here at all) and from books. So far we have done stuff like:




That sounds like a good idea for a thread.


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## Lacyon (Apr 15, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Such as?




Every actual example of play I've seen so far.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Apr 15, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Such as?



The Devils Trident hits your arm, hurling you to the ground. As your head connects with the ground, you drop unconscious. Your comrades see you're bleeding from the arm and the head, but nobody really has the time to check you. 

The Axe hits you directly in the chest, but the armor is absorbing the worst, but the impact is strong enough to press all air out of your lungs, and you drop to the ground.

The Dagger pierces your skin, and you feel a sudden wave of intensive pain, until everything blackens.

The Fireball explodes directly in front of you. While you are still trying to evade, hot air fills your lungs, and you feel the flames covering your eyes, before you go down. 

...

As you open you eyes, you see the Warlord standing above you. "No fainting in face of the enemy! Stand up, you fool! You can sleep when you're dead!" 
or
You feel hands touching you, and a terrible headache, and hear the wizard mumbling. "Just a superficial wound, my friend. The bandage might not sit perfect, but it'll do! Quick, get up, I am afraid another wave of Kobolds is en route!"


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## Storm-Bringer (Apr 15, 2008)

Lord Tirian said:
			
		

> Why do you have to retcon anything. And why don't successful checks don't further a skill challenge?
> 
> Cheers, LT.



Because the skill checks themselves don't produce a tangible result, other than a tick in the win/loss column.

In the given example, the first Athletics check could have been the only success.  In which case, the only thing they would have known is that the corpse was sewn up.  The next four checks could have been failures, in which case, the encounter was failed.  Finding out a detail about the trap did nothing to further disarming the trap.  _Unless the trap was successfully disarmed_.  In which case, the detail was important.  If the trap was set off or not disarmed, the detail is meaningless.  Each step of the 'process' is entirely dependent on the outcome.

If the players decide after the first check that the whole situation is dodgy and find some other way to disarm it, then you have a system that isn't necessary, as adequate clues and other tools will only require one or two skill checks.  Perhaps Perception and Thievery.  With the encounter system, no one check actually affects the encounter until the oiutcome is determined.  Climbing the tree didn't make the observation more or less difficult, and in fact was unnecessary for the rolls that came after it.  Perception could have just as well been the first roll, with Athletics the second or subsequent roll.  The order of the rolls is inconsequential to the outcome, as long as the meta-game tally is recorded.

Since the order of the rolls doesn't affect the outcome, no individual roll affects the outcome.  The description of the scene, therefore, is tied solely to the outcome.  Climbing the tree has no particular effect on the sequence, as it could have been a History check, the Athletics check, or a Thievery check.  None of these lead to the next in any causal fashion.


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## Storm-Bringer (Apr 15, 2008)

Lacyon said:
			
		

> Every actual example of play I've seen so far.



And these show how events were determined on the fly, and not after recovery dice were rolled, or skill challenges completed?


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## Lacyon (Apr 15, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Because the skill checks themselves don't produce a tangible result, other than a tick in the win/loss column.
> 
> In the given example, the first Athletics check could have been the only success.  In which case, the only thing they would have known is that the corpse was sewn up.  The next four checks could have been failures, in which case, the encounter was failed.  Finding out a detail about the trap did nothing to further disarming the trap.  _Unless the trap was successfully disarmed_.  In which case, the detail was important.  If the trap was set off or not disarmed, the detail is meaningless.  Each step of the 'process' is entirely dependent on the outcome..




It was one of many possible steps towards solving the challenge. Yes, if you fail to solve the challenge, it is unsolved. So what?



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> If the players decide after the first check that the whole situation is dodgy and find some other way to disarm it, then you have a system that isn't necessary, as adequate clues and other tools will only require one or two skill checks.




If the players decide to ignore the results of a success instead of building on them, you do indeed have a problem, but it is easily resolved: don't count that success in the tally.

The players can't resolve it in one or two "skill checks" unless you let them - nothing stops you from turning those one or two skills into extended contests requiring multiple successes, nor does anything prevent you from describing the interim results of those successes or failures.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Perhaps Perception and Thievery.  With the encounter system, no one check actually affects the encounter until the oiutcome is determined.  Climbing the tree didn't make the observation more or less difficult, and in fact was unnecessary for the rolls that came after it.  Perception could have just as well been the first roll, with Athletics the second or subsequent roll.  The order of the rolls is inconsequential to the outcome, as long as the meta-game tally is recorded.




Many complex tasks in both the real world and in the game have separate sub-tasks which may be performed in any order.

Conversely, when performing a skill challenge, nothing prevents you from only allowing certain skills at step 1, and certain other skills at step 2, and so on, if the situation demands it.

If a check doesn't progress you toward a solution to the challenge, it should be disallowed.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Since the order of the rolls doesn't affect the outcome, no individual roll affects the outcome.




By what logic? Every roll affects the outcome, because every roll counts as either a success or failure.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> The description of the scene, therefore, is tied solely to the outcome.  Climbing the tree has no particular effect on the sequence, as it could have been a History check, the Athletics check, or a Thievery check.  None of these lead to the next in any causal fashion.




This doesn't follow from your premises at all. The description of the scene in the example you quoted followed precisely from the rolls chosen and their successes/failures.

None of the checks need to lead to _each other_ in causal fashion. They merely need to lead the party towards overall success or overall failure.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> And these show how events were determined on the fly, and not after recovery dice were rolled, or skill challenges completed?




Exactly.


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## Storm-Bringer (Apr 15, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> The Devils Trident hits your arm, hurling you to the ground. As your head connects with the ground, you drop unconscious. Your comrades see you're bleeding from the arm and the head, but nobody really has the time to check you.
> 
> The Axe hits you directly in the chest, but the armor is absorbing the worst, but the impact is strong enough to press all air out of your lungs, and you drop to the ground.
> 
> ...



In other words, your character's fate is indeterminate until the outcome of the recovery roll.

In this example:

"The Axe hits you directly in the chest, but the armor is absorbing the worst, but the impact is strong enough to press all air out of your lungs, and you drop to the ground."

If the character isn't healed in time, or the recovery roll is failed, then the armour clearly didn't absorb 'the worst' of it.

More evident in this example:

"The Devils Trident hits your arm, hurling you to the ground. As your head connects with the ground, you drop unconscious. Your comrades see you're bleeding from the arm and the head, but nobody really has the time to check you."

Even if the trident gets a critical and the ground impact does further damage, when you make your recovery roll, it actually didn't do as much damage as you described.

In other words, the nature of Healing Surges and warlord/leader healing abilities doesn't work better with wholly abstract hit points, _it requires them_.  It requires that you retcon nearly every instance of healing, or leave descriptions vague to the point of being meaningless, or unusable.

DM:  The soldier swings...  Ooooh.  A 20, that is max damage...  30 points.  You caught that axe right in the chest and are bleeding all over the place.
Player:  Crap, that puts me down to -10.
<remainder of the round>
DM:  Ok, recovery roll.
Player:  A 20!  Excellent!  I am back up to 25 hit points!  I guess that axe didn't hit me at all!

Or something else that makes running descriptions useless or impossible.  Either your group is continually re-writing events or the details will be added later.  In both cases, it requires reconning the event.  The other choice is to simply announce damage, wait for the outcome of a recovery roll or healing surge, and then describe the entire chain of events.

The encounter sequence is exactly the same.  You may or may not actually perceive anything with your perception roll.  That history check may or may not actually reveal anything pertinent.  No check is relevant to the sequence of events until the outcome is determined, at which time, the entire sequence must be described from scratch, or the events in the sequence are retconned.  Each skill roll is an individual fragment that must be fitted to the others once the outcome is determined.

Additionally, until the failure threshold is reached, there are no consequences.  The Perception and History checks are successful.  The corpse is sewn up, and this is an uncommon but known trap.  Four failures to go, so use your weapon to cut the body down, and someone else uses Athletics to pick the body up and throw it/carry it off.  Since cutting the body down has no applicable skill, it would be a routine attack against the rope.  If it succeeds, you now have four chances to toss the body away _with no consequence for failure_.  You can literally kick the body around the clearing until you get four failures total.  And if four other characters succeed in their skill rolls, you will end the encounter with the six successes no matter how roughly they disposed of the body.  Even if cutting down the corpse was a skill roll of some kind, you would need to fail four rolls to set the trap off.

Naturally, the DM can adjust the totals if the players are doing something ridiculous.  Again, however, this makes the system closer to a single pass/fail skill check.  If the characters in the above example were to have their totals altered because they were being careless, it then becomes far harder to succeed than to fail, which falls into the 'anti-fun' category.  The failure totals would _by necessity_ be a minimum of 2.  A single failure in an encounter would be (to use the vernacular) 'too swingy'.  Additionally, that brings us back to a single skill check being the only significant one.

In both cases (combat and skill challenges), the outcome must be determined before the sequence of events that lead to that outcome can be described.  Either the running descriptions will be so vague as to be un-needed, or the whole session will be a matter of re-writing prior events.


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## WhatGravitas (Apr 15, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> If the trap was set off or not disarmed, the detail is meaningless.



It is meaningful, because it is the base for the narrative and hence the base on which the players select their next skill checks - which, in turn, determines whether they fail or not. And this will form the story in a coherent way - where's the retcon?


			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> In other words, your character's fate is indeterminate until the outcome of the recovery roll.



You say that like it's a bad thing. Or unrealistic. Example: You get hit by a car. Will you die or will you live? Until the docs arrive, it is hard to know - but reality is still not retconning itself, right?

And in your post above, ret-cons were your problem. But I don't see ret-cons here. If your problem is that skills don't immediately solve a problem, then you probably have and had a lot more problems with D&D - in all editions.

Cheers, LT.


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## Storm-Bringer (Apr 15, 2008)

Lacyon said:
			
		

> It was one of many possible steps towards solving the challenge. Yes, if you fail to solve the challenge, it is unsolved. So what?



Exactly.  There is an indeterminate cloud of possible steps.  Any six of which will solve the challenge, in any order.  There isn't a specified order of steps that must be taken to solve the encounter.  Hence, the _actions_ are irrelevant.



> If the players decide to ignore the results of a success instead of building on them, you do indeed have a problem, but it is easily resolved: don't count that success in the tally.



So, you are suggesting that the DM arbitrarily negate a success roll?

Additionally, how are the players to 'build' on their successes?  They can only continue to roll skill checks.  The initial Athletics check has no relevance to the subsequent history check.



> The players can't resolve it in one or two "skill checks" unless you let them - nothing stops you from turning those one or two skills into extended contests requiring multiple successes, nor does anything prevent you from describing the interim results of those successes or failures.



In other words, you are advising adjustment of the success and failure tallies in the middle of an encounter.



> Many complex tasks in both the real world and in the game have separate sub-tasks which may be performed in any order.



In fact, no.  The more complex a task becomes, the more critical the need to perform steps in a certain order.



> Conversely, when performing a skill challenge, nothing prevents you from only allowing certain skills at step 1, and certain other skills at step 2, and so on, if the situation demands it.



Further, you are suggesting that the DM enforce a certain chain of events, which is exactly what this skill challenge system is designed to avoid.



> If a check doesn't progress you toward a solution to the challenge, it should be disallowed.



The only thing that determines which rolls progress someone to the solution is the meta-game success or failure.



> By what logic? Every roll affects the outcome, because every roll counts as either a success or failure.



Precisely.  Every _roll_ affects the outcome, not every _action_.  The action is only relevant to the sequence _once the outcome is determined_.  Any given roll in the sequence is irrelevant until the final success or failure is rolled.  The _action_ of kicking the corpse around the clearing is only relevant when the final success or failure is _rolled_.



> This doesn't follow from your premises at all. The description of the scene in the example you quoted followed precisely from the rolls chosen and their successes/failures.



Only because of the outcome.  The description was not possible until the outcome was determined.  No single action has a causal connection to any other action until the skill challenge is passed or failed.



> None of the checks need to lead to _each other_ in causal fashion. They merely need to lead the party towards overall success or overall failure.



If they don't lead to each other in a causal fashion, then they have no connection whatsoever.  Until the outcome is determined.  Hence, there is no actual teamwork, which is what this system is designed to promote.  If the goal is simply six successes regardless of the skill involved, then each player is free to do their own thing to garner those successes.  The only aspect of teamwork present is that everyone is rolling a skill check.  That is no greater progress towards teamwork than combat, where each player is doing their own thing.[/QUOTE]


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## WhatGravitas (Apr 16, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> So, you are suggesting that the DM arbitrarily negate a success roll?



You seem to assume that you can just use any skill. But from what I gather, it's a NCE, meaning the player describes how he uses the skills to what end. And that has to make sense.


			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> If the goal is simply six successes regardless of the skill involved, then each player is free to do their own thing to garner those successes.



Again, you assume that you can arbitrarily select any skill without making sense.

Cheers, LT.


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## JohnSnow (Apr 16, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> In other words, your character's fate is indeterminate until the outcome of the recovery roll.
> 
> In this example:
> 
> ...




This just requires a VERY simple fix - always focus on what the PC (or PCs) can feel, see, hear, touch and smell. Make your descriptions as immersive as possible. For that reason, I dislike the above quote. Try this instead:

"The ax hits you directly in the chest, and the force of the blow feels like you've been hit with a tree. Stars flicker before your eyes and you feel your balance failing as a black curtain desends. (addressing other players) You watch as Kelwyn slumps to the ground, the force of the mighty blow dropping him like a sack of potatoes."

See? Now, there's no problem. If he dies, the blow could have given him a punctured lung, a perforated heart, or any of other numerous lethal conditions.

The following is no worse:



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> More evident in this example:
> 
> "The Devils Trident hits your arm, hurling you to the ground. As your head connects with the ground, you drop unconscious. Your comrades see you're bleeding from the arm and the head, but nobody really has the time to check you."
> 
> ...




It's been said before but it bears repeating. This is just bad DMing. Here are the exact same events as your example with a different spin:

DM: "The soldier swings... Ooooh. A 20, that is max damage... 30 points."
Player: "Crap, that puts me down to -10."
DM: "The axe smashes through Corwyn's defenses, spraying blood on those nearby. A cloud of blackness descends over his vision and he tastes blood.  The rest of you see him slump to the ground, blood covering his face. The soldier grins...
<remainder of the round>
DM: "Ok, give me a recovery roll."
Player: "A 20! Excellent! I stabilize and spend a healing surge to get back up to 25 hit points!" (the natural 20 auto-heal thing is gone).
DM (or Player): "Corwyn comes to, wiping the blood from his face. He tastes the blood on his lips as he catches his breath. He spits blood onto the ground, tightening his grip on his weapons. Clearly, his luck was with him today. Any other day, a blow like that could have killed him."
Player: <insert snappy action hero one-liner here>
<play proceeds>

The only problem you're identifying here is the DM who decides to jump ahead to the final outcome rather than focusing on providing interesting moment-to-moment detail during the process. Just as the player never gets to say "I sever the goblin's head" or "I shoot the dragon in the eye" unless it's backed up by the mechanics, nobody gets to decide what happens before it does.

Intent is one thing. Perception is one thing. Focus your descriptions on what the characters themselves can actually sense. This approach also makes for better descriptions than all the gory crit tables you can invent.


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## LostSoul (Apr 16, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Exactly.  There is an indeterminate cloud of possible steps.  Any six of which will solve the challenge, in any order.  There isn't a specified order of steps that must be taken to solve the encounter.  Hence, the _actions_ are irrelevant.




I like to think that the actions are relevant, because the player is making a choice of what skill to use and that colours the scene.  

edit: And the actions I take can open up or close out other choices of skills to use.  Escape from Sembia: I'm nowhere near a church.  I make an Athletics check, telling the DM I'm sprinting for the church of Pelor.  Success!  The DM tells me that I'm there; now I can use Diplomacy to ask for sanctuary (or Religion, if there's some law I can invoke).

Failing that Athletics check could mean that I don't make it to the church, and can't use Diplomacy or Religion (my best skills).

I also think that success won't be binary; I think there will be levels of success or failure.  This means, to me, that _which_ skill check you succeeded or failed on will matter when the DM describes what happens once the skill challenge is resolved.

To me, using Intimidate instead of Diplomacy means something.


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## hong (Apr 16, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> How many rounds is it acceptable to wait until you retcon the results of dropping to -19hit points?




Who said anything about retconning?


----------



## Saishu_Heiki (Apr 16, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Additionally, until the failure threshold is reached, there are no consequences.  The Perception and History checks are successful.  The corpse is sewn up, and this is an uncommon but known trap.  Four failures to go, so use your weapon to cut the body down, and someone else uses Athletics to pick the body up and throw it/carry it off.  Since cutting the body down has no applicable skill, it would be a routine attack against the rope.  If it succeeds, you now have four chances to toss the body away _with no consequence for failure_.  You can literally kick the body around the clearing until you get four failures total.  And if four other characters succeed in their skill rolls, you will end the encounter with the six successes no matter how roughly they disposed of the body.  Even if cutting down the corpse was a skill roll of some kind, you would need to fail four rolls to set the trap off.



I don't buy it. It is a trap, designed to go off when certain conditions are met (namely, in this case, when the body is moved violently). The purpose of the skill challenge is to *not* set off the trap. Thus, you make History checks to remember similar traps, Nature checks to find out why it is there, etc. 

If the PCs want to cut the body down violently, then they are voluntarily failing the challenge and the trap goes off. Just because it is a skill challenge does not mean that all other rules are suspended.


----------



## AZRogue (Apr 16, 2008)

I haven't needed to do any ret-conning when using Skill Challenges.

And I think that the actions performed during a Skill Challenge have to be explained, through description or roleplaying, in the context of the event. If a Skill Challenge was initiated revolving around surviving a stampede of buffalo, a character couldn't use Athletics to do Jumping Jacks and succeed. The skill is supposed to be explained and it's supposed to be used creatively in a given-and-take with the DM.


----------



## Lacyon (Apr 16, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Exactly.  There is an indeterminate cloud of possible steps.  Any six of which will solve the challenge, in any order.  There isn't a specified order of steps that must be taken to solve the encounter.  Hence, the _actions_ are irrelevant.




This is only true when you let it be. Nothing stops you from making a skill challenge where the actions are relevant, and only skill X can be used at step 1, or skill Y at step 2.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> So, you are suggesting that the DM arbitrarily negate a success roll?




No, I am suggesting that the PCs may choose to negate a prior success. Just as you may choose to ignore good advice your friend gives you in real life. I do not recommend this (in game, or in real life).



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Additionally, how are the players to 'build' on their successes?  They can only continue to roll skill checks.  The initial Athletics check has no relevance to the subsequent history check.




Sure it does, though indirectly. The players build on their successes of discovering that it is a trap by taking actions that bring them closer to disarming the trap.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> In other words, you are advising adjustment of the success and failure tallies in the middle of an encounter.




Where? No, I am advising that if the task requires 6 successes to overcome, it requires 6 successes to overcome. It can only be accomplished in 3 rolls if those rolls somehow count as multiple successes. This means that if disarming the trap takes 6 successes, you can't disarm it with one Thievery skill check. You might be able to with 6 thievery skill checks.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> In fact, no.  The more complex a task becomes, the more critical the need to perform steps in a certain order.




This is only true when it is true. If the task actually requires that steps be done in a certain order, have the players do them in that order. Nothing in the system prevents that.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Further, you are suggesting that the DM enforce a certain chain of events, which is exactly what this skill challenge system is designed to avoid.




Incorrect. This is how hong and others will use the system, because it is what they find fun. What the system is designed to do is provide a concrete framework for resolving noncombat challenges in such a way that adventure designers and DMs can reasonably gauge the likelihood of PC parties of a given level to succeed at them without having to know what's on each character's sheet.

It's also designed to let all characters participate in the system, because the system itself does not specify which skill checks are required. If step 1 is "Ford the river so that you can continue chasing down the bad guys" athletics is the obvious skill to swim it. But the rules don't prevent you from allowing a Perception check to notice that there's a safe spot to cross twenty feet down the way, and they don't stop you from using some kind of Acrobatic stunt to leap across. Either way though, there's nothing stopping you from laying down a "You must cross the river" step 1, and disallowing any skill that doesn't fit that.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> The only thing that determines which rolls progress someone to the solution is the meta-game success or failure.




No roll should be allowed in which success cannot be construed as progressing toward overall success and failure cannot be construed as progressing toward overall failure.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Precisely.  Every _roll_ affects the outcome, not every _action_.  The action is only relevant to the sequence _once the outcome is determined_.  Any given roll in the sequence is irrelevant until the final success or failure is rolled.  The _action_ of kicking the corpse around the clearing is only relevant when the final success or failure is _rolled_.




Baloney. The action of kicking the corpse around the field sets off the trap, because the player has clearly given up on the skill challenge.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Only because of the outcome.  The description was not possible until the outcome was determined.  No single action has a causal connection to any other action until the skill challenge is passed or failed.




Baloney. Read the post again. The descriptions of every individual action and their consequences were given BEFORE knowing the skill challenge was passed or failed.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> If they don't lead to each other in a causal fashion, then they have no connection whatsoever.  Until the outcome is determined.  Hence, there is no actual teamwork, which is what this system is designed to promote.  If the goal is simply six successes regardless of the skill involved, then each player is free to do their own thing to garner those successes.  The only aspect of teamwork present is that everyone is rolling a skill check.  That is no greater progress towards teamwork than combat, where each player is doing their own thing.




Except that this what actually happened in the challenge you're referencing is that the characters worked together as a team and built on each others successes to overcome the challenge. So yeah, if the players don't want to, they don't have to. But they did, somehow.


----------



## kennew142 (Apr 16, 2008)

LostSoul said:
			
		

> Why not use a skill challenge here?  Or:




I didn't say you couldn't. I believe that making every little thing a skill challenge is bad thing, but as always YMMV.




> Skill challenges, each and every one of them!




I was treating these examples as the elements of a single skill challenge. Are you honestly saying that every single goal must be a separate skill challenge? I think that would bog down the game - a lot.



> By making it a skill challenge instead of RP, we're going to mechanics other than DM fiat.  We're also spending more real-world time on it, making it important.  And XP is handed out, so there's a risk of failure involved.




I like RP. It's why I role-play. And in my game games we spend a lot of real time on RP, probably more than a skill challenge would entail.

You're talking to me as if I need to be sold on the idea of skill challenges. That's not true. I've been pretty positive on 4e so far, but the assertion by some of the people on this forum that every little thing, and every separate skill check simply must be turned into a skill challenge would be disconcerting if I weren't convinced that it is just an example of enthusiastic folks putting their own spin on things. If 4e replaced role-playing with skill checks in every situation, then it would definitely *not* be the game for me.

I don't hand out XP for each encounter, so your last point in this section is meaningless to me. IMC characters level whenever "it's time." For our group this comes to once every 3-4 scenarios. XP is very freeform in our group.



> If "Getting in to see the King" isn't something you want to focus on, it might be a simple Diplomacy check with whoever plans his schedule.  Or you might not even have a roll.




Hmm. Every time _I_ suggested using a simple skill check or good, old fashioned role-playing, you said I needed to make it a skill challenge. 



> I think what the DM really needs to be careful about is if the _in-game situation_ calls for a skill challenge.  Is the situation important to the players?  Is there some sort of conflict between the PCs and NPCs or environment?  Do the PCs risk something if they fail?
> 
> I think that, if the answer is "yes" to all those questions, a skill challenge is the way to go.




This seems to be more or less what I was saying. Why the need to deconstruct my post and argue against every element of it, if you were going to agree with me in the end.




> That depends on the setting.




I would find any setting where bullying the king and giving out ultimatums to be extremely silly (YMMV). You will also note that I said it would _usually_ be frowned on, implying that it depends on the setting (thus the _usually_).


----------



## VannATLC (Apr 16, 2008)

> IMC characters level whenever "it's time." For our group this comes to once every 3-4 scenarios. XP is very freeform in our group.




An aside, but how do you deal with item creation?


----------



## DandD (Apr 16, 2008)

They probably don't bother with it, and just handwave it with intuition. I know that I did so the last time I moderated a D&D-game. Whatever feels right and whatever the whole gaming group actually likes.


----------



## Celebrim (Apr 16, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Because the skill checks themselves don't produce a tangible result, other than a tick in the win/loss column.
> 
> In the given example, the first Athletics check could have been the only success.  In which case, the only thing they would have known is that the corpse was sewn up.  The next four checks could have been failures, in which case, the encounter was failed.  Finding out a detail about the trap did nothing to further disarming the trap.  _Unless the trap was successfully disarmed_.  In which case, the detail was important.  If the trap was set off or not disarmed, the detail is meaningless.  Each step of the 'process' is entirely dependent on the outcome.
> 
> ...




Excellent.  I wish I'd said that.


----------



## LostSoul (Apr 16, 2008)

kennew142 said:
			
		

> I didn't say you couldn't. I believe that making every little thing a skill challenge is bad thing, but as always YMMV.




Yeah, but _why_ not?  That's what I was trying to get at, I guess.  I wasn't trying to sell you the system or argue with you.



			
				kennew142 said:
			
		

> Hmm. Every time _I_ suggested using a simple skill check or good, old fashioned role-playing, you said I needed to make it a skill challenge.




What I was trying to say was that you _could_ make all of those things skill challenges.  Then, later on, I explained when I would go to a skill challenge.  I wanted to find out _why_ you didn't think the negotiation with the King would be a good skill challenge.

Maybe I should have just asked. 



			
				kennew142 said:
			
		

> I would find any setting where bullying the king and giving out ultimatums to be extremely silly (YMMV). You will also note that I said it would _usually_ be frowned on, implying that it depends on the setting (thus the _usually_).




Well, I'll note that _now._   I missed that before.


----------



## Primal (Apr 16, 2008)

hong said:
			
		

> Why are you creating problems for yourself?




Because I don't know how to "handwave" away anything inconsistent or illogical. You do, and it seems to work for you and your group -- try running a game for my players and they'll smack you every time you fail to produce a plausible explanation/decsription for their actions.


----------



## hong (Apr 16, 2008)

Primal said:
			
		

> Because I don't know how to "handwave" away anything inconsistent or illogical.




It's very easy. The first step is to stop thinking too hard about fantasy. The second step is to not actually say anything inconsistent or illogical.



> You do, and it seems to work for you and your group -- try running a game for my players and they'll smack you every time you fail to produce a plausible explanation/decsription for their actions.




No, you will smack yourself every time you fail to produce a plausible explanation. This is not the same as saying other people will smack you.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully (Apr 16, 2008)

Primal said:
			
		

> Because I don't know how to "handwave" away anything inconsistent or illogical. You do, and it seems to work for you and your group -- try running a game for my players and they'll smack you every time you fail to produce a plausible explanation/decsription for their actions.



Why do you create situations that are pretty obvious to become inconsistent and illogical? 

You're injury example seems to assume that the description you give is "fact", and suddenly the rules negate it. But you are using the wrong description in the first place! Why describe someone as nearly cleaved in half if there is a non-neglible chance of him
- recovering
- not dying.
Even in 3E, this would have caused problems - Imagine someone making his stabilization roll. (He has a 10 % chance for making this each round!) Essentially, even without any outside help, this guy could recover from being nearly cleaved in half in a day. Even if he doesn't manage to get to that, he could live for several minutes or hours. That absolutely does not fit your description. 
I never described massive splatter effects in D&D combat, unless the opponents where outright killed (dropped to -10 or less hit points). 

My best advice on "fluff" on damage is to use something that is ambigious. A lot of blood might be spilled in the process (but sometimes, just a loud "thumb" when the head hits the ground/nasty killing implement), but you'll never see body parts detached or guts hanging out (unless you're extremely metal  ). So, if the blood is eventually cleared, only then you'll really see how bad the wounds are. At that point, you've made a heal check to stabilize (stabilizing/recovery, it can't have been that bad), or the victim is dead (terrible wound, internal bleeding).


----------



## Storm-Bringer (Apr 16, 2008)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> Excellent.  I wish I'd said that.



Thank you.


----------



## Storm-Bringer (Apr 16, 2008)

Saishu_Heiki said:
			
		

> I don't buy it. It is a trap, designed to go off when certain conditions are met (namely, in this case, when the body is moved violently). The purpose of the skill challenge is to *not* set off the trap. Thus, you make History checks to remember similar traps, Nature checks to find out why it is there, etc.
> 
> If the PCs want to cut the body down violently, then they are voluntarily failing the challenge and the trap goes off. Just because it is a skill challenge does not mean that all other rules are suspended.



You don't have to buy it.  The point is, the trap won't go off until the four failures are rolled.  If the DM determines certain actions automatically fail the skill challenge, we are back to 'pixel-bitching', which is what this system is designed to avoid.


----------



## hong (Apr 16, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> You don't have to buy it.  The point is, the trap won't go off until the four failures are rolled.  If the DM determines certain actions automatically fail the skill challenge, we are back to 'pixel-bitching', which is what this system is designed to avoid.



 Nonsense. Pixel-bitching is where you have to carry out a specific, obscure sequence of steps to succeed. This is where you have to NOT carry out a specific, obvious sequence of steps to fail. This is the exact opposite of pixel-bitching.


----------



## WhatGravitas (Apr 16, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> If the DM determines certain actions automatically fail the skill challenge, we are back to...



Perhaps "Common Sense"?

Skill Challenges are already mainly a roleplaying element, much more than combat - due to the narrative nature (i.e. players help to create narrative), it's already fluid, non-rules governed and relies on judgement of the DM. Using common sense in such cases isn't hurting.

Cheers, LT.


----------



## Kraydak (Apr 16, 2008)

Lord Tirian said:
			
		

> Perhaps "Common Sense"?
> 
> Skill Challenges are already mainly a roleplaying element, much more than combat - due to the narrative nature (i.e. players help to create narrative), it's already fluid, non-rules governed and relies on judgement of the DM. Using common sense in such cases isn't hurting.
> 
> Cheers, LT.




Except, of course, that "common sense" can vary from person to person.  For example, at least one person out there thinks that hiding a 4', plate armored halfling with shield and sword and other gear inside a horse's saddlebag is entirely reasonable.  I, at least, don't.

If you ever read "stupid things players have done" threads, you'll note that a *very* common theme is bad DM description and massive player/DM disconnect on what is reasonable.  Given that evidence, appealing to common sense is foolhardy.


----------



## hong (Apr 16, 2008)

Kraydak said:
			
		

> Except, of course, that "common sense" can vary from person to person.  For example, at least one person out there thinks that hiding a 4', plate armored halfling with shield and sword and other gear inside a horse's saddlebag is entirely reasonable.  I, at least, don't.
> 
> If you ever read "stupid things players have done" threads, you'll note that a *very* common theme is bad DM description and massive player/DM disconnect on what is reasonable.  Given that evidence, appealing to common sense is foolhardy.



 The prototypical skill challenge was escaping the guards in the Escape from Sembia module. If one of the players (maybe because they were bored, or high, or looking to cause grief, or whatever) went up to the guards and said "those guys you're looking for? Here they are" and led them straight to the party, I would call that a botched challenge right there. Cue initiative rolls.

Skill challenges in no way negate the role of the DM as mediator of what's acceptable and what's not in terms of believability.


----------



## Storm-Bringer (Apr 16, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> Why do you create situations that are pretty obvious to become inconsistent and illogical?



Describe every parameter that leads to "pretty obvious to become inconsistent and illogical", please.

You see the crux of the issue here?  People seem to think this system is the godsend for bad DMs to suddenly turn into Orson Wells of the tabletop.  The fact is, no set of rules will make a bad DM _not suck_.

If the players or the DM are not good at improvising, this skill system will not help them.  They will simply have an extended mechanic for what used to be resolved in a roll or two.  A roll that, in previous version(s) was directly related to the task at hand.


----------



## Storm-Bringer (Apr 16, 2008)

hong said:
			
		

> Nonsense. Pixel-bitching is where you have to carry out a specific, obscure sequence of steps to succeed. This is where you have to NOT carry out a specific, obvious sequence of steps to fail. This is the exact opposite of pixel-bitching.



Only if you ignore StormBringer's First Law.


----------



## hong (Apr 16, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Only if you ignore StormBringer's First Law.



 The validity of a law is in direct proportion to post count.

HAW HAW!


----------



## Storm-Bringer (Apr 16, 2008)

Kraydak said:
			
		

> Except, of course, that "common sense" can vary from person to person.  For example, at least one person out there thinks that hiding a 4', plate armored halfling with shield and sword and other gear inside a horse's saddlebag is entirely reasonable.  I, at least, don't.
> 
> If you ever read "stupid things players have done" threads, you'll note that a *very* common theme is bad DM description and massive player/DM disconnect on what is reasonable.  Given that evidence, appealing to common sense is foolhardy.



Dead on.

This system assumes that every DM is well above average, as a minimum, and every player/GM interaction is devoted to moving the story forward.  Rather than, for example, the players trying to get every benefit or loophole they can, or the DM trying to mess with the players at every opportunity.

In other words, this is the perfect system for the perfect group.  I will posit that there are precious few of those.


----------



## Storm-Bringer (Apr 16, 2008)

hong said:
			
		

> The validity of a law is in direct proportion to post count.
> 
> HAW HAW!



So, your laws are only 1/17,000th valid?


----------



## hong (Apr 16, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Describe every parameter that leads to "pretty obvious to become inconsistent and illogical", please.




"What the DM considers inconsistent and illogical."



> You see the crux of the issue here?  People seem to think this system is the godsend for bad DMs to suddenly turn into Orson Wells of the tabletop.  The fact is, no set of rules will make a bad DM _not suck_.




But they can change the odds of a hidebound DM becoming not-so-hidebound, by causing them to be more receptive to ideas that they did not come up with themselves. Of course, this does depend on the hidebound DM accepting the truth that he is hidebound, and willing to consider ways to change. As with all such things, the first step to a cure is acknowledging there is a problem.


----------



## hong (Apr 16, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> So, your laws are only 1/17,000th valid?



 Did you know? When you invert the meaning of direct? The use of rising inflections does not help disguise it?


----------



## Lacyon (Apr 16, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> So, your laws are only 1/17,000th valid?




I do not think that direct proportion means what you think it means.


----------



## WhatGravitas (Apr 16, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> This system assumes that every DM is well above average, as a minimum, and every player/GM interaction is devoted to moving the story forward.  Rather than, for example, the players trying to get every benefit or loophole they can, or the DM trying to mess with the players at every opportunity.



This is probably the reason why there's a DMG. To give DMs the advice they need to become good DMs. It's better to try to make DMs better than try to build a Bad-DM-proof system.

Because a bad DM will still be bad, afterwards. But most DMs that are bad are not bad, because they want to be bad, but because they don't know better.

And now I'm going to get into my soapbox:

See, this system DOES require a DM who is able to make decisions on the fly and a player group that can live with that, not trying to outgame the DM constantly. But then, it's embracing the potential of D&D - many people complaining about "being like a MMORPG" are afraid of MMORPGs, because they are NOT open-ended. The beauty of RPGs in general is there open-endedness and the human referee - which is able to make decisions on the fly.

Sure, D&D in hack'n'slash-style doesn't embrace that potential - but these groups won't need skill challenges that often, they will focus on combat or gloss over problems.

But what makes RPGs ultimately good (open-endedness, room for your own character ideas and so on), only works with a good DM - and hence I rather see a system, that promotes being a good DM than a system that is bad DM-proof. Because good DMs are ultimately what holds a group together in the long run and makes groups enthusiastic enough to recruit new players.

Cheers, LT.


----------



## Crosswind (Apr 16, 2008)

I'm a 4E Fanboy, and I'm still not thrilled about Skill Challenges.  I think it's largely unnecessary to codify "X out of Y" checks mechanics.

Let's be serious - in any serious D&D group, you have to solve challenges like this all the time.  And the DM has you make checks for whatever applicable skills you think you can use to further your plan, and if the skills back up a good plan, you execute well, and succeed.

I feel like, to some extent, Skill Challenges are over-codifying things that every D&D group did, and it may make groups think that they -have- to use Skill Challenges ("Well, it was a good plan, but the rules say you failed your check, so I'm afraid it doesn't work").  

To me, the only use of Skill Challenges is to make Bad D&D Groups (RPGA) give out XP for doing non-combat things.

-Cross


----------



## Storm-Bringer (Apr 16, 2008)

Lacyon said:
			
		

> I do not think that direct proportion means what you think it means.



I am pretty sure I do.



> A relationship between two variables in which one is a constant multiple of the other. In particular, when one variable changes the other changes in proportion to the first.
> 
> If b is directly proportional to a, the equation is of the form b = ka (where k is a constant).




A simple transformation gives us b/a=k.

Now, you can say b=3, because there are three 'laws', and a=17,000+.  So, 'k' would be the proportion we are looking for.

Each post by Mr. Hong makes his laws increasingly less valid, according to his statement.


----------



## Lacyon (Apr 16, 2008)

Crosswind said:
			
		

> I'm a 4E Fanboy, and I'm still not thrilled about Skill Challenges.  I think it's largely unnecessary to codify "X out of Y" checks mechanics.
> 
> Let's be serious - in any serious D&D group, you have to solve challenges like this all the time.  And the DM has you make checks for whatever applicable skills you think you can use to further your plan, and if the skills back up a good plan, you execute well, and succeed.
> 
> I feel like, to some extent, Skill Challenges are over-codifying things that every D&D group did, and it may make groups think that they -have- to use Skill Challenges ("Well, it was a good plan, but the rules say you failed your check, so I'm afraid it doesn't work").




Wait, what DM makes you roll a skill check and then says, "you succeed on your plan even though all your checks failed?"

Don't bother rolling dice in situations where you aren't going to abide by the results.



			
				Crosswind said:
			
		

> To me, the only use of Skill Challenges is to make Bad D&D Groups (RPGA) give out XP for doing non-combat things.




Codifying what constitutes a level-appropriate non-combat challenge is a good thing for all the same reasons it's a good thing for combat challenges.


----------



## hong (Apr 16, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> I am pretty sure I do.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



 Did you know? When you fail to post with rising inflections? You still do not disguise your inverting of direct?


----------



## Lacyon (Apr 16, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Now, you can say b=3, because there are three 'laws', and a=17,000+.  So, 'k' would be the proportion we are looking for.
> 
> Each post by Mr. Hong makes his laws increasingly less valid, according to his statement.




k is constant. b and a are dependent variables (on each other). If a is 17,000 today, and 18,000 tomorrow, k does not change - only b.

(note that declaring b to be quantity of laws is not the same as declaring it to be validity of laws).

You can trust hong, he's a statistician.


----------



## Storm-Bringer (Apr 16, 2008)

Lacyon said:
			
		

> k is constant. b and a are dependent variables (on each other). If a is 17,000 today, and 18,000 tomorrow, k does not change - only b.
> 
> (note that declaring b to be quantity of laws is not the same as declaring it to be validity of laws).
> 
> You can trust hong, he's a statistician.



Statistics have nothing to do with math.


----------



## hong (Apr 16, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Statistics have nothing to do with math.



 You say this like it's a negative thing.


----------



## Storm-Bringer (Apr 16, 2008)

hong said:
			
		

> Did you know? When you fail to post with rising inflections? You still do not disguise your inverting of direct?



Point in fact:

If b is directly proportional to a, the equation is of the form b = ka (where k is a constant).

If b is inversely proportional to a, the equation is of the form b = k/a (where k is a constant).

Now, even in statistics, the second can't be derived from the first.


----------



## Storm-Bringer (Apr 16, 2008)

hong said:
			
		

> You say this like it's a negative thing.



Then, your statements about math have less validity than your 'laws'.


----------



## hong (Apr 16, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Point in fact:
> 
> If b is directly proportional to a, the equation is of the form b = ka (where k is a constant).
> 
> ...



 Did you know? Your misidentification of a, b and k? Could perhaps be better disguised by posting with a rising inflection?


----------



## hong (Apr 16, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Then, your statements about math have less validity than your 'laws'.



 The validity of such statements is also in direct proportion to post count.

HAW HAW!


----------



## Cadfan (Apr 16, 2008)

Storm-Bringer, are you being serious?  I can't tell.

I feel like I'm being left out of a joke.


----------



## Crosswind (Apr 16, 2008)

Lacyon said:
			
		

> Wait, what DM makes you roll a skill check and then says, "you succeed on your plan even though all your checks failed?"
> 
> Don't bother rolling dice in situations where you aren't going to abide by the results.




It is unclear whether you are willfully misinterpreting this, or I was just unclear.  I'm going to assume you're a cheerful, friendly fellow and not an internet troll, and I was unclear.  Let me try again.

In a skill challenge, players who want to participate volunteer the skill they will use, and what they want to try with it.  A DM then decides whether or not what they are trying is Easy/Hard, and picks one of the DCs for it.

A bunch of people do this, and if you pass a fairly arbitrary X out of Y threshold, you win!

This seems like it's adding unnecessary structure to a pretty easy part of the game...and one that's not at all broken in 3.5.  It's pretty easily handled as:

"Alright, players.  You want to get the sheep into the pen!"
"I'll use my wild empathy to get the sheepdog to help..." (*rolls*)
"Thog roar, scare sheep-things into box!"  (*rolls*)
"I create an illusion of food!" (Spell is cast).
*DM looks at all this, looks at the rolls people made, adjudicates what happens*

One of my favorite things about 4E is the increased power in the hands of the DMs to keep the story flowing.  Providing fixed rules for how to solve every type of non-combat situation in D&D seems counterproductive, doesn't it?

-Cross


----------



## Storm-Bringer (Apr 16, 2008)

Cadfan said:
			
		

> Storm-Bringer, are you being serious?  I can't tell.
> 
> I feel like I'm being left out of a joke.



More of a side discussion, really.

Of course, it also shows how even codified rules can be misinterpreted.  Applying things like "common sense" or "what the DM decides" are not a fix for the issues raised about the skill challenge system.

So, the DM decides handling the body-bomb roughly will set it off automatically, but according to the rules, that is still four failures away.  The players are expecting four failed checks to result in failure, but the DM determines that cutting the body down sets it off.  The DM can't really express their expectations, or they are pretty much giving away the answer.  The players are upset that one skill was rolled to cut the body down, or maybe no skill was rolled, but they still failed.

The argument boils down to 'use the system as presented' or 'use the system as presented until you don't want to'.  Both of which have their own problems.


----------



## Storm-Bringer (Apr 16, 2008)

Crosswind said:
			
		

> In a skill challenge, players who want to participate volunteer the skill they will use, and what they want to try with it.  A DM then decides whether or not what they are trying is Easy/Hard, and picks one of the DCs for it.



A clarification:  I believe, unless it has changed recently, that part of the system is the _players_ set the stakes with the difficulty they want to attempt.  The difficulty they choose determines not only the DC, but also indicates the level or number of successes/failures that result.  So, with an Easy check, maybe one success, but a Hard check would be two or three successes toward the goal.

I don't think that really changes the point you were making, however.


----------



## Crosswind (Apr 16, 2008)

Storm - Ah.  So the player states what they are trying to do, -and- states how hard it is?

Wouldn't that lead to conversations like:

DM:  "You want to get the sheep into the pen."
Player A:  "I dance.  It is an easy challenge to get a sheep into a pen by dancing."  *Rolls dancing*
DM:  "...err, no it's not.  That skill is barely applicable.  I mean, it's possible to dance the sheep into the pen...but it's really hard.  You'd have to be like, the patron saint of all that is dance.  A veritable Michael Flatley."
Player A:  "Too bad.  I said it was easy, and the rules say I get to pick."

...that doesn't make sense, and the 4E designers are very good at their job.  Obviously, control of whether a player's idea gets an easy, medium, or hard DC has to rest in the hands of the DM.  This rewards players with applicable skills, and players who think up clever solutions.  I believe that that is the purpose of such systems, no?

-Cross


----------



## LostSoul (Apr 16, 2008)

Crosswind said:
			
		

> This seems like it's adding unnecessary structure to a pretty easy part of the game...and one that's not at all broken in 3.5.  It's pretty easily handled as:
> 
> "Alright, players.  You want to get the sheep into the pen!"
> "I'll use my wild empathy to get the sheepdog to help..." (*rolls*)
> ...




I think it is a broken part of the game.  Well, for me at least.

In your example, the DM could be thinking, "Thog tries to _scare_ them?  What the hell?  They'll just run around like crazy.  And he got a good result on his check, too.  I guess they'll run away."  So he says, "Okay, the sheepdog barks helpfully, but Thog's roar scares them away and they are now spread all around the countryside."

In a skill challenge, if success on the roll doesn't help, and failure doesn't hurt, you shouldn't be taking that action.  I don't see why the DM won't say, "Thog, my common sense tells me that roaring and scaring them will send the sheep all over the countryside.  Doing that will be an auto-failure.  You still want to do it?"

Or, if immersion is an important goal: "As Thog breathes in, the sheep look panicked, like they're going to bolt in all different directions.  The Ranger knows that only a few will go into the pen - and only if you're lucky."


----------



## Lacyon (Apr 16, 2008)

Crosswind said:
			
		

> It is unclear whether you are willfully misinterpreting this, or I was just unclear.  I'm going to assume you're a cheerful, friendly fellow and not an internet troll, and I was unclear.  Let me try again.




Thank you.



			
				Crosswind said:
			
		

> In a skill challenge, players who want to participate volunteer the skill they will use, and what they want to try with it.  A DM then decides whether or not what they are trying is Easy/Hard, and picks one of the DCs for it.
> 
> A bunch of people do this, and if you pass a fairly arbitrary X out of Y threshold, you win!




As arbitrary as 1 out of 1?



			
				Crosswind said:
			
		

> This seems like it's adding unnecessary structure to a pretty easy part of the game...and one that's not at all broken in 3.5.  It's pretty easily handled as:
> 
> "Alright, players.  You want to get the sheep into the pen!"
> "I'll use my wild empathy to get the sheepdog to help..." (*rolls*)
> ...




Sure. And if the DM has arbitrarily decided that each success is going to net you about 25% of the sheep successfully herded, then once you get four successes you've got all the sheep penned. Or the DM can arbitrarily decided that one is enough. Or he can arbitrarily decide you need ten. This is nothing new to 4E.

Since there's nothing really opposing you here, it doesn't make much sense to use the skill challenge rules.



			
				Crosswind said:
			
		

> One of my favorite things about 4E is the increased power in the hands of the DMs to keep the story flowing.  Providing fixed rules for how to solve every type of non-combat situation in D&D seems counterproductive, doesn't it?




It doesn't need to solve every type of non-combat situation, just the ones that warrant it. Simple situations like 'gather the pigs' are fine to resolve in one simple check (or just a 'take 10' or 'take 20') instead of bringing out the challenge rules.


----------



## Mercule (Apr 16, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Point in fact:
> 
> If b is directly proportional to a, the equation is of the form b = ka (where k is a constant).
> 
> ...



Please don't encourage him.


----------



## Storm-Bringer (Apr 16, 2008)

Crosswind said:
			
		

> Storm - Ah.  So the player states what they are trying to do, -and- states how hard it is?



Well, the way I understood it, and I am hoping someone comes along and clears this up, is that the players 'set the stakes'.  So, they choose a Hard difficulty, which increases the DC, but garners more successes.  So, using Athletics as a Hard challenge would involve vaulting up the tree, cutting the body loose, and catching it on the way down (to use a previous example), which would earn two or three successes towards the goal if the roll succeeds.  On a failed roll, of course, the number of failures would be higher as well.



> Wouldn't that lead to conversations like:
> 
> DM:  "You want to get the sheep into the pen."
> Player A:  "I dance.  It is an easy challenge to get a sheep into a pen by dancing."  *Rolls dancing*
> ...



Which ended up being the observation/complaint from DDXI and other playtests.  Players seemed to find it best to just take the Easy checks until they got enough successes rather than risk the harder checks.


----------



## Storm-Bringer (Apr 16, 2008)

Mercule said:
			
		

> Please don't encourage him.



Agreed.

I apologize for the diversion, but it helped make a point.  At least, I hope it did.


----------



## AllisterH (Apr 16, 2008)

Crosswind said:
			
		

> I'm a 4E Fanboy, and I'm still not thrilled about Skill Challenges.  I think it's largely unnecessary to codify "X out of Y" checks mechanics.
> 
> Let's be serious - in any serious D&D group, you have to solve challenges like this all the time.  And the DM has you make checks for whatever applicable skills you think you can use to further your plan, and if the skills back up a good plan, you execute well, and succeed.
> 
> ...




*LOL*

I know you didn't mean to intentionally Crosswind, but I think both you and Stormbringer need to give a glance at the ENWORLD boards.

Apparently, a LOT of people were in BADWRONGFUN groups. I have used something akin to skill challenges but this was definitely not something I picked up from 3E. For the life of me, I want to say Talisanta but that's not right, is it?

I'm almost positive I've seen skill challenges codified along these lines before. I just can't remember what RPG it was.


----------



## Crosswind (Apr 16, 2008)

Lacyon - Your opinion seems to be that there are situations which warrant skill challenges, and there are situations which don't.  The examples I have brought up are, then, situations which don't.  This is all well and good, but there don't seem to be clear delineations (at least from what I can see) between when you should use a skill challenge, and when you shouldn't.

What I'm afraid of, and what makes me leery of these rules, is that people will use skill challenges when they should just use nice, normal, DMing.  Unless there's a clear delineation on the part of the designers as to when you should use skill challenges, and when you shouldn't (Like there's a pretty clear delineation as to when you go into combat rounds...), isn't this something a lot of DMs could get tripped up on?

AllisterH - Apologies - I've read the ENworld forums religiously for about a month.  I agree that there are some groups where you just can't seem to get XP for anything not involving combat encounters.  That said, I think that a more robust, less finicky system could be put together to encourage non-combat problem solving with XP rewards.  

-Cross

P.S.  I can't tell if the terminology "BADWRONGFUN" is meant to be ironic ("Who are you to tell somebody else how to enjoy playing an RPG, you jerk?"), or serious ("There are games where the only purpose is to massacre everything.  This is bad, wrong fun.")


----------



## Professor Phobos (Apr 16, 2008)

Lacyon said:
			
		

> It doesn't need to solve every type of non-combat situation, just the ones that warrant it. Simple situations like 'gather the pigs' are fine to resolve in one simple check (or just a 'take 10' or 'take 20') instead of bringing out the challenge rules.




Heck, if you're me as the DM, I'd just say "Okay you gather the pigs!"

I really don't like asking for rolls unless there's some kind of Big Important Thing happening.


----------



## Storm-Bringer (Apr 16, 2008)

AllisterH said:
			
		

> *LOL*
> 
> I know you didn't mean to intentionally Crosswind, but I think both you and Stormbringer need to give a glance at the ENWORLD boards.
> 
> ...



I am sure you are correct, it is not a new mechanic with 4th edition.  That isn't really the point.  The idea is valid, it's the implementation that is the issue here.

I would be willing to bet hard money that in previous incarnations, the skills used were better defined or more specific, and skill challenge sequence was flexible enough to accommodate some 'not what the DM intended' skill use.  The major problem that arises here is how the success/failure goal is entirely divorced from the skills being used, in addition to the skills being so overly broad as to be nearly meaningless.  History, for example, can't possibly be a skill or knowledge in and of itself.  A character can't possibly recall Helpful Factoid #386 for a skill challenge if they never read Helpful Factoid #386.  A successful roll in History doesn't _create_ the knowledge in the character's head.  But because the skill is defined so broadly, that is the only way to approach it.  In fact, with a skill defined so broadly, there is no way to definitively say they know anything at all.

That is where the problem lies.  With the implementation.


----------



## Lacyon (Apr 16, 2008)

Crosswind said:
			
		

> Lacyon - Your opinion seems to be that there are situations which warrant skill challenges, and there are situations which don't.  The examples I have brought up are, then, situations which don't.  This is all well and good, but there don't seem to be clear delineations (at least from what I can see) between when you should use a skill challenge, and when you shouldn't.




It seems clear to me that skill challenges are only appropriate if you find yourself in a situation with (generally speaking) two ultimate outcomes - one positive, and one negative.

If there's no possible way that Y successive failures prevents you from ultimately putting all the sheep in the pen, a skill challenge is inappropriate. However, if the challenge is "get all the sheep in the pen before a pack of wolves arrive," you have a reasonable skill challenge - you need X successes to get all the sheep in, and if you fail Y times it becomes physically impossible to get them all in on time. (Or you can replace "all" with "enough that the townsfolk won't starve" and let the overall number of successes and failures determine how far above or below that threshold the PCs get).



			
				Crosswind said:
			
		

> What I'm afraid of, and what makes me leery of these rules, is that people will use skill challenges when they should just use nice, normal, DMing.  Unless there's a clear delineation on the part of the designers as to when you should use skill challenges, and when you shouldn't (Like there's a pretty clear delineation as to when you go into combat rounds...), isn't this something a lot of DMs could get tripped up on?




Sure, I suppose. Do you think the above is clear enough, or does it need work?



			
				Professor Phobos said:
			
		

> Heck, if you're me as the DM, I'd just say "Okay you gather the pigs!"
> 
> I really don't like asking for rolls unless there's some kind of Big Important Thing happening.




This is functionally identical to allowing a take-10 or take-20.


----------



## Lacyon (Apr 16, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> I am sure you are correct, it is not a new mechanic with 4th edition.  That isn't really the point.  The idea is valid, it's the implementation that is the issue here.
> 
> I would be willing to bet hard money that in previous incarnations, the skills used were better defined or more specific, and skill challenge sequence was flexible enough to accommodate some 'not what the DM intended' skill use.  The major problem that arises here is how the success/failure goal is entirely divorced from the skills being used, in addition to the skills being so overly broad as to be nearly meaningless.  History, for example, can't possibly be a skill or knowledge in and of itself.  A character can't possibly recall Helpful Factoid #386 for a skill challenge if they never read Helpful Factoid #386.  A successful roll in History doesn't _create_ the knowledge in the character's head.  But because the skill is defined so broadly, that is the only way to approach it.  In fact, with a skill defined so broadly, there is no way to definitively say they know anything at all.




It is true that any implementation of knowledge in a dice-based skill system will result in uncertainty about whether a character knows certain facts until the dice are rolled. It can't be any other way.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> That is where the problem lies.  With the implementation.




The implementation of knowledge skills does not seem to have changed.


----------



## WalterKovacs (Apr 16, 2008)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> Walter Kovacs: There is no 'sequence'.  If there is a sequence in which you must do A in order to do B, then we are fundamentally doing without the skill challenge framework.




It's not so much a "Sequence" but simply a matter of a DM stopping a player and asking "and how do you do that?"

You see the body, and start autopsying it.

The body is hanging from a tree. You can't autopsy a body that way, and if you CAN, you are probably some sort of amazing character with powers of flight, not to mention that you would be making a hard check in that situation. [Which can be one of those things where a "hard" check succeeding counts as an extra success].

It's that causality thing that people have brought up. You want to "beat" the challenge in less than 3 steps, but at the same time, it is either performing EXTREMELY difficult skill checks instead of performing some skill checks to make it eaiser. By avoiding any checks involved with getting at the body and getting the body down, they complete the task "faster" ... but intentionally handicap themselves as well. Or, they are just having their characters make assumptions instead of making a knowledge checks or similar skills to confirm those assumptions, again as a way to make the skill challenge shorter. Of course, that's just one skill challenge, and other ones might be harder/easier to "break" by getting ahead. Of course, the rules for the challenge are not specified. They may allow for certain skills with great success, or for succeeding at "hard" [instead of "implausible"] skills counting as multiple successes.

It's not a sequence, but if you DO want to do something, you may have to do something else first to make it possible. A number of skills may require you get a body down from the tree and onto the ground to be able to perform them, for example. It's not a "sequence" per se, but if the players work out a sequence of "I do A, then B, then C and it's disarmed" ... they have created a sequence, and they may be neglecting some skills between A and B, or B and C that would be required to pull off the sequence that THEY have decided on.

In the "DM sets the easy/medium/hard" idea ... than it might be possible to pull it off in 3, but would involve a lot of hard checks, while it probably isn't possible to find the "easiest" skill each time.

======

They have talked about traps being more like death traps ... and that the party will have to "overcome" the traps instead of it being the rogue does his disable.

So, it seems like some traps will probably involve people finding out about the trap before it goes off, and the group figuring out and then


----------



## Crosswind (Apr 16, 2008)

Phobos - Sheep in the pen is a simple example.  You can come up with plenty of analogous ones that people couldn't take 10 on. 

Lacyon - That's a much clearer definition of when a skill challenge is appropriate than I could have come up with.  However, how many situations have that sort of binary outcome?

Let's take the classic skill challenge (Escape from Sembia's "GET OUT OF TOWN!").  The obvious binary outcomes would be:  You manage to flee/You fail to flee.

But this is, to my mind, gross oversimplification for no real gain.  What about some of the party getting caught, and some not.  What if one guy gets ... eaten by a ravenous halfling street urchin?  It seems like too much of the possible fun is lost by the abstraction of "Make your rolls, if you get X out of Y, you're all free."

I just don't see that many scenarios where there is a clear-cut success/failure.  This might make more sense in a module, or a very linear plot...but in a (and here I reveal my shameless elitism...=(  ) more roleplaying-oriented game, this type of mechanic doesn't seem to make sense to use.

-Cross


----------



## Lord Zardoz (Apr 16, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> You see the crux of the issue here?  People seem to think this system is the godsend for bad DMs to suddenly turn into Orson Wells of the tabletop.  The fact is, no set of rules will make a bad DM _not suck_.
> 
> If the players or the DM are not good at improvising, this skill system will not help them.  They will simply have an extended mechanic for what used to be resolved in a roll or two.  A roll that, in previous version(s) was directly related to the task at hand.




I think this is a very legitimate concern about the Skill Challenge system.  At its worst, it will play out like this.



> DM:  Eh, time for a skill challenge.  Looks like you guys need to figure out a way to cross an unstable bridge.  Base DC is 18, and we need 5 successes before 2 failures.
> P1:  Endurance 21
> P2:  History 15
> P3:  Insight 25
> ...




And that assumes that the DM does not allow a Diplomacy check vs the bridge.

I still think that the system is at its core a good one though, for one simple reason.  Given that how the players are meant to resolve any given skill challenge is wide open, it will bring the players more fully into the game than they might otherwise be.  As has been said elsewhere, the story behind a D&D game is what results from the people at the table rolling dice and playing the game.  

On top of that, it gives the DM a guideline on how to create an interesting encounter in game that does not specifically require a fight and does not necessarily require an NPC.  In games where there are occasional obstacles, like a pit, playing those out is usually pretty lame.  DM tells the players there is a hole in the path.  The players roll some skills or cast some spells, maybe someone falls in.  Resolution is fast, but not particularly interesting.  It turns into just a potential resource tax on those who did not put skills into something like Jump or Climb.

It is possible to run an engaging encounter in 3rd edition that is both non combat and non role play.  Getting the desired result from them in terms of entertainment is much like trying to drive a screw with a hammer.  It can work, and sometimes it works just fine, but it is a pain in the ass.  The Skill Challenge system is a new tool for the DM's to use.

You may say that not all DMs are above average.  Well, not all carpenters are great either.  But good or bad, if I have to hire a carpenter, I would like him to have as many tools as there are useful to the job at hand.

END COMMUNICATION


----------



## WalterKovacs (Apr 16, 2008)

Crosswind said:
			
		

> Lacyon - Your opinion seems to be that there are situations which warrant skill challenges, and there are situations which don't.  The examples I have brought up are, then, situations which don't.  This is all well and good, but there don't seem to be clear delineations (at least from what I can see) between when you should use a skill challenge, and when you shouldn't.
> 
> What I'm afraid of, and what makes me leery of these rules, is that people will use skill challenges when they should just use nice, normal, DMing.  Unless there's a clear delineation on the part of the designers as to when you should use skill challenges, and when you shouldn't (Like there's a pretty clear delineation as to when you go into combat rounds...), isn't this something a lot of DMs could get tripped up on?
> 
> AllisterH - Apologies - I've read the ENworld forums religiously for about a month.  I agree that there are some groups where you just can't seem to get XP for anything not involving combat encounters.  That said, I think that a more robust, less finicky system could be put together to encourage non-combat problem solving with XP rewards.




I'm guessing the clear delineation is specifically that skill challenges are set up as if they are combat encounters, with XP attached, which is why they make them intentionally complicated in terms of "X number of successes before you reach Y failures".

Again, it's important to remember that we are looking at something where people have taken some tidbits of the rules and implemented it themselves.

======

In terms of "players set the difficulty", they technically do. Based on what they describe as what they are attempting to do, will determine how hard it is to pull off. So, if they describe an "easy" skill check they get the easy DC. If they describe something that has to be hard to pull off, they get a hard DC. The DM assigns the DC, but it will be based on the level of difficulty of the maneuver the player is attempting.

Disabling the corpse bomb when you know what it is may be easy, but with no idea what it is, it's hard, etc.


----------



## Primal (Apr 16, 2008)

hong said:
			
		

> You say this like it's a negative thing.




Seems like the Hong-bot is just repeating the same phrases over and over again -- must inform the Rouse to check his programming routines.


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## LostSoul (Apr 16, 2008)

Crosswind said:
			
		

> Lacyon - That's a much clearer definition of when a skill challenge is appropriate than I could have come up with.  However, how many situations have that sort of binary outcome?




I didn't know the outcome was binary.


----------



## Lacyon (Apr 16, 2008)

Crosswind said:
			
		

> Lacyon - That's a much clearer definition of when a skill challenge is appropriate than I could have come up with.  However, how many situations have that sort of binary outcome?




Having not seen the full rules, there may be better guidelines than what I've come up with based solely on what I've seen so far. That said, strictly binary isn't necessary if you use what we know of the system as a baseline. You just need to know that there's at least one point at which you can clearly consider the challenge successful and at least one point at which you can clearly consider the challenge failed.



			
				Crosswind said:
			
		

> Let's take the classic skill challenge (Escape from Sembia's "GET OUT OF TOWN!").  The obvious binary outcomes would be:  You manage to flee/You fail to flee.
> 
> But this is, to my mind, gross oversimplification for no real gain.  What about some of the party getting caught, and some not.  What if one guy gets ... eaten by a ravenous halfling street urchin?  It seems like too much of the possible fun is lost by the abstraction of "Make your rolls, if you get X out of Y, you're all free."




This is where you either need more tools than we've seen, or you need to get creative with the tools we have seen. Nothing so far has said that Y failures means the entire party is captured, though I would imagine X successes does need to mean that the entire party is free.

Likewise, nothing says that a failed check _has_ to mean that the city guard itself has gotten closer to you. Perhaps it instead means that you've encountered a ravenous halfling in what you thought was an empty alleyway.



			
				Crosswind said:
			
		

> I just don't see that many scenarios where there is a clear-cut success/failure.  This might make more sense in a module, or a very linear plot...but in a (and here I reveal my shameless elitism...=(  ) more roleplaying-oriented game, this type of mechanic doesn't seem to make sense to use.
> 
> -Cross




It doesn't need to be all that clear-cut. If the party reaches X-1 needed successes before finally succumbing to Y failures, the final result needs to be based on how you've described intermediate successes and failures to this point. Likewise, nothing prevents you from having negative after-effects when the party reaches Y-1 failures before ultimately gathering the needed X successes.

While overall success and failure (in this case, the party escapes vs. at least one member does not escape) need to be adhered to for the system to be functional, the fine details of exactly what that means don't seem to be defined.


----------



## Professor Phobos (Apr 16, 2008)

Crosswind said:
			
		

> Lacyon - That's a much clearer definition of when a skill challenge is appropriate than I could have come up with.  However, how many situations have that sort of binary outcome?
> 
> Let's take the classic skill challenge (Escape from Sembia's "GET OUT OF TOWN!").  The obvious binary outcomes would be:  You manage to flee/You fail to flee.
> 
> But this is, to my mind, gross oversimplification for no real gain.  What about some of the party getting caught, and some not.  What if one guy gets ... eaten by a ravenous halfling street urchin?  It seems like too much of the possible fun is lost by the abstraction of "Make your rolls, if you get X out of Y, you're all free."




Hmm. Good point. Maybe subdivide the skill challenge? If I have three PCs, and they're fleeing guards, I say: "Skill challenge!" For the whole group, they're 6/3. Each individual PC is, however, at 2/1. Two successes to escape, one to get caught. 

I'd probably allow successes to transfer, since it's a group deal- so that a PC with a failure can be "rescued" by a PC with a success, and the chase resumes. 

As an example (with only two PCs, because I am lazy) let us say that our two Gentleman Thieves have just been discovered by a quartet of guards in a Noble Lord's bedroom stealing his prize jewels.

Forgive me if I don't have the skill list memorized, I don't.

DM: "What do you do?"
PCs: "Run away!" 
DM: "Skill challenge!" (behind the screen, I write down 4/2-2/1)
PC1: "I leap out the window to a nearby rooftop." (Acrobatics)
PC2: "I jump off the balcony to the street below." (Athletics)
Say both succeed. It's now 2/2-1/1. 
DM: The guards split into two groups- one jumping onto the rooftop in pursuit, the other two jumping down to the street to give chase. 
PC1: "I turn and push the guards off the roof!" (Athletics)
He succeeds, the guards fall and land comically on a manure cart. His skill challenge is over.
PC2: "I crawl into a sewer grate!" (Dungeoneering) 
He fails! A guard grabs his leg and drags him back!

PC1 has escaped, PC2 has been caught. 

I'd probably allow PC1, however, to notice PC2's plight and voluntarily stay in the skill challenge to help out. 
PC1: "I distract the guards with cutting insults!" (Diplomacy) 
He succeeds- and that success transfers to PC2, undoing his previous failure and allowing him another shot to escape.
PC2: "I run to a nearby wandering priest of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and request sanctuary with the special secret code phrase for doing so used by that church." (Religion)

He succeeds! Unwilling to offend the Flying Spaghetti Monsterite, a powerful sect in this city, the guards retreat.

5 skills have been used (Dungeoneering, Religion, Diplomacy, Acrobatics and Athletics" for a 4/2 skill challenge, but the Diplomacy roll "cancels" with the failed Dungeoneering roll, so there's still a net 4 successes. 

Depending on the particular circumstance, I might have to extend the skill challenge- if PC1's actions put him at risk of further pursuit. Or I might not. Even if he had jumped down to aid PC2, the Spaghetti Monsterite could have granted both sanctuary. 

I think it's probably best to view the # of successes/failures metric as a guideline that can be adjusted on the fly.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully (Apr 16, 2008)

Crosswind said:
			
		

> Phobos - Sheep in the pen is a simple example.  You can come up with plenty of analogous ones that people couldn't take 10 on.
> 
> Lacyon - That's a much clearer definition of when a skill challenge is appropriate than I could have come up with.  However, how many situations have that sort of binary outcome?
> 
> ...



Why are you assuming binary failure/success? The last time I read an designer example on the topic, it seemed to imply that there is a continuum of results. There is something that is more like a success (the players get what they probably wanted out of the situation, but it might cost them something) and something that is more like a failure (the players didn't really get what they wanted out of the situation, and they might get into (more) trouble for it now or later). 

In the Escape of Sembia scenario, even a failure might result in an escape, but it's possible that the enemy is close on their tracks, that their names are known, or that they will have to face a stronger opposition at a later time.


----------



## Storm-Bringer (Apr 16, 2008)

Lacyon said:
			
		

> It is true that any implementation of knowledge in a dice-based skill system will result in uncertainty about whether a character knows certain facts until the dice are rolled. It can't be any other way.
> 
> The implementation of knowledge skills does not seem to have changed.



Not really.  History (Orcs) is much different than History.  The former assumes a general knowledge of Orcish history, so knowing this hero or that chieftan is likely.  But knowing the Goblin Ritual of Tribal Acceptance is right out.  With the latter, you have equal chances of both.

Having a skill that covers the breadth and depth of everything that occurred _before now_ is far too broad.  Much like Athletics really shouldn't cover Fencing, Jousting, Football and Swimming, although it usually does.

Broadly defined includes 'poorly defined' as well.  What are the limits of Dungeoneering, for example?  Anything that would be done underground?  Rope use, mining practices, locating water...  One skill can hardly encompass all the things you would do underground or in a dungeon environment.  In a previous article, Dungeoneering was used to navigate a runaway mine cart.  With applications that wide, I am having a hard time imagining where a skill would _not_ be usable.


----------



## Lacyon (Apr 16, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Not really.  History (Orcs) is much different than History.  The former assumes a general knowledge of Orcish history, so knowing this hero or that chieftan is likely.  But knowing the Goblin Ritual of Tribal Acceptance is right out.  With the latter, you have equal chances of both.




In either case, you still don't know anything at all until you roll the dice, unless you change the system such that rolling is unnecessary.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Having a skill that covers the breadth and depth of everything that occurred _before now_ is far too broad.  Much like Athletics really shouldn't cover Fencing, Jousting, Football and Swimming, although it usually does.
> 
> Broadly defined includes 'poorly defined' as well.  What are the limits of Dungeoneering, for example?  Anything that would be done underground?  Rope use, mining practices, locating water...  One skill can hardly encompass all the things you would do underground or in a dungeon environment.  In a previous article, Dungeoneering was used to navigate a runaway mine cart.  With applications that wide, I am having a hard time imagining where a skill would _not_ be usable.




I'm not having much trouble imagining one at all. Of course, I also don't have a problem allowing PCs to use a broadly applicable skill in a variety of situations.


----------



## Storm-Bringer (Apr 16, 2008)

Lacyon said:
			
		

> In either case, you still don't know anything at all until you roll the dice, unless you change the system such that rolling is unnecessary.



But more importantly, you can definitively say what the character _doesn't_ know, which is how you determine whether or not a skill is applicable.  With History (Orcs), you can definitively say that character _doesn't_ know much non-Orcish history, and you can definitely say they can't use that skill to recall the Three Words of Draconic Capitulation.  History is including everything that could possibly be known about anything.  History (Orcs) is excluding everything that isn't Orcish.

It's the scope of the skills that make the difference.



> I'm not having much trouble imagining one at all. Of course, I also don't have a problem allowing PCs to use a broadly applicable skill in a variety of situations.



Then, named skills are unnecessary.

Trained Skill A: 18
Trained Skill B: 15
Trained Skill C: 14
Untrained Skill D: 12
Untrained Skill E: 11
Untrained Skill F: 9

All the DM has to do at that point is announce the challenge, and the players call out a letter while they are rolling until the success or failure of the encounter is determined, and make up a story.  As mentioned elsewhere, it's writing a story about your craps game.


----------



## Crosswind (Apr 16, 2008)

As a heads-up to those questioning why my post was assuming binary success/failure...Lacyon had suggested that a good rule of thumb as to when to use a skill challenge vs. when to use what I would refer to as "Normal skill checks" would be in particularly binary situations, where success and failure were pretty clear-cut.

-Cross


----------



## Lacyon (Apr 17, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> But more importantly, you can definitively say what the character _doesn't_ know, which is how you determine whether or not a skill is applicable.  With History (Orcs), you can definitively say that character _doesn't_ know much non-Orcish history, and you can definitely say they can't use that skill to recall the Three Words of Draconic Capitulation.  History is including everything that could possibly be known about anything.  History (Orcs) is excluding everything that isn't Orcish.
> 
> It's the scope of the skills that make the difference.




And History is also excluding anything that isn't historical. No matter how broad a skill is, it can exclude something.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Then, named skills are unnecessary.




Only if you care nothing at all about describing what's going on.


----------



## WhatGravitas (Apr 17, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> All the DM has to do at that point is announce the challenge, and the players call out a letter while they are rolling until the success or failure of the encounter is determined, and make up a story.  As mentioned elsewhere, it's writing a story about your craps game.



And if we take that insight, we can also extend that to combat. Attack A, Attack B or Attack C against Monster A, B, or C, made by PC Alpha.

The point is, naming the skills is always not necessary. Even under 3E: In Complex C (the Dungeon of Dire Doom), there is Challenge Point G (the Hall of Fire) with a Skill Prompt C-15 (a trap with Disable Device DC 15). This requires a PC of Type 6 (Rogue) with the Skill D (Disable Device).

Names are always just there to "make believe". That's the point of RPGs - having fun in an imaginary world.

Cheers, LT.


----------



## hong (Apr 17, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> I would be willing to bet hard money that in previous incarnations, the skills used were better defined or more specific, and skill challenge sequence was flexible enough to accommodate some 'not what the DM intended' skill use.  The major problem that arises here is how the success/failure goal is entirely divorced from the skills being used, in addition to the skills being so overly broad as to be nearly meaningless.  History, for example, can't possibly be a skill or knowledge in and of itself.




Of course it can.



> A character can't possibly recall Helpful Factoid #386 for a skill challenge if they never read Helpful Factoid #386.




This is only important in a game where all Helpful Factoids are carefully accounted for beforehand. Needless to say, at the level of detail we are talking about, this does not happen.



> A successful roll in History doesn't _create_ the knowledge in the character's head.  But because the skill is defined so broadly, that is the only way to approach it.




Nonsense. The correct way to approach it is to say that a successful roll means they _recall_ a fact of which they were previously aware. An unsuccessful roll means that either 1) they fail to recall the fact, or 2) they were never aware of it in the first place. The distinction between 1) and 2) is unobservable within the game world, and therefore unimportant even to the most ardent s*mul*tionist.



> In fact, with a skill defined so broadly, there is no way to definitively say they know anything at all.




Which is a Good Thing, because it makes improvisation so much easier.


----------



## VannATLC (Apr 17, 2008)

edit: Beaten to the punch.

I should read threads entirely before replying.


----------



## Hussar (Apr 17, 2008)

Crosswind said:
			
		

> Lacyon - Your opinion seems to be that there are situations which warrant skill challenges, and there are situations which don't.  The examples I have brought up are, then, situations which don't.  This is all well and good, but there don't seem to be clear delineations (at least from what I can see) between when you should use a skill challenge, and when you shouldn't.
> 
> What I'm afraid of, and what makes me leery of these rules, is that people will use skill challenges when they should just use nice, normal, DMing.  Unless there's a clear delineation on the part of the designers as to when you should use skill challenges, and when you shouldn't (Like there's a pretty clear delineation as to when you go into combat rounds...), isn't this something a lot of DMs could get tripped up on?
> /snip




This is perhaps a valid issue.  And I do hope the DMG comes with some pretty solid guidelines regarding it.

From my own point of view, the easiest split would be any situation that can be resolved by a single check is not a skill challenge.  A locked door, for example, is not a skill challenge.  One check later, and the door is open.  End of story.

Additionally, and this was alluded to earlier, a skill challenge must include an element of failure.  The "rounding up the sheep" scenario isn't a skill challenge because there is no penalty for failure, other than perhaps time wasted.

To use 3e terminology, any situation which would allow you to Take 20 would not be a skill challenge.  And I think that you could certainly modify the text of Take 20 to apply.


----------



## pemerton (Apr 17, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> So, the DM decides handling the body-bomb roughly will set it off automatically, but according to the rules, that is still four failures away.  The players are expecting four failed checks to result in failure, but the DM determines that cutting the body down sets it off.  The DM can't really express their expectations, or they are pretty much giving away the answer.  The players are upset that one skill was rolled to cut the body down, or maybe no skill was rolled, but they still failed.



The notion of "the answer" here is unhelpful. A skill challenge is not about the players guessing something the GM is keeping secret (eg what skill to use). It is about the players, using their PCs as the medium, taking control of the storyline of the game.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> You don't have to buy it.  The point is, the trap won't go off until the four failures are rolled.  If the DM determines certain actions automatically fail the skill challenge, we are back to 'pixel-bitching', which is what this system is designed to avoid.



As others have said, this is obviously not true.

Consider a social challenge, and suppose one of the PC's actions is to feed the courtier to their Sphere of Annihilation - this is clearly a decision, by the _player_, not to engage in the challenge, and would change the focus of play to something else.

If there is any doubt as to whether the action in question is meant to be a move in the challenge or a repudiation of the challenge, the GM can always ask the player.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> People seem to think this system is the godsend for bad DMs to suddenly turn into Orson Wells of the tabletop.



Who said this? Harr didn't, for example.

The system is a way of improving (for certain RPGing preferences) the way that non-combat challenges are resolved. No one has ever suggested (at least to me) that HeroWars would turn a bad GM into a good one - but this does not mean that the HeroWars mechanics are not better than those of 3E for facilitating a certain sort of play.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> I am sure you are correct, it is not a new mechanic with 4th edition.  That isn't really the point.  The idea is valid, it's the implementation that is the issue here.
> 
> I would be willing to bet hard money that in previous incarnations, the skills used were better defined or more specific, and skill challenge sequence was flexible enough to accommodate some 'not what the DM intended' skill use.  The major problem that arises here is how the success/failure goal is entirely divorced from the skills being used, in addition to the skills being so overly broad as to be nearly meaningless.



Are you comparing the mooted system for 4e with other _known_ systems of this sort, such as HeroWars? If so, there is no problem in divorcing the goal from the precise skills used - and there is no such thing as "intended skills". The point of the mechanic is to allow the players to shape the story by narrating the relevance of the skills they wish to use.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Then, named skills are unnecessary.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> All the DM has to do at that point is announce the challenge, and the players call out a letter while they are rolling until the success or failure of the encounter is determined, and make up a story.  As mentioned elsewhere, it's writing a story about your craps game.



Of course if the events narrated in the game do not matter to the GM and players (ie if it is no part of their pleasure in RPGing to make any sort of point - be it aesthetic, thematic, whatever - through the story that they narrate) then that GM and those players won't especially care for skill challenges. But in such a case they presumably they wouldn't care for whatever it is - presumalby a mixture of GM-fiat and drama-driven action resolution with few guidelines - that the skill challenge is replacing. So there is no net loss.

There is only a loss for those with simulationist preferences. But this is so obviously the case with 4e that it can hardly be a surprise that its non-simulationism extends to its non-combat mechanics.


----------



## LostSoul (Apr 17, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> All the DM has to do at that point is announce the challenge, and the players call out a letter while they are rolling until the success or failure of the encounter is determined, and make up a story.  As mentioned elsewhere, it's writing a story about your craps game.




If the players & DM don't want to roleplay, why are they playing D&D?


----------



## Crosswind (Apr 17, 2008)

Hussar said:
			
		

> This is perhaps a valid issue.  And I do hope the DMG comes with some pretty solid guidelines regarding it.
> 
> From my own point of view, the easiest split would be any situation that can be resolved by a single check is not a skill challenge.  A locked door, for example, is not a skill challenge.  One check later, and the door is open.  End of story.




See, I'm not really a fan of this split either.  Now, you're forcing the skill challenge mechanics on what...90% of the problem-solving that goes on in D&D?  I'm sort of just re-stating my points, so I'll stop, but:  Skill Challenges are OK in some situations.  In many situations, the "You win!" or "You lose!" aspect of passing/failing the skill challenge fails to give the DM enough shades of gray in explaining what happens to the PCs.

Basically, the advantage of this change is that it provides non-RP-oriented DMs a framework for setting up a challenge and reward for non-combat activities.

The downside is that it seems to replace the more flexible and, to my mind, superior set-up of "Party comes up with a plan, DM tells them the rolls to make, DM decides what happens."

-Cross


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully (Apr 17, 2008)

LostSoul said:
			
		

> If the players & DM don't want to roleplay, why are they playing D&D?



The better question is: Why do the use skill challenges? 
Don't waste time with skills if you want to kick ass! 

"I think there's might be a bunch of orcs in that abandoned fortress over there. Who cares who killed Valance or what the kings advisor is up to? Let's get that fortress and kill some orcs and take their stuff!"


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully (Apr 17, 2008)

Crosswind said:
			
		

> See, I'm not really a fan of this split either.  Now, you're forcing the skill challenge mechanics on what...90% of the problem-solving that goes on in D&D?  I'm sort of just re-stating my points, so I'll stop, but:  Skill Challenges are OK in some situations.  In many situations, the "You win!" or "You lose!" aspect of passing/failing the skill challenge fails to give the DM enough shades of gray in explaining what happens to the PCs.
> 
> Basically, the advantage of this change is that it provides non-RP-oriented DMs a framework for setting up a challenge and reward for non-combat activities.
> 
> ...



Hmm. Isn't what you describe just a subset of what can constitute a skill challenge? Instead of (the seemingly standard assumption) of picking skills in sequence, you pick them all together and then roll to see what happens. How you arrive on the skills you use doesn't necessarily seem the important part of skill challenges. 

But maybe the framework in my mind is more powerful and flexible then the one in the actual DMG. The truth is out there, rolling of some printer...


----------



## hong (Apr 17, 2008)

Crosswind said:
			
		

> See, I'm not really a fan of this split either.  Now, you're forcing the skill challenge mechanics on what...90% of the problem-solving that goes on in D&D?  I'm sort of just re-stating my points, so I'll stop, but:  Skill Challenges are OK in some situations.  In many situations, the "You win!" or "You lose!" aspect of passing/failing the skill challenge fails to give the DM enough shades of gray in explaining what happens to the PCs.




If you succeed at the skill challenge, you win. There is one outcome.

If you fail at the skill challenge, I see no reason why the DM can't say that how you fail depends on what rolls you made. There can be plenty of an infinite number of outcomes limited only by how evil the DM wants to be.



> Basically, the advantage of this change is that it provides non-RP-oriented DMs a framework for setting up a challenge and reward for non-combat activities.
> 
> The downside is that it seems to replace the more flexible and, to my mind, superior set-up of "Party comes up with a plan, DM tells them the rolls to make, DM decides what happens."




The party still comes up with a plan. The players may decide what rolls to make, but the DM decides the difficulty. The players can also change their mind in the middle of challenge depending on what happens. Where is the lost flexibility?


----------



## LostSoul (Apr 17, 2008)

hong said:
			
		

> If you fail at the skill challenge, I see no reason why the DM can't say that how you fail depends on what rolls you made. There can be plenty of an infinite number of outcomes limited only by how evil the DM wants to be.




Exactly.


----------



## Storminator (Apr 17, 2008)

loseth said:
			
		

> So we've seen how skill challenges work (roughly). If you're not familiar, have a look at Harr's example below. So I ask, what are the top three things you will do (table rules, preparation, house rules, whatever) to help *bring the awesome *when you run skill challenges?




Do we really have 6 pages that fail to address the OP's question?

How about we stop bickering about the skill challenge system and cover what you will do to make your games awesome? And how about if your answer is "I hate skill challenges" (and all associated paraphrasing), you simply refrain from posting here?

PS


----------



## med stud (Apr 17, 2008)

EDIT: Changed my mind.


----------



## Storm-Bringer (Apr 17, 2008)

Storminator said:
			
		

> Do we really have 6 pages that fail to address the OP's question?
> 
> How about we stop bickering about the skill challenge system and cover what you will do to make your games awesome? And how about if your answer is "I hate skill challenges" (and all associated paraphrasing), you simply refrain from posting here?
> 
> PS



Noting the problems with the skill challenge system is at least pertinent to the discussion of using skill challenges.  As in: "the skill challenge system may actively hinder 'the awesome', and here's why..."

Unlike, say, complaining about people not staying on some narrow, third party definition of the topic.


----------



## Storminator (Apr 17, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Noting the problems with the skill challenge system is at least pertinent to the discussion of using skill challenges.  As in: "the skill challenge system may actively hinder 'the awesome', and here's why..."




I disagree. If the goal is to attempt to destroy any attempt at interesting or fun conversation, you may be right. But if the plan is to come up with something interesting and useful, you're dead wrong. 



> Unlike, say, complaining about people not staying on some narrow, third party definition of the topic.




I should have known better than to have expected better.

PS


----------



## Storm-Bringer (Apr 17, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> Hmm. Isn't what you describe just a subset of what can constitute a skill challenge? Instead of (the seemingly standard assumption) of picking skills in sequence, you pick them all together and then roll to see what happens. How you arrive on the skills you use doesn't necessarily seem the important part of skill challenges.
> 
> But maybe the framework in my mind is more powerful and flexible then the one in the actual DMG. The truth is out there, rolling of some printer...



What skills you use isn't important to the skill challenge _because the skill challenge isn't about using skills_.  You cannot simultaneously use a 'skill' to describe what the character is capable of _and_ implement a 'skill challenge' system where the skill you use doesn't matter, as long as you use one.  As a wise post states elsewhere, the skill challenge isn't about _what_ your character does, it's simply about _how much_ of it they are doing.  It's like busywork; you don't actually have to accomplish anything, you just have to perform tasks until the boss isn't looking anymore.

Further, and this is rather critical, what you note is correct.  The skill use by the characters is in any order you want.  However, the skill challenge rolls _must be done sequentially_.  You have to determine when the failures occur, because the players aren't avoiding four failures.  They are avoiding _four failures before six successes_.  You can't just have five players throw two dice each and sort it out.  They have to roll individually, and sequentially.  At which point, the logical progression of skill use is wholly subsumed by the meta-game progression of the skill challenge.

Which, of course, means it isn't really a _skill_ challenge at all.  Just a marginal mini-game that is totally divorced from not only what the _characters_ are capable of, but also the supposed 'authorial stance' this is supposed to grant the _players_.


----------



## Storm-Bringer (Apr 17, 2008)

hong said:
			
		

> If you succeed at the skill challenge, you win. There is one outcome.
> 
> If you fail at the skill challenge, I see no reason why the DM can't say that how you fail depends on what rolls you made. There can be plenty of an infinite number of outcomes limited only by how evil the DM wants to be.



How is this not the exact same as deciding based on one roll?

Perhaps there is another way...  I know, the players can come up with a plan of action, and the DM can determine the results!  Perhaps a roll or two where pertinent, but (this is the cool part) for the most part, the DM and players can - I know this is radical - _talk to each other_.  It might, if the stars are aligned, even lead to some _role playing_!  <gasp>



> The party still comes up with a plan. The players may decide what rolls to make, but the DM decides the difficulty. The players can also change their mind in the middle of challenge depending on what happens. Where is the lost flexibility?



Unless someone has better information, the players set the difficulty as part of the 'set the stakes' section of the skill challenge.  So, essentially, the DM just 'announces' the challenge.  That may be a direct announcement, or it may be the DM describing a scene and fondling the dice.

Of course, this 'forced teamwork' is designed to get the whole party in on the plans, no matter how it is accomplished.  Somehow, I am not seeing that player in the corner with his nose buried in a manga to suddenly leap across the room in full pseudo-Shakespearean dialect and start interacting with the game-world environment.


----------



## Storm-Bringer (Apr 17, 2008)

Storminator said:
			
		

> I disagree. If the goal is to attempt to destroy any attempt at interesting or fun conversation, you may be right. But if the plan is to come up with something interesting and useful, you're dead wrong.
> 
> I should have known better than to have expected better.
> 
> PS



Your disappointment is a black mark on my soul.

What are your thoughts about the skill challenge system?


----------



## med stud (Apr 17, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> You cannot simultaneously use a 'skill' to describe what the character is capable of _and_ implement a 'skill challenge' system where the skill you use doesn't matter, as long as you use one.  As a wise post states elsewhere, the skill challenge isn't about _what_ your character does, it's simply about _how much_ of it they are doing.  It's like busywork; you don't actually have to accomplish anything, you just have to perform tasks until the boss isn't looking anymore.



Except that you _can_ veto the use of a skill if you feel that it's not applicable. You can also add modifications to a skill if you feel that it's very fitting or if it's a cornercase.


----------



## LostSoul (Apr 17, 2008)

Storminator said:
			
		

> Do we really have 6 pages that fail to address the OP's question?




Good point.


I will engage the skill challenge mechanics only when there is an in-game conflict of interest that I want to focus on, one that carries a good deal of risk.  I will make sure that the skill challenge resolves the conflict of interest.
I will consider each skill roll important in colouring the ongoing challenge as well as the final outcome.  Which skill you used, if it succeeded or failed, how that changes the current situation, and how it will effect what success and failure mean in the end.
I will consider the level of success or failure when describing the outcome instead of a binary pass/fail result.


----------



## LostSoul (Apr 17, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> How is this not the exact same as deciding based on one roll?




Do you really think

Intimidate: failure x3
Diplomacy: success x6

is the same as one successful Diplomacy check?


----------



## Storminator (Apr 17, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> What are your thoughts about the skill challenge system?




I wonder if I can embed a skill challenge within a combat. I typically set up the "stop the ritual" adventure so that success is defined as smacking the high priest mid-syllable. I wonder if I can make the ritual more robust, and the defeat of it more intricate by use of a skill challenge, but have that interrupted by the temple guards. Then I have an extended combat and an extended skill challenge at the same time.

What do you think?

PS


----------



## VannATLC (Apr 17, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Unless someone has better information, the players set the difficulty as part of the 'set the stakes' section of the skill challenge.  So, essentially, the DM just 'announces' the challenge.  That may be a direct announcement, or it may be the DM describing a scene and fondling the dice.





We've had better information. The DM sets the difficulty, based on the description of the action.


----------



## Storminator (Apr 17, 2008)

LostSoul said:
			
		

> Good point.
> 
> 
> I will engage the skill challenge mechanics only when there is an in-game conflict of interest that I want to focus on, one that carries a good deal of risk.  I will make sure that the skill challenge resolves the conflict of interest.
> ...




If someone uses an inappropriate skill, will you tell them it's inappropriate and let them chose again, or will you let them roll and have it be meaningless to the final outcome?

PS


----------



## Storm-Bringer (Apr 17, 2008)

med stud said:
			
		

> Except that you _can_ veto the use of a skill if you feel that it's not applicable. You can also add modifications to a skill if you feel that it's very fitting or if it's a cornercase.



If the DM vetos the use of a skill, then they can veto the use of any skill.  We are back to 'pixel-hunting' for the 'correct' answer, as determined by the DM.  Which is what this system is designed specifically to address.

Modifying a skill is really no different.   "You want to use Diplomacy?  Ok, roll your Diplomacy, -10."

For the system to work as intended to give 'authourial stance' to the players, the DM is almost forced to accept just about anything a player says.  Otherwise, it is just a pretense of giving the players some control over the story to disguise railroading.


----------



## Storm-Bringer (Apr 17, 2008)

VannATLC said:
			
		

> We've had better information. The DM sets the difficulty, based on the description of the action.



I stand corrected, thank you.

I am still seeing players just taking actions that are Easy to pass the challenge.  If that means they simplify their actions until the DM calls it 'easy', it doesn't seem much different than having the player declare an Easy check.


----------



## VannATLC (Apr 17, 2008)

I can't speak for any other DM..

But I can ensure that no player will recieve any message from me regarding the difficulty of the task they are undertaking. I've yet to decide what I'll do regarding inappropriate checks.. but I'll be waiting for the rules in any case.


----------



## AllisterH (Apr 17, 2008)

What would you use Storm-Bringer?


----------



## Lacyon (Apr 17, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> How is this not the exact same as deciding based on one roll?




More players have the opportunity to contribute, for one.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Perhaps there is another way...  I know, the players can come up with a plan of action, and the DM can determine the results!  Perhaps a roll or two where pertinent, but (this is the cool part) for the most part, the DM and players can - I know this is radical - _talk to each other_.  It might, if the stars are aligned, even lead to some _role playing_!  <gasp>?




Congratulations on completing a rudimentary skill challenge. I don't like your system though because the skills don't even have to have names. They could just be Skill A, Skill B, or not even be on your character sheet, since you're just going to talk to the DM and roleplay your way through everything   .



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Unless someone has better information, the players set the difficulty as part of the 'set the stakes' section of the skill challenge.  So, essentially, the DM just 'announces' the challenge.  That may be a direct announcement, or it may be the DM describing a scene and fondling the dice.




Unless you have better information 'Setting the stakes' is a phrase used by forgites who are seeing an opportunity to bend D&D towards a particular style of play they enjoy. To my knowledge it is not something that came from a 4E designer, and not part of the system itself.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Of course, this 'forced teamwork' is designed to get the whole party in on the plans, no matter how it is accomplished.  Somehow, I am not seeing that player in the corner with his nose buried in a manga to suddenly leap across the room in full pseudo-Shakespearean dialect and start interacting with the game-world environment.




I'll settle for just interacting with the game-world environment. People who leap across the room and speak in Shakespearean dialect scare me. 



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> If the DM vetos the use of a skill, then they can veto the use of any skill. We are back to 'pixel-hunting' for the 'correct' answer, as determined by the DM. Which is what this system is designed specifically to address.




Nothing about the system denies the ability of a GM to create a pixel-hunt if he is dead set on it.


----------



## hong (Apr 17, 2008)

LostSoul said:
			
		

> Do you really think
> 
> Intimidate: failure x3
> Diplomacy: success x6
> ...



 Clearly the number of skill checks is also directly proportional to post count.


----------



## Mallus (Apr 17, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> If the DM vetos the use of a skill, then they can veto the use of any skill.  We are back to 'pixel-hunting' for the 'correct' answer, as determined by the DM.  Which is what this system is designed specifically to address.



The system won't magically make unreasonable DM's reasonable, no. Then again, what system would? Pointing out that 4e will still require DM's with a modicum of good judgment and the ability to negotiate isn't really surprising.



> Modifying a skill is really no different.   "You want to use Diplomacy?  Ok, roll your Diplomacy, -10."



The system won't magically make unreasonable DM's reasonable, no.



> For the system to work as intended to give 'authorial stance' to the players, the DM is almost forced to accept just about anything a player says.



It also helps to have players with a modicum of good judgment and the ability to negotiate.  

No system is idiot-proof. Personally, I like the skill challenge guidelines (I hesitate to call then rules, as there more like a new way to look at/frame/contextualize the old rules) because they proceed from three simple ideas: "let's get more players involved", "make sure task success adds up to conflict success", and "be open to player-initiated solutions". 

The first two are just all-around good DM'ing advice and the last makes my job as a DM who writes all his own adventurers easier.


----------



## Storm-Bringer (Apr 17, 2008)

LostSoul said:
			
		

> Do you really think
> 
> Intimidate: failure x3
> Diplomacy: success x6
> ...



In light of:



> If you succeed at the skill challenge, you win. There is one outcome.
> 
> If you fail at the skill challenge, I see no reason why the DM can't say that how you fail depends on what rolls you made. There can be plenty of an infinite number of *outcomes limited only by how evil the DM wants to be*.




Yes, it is exactly the same.  Rolling once, rolling six times, or rolling six hundred times makes no real difference.  No single roll in a skill challenge is causally related to any other roll.  It is identical to six separate Diplomacy checks, because that is all it is.

Games where one successful Diplomacy check is treated like some kind of mind-control have more issues than lack of teamwork or sense of contribution.


----------



## Storminator (Apr 17, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> I stand corrected, thank you.
> 
> I am still seeing players just taking actions that are Easy to pass the challenge.  If that means they simplify their actions until the DM calls it 'easy', it doesn't seem much different than having the player declare an Easy check.




Why is it that being completely wrong about something doesn't change your conclusions?

And can you add anything positive to any part of the conversation?

PS


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully (Apr 17, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> What skills you use isn't important to the skill challenge _because the skill challenge isn't about using skills_.  You cannot simultaneously use a 'skill' to describe what the character is capable of _and_ implement a 'skill challenge' system where the skill you use doesn't matter, as long as you use one.  As a wise post states elsewhere, the skill challenge isn't about _what_ your character does, it's simply about _how much_ of it they are doing.  It's like busywork; you don't actually have to accomplish anything, you just have to perform tasks until the boss isn't looking anymore.
> 
> Further, and this is rather critical, what you note is correct.  The skill use by the characters is in any order you want.  However, the skill challenge rolls _must be done sequentially_.  You have to determine when the failures occur, because the players aren't avoiding four failures.  They are avoiding _four failures before six successes_.  You can't just have five players throw two dice each and sort it out.  They have to roll individually, and sequentially.  At which point, the logical progression of skill use is wholly subsumed by the meta-game progression of the skill challenge.
> 
> Which, of course, means it isn't really a _skill_ challenge at all.  Just a marginal mini-game that is totally divorced from not only what the _characters_ are capable of, but also the supposed 'authorial stance' this is supposed to grant the _players_.



The plan you are making will probably require you to perform activities in sequence. Each activity is assigned a skill check, and thus you still have the sequence. 

Thinking about this further: 
This, off course assumes that any plan ever survives enemy contact. 
The non skill-challenge approach would be to make each skill a single task, and if you fail, you'd have to reconsider your plan, or you try the task again, until it's no longer possible. 

The skill-challenge approach might change the dynamic - a skill check doesn't mean you did outright fail at a specific point. You probably still succeeded in what you tried, but there is a complication, and if enough complication arise, the plan (and the challenge) will fail. In a "heist" adventure, a failed Stealth check might represent you alerting the guards to be more careful, or that you just lost more time then planned. If failures happen often enough, the guards might trigger an alarm or spot you, or you just don't arrive at a designated goal in the time you planned. Skill challenges can remove retries (nice) and reevaluation of plans (might be good or bad, depending on preference)


----------



## med stud (Apr 17, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> If the DM vetos the use of a skill, then they can veto the use of any skill.  We are back to 'pixel-hunting' for the 'correct' answer, as determined by the DM.  Which is what this system is designed specifically to address.



Not at all. I hope you can see the difference between the one "right" answer and vetoing Intimidate for disarming a mechanical trap. Also, just because a DM _can_ veto any skill doesn't mean that he _will_ veto all skills but one.


			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Modifying a skill is really no different.   "You want to use Diplomacy?  Ok, roll your Diplomacy, -10."



Which might be appropriate for the situation.


			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> For the system to work as intended to give 'authourial stance' to the players, the DM is almost forced to accept just about anything a player says.  Otherwise, it is just a pretense of giving the players some control over the story to disguise railroading.



"Authourial stance" to the players, as you put it, isn't a binary thing. You can give the players lots of leeway if you want. You can also restrict options. The alternative to full freedom for the players is *not* railroading, though. By that logic, every use of a skill in 3e was railroading. As is combat, by the way. "I shoot the flying wizard with my sword!" "You can't do that, the sword is melee only." "OMFG! Railroading!" 
Really, your argument doesn't hold.


----------



## LostSoul (Apr 17, 2008)

Storminator said:
			
		

> If someone uses an inappropriate skill, will you tell them it's inappropriate and let them chose again, or will you let them roll and have it be meaningless to the final outcome?




I would say, "I don't really see how that is going to help..." and wait for some kind of revision.  If the revision doesn't work for me, I will say, "I really don't see it.  What other skills do you have?"


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## hong (Apr 17, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> If the DM vetos the use of a skill, then they can veto the use of any skill.  We are back to 'pixel-hunting' for the 'correct' answer, as determined by the DM.  Which is what this system is designed specifically to address.




There is a middle ground, oh mathematically challenged one. DM veto power to stop one outlandish use of a skill is not the same as vetoing every use of every skill except the one allowed solution.



> For the system to work as intended to give 'authourial stance' to the players, the DM is almost forced to accept just about anything a player says.  Otherwise, it is just a pretense of giving the players some control over the story to disguise railroading.




The aim is to encourage hidebound DMs to be more open to original ideas, yes. But only a truly hidebound DM could call this "forced to accept anything a player says". Such a DM is indeed better off doing pixel bitching the original way, because everything is going to wind up like that anyway in their game. That doesn't mean a more reasonable DM, who knows the difference between "crazy but just might work" and outright crazy, can't see significant improvements in player engagement and creativity while also maintaining control of proceedings.


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## Storminator (Apr 17, 2008)

LostSoul said:
			
		

> I would say, "I don't really see how that is going to help..." and wait for some kind of revision.  If the revision doesn't work for me, I will say, "I really don't see it.  What other skills do you have?"




This is how I would do it as well. It fits with your criteria of making every roll important. 

I can see other inputs besides skills as well. Perhaps someone uses a spell or a power to gain a success.

PS


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## WhatGravitas (Apr 17, 2008)

LostSoul said:
			
		

> Good point.
> 
> 
> I will engage the skill challenge mechanics only when there is an in-game conflict of interest that I want to focus on, one that carries a good deal of risk.  I will make sure that the skill challenge resolves the conflict of interest.
> ...



Also:

Try to make skill challenges broad, giving the players more room for being creative. E.g. if it's about negotiating with the king, then the skill challenge should include getting an audience, finding some convincing arguments and so on.
Prepare a little list of "default options" - because sometimes players have a creative low - but that list is only to be consulted, if the players don't have any ideas.
Give multiple successes and/or failures for exceptional ideas combined with good rolls (vice versa for failures).
Give the group vetting power - if all other players agree that something is plausible or very implausible.
Try to find uses for skill challenges mid-combat - if you're under time pressure and not every character can be at the right place, skill choices and niches become much more important.

Cheers, LT.


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## Storm-Bringer (Apr 17, 2008)

Lacyon said:
			
		

> More players have the opportunity to contribute, for one.



How is this hindered _by the rules_ now?



> Congratulations on completing a rudimentary skill challenge. I don't like your system though because the skills don't even have to have names. They could just be Skill A, Skill B, or not even be on your character sheet, since you're just going to talk to the DM and roleplay your way through everything   .



Except, if they want to actually use a skill to perform a relevant action, the dice come out.  Not if they start yelling out whatever skill strikes them and some weak excuse to use it.  Otherwise, the players will have to rely on their planning and wits, not their dice.  In other words, congrats on climbing the tree, but that won't put you any closer to a solution unless you capitalize on it.  Climbing the tree doesn't put you any closer to a solution, in and of itself.



> Unless you have better information 'Setting the stakes' is a phrase used by forgites who are seeing an opportunity to bend D&D towards a particular style of play they enjoy. To my knowledge it is not something that came from a 4E designer, and not part of the system itself.



I have been corrected on that, and probably heard someone more familiar with Forge theory describe the early system as 'setting the stakes' around the time of DDXP.



> I'll settle for just interacting with the game-world environment. People who leap across the room and speak in Shakespearean dialect scare me.



Then I hope the final rules have a much better skill challenge system than the previews have presented.



> Nothing about the system denies the ability of a GM to create a pixel-hunt if he is dead set on it.



Exactly.


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## Mallus (Apr 17, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> You cannot simultaneously use a 'skill' to describe what the character is capable of _and_ implement a 'skill challenge' system where the skill you use doesn't matter, as long as you use one.



Of course you can. Skills still describe what they are capable of. Skill challenges are negotiations over how those capabilities might apply to solving the larger problem at hand.

A PC that's good at climbing a rope is still good at climbing a rope under the skill challenge system.


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## hong (Apr 17, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Yes, it is exactly the same.  Rolling once, rolling six times, or rolling six hundred times makes no real difference.  No single roll in a skill challenge is causally related to any other roll.  It is identical to six separate Diplomacy checks, because that is all it is.




First, the issue is not just "how many outcomes are there" but "how interesting the process is of reaching that outcome". 3 checks is indeed more interesting than 1 check, all other things being equal, by any measure of interestingness I can imagine. Postcount even.

Second, just because there is no rigorous, formally defined algorithm linking process to outcome (ideally in 2-column 9-point serif text) does not mean there is no relationship between the two. It would take some kind of anti-DM to say that, because you succeeded at 3 checks but failed 2, both times by a margin of 1, that means the king cuts off your heads. I find it far more likely that any sane DM would say that if you only failed the challenge marginally, then your outcome in the game world should be less severe than if you failed the rolls disastrously.


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## hong (Apr 17, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> How is this hindered _by the rules_ now?




Psst. Wrong question.


----------



## Crosswind (Apr 17, 2008)

Here is how I will bring the awesome.

1.) The statement "You have begun a skill challenge" will never be used.  It is up to the players to decide when they want to solve a problem.
2.) When the players want to solve a problem, they can announce what they want to do.  Each of them can roll against static DCs to try to accomplish what they want (If part of the plan is "climb a wall", I would hope there is a DC for wall-climbing in the PHB).
3.) Each success or failure will have unique and appropriate consequences.  Depending on how much they succeed by, and how much they fail by, consequences will vary.
4.) If, on the whole, it makes sense that the consequences of their individual actions result in them achieving their goal, they will.

I am not sure if this is a "Skill Challenge", or not.  But this is how I plan to bring the awesome.

-Cross


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## Storm-Bringer (Apr 17, 2008)

hong said:
			
		

> There is a middle ground, oh mathematically challenged one. DM veto power to stop one outlandish use of a skill is not the same as vetoing every use of every skill except the one allowed solution.



Since I said nothing of the sort, you will probably find your strawman more enjoyable to argue with, o logically challenged one.


----------



## hong (Apr 17, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Since I said nothing of the sort, you will probably find your strawman more enjoyable to argue with, o logically challenged one.



 Oh, I do apologise. I thought that when you said



> If the DM vetos the use of a skill, then they can veto the use of any skill. We are back to 'pixel-hunting' for the 'correct' answer, as determined by the DM. Which is what this system is designed specifically to address.




you were indeed talking about pixel-bitching. Clearly you were in fact talking about something else. Maybe postcount.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully (Apr 17, 2008)

Storminator said:
			
		

> Why is it that being completely wrong about something doesn't change your conclusions?
> 
> And can you add anything positive to any part of the conversation?
> 
> PS



Hmm. Storm-Bringer reminds me of someone.

So, Storm-Bringer, what do you think about Dragons without spells?


----------



## Storminator (Apr 17, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> Hmm. Storm-Bringer reminds me of someone.
> 
> So, Storm-Bringer, what do you think about Dragons without spells?



 

PS


----------



## Storm-Bringer (Apr 17, 2008)

Mallus said:
			
		

> Of course you can. Skills still describe what they are capable of. Skill challenges are negotiations over how those capabilities might apply to solving the larger problem at hand.



I thought we were talking about 4e.



> A PC that's good at climbing a rope is still good at climbing a rope under the skill challenge system.



Except when they aren't.  Because the skill challenge system doesn't track what skills you use, just how many.  So, climbing a rope, talking to a stablehand, recalling trivia, or any other skill has the exact same value.  It doesn't matter how or where you climb the rope, just that you do or don't so the appropriate tally can be marked.  A player could use any other skill interchangeably for any particular part of a skill challenge.  Outside of a skill challenge, climbing a rope has a direct effect, ie my character is higher up on the rope.  Inside a skill challenge, it is a tally towards "win", but being higher on a rope has no further effect on the skill challenge overall.  If the DM awards a bonus for the next roll because of it, we are back to 'pixel-hunting' (albeit more a more limited form), and it directly contravenes the stated problem of 'one player in the spotlight' this whole system is designed to prevent.  You will still have the Diplomacy guy sweeping in to make their roll to give everyone else the bonus.


----------



## Mallus (Apr 17, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> I thought we were talking about 4e.



I am.



> Because the skill challenge system doesn't track what skills you use, just how many.



The skill challenge system assumes that a group of non-idiot players will negotiate which skills are relevant to the given challenge. Some people go so far as to believe these negotiations might be fun. With non-idiots, of course...



> A player could use any other skill interchangeably for any particular part of a skill challenge.



If the DM is an idiot, yes.


----------



## WhatGravitas (Apr 17, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> I thought we were talking about 4e.



We are.


			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Because the skill challenge system doesn't track what skills you use, just how many.



Yes, it does. In the form of the narrative.

Cheers, LT.


----------



## Storm-Bringer (Apr 17, 2008)

hong said:
			
		

> Oh, I do apologise. I thought that when you said
> 
> you were indeed talking about pixel-bitching. Clearly you were in fact talking about something else. Maybe postcount.



You missed the 'if' part.  Maybe postcount doesn't mean what you think it means.


----------



## hong (Apr 17, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> You missed the 'if' part.




Ah, I think I see where the problem lies. Unfortunately, you appear to have missed the "then" part.



> Maybe postcount doesn't mean what you think it means.




Is this another postcount thing?


----------



## Cadfan (Apr 17, 2008)

Crosswind said:
			
		

> 1.) The statement "You have begun a skill challenge" will never be used.  It is up to the players to decide when they want to solve a problem.



For me, initiative will be rolled.  So yes, I will formally announce the initiation of a skill challenge.  I have newer players.  They appreciate this sort of thing.


> 2.) When the players want to solve a problem, they can announce what they want to do.  Each of them can roll against static DCs to try to accomplish what they want (If part of the plan is "climb a wall", I would hope there is a DC for wall-climbing in the PHB).



Skill challenges often take place in a context of opposed effort.  For example, a success at "I climb the wall to escape the guards" means that you have to not only climb the wall yourself, you have to do so faster than the guards climb the wall.  For this, I will use the stated DC for climbing a wall of a particular type as a floor, and set the challenge DC above it.  For example, if a particular wall is DC 10, and the challenge is a DC 15 challenge, a character who rolls below a 10 has failed to climb the wall at all.  Meanwhile a character who rolls between 10 and 14 has climbed the wall but has been followed by the guards and lost ground.

The rest I agree with.  Nothing to add.


----------



## Storm-Bringer (Apr 17, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> Hmm. Storm-Bringer reminds me of someone.
> 
> So, Storm-Bringer, what do you think about Dragons without spells?



Makes no real difference to me.  But I would prefer that you come right out and say what you mean.


----------



## Imp (Apr 17, 2008)

I've thought about this for a bit, and I really think it's going to take a good bit of on-the-table-use to really get a feel of when/how skill challenges are helpful, but my current thoughts are:

Given the two play examples I know of – "escape from Sembia" and "find the secret of the tree" – "escape from Sembia" seems like a far more compelling use, and I think it's because it's more abstract. Without the skill challenge mechanic, escaping a city can easily involve a whole ridiculous mess of prep work, unless you just talk through it, in which case you risk it not feeling very important. Using a skill challenge for that allows you to run through a dramatic scene and have some suspense from the dice without mapping out gatehouses and statting out all the freaking guards. It's a godsend.

The "secret of the tree" scenario, on the other hand, is quite concrete, so it throws some of the mushiness of the skill challenge mechanic into sharper relief, and furthermore I'd argue it's not much of a win in terms of DM prep time over the stock 3e method – static DCs for specific skill checks – or even 1e's method of dealing with stuff like that, which was usually talk-through-it-plus-maybe-a-few-arbitrary-dice-rolls. Which leaves us with other metrics, on which skill challenges are not clearly very much better than previous methods.

But as a tool to help a group wing it when playing out complex, abstract scenes, skill challenges seem awfully useful.


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## Crosswind (Apr 17, 2008)

Cadfan said:
			
		

> For me, initiative will be rolled.  So yes, I will formally announce the initiation of a skill challenge.  I have newer players.  They appreciate this sort of thing.




Fair 'nuff - I have older players, who don't -particularly- like gamist terms popping up.  "Roll initiative" is sort of required, but aside from that, we try not to delineate between various phases of the game.

And yeah.  What you said about variable DCs is, obviously, correct.  The point I was sort of trying to make was that the DC will reflect the task they're attempting to do.  Not a pre-set "easy, medium, hard" DC that's level-appropriate.

-Cross


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## LostSoul (Apr 17, 2008)

Storminator said:
			
		

> I can see other inputs besides skills as well. Perhaps someone uses a spell or a power to gain a success.




Yeah, that part I'm really looking forward to seeing.  The skill challenge doesn't look different from a number of other games I play.  But if you add combat powers and spells into the mix, then you get a very _D&D_ experience.


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## Storm-Bringer (Apr 17, 2008)

Imp said:
			
		

> But as a tool to help a group wing it when playing out complex, abstract scenes, skill challenges seem awfully useful.



Agreed.  I am not much for abstracting this kind of play, but in a pinch, if the players are trying something the DM didn't plan for, it works well as a guideline for resolving it.  Especially if it is something that isn't plot-intensive.


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## D'karr (Apr 17, 2008)

LostSoul said:
			
		

> Yeah, that part I'm really looking forward to seeing.  The skill challenge doesn't look different from a number of other games I play.  But if you add combat powers and spells into the mix, then you get a very _D&D_ experience.




We had this happen in our Escape from Sembia game.  The wizard decided to use one of his bursts to distract the guards.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully (Apr 17, 2008)

> Except when they aren't. Because the skill challenge system doesn't track what skills you use, just how many. So, climbing a rope, talking to a stablehand, recalling trivia, or any other skill has the exact same value. It doesn't matter how or where you climb the rope, just that you do or don't so the appropriate tally can be marked. A player could use any other skill interchangeably for any particular part of a skill challenge. Outside of a skill challenge, climbing a rope has a direct effect, ie my character is higher up on the rope. Inside a skill challenge, it is a tally towards "win", but being higher on a rope has no further effect on the skill challenge overall. If the DM awards a bonus for the next roll because of it, we are back to 'pixel-hunting' (albeit more a more limited form), and it directly contravenes the stated problem of 'one player in the spotlight' this whole system is designed to prevent. You will still have the Diplomacy guy sweeping in to make their roll to give everyone else the bonus.



You don't make a skill challenge out of climbing a rope.
But if you roll your Climb/Athletics check as part of a skill challenge, you do prove your "Climbing Prowess". Your skill counts for something!

Skill challenge are appropriate for situations where you, in the standard "task-based skill check" system, you'd have to map out a lot of possibilities. This can, if insufficiently prepared and unable to adapt, lead to the infamous pixel-hunt.

The "Escape from Sembia" example is a nice example. Imagine you had to run this scenario, and you wanted to give the players a lot of options. This would have to mean you have to basically have the whole layout of the city prepared, possibly including guard patrol routes and so on - or randomly determine what kind of obstacles or skill checks they have to face.

The latter is already very close to a skill challenge, but the skill challenge eliminates the randomness of what you do and replaces it with "narrative control by players". Mechanically, that's just that they get to choose their skills on their own. But in terms of the roleplaying experience, this feels very different - since it's you are who is choosing the skill you use, you get (but also have to) explain how you use it, leading to a more interesting story being told. 
Off course, if you're not interested in the storyteling/roleplaying part, you don't have to do that, but you shouldn't complain then that the system feels lacking role-playing wise. 



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Makes no real difference to me.  But I would prefer that you come right out and say what you mean.



But that would ruin the joke. 



Spoiler



There was one poster that felt this topic was very important - he hated spell-less dragons, off course - and never seemed to react to any counter-argument, falling back on things already said. Interestingly, I can only read quotes from him these days, and my enjoyment of the boards have improved since then...


----------



## Celebrim (Apr 17, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> Imagine you had to run this scenario, and you wanted to give the players a lot of options. This would have to mean you have to basically have the whole layout of the city prepared, possibly including guard patrol routes and so on - or randomly determine what kind of obstacles or skill checks they have to face.




Or, you could just 'wing it', responding to the various propositions the the players make and creating content as needed.  This is almost exactly like having a skill challenge, sans the arbitrary tally of abstract successes and failures.  

Or, you could use a narrative map instead, in which various decisions moved the party between preplanned scenes and challenges.  That you wouldn't have to have the whole city layout prepared (much of which would go unused anyway).  And you could combine that with 'winging it' when or if the party went off the map.

Or you could really mix it up and use a combination of random encounters, a game map, a narrative map, _and_ winging it - which is what most DMs are doing after they've been on the job for a couple of years.

All of which is really quite reutine.  In a typical city escape challenge, you have some rough idea of the physical layout of the city and the hazards of escaping it (are thier natural obstacles?, is it on an island?, is it walled?, does it have regular patrols?, does it have streets or canals?, how big is it?, how deep within the city are the players?, what section of the city are they in?, etc.)  You have some idea of the demographics of your campaign and the city in particular (what level are typical guards in my campaign world?, what races inhabit the city?, what resouces do the pursuers have?).  So you respond to the PC's propositions and set the challenge according to what they do.   If they want to flee, well then you improvise a chase scene, possibily with a couple prepared (or at least preimagined) chase scenarios.  If they want to fight, well then you improvise some combat.  If they want to talk, then you improvise that.  Perhaps they end up doing a bit of everything.

The only problem with it is that it makes a lousy system for handling a tournament encounter because it doesn't communicate to the end GM user exactly how you wanted the encounter to play out.  It's too abstract.  It leaves too much up to GM judgement.  It is not going to be played out consistantly between groups.  

Enter the skill challenge system.



> The latter is already very close to a skill challenge, but the skill challenge eliminates the randomness of what you do and replaces it with "narrative control by players".




In other words, its alot like 'winging' it.



> Mechanically, that's just that they get to choose their skills on their own. But in terms of the roleplaying experience, this feels very different - since it's you are who is choosing the skill you use, you get (but also have to) explain how you use it, leading to a more interesting story being told.




How is this any different than what we have now?  If someone tells me, "I want make a history check", they are going to have to tell me what they want to learn.  If they don't, they don't do anything.  If you want to jump, you have to tell me where you are jumping.

In fact, in the extreme, as it is the players don't really need to know how the skill system works.  They could simply say, "I want to do this.", and I could handle it behind the scenes as a skill check.  In that way, you'd be gauranteed to have a role playing experience where you explain what your character is doing in the game world rather than just explaining the rules you are using.



> Off course, if you're not interested in the storyteling/roleplaying part, you don't have to do that, but you shouldn't complain then that the system feels lacking role-playing wise.




Uh huh.  You of course are perched on the RPG high ground looking down at all of us mere hack and slashers.


----------



## Lacyon (Apr 17, 2008)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> Or, you could just 'wing it', responding to the various propositions the the players make and creating content as needed.  This is almost exactly like having a skill challenge, sans the arbitrary tally of abstract successes and failures.




Since winging it is inherently arbitrary, the arbitrary tally of successes and failures can't be that much of a hindrance.


----------



## Storm-Bringer (Apr 17, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> You don't make a skill challenge out of climbing a rope.
> But if you roll your Climb/Athletics check as part of a skill challenge, you do prove your "Climbing Prowess". Your skill counts for something!



It counts for the same success as History, Diplomacy, Thievery, or Dungeoneering.



> Skill challenge are appropriate for situations where you, in the standard "task-based skill check" system, you'd have to map out a lot of possibilities. This can, if insufficiently prepared and unable to adapt, lead to the infamous pixel-hunt.



But, the responses in this thread alone lead to pixel hunting.  For example, if the DM disallows a certain skill check, or provides a bonus or penalty to a skill check.



> The "Escape from Sembia" example is a nice example. Imagine you had to run this scenario, and you wanted to give the players a lot of options. This would have to mean you have to basically have the whole layout of the city prepared, possibly including guard patrol routes and so on - or randomly determine what kind of obstacles or skill checks they have to face.



But, that is the DMs job.



> The latter is already very close to a skill challenge, but the skill challenge eliminates the randomness of what you do and replaces it with "narrative control by players". Mechanically, that's just that they get to choose their skills on their own. But in terms of the roleplaying experience, this feels very different - since it's you are who is choosing the skill you use, you get (but also have to) explain how you use it, leading to a more interesting story being told.
> Off course, if you're not interested in the storyteling/roleplaying part, you don't have to do that, but you shouldn't complain then that the system feels lacking role-playing wise.



Luckily, I am not complaining that the system is lacking in role-playing opportunities.

What I am pointing out is that the skill challenge system doesn't noticeably increase the role-playing opportunities.  As a player, you have had 'authourial stance' the whole time.  You describe what you are doing, then roll to see if it succeeds.  This system changes nothing.



> But that would ruin the joke. There was one poster that felt this topic was very important - he hated spell-less dragons, off course - and never seemed to react to any counter-argument, falling back on things already said. Interestingly, I can only read quotes from him these days, and my enjoyment of the boards have improved since then...



Then add me to your ignore list and have done with it.  Otherwise, address the posts with something other than the broken record of 'use your imagination'.


----------



## Lacyon (Apr 17, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> It counts for the same success as History, Diplomacy, Thievery, or Dungeoneering.




Correct. The skills are balanced.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Luckily, I am not complaining that the system is lacking in role-playing opportunities.
> 
> What I am pointing out is that the skill challenge system doesn't noticeably increase the role-playing opportunities.  As a player, you have had 'authourial stance' the whole time.  You describe what you are doing, then roll to see if it succeeds.  This system changes nothing.




If it changes nothing for you, then it is just as good for you as the system that came before and there is no need to have this conversation. Meanwhile, for some of us the guidelines are immensely helpful.


----------



## Storm-Bringer (Apr 17, 2008)

Lacyon said:
			
		

> Correct. The skills are balanced.



No, the skills are _fungible_.  No one skill has any particular meaning in a skill challenge, because any skill can be used at any point.  They are _meaningless_.



> If it changes nothing for you, then it is just as good for you as the system that came before and there is no need to have this conversation. Meanwhile, for some of us the guidelines are immensely helpful.



No, the only thing that has changed is that no skill has a discernible outcome until the skill challenge is passed or failed.

I will conjecture that any moderately self aware group will notice no real change, aside from each skill not really having a defined in-game effect within skill challenges, and the meta-game tally.


----------



## Lacyon (Apr 17, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> No, the skills are _fungible_.  No one skill has any particular meaning in a skill challenge, because any skill can be used at any point.  They are _meaningless_.




They're only as fungible as they're allowed to be. _Not_ every skill can be used at any point.

This has been repeated so many times in this thread that it's ridiculous for you to still be clinging to it.

The skills are _balanced_ because whenever one is allowed, its success or failure counts just as much as the other skills.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> No, the only thing that has changed is that no skill has a discernible outcome until the skill challenge is passed or failed.




To my knowledge, no one who's actually used the system is having this problem.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> I will conjecture that any moderately self aware group will notice no real change, aside from each skill not really having a defined in-game effect within skill challenges, and the meta-game tally.




In my group, the difference will be that skill checks without clearly defined benefits (i.e., most of them) will actually have an impact on the game instead of being handwaved.


----------



## Mallus (Apr 17, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> They are _meaningless_.



I don't think 'meaningless' means what you think it means.


----------



## LostSoul (Apr 17, 2008)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> Or, you could just 'wing it', responding to the various propositions the the players make and creating content as needed.  This is almost exactly like having a skill challenge, sans the arbitrary tally of abstract successes and failures.




Hmm.  We disagree on a lot, so I'm not surprised to see something else.

I _don't_ think the tally of abstract successes and failures is arbitrary.

I _do_ think DM fiat is - and I think that's the big change.  



			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> Or, you could use a narrative map instead, in which various decisions moved the party between preplanned scenes and challenges.  That you wouldn't have to have the whole city layout prepared (much of which would go unused anyway).  And you could combine that with 'winging it' when or if the party went off the map.




Some people would call that railroading.



			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> In other words, its alot like 'winging' it.




Except for the "by players" part. 



			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> In that way, you'd be gauranteed to have a role playing experience where you explain what your character is doing in the game world rather than just explaining the rules you are using.
> 
> Uh huh.  You of course are perched on the RPG high ground looking down at all of us mere hack and slashers.




That's pretty funny.


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## WalterKovacs (Apr 17, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> If the DM vetos the use of a skill, then they can veto the use of any skill.  We are back to 'pixel-hunting' for the 'correct' answer, as determined by the DM.  Which is what this system is designed specifically to address.
> 
> Modifying a skill is really no different.   "You want to use Diplomacy?  Ok, roll your Diplomacy, -10."
> 
> For the system to work as intended to give 'authourial stance' to the players, the DM is almost forced to accept just about anything a player says.  Otherwise, it is just a pretense of giving the players some control over the story to disguise railroading.




Just to be clear ...

Either:

(a) Skill challenges are bad because it allows players to just throw together a string of easy and meaningless skill checks without any real connection to beat the skill challenge with minimal risk

or

(b) Skill challenges are bad because it is just the DM railroading his players into performing the plan he wants them to do by determing which skill checks they will need to make

There is no middle ground, so skill challenges should just be abandoned.

That seems to pretty much be your opinion? It is impossible to salvage the idea of skill challenges.

Of course, we are leaving out the PC planning face. It doesn't have to be the DM that talks a player out of using a skill that makes no sense ... the rest of the party might do it if they understand the risks involved, and don't feel that the particular skill is not relevant.

Also, on the subject of "wide" skills, that was partly to address an issue in 3E where narrow skills were almost entirely ignored. Also, since your skills will basically be EITHER: 1/2 Level + stat mod OR 1/2 Level + stat mod + 5 ... skills that use the same stat would be using the same numbers anyway, unless one is trained and the other isn't.


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## Storminator (Apr 17, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Otherwise, address the posts with something other than the broken record of 'use your imagination'.




Coming from you, this line is pretty funny.

We get it. You hate skill challenges, and nothing will change your mind. So why don't you move on, so that if anyone actually does want to discuss using skill challenges to _improve_ their game can, without you spamming the thread?

You haven't added anything new to your mindless spewing in the last 2 pages. Please stop.

PS


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Apr 17, 2008)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> Uh huh.  You of course are perched on the RPG high ground looking down at all of us mere hack and slashers.



I am pretty certain that most of "you" are not hack and slashers. But you seem to critisize the system using the mindset of a hack and slashers and miss that such a person doesn't care for  skill challenges anyway, so it doesn't matter if the tool will work for him.

I am pretty sure that I and my group are a lot closer to Hack & Slash what others do here. Because kicking but and taking names is what we enjoy most. We can even live fine with railroaded plots, as long as we get to slay some enemies along the railway. Sometimes, we are content if we're at least get to roll our skills to get to a meaningful result, and that's something that skill challenges promise to me. (That's the not-so-much Hack & Slash, but definitely Gamist part in me.)


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## Majoru Oakheart (Apr 17, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> But, that is the DMs job.



Sorry, that isn't my job.  My job is to run a fun game, not write down a map of a city with guard patrol numbers and times.

When I run a game and the PCs enter a city, assuming I'm not running out of a published adventure or campaign setting, it is likely all I know about the city is its name and approximate size.  I might also know that somewhere within the city is an NPC the PCs are supposed to talk to and he is hanging out at an inn.

If I anticipate that the PCs are likely to get into a fight in the inn and need to leave town quickly, I may go as far as stating up some guards for them to fight.  But more than likely, I'll have decided if they are going to escape or not in advance.  If they are going to escape, I just say "You have guards coming after you...what do you do?" and if they give me any answer whatsoever I'll let it succeed.

The difference is that with the Skill Challenge mechanics, it allows me to reconceptualize this entire situation.  Instead of saying "Well, non-combat situations only give out XP optionally and I was going to let them get out of the city no matter what they did, so I'm certainly not giving out XP for that...so what's the point is rolling more than a single roll then moving onward?"  I am instead saying "Alright, if this is actually going to be a challenge I give XP out for then it needs to have a risk of failing.  However, failing doesn't necessarily mean not getting out of the city.  So, what is the consequence of failure?  How difficult should it be to succeed?  What is the benefit of succeeding?  What skills are useful in order to accomplish it?  And probably some more stuff as well."

I never gave out XP for non-combat situations in 3e.  The guidelines for doing so were way too vague and abuseable.  Plus, it seemed like there wasn't any real risk involved.  If I wanted my plot to continue and you didn't succeed in the diplomacy check to get the vital clue...I was going to tell you any way or change the plot so there was another way for you to continue.

However, I've been opened to the possibility of something as simple as "You are chasing enemies overland.  If you succeed in a skill challenge to catch them then they don't have time to prepare their defenses.  If you fail the skill challenge then they are prepared for you and have time to recall their scouts making the combat against them harder."


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## Mallus (Apr 17, 2008)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> Or, you could just 'wing it', responding to the various propositions the the players make and creating content as needed.



Cel, I agree w/you that from a certain perspective the skill challenge system looks a lot like what good DM's have been doing for a long time. It's less a new system than it is advice on how use/think about using the existing one.

But it's _good_ advice. Especially for those who aren't already heeding it.


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## Storm-Bringer (Apr 17, 2008)

WalterKovacs said:
			
		

> Just to be clear ...
> 
> Either:
> 
> ...



When you exclude the middle ground, that doesn't mean there isn't one.

Option A is pretty much how the system has been presented, with the 'say yes' design philosophy.  Clearly, that leads to absurd situations.  The suggested solution, ie option B, with DMs deciding what skills are appropriate, isn't any different than how things are done now, except for the meta-game tally.

Between those two, we have 'flexibility'.  The DM sets up a situation, say a poison bomb in a corpse, and hangs it in a tree.  That same DM knows why it is in the tree, and what will set off or defuse it, in general terms.  At that point, when the players interact with it, there will be a general course for getting from point A to point B.  If the Rogue wants to climb the tree, the Wizard on the ground doesn't get to progress the plot with a Spot check ("You see a corpse in a tree next to the Rogue.  Next.")  But the player of the Rogue can ask "What do I see?", at which point the DM describes the corpse, possibly making a secret Spot check.  With the more pointed question, "Do I see anything unusual about the corpse?", the player may get to roll the Spot check, maybe with a bonus, or the DM uses the result of the prior check.  The Rogue shouts down, "It looks like someone cut it open and sewed it back up".  Being an unusual detail, the Cleric makes a Knowledge (Religion) check with a bonus and can't recall any society that hangs a corpse in a tree as a standard burial rite, and certainly not one that would cut a body open and sew it back up first.  All this messing around catches the attention of the Dryad, at which point the Ranger calls upon his Nature skills to talk to the Dryad.  She is unaware of when the corpse was hung there, but it wasn't there yesterday.  Further conversation reveals her enmity with a black satyr in the area.  "Well," the PCs decide, "hanging the corpse in the tree could be a warning, but cutting it open and sewing it back together serves little purpose."  They decide the Rogue should carefully cut it down and lower it from the tree.  The Rogue goes about cutting some of the rope, but being extended on the limb a bit, fails a Dex check and tumbles out of the tree, bumping the corpse.  It is still held up by most of the rope, but the incision splits a little, and some yellowish gas escapes.  The party is certain that any further rough handling will set it off.  The Wizard employs Rope Use to instruct the others in supporting the corpse so it doesn't fall when it is removed from the tree.  Further checks ensue.  Possibly with skills that have been determined to be 'useless' by most people.

So, it progresses logically, and we don't get a nonsensical outcome like



> ...rolls athletics to catch the corpse gently and makes it (but it wouldn't have burst anyways since the challenge was won), then the rogue describes burying it so that it won't hurt anything else, which I tell him he doesn't need to roll...




While it is one group's interpretation, we see that once the challenge is won, nothing further they do in regards to that situation matters.  The can swing the corpse around by the heels and toss it at each other.  The original example was solved mostly by talking and looking.  In essence, they _bored the trap into disarming itself_.

So, you tell me which one is more enjoyable.  The players figuring it out one step at a time, or the players rolling dice to see if they are allowed to figure it out.


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## Storm-Bringer (Apr 17, 2008)

Majoru Oakheart said:
			
		

> Sorry, that isn't my job.  My job is to run a fun game, not write down a map of a city with guard patrol numbers and times.



This part makes no sense to me.



> I never gave out XP for non-combat situations in 3e.  The guidelines for doing so were way too vague and abuseable.  Plus, it seemed like there wasn't any real risk involved.  If I wanted my plot to continue and you didn't succeed in the diplomacy check to get the vital clue...I was going to tell you any way or change the plot so there was another way for you to continue.



So, you never used the previous system, but are certain this one is better?


----------



## D'karr (Apr 17, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> So, you never used the previous system, but are certain this one is better?




Well, I did use the previous system.  Since 3.x came out.

I played with this "new" system at DDXP.  I've run 6 different groups through playtests using the "new" system.

Better is a matter of opinion, but for me and my group, it is better.


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## D'karr (Apr 17, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> While it is one group's interpretation, we see that once the challenge is won, nothing further they do in regards to that situation matters.  The can swing the corpse around by the heels and toss it at each other.  The original example was solved mostly by talking and looking.  In essence, they _bored the trap into disarming itself_.
> 
> So, you tell me which one is more enjoyable.  The players figuring it out one step at a time, or the players rolling dice to see if they are allowed to figure it out.




Like you say it is one group's interpretation.  The DM didn't have to tell them the challenge was won and continued having them roll.  But the point is that the challenge was already won.

Do marathon runners continue to run way past the goal line or do they stop once the race is run?

The outcome of the challenge had already been decided.  There is no need to continue to beat the dead horse at that point, as it does not add anything of value to the adventure.


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## Nine Hands (Apr 18, 2008)

Storminator said:
			
		

> I wonder if I can embed a skill challenge within a combat. I typically set up the "stop the ritual" adventure so that success is defined as smacking the high priest mid-syllable. I wonder if I can make the ritual more robust, and the defeat of it more intricate by use of a skill challenge, but have that interrupted by the temple guards. Then I have an extended combat and an extended skill challenge at the same time.
> 
> What do you think?
> 
> PS




That would be a very interesting combat.  I'd probably have the players roll the skill challenge rolls on their turn and either not charge them an action or maybe a minor.  Sure it goes outside of the "box" of the rules, but I've never been one for keeping my game in one.


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## Nine Hands (Apr 18, 2008)

D'karr said:
			
		

> Like you say it is one group's interpretation.  The DM didn't have to tell them the challenge was won and continued having them roll.  But the point is that the challenge was already won.
> 
> Do marathon runners continue to run way past the goal line or do they stop once the race is run?
> 
> The outcome of the challenge had already been decided.  There is no need to continue to beat the dead horse at that point, as it does not add anything of value to the adventure.




At first I was thinking you were talking about this thread 

As long as the players have figured out how not to set off the trap, they can interact with it without the need for dice rolls.

Personally if I see players coming up with good ways to use their skills in game via a skill challenge, I will be very happy and the system will work for me.  I've already throw skill challenges into my Star Wars game and they worked pretty well.

Sadly some people don't like em, but thats the way things go.  Whats important is if it works for your group, everything else is secondary.


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## hong (Apr 18, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> When you exclude the middle ground, that doesn't mean there isn't one.




Yes, postcount-challenged one, that's what I said.



> Option A is pretty much how the system has been presented, with the 'say yes' design philosophy.  Clearly, that leads to absurd situations.




Only by those willing to extrapolate to absurd lengths.



> The suggested solution, ie option B, with DMs deciding what skills are appropriate, isn't any different than how things are done now, except for the meta-game tally.




Yes, that is also what I said.



> Between those two, we have 'flexibility'.




Precisely.



> So, you tell me which one is more enjoyable.  The players figuring it out one step at a time, or the players rolling dice to see if they are allowed to figure it out.




The players rolling dice to solve the problem, of course. That is the essence of avoiding pixel-bitching. Well, assuming we can agree on what pixel-bitching is. Presumably it's not postcount.


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## pemerton (Apr 18, 2008)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> Or, you could just 'wing it', responding to the various propositions the the players make and creating content as needed.  This is almost exactly like having a skill challenge, sans the arbitrary tally of abstract successes and failures.



And without the players getting to narrate and create content.



			
				Mallus said:
			
		

> Cel, I agree w/you that from a certain perspective the skill challenge system looks a lot like what good DM's have been doing for a long time. It's less a new system than it is advice on how use/think about using the existing one.
> 
> But it's _good_ advice. Especially for those who aren't already heeding it.



I don't agree with this. The notion that the mechanics of games like HeroWars or The Dying Earth are simply RQ or 3E D&D plus good GMing advice is not very plausible. They are different mechanics, intended to deliver a different play experience. I would expect the skill challenge mechanics to do the same.


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## pemerton (Apr 18, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Because the skill challenge system doesn't track what skills you use, just how many.  So, climbing a rope, talking to a stablehand, recalling trivia, or any other skill has the exact same value.  It doesn't matter how or where you climb the rope, just that you do or don't so the appropriate tally can be marked.  A player could use any other skill interchangeably for any particular part of a skill challenge.





			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> No, the skills are _fungible_.  No one skill has any particular meaning in a skill challenge, because any skill can be used at any point.  They are _meaningless_.



You seem to be assuming that what is narrated in an RPG doesn't matter - ie that there is no difference between narrating the skill attempt of "my ropeclimbing guy" and narrating the skill attempt of "my diplomancer". This is a bizarre assumption to make in the context of a discussion of RPG mechanics.

In other words, the "meaning" of a skill challenge is introduced by player narration. If the players don't care for this - ie if they are indifferent to whether their PCs are ropeclimbing guys or diplomancers, and the various thematic or aesthetic implications of such differences - then they may not care for skill challenges.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Option A is pretty much how the system has been presented, with the 'say yes' design philosophy.



I don't think so. Option A says nothing about the importance of player narration.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> What skills you use isn't important to the skill challenge _because the skill challenge isn't about using skills_.  You cannot simultaneously use a 'skill' to describe what the character is capable of _and_ implement a 'skill challenge' system where the skill you use doesn't matter, as long as you use one.



This makes no sense to me. The skills on a character sheet tell us what a PC is good at. From that we, as players of the game, can infer that much of the action in the game will involve the PC doing that thing (rather than some other thing at which s/he is not good).

And of course the skill used does matter: it determines which narrations by a player are permitted and which are not. And it seems that these narrations may in turn feed back into the mechanics, via the GM's assignment of difficulty both to the check for the PC who's action is being narrated, and for future checks for other PCs.

You seem to be inferring, from the fact that _at the gaming table_ any skill may be used if the player makes a good case for it, that _in the gameworld_ there is no causal relationship between tasks attempted and skills used. This inference is as fallacious as the following one: because _at the table_ a GM can decide to put whatever monsters s/he wishes in her or his dungeon, _in the gameworld_ there are no demographic constraints at work. The second inference ignores the fact that we infer demographic constraints from metagame dungeon-design choices. The first ignores the fact that we infer ingame causality from player skill challenge narration.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> They have to roll individually, and sequentially.  At which point, the logical progression of skill use is wholly subsumed by the meta-game progression of the skill challenge.



No. As noted by Lost Soul in multiple posts, the sequence of narration colours what is possible. And it probably also effects the mechanical difficulty of subsequent skill checks.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> No single roll in a skill challenge is causally related to any other roll.



Do you mean _in game causality_? In that case the checks are so related, because previous narrations colour subsequent narrations. Do you mean _causality at the game table_? In that case the checks are also causally related, because (i) previous narrations must be accounted for by subsequent player narrations, and (ii) previous narrations are likely to affect the mechanical difficulty of certain subsequent skill checks.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> How is this not the exact same as deciding based on one roll?



Are you suggesting it would make no difference to play to resolve combat by one die roll (computed out of the stats of the monsters and the PCs) rather than as currently done? That seems an odd view to take about RPG design. When one factors in that choices at time 1 can change the relevance of a given stat at time 2, the notion becomes even more bizarre, either for combat or skill challenges.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Otherwise, the players will have to rely on their planning and wits, not their dice.  In other words, congrats on climbing the tree, but that won't put you any closer to a solution unless you capitalize on it.  Climbing the tree doesn't put you any closer to a solution, in and of itself.



You seem to be missing the part where the player explains how it is that climbing the tree brings the PCs closer to a solution. And then when the next player to take a turn explains how his or her PC is capitalising on the tree-climb-benefit.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Which, of course, means it isn't really a _skill_ challenge at all.  Just a marginal mini-game that is totally divorced from not only what the _characters_ are capable of, but also the supposed 'authorial stance' this is supposed to grant the _players_.



Why is it divorced from player authorial stance? Their narrations determine ingame causality, colour the action, and influence subsequent mechanical outcomes. What more "authorial stance" do you want?



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> What I am pointing out is that the skill challenge system doesn't noticeably increase the role-playing opportunities.  As a player, you have had 'authourial stance' the whole time.  You describe what you are doing, then roll to see if it succeeds.  This system changes nothing.



In fact, if the GM gets to decide whether or not my PC's attempt actually contributes to success, then I _don't_ have authorial stance.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> The DM sets up a situation, say a poison bomb in a corpse, and hangs it in a tree.
> 
> <snip description of sequence of task-resolution PC actions>
> 
> ...



There is nothing illogical about the progression of a skill challenge. The GM does not have a monopoly on the capacity for logical narration. Nor does it follow that "nothing further done in regards to the situation matters". The actions narrated by the players were actions consistent with resolving the challenge (and thus couldn't fail, given the challenge was over). If the actions narrated were not so consistent, but were rather such things as "swinging the corpse around by the heels and tossing it at each other" it would be quite a different matter.

As to which is more fun, RQ or HeroWars, opinions differ. But your suggestion that HeroWars is unplayable, or produces illogical or untenable play, is absurd.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Perhaps there is another way...  I know, the players can come up with a plan of action, and the DM can determine the results!  Perhaps a roll or two where pertinent, but (this is the cool part) for the most part, the DM and players can - I know this is radical - _talk to each other_.  It might, if the stars are aligned, even lead to some _role playing_!



The notion that 1st ed AD&D action resolution mechanics (if they can be called that - is persuading the GM a mechanic?) will produce more player participation and more intelligent roleplaying than the sort of mechanics that are common in contemporary narrativist RPGs is a little surprising to me. Do you have any evidence or personal experience that you base this hypothesis on?


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## LostSoul (Apr 18, 2008)

Is anyone here interested in running through some sample skill challenges in the play by post forum?  I missed my chance to try out some 4e, and my gaming schedule is full.  I'd like to give it a shot and see how it works out in actual play.


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## Incenjucar (Apr 18, 2008)

After deciding, after a lot of jokes about Vaaaaalhallen, that I'm going to run a music-based campaign at some point, with lots of weird, irreverent references (such as a Wereshark Detective with a war cry of "Nyuck Nyuck", or potions in the form of bats), I've realized how incredibly useful skill challenges will be for the game.

Rhythm Game Puzzles (DDR/Space Channel 5 meets Indiana Jones)?  Battle of the Bands with a choice between an easy strum or a risky killer riff?  Challenge the Stone Golem to a joint-crumbling Dance Off?  Evading groupies?  Starting Riots with heavy beats?

I'm going to horribly abuse these new rules, oh yes.


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## Crosswind (Apr 18, 2008)

Just when I think I'm out, they rope me back in!

Stormbringer, et-al:  Why is pixel-hunting, as you call it, a bad thing?  I'm going to go a step farther than Lacyon who argued that any skill that the DM allowed in a skill challenge was worth equal amounts, and say:  Absolutely not!  This is one of my problems with Skill Challenges.  To any problem, there are many, many solutions...a lot of which are suboptimal.  Isn't it just a little bit crazy to think that all attempts are worth the same?

Let's take the Escape from Sembia scenario:
Disguising yourself as a merchant and bluffing your way through?  Great solution.  If you do it, the guards don't even know you've left, don't look for you outside the city, etc.
Using your knowledge of history to find sewers?  Err.  Ok solution.  Except for the things that live in the sewers, the slogging through , etc.  But hey, it worked in Shawshank...
Using endurance to just run until the guards get exhausted?  Pretty terrible solution.  Guards might have horses.  Or have scouts outside the towns.  Etc.

This is where "Oh, you made 3 good checks, you succeed!" doesn't really cover it.  I am -all for- "pixel-hunting".  If every tool in the toolkit solves the problem equally well, it's not very fun/difficult to solve problems.

In the end, however, a poster above who said something akin to "This system is for people who couldn't figure out how to give XP for non-combat challenges in 3.X" is correct.  It won't affect better DMs, who were probably already doing something similar (albeit without the silly, codified, X/Y mechanics) in 3.X, and it will help the RPGA folks.

-Cross


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## Storm-Bringer (Apr 18, 2008)

Crosswind said:
			
		

> Just when I think I'm out, they rope me back in!
> 
> Stormbringer, et-al:  Why is pixel-hunting, as you call it, a bad thing?  I'm going to go a step farther than Lacyon who argued that any skill that the DM allowed in a skill challenge was worth equal amounts, and say:  Absolutely not!  This is one of my problems with Skill Challenges.  To any problem, there are many, many solutions...a lot of which are suboptimal.  Isn't it just a little bit crazy to think that all attempts are worth the same?



More than a little bit.  I am not entirely against pixel-hunting, because the required skill isn't always blindingly obvious, so it happens from time to time.  If the players are just throwing crap on the wall to see what sticks, the DM needs to offer a few more hints.



> This is where "Oh, you made 3 good checks, you succeed!" doesn't really cover it.  I am -all for- "pixel-hunting".  If every tool in the toolkit solves the problem equally well, it's not very fun/difficult to solve problems.



Precisely.  What I am coming to understand, however, is that the audience this edition is catering to doesn't much care for solving problems.



> In the end, however, a poster above who said something akin to "This system is for people who couldn't figure out how to give XP for non-combat challenges in 3.X" is correct.  It won't affect better DMs, who were probably already doing something similar (albeit without the silly, codified, X/Y mechanics) in 3.X, and it will help the RPGA folks.



Well, the guidelines for non-combat XP were in the... <drum roll> Dungeon Master's Guide.  So, it is rather ironic that one of the most common responses to the vagaries of the skill challenge system (among other things) is that the DMG will have clear instructions.

However, I disagree that it will be particularly helpful to new DMs, since they didn't have a problem with non-combat XP before (being new and all).  I am certain bad DMs will not be improved by this, nor will their games.


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## Storm-Bringer (Apr 18, 2008)

pemerton said:
			
		

> You seem to be assuming that what is narrated in an RPG doesn't matter - ie that there is no difference between narrating the skill attempt of "my ropeclimbing guy" and narrating the skill attempt of "my diplomancer". This is a bizarre assumption to make in the context of a discussion of RPG mechanics.



There are no rules for 'role-playing', there are only rules for 'game'.

Your role-playing, despite your protestations to the contrary, were never impinged upon by the rules.  They may have been damaged by a bad DM, but the rules had nothing to do with it.  Hence, you can't fix it with the rules.  If you want to tell a story about your Rogue climbing up a wall before, during, or after you roll his Climb Rope skill, have at it.  I may have failed to notice it, but I am pretty sure nothing in the PHB, DMG, or any other book for any edition has a section that says 'tell the players to shut up while they are rolling skill checks'.

What is left is discussions regarding mechanics.  If you can show how the skill challenge system does things so radically better and different than was done previously, I will reconsider my opinion.  But, to be quite honest, I don't give a crap about the role-playing any particular group does or does not engage in.  If your group picks up the dice twice per session, but spends the rest of the time weaving stories about what is happening, _great_.  I am totally jazzed, and have fun.  That has nothing to do with the mechanics.

Narrative arguments are useless, because rules don't affect the narrative.  Rules have never confined how a player describes their character's actions.


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## Storm-Bringer (Apr 18, 2008)

hong said:
			
		

> Yes, postcount-challenged one, that's what I said.
> Only by those willing to extrapolate to absurd lengths.
> Yes, that is also what I said.
> Precisely.
> The players rolling dice to solve the problem, of course. That is the essence of avoiding pixel-bitching. Well, assuming we can agree on what pixel-bitching is. Presumably it's not postcount.



Ja postcount-herausgefordert ein, ist das, was ich sagte. 
Nur durch jene Willen, zu den absurden Längen zu extrapolieren. 
Ja ist das auch, was ich sagte. 
Genau. Die Spieler, die Würfel rollen, um das Problem zu lösen, selbstverständlich. 
Das ist das Wesentliche des Vermeidens Pixel-meckernd. Gut annehmend können wir einigSEIN über, was das Pixel-Meckern ist. Vermutlich ist es nicht postcount.


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## hong (Apr 18, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Ja postcount-herausgefordert ein, ist das, was ich sagte.
> Nur durch jene Willen, zu den absurden Längen zu extrapolieren.
> Ja ist das auch, was ich sagte.
> Genau. Die Spieler, die Würfel rollen, um das Problem zu lösen, selbstverständlich.
> Das ist das Wesentliche des Vermeidens Pixel-meckernd. Gut annehmend können wir einigSEIN über, was das Pixel-Meckern ist. Vermutlich ist es nicht postcount.



 Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Nullam aliquet vulputate augue. Mauris id risus. Curabitur eleifend accumsan dui. Integer arcu augue, scelerisque id, dictum sed, varius vehicula, nibh. Nam convallis. Cras a risus. Suspendisse pulvinar purus eu ante cursus aliquet. Aenean imperdiet gravida nunc. Sed tortor. Vivamus tristique, nulla eget fringilla aliquet, metus felis consequat purus, in interdum massa arcu vitae risus. Vestibulum nec augue. Ut faucibus, felis ac facilisis convallis, libero felis suscipit nulla, id vestibulum lectus dui tristique orci.


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## Storminator (Apr 18, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Ja postcount-herausgefordert ein, ist das, was ich sagte.
> Nur durch jene Willen, zu den absurden Längen zu extrapolieren.
> Ja ist das auch, was ich sagte.
> Genau. Die Spieler, die Würfel rollen, um das Problem zu lösen, selbstverständlich.
> Das ist das Wesentliche des Vermeidens Pixel-meckernd. Gut annehmend können wir einigSEIN über, was das Pixel-Meckern ist. Vermutlich ist es nicht postcount.




Please post everything like this from now on. Much, much better.

PS


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## hong (Apr 18, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Your role-playing, despite your protestations to the contrary, were never impinged upon by the rules.




Psst. Still the wrong statement.


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## Storm-Bringer (Apr 18, 2008)

D'karr said:
			
		

> Like you say it is one group's interpretation.  The DM didn't have to tell them the challenge was won and continued having them roll.  But the point is that the challenge was already won.



Except, it wasn't.  All they had done was look at it, talk about it, think about it, and talk to the dryad.  Nothing was actually done to disarm it, but it was harmless anyway.



> Do marathon runners continue to run way past the goal line or do they stop once the race is run?



They continue to run, or they drop over dead.

At any rate, 'six successes in a skill challenge' has no correlation to 'defuse corpse bomb'.  Unless you have the exact six steps mapped out ahead of time.  The skill challenge system doesn't account for that.  The skill challenge system only accounts for _any six steps_, none of which have to be any kind of physical interaction with the situation.



> The outcome of the challenge had already been decided.  There is no need to continue to beat the dead horse at that point, as it does not add anything of value to the adventure.



Exactly.  Six successes, XP reward, move on.


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## Lacyon (Apr 18, 2008)

This deserves a better response than I gave it last time, so let me attempt to do it now.

I'm going to continue running under my assumption that the primary design purpose of the skill challenge system is to lay down an idea of what skill DCs and ratio of successes to failures required for 'success' are, in some sense of the word, 'level-appropriate'.



			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> Or, you could just 'wing it', responding to the various propositions the the players make and creating content as needed.  This is almost exactly like having a skill challenge, sans the arbitrary tally of abstract successes and failures.




This is exactly like a skill challenge except that the arbitray tally of successes and failures is replaced by the arbitrary whim of the DM, or the arbitrary whims of the players and DMs working in concert, or whatever other arbitrary convention you replace it with. Arbitrariness is not removed from the system.

Meanwhile, if the system is well designed, the arbitrary tally of successes and failures conforms to a likelihood of success by characters of a given level, much like the CR system (or 4Es XP-based encounter-building system) is.



			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> Or, you could use a narrative map instead, in which various decisions moved the party between preplanned scenes and challenges.  That you wouldn't have to have the whole city layout prepared (much of which would go unused anyway).  And you could combine that with 'winging it' when or if the party went off the map.




Like the CR system, a well-designed skill challenge system (including, yes, an X before Y subsystem) can assist you in designing this narrative map as a level-appropriate challenge, as well as assisting you in adjudicating the results of 'winging it'.

That doesn't mean that every path leading to overall success needs to require X successes if you've planned them out ahead, just like every encounter doesn't need to be EL = Party Level. But having a baseline to work from is better than not, and having some guidelines for how long to draw out the encounter when the players stray from the path is also handy.



			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> Or you could really mix it up and use a combination of random encounters, a game map, a narrative map, _and_ winging it - which is what most DMs are doing after they've been on the job for a couple of years.




Yes. And many DMs don't need the assistance of the CR system to plan out their combats, but I would suggest that few of them begrudge its existence. Likewise, some will not need the assistance of the skill challenge guidelines to adjudicate noncombat challenges in a way that keeps their players entertained and involved, nor to give them a fair shake at success while keeping the threat of failure real and imminent.



			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> All of which is really quite reutine.  In a typical city escape challenge, you have some rough idea of the physical layout of the city and the hazards of escaping it (are thier natural obstacles?, is it on an island?, is it walled?, does it have regular patrols?, does it have streets or canals?, how big is it?, how deep within the city are the players?, what section of the city are they in?, etc.)  You have some idea of the demographics of your campaign and the city in particular (what level are typical guards in my campaign world?, what races inhabit the city?, what resouces do the pursuers have?).  So you respond to the PC's propositions and set the challenge according to what they do.   If they want to flee, well then you improvise a chase scene, possibily with a couple prepared (or at least preimagined) chase scenarios.  If they want to fight, well then you improvise some combat.  If they want to talk, then you improvise that.  Perhaps they end up doing a bit of everything.




Yes. A set of guidelines that assists you in adjudicating overall success and failure is complementary to this, not antithetical.



			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> The only problem with it is that it makes a lousy system for handling a tournament encounter because it doesn't communicate to the end GM user exactly how you wanted the encounter to play out.  It's too abstract.  It leaves too much up to GM judgement.  It is not going to be played out consistantly between groups.
> 
> Enter the skill challenge system.




The skill challenge system still leaves a lot to GM judgment, and will almost certainly play out differently between groups.


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## Storm-Bringer (Apr 18, 2008)

Storminator said:
			
		

> Please post everything like this from now on. Much, much better.
> 
> PS



So, there's you, Hong...  We need one more for a chorus, if you want to keep the running commentary on me rather than the topic.


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## beverson (Apr 18, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> So, there's you, Hong...  We need one more for a chorus, if you want to keep the running commentary on me rather than the topic.




At the risk of getting bounced by the mods, I'd like to say that I wish both you AND Hong would stop wasting our time and space in this thread with your petty threadcrapping and take it elsewhere.

In my opinion, any guidelines provided for adjudicating skill challenges is helpful for inexperienced GM's, and I am very excited to get the chance to read the book when it finally comes out.


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## Storminator (Apr 18, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> So, there's you, Hong...  We need one more for a chorus, if you want to keep the running commentary on me rather than the topic.




If you would just stop posting drivel that adds nothing, I would stop pointing out that you're doing it.

PS


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## Crosswind (Apr 18, 2008)

I think we're coming to agreement here, Lacyon.  If you view the Skill Challenge mechanic as a guideline for DMs as to what sort of DCs they could set, and the mean percentage of success they might expect, it's fine as a helper tool for DMs who had trouble doing this on their own.

If you view it as a set of ironclad rules, it sort of sucks.  Since 4.0 has tended to put things down more as guidelines than rules, your interpretation is hopefully the right one!

-Cross


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## Majoru Oakheart (Apr 18, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> This part makes no sense to me.



What about it makes no sense to you?  My job as a DM is to make the players have fun.  I do that by narrating an interesting story and letting them take part in it.

If the players have fun escaping from a city since they can imagine the chase scene in their heads and it is exciting and interesting then I have done my job.

I can do that in a number of ways.  Some of which take a lot more work than others.

One way is to map out an entire city, writing down the location of important landmarks.  I can then figure out(based on the population and the political, economic and sociological situation in this city) how many guards there would be in the city and how many of them would be on duty.  Then figure out where they would be based on the time of day and run the situation round by round as I track the movement rates of all the guards in the city.  This should probably take me a good couple of days to map out correctly pre-session and would likely slow the game down to a crawl during the session as I have difficulty figuring out the actions of 50 guards at the same time.

The other way is to abstract the situation with mechanics.  I understand that I want it to be fairly easy for the PCs to escape from the city.  So, I let it come down to a couple of die rolls how everything works out.  If the PCs make, let's say, 4 successes before they get 2 failures then they get out.  This requires about 5 minutes of prep time(or not even that much as I can probably open the book to the correct page and pick the difficulty and mechanics in about 10 second, so I can do it on the fly).  During the game its quick and easy since I'm concentrating more on using my imagination to come up with interesting description than I am in tracking movement rates.

However, from the players' point of view they get close to the same experience from both.  In both cases they have it described to them that there are guards after them and they need to escape.  In both cases they use their skills in order to get away.  They both have the tension and uncertainty of being caught.  However one of the ways saved me 100% of my prep time.


			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> So, you never used the previous system, but are certain this one is better?



They aren't the same thing at all.  The 3rd edition system just said "Sometimes your players will do stuff that isn't combat and you'll want to give them XP for it.  You shouldn't give them too much and about the same as one monster is probably good.  You may not want to give it out, though as there isn't any risk involved in non-combat situations."

I didn't use them because they weren't really mechanics.  They were an afterthought at best that said "Oh, and instead of monsters, some DMs might want to do non-combat things."

Skill Challenges are much more of an actual system.  One that balances difficulty of succeeding with the amount of XP given out in a quantifiable way.  They are modular so that when you are writing a mod you can easily say "The PCs attempt this skill challenge, if they fail, then they fight this encounter.  Both give the same amount of XP.  This way if the group decides to solve it the non-violent way they get the same XP as if they had fought the encounter."


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## Jack99 (Apr 18, 2008)

Mustrum Ridcully said:
			
		

> Hmm. Storm-Bringer reminds me of someone.
> 
> So, Storm-Bringer, what do you think about Dragons without spells?




+



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Ja postcount-herausgefordert ein, ist das, was ich sagte.
> Nur durch jene Willen, zu den absurden Längen zu extrapolieren.
> Ja ist das auch, was ich sagte.
> Genau. Die Spieler, die Würfel rollen, um das Problem zu lösen, selbstverständlich.
> Das ist das Wesentliche des Vermeidens Pixel-meckernd. Gut annehmend können wir einigSEIN über, was das Pixel-Meckern ist. Vermutlich ist es nicht postcount.




I think you are on to something MusRid, or maybe it is just a German thing..


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## Lacyon (Apr 18, 2008)

Crosswind said:
			
		

> I think we're coming to agreement here, Lacyon.  If you view the Skill Challenge mechanic as a guideline for DMs as to what sort of DCs they could set, and the mean percentage of success they might expect, it's fine as a helper tool for DMs who had trouble doing this on their own.
> 
> If you view it as a set of ironclad rules, it sort of sucks.  Since 4.0 has tended to put things down more as guidelines than rules, your interpretation is hopefully the right one!




   the existence of rule 0 means that you only ever really get guidelines anyway*. And I know that I for one am really going to get a lot of mileage out of the guidelines (assuming any level of detail), for a lot of reasons.

*It's not really a new thing that 'rules' published in the DMG are phrased as guidelines, while those published in the PHB are phrased as rules. This is likely due to the idea that while campaign worlds and specifics of encounters will and should vary a lot from game to game, players need to have a solid default reference for character-building fundamental action resolution within the game


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## Majoru Oakheart (Apr 18, 2008)

Ugh, this entire thread annoys me mostly because it is based on so many wrong assumptions.  None of which I can clarify due to my NDA.  I think I'll go back to hiding.


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## Storm-Bringer (Apr 18, 2008)

Majoru Oakheart said:
			
		

> If the players have fun escaping from a city since they can imagine the chase scene in their heads and it is exciting and interesting then I have done my job.



Technically, in this example, the DM hasn't done anything, really.  I don't see how assigning some numbers to a mini-game makes it easier for players to 'imagine'.



> They aren't the same thing at all.  The 3rd edition system just said "Sometimes your players will do stuff that isn't combat and you'll want to give them XP for it.  You shouldn't give them too much and about the same as one monster is probably good.  You may not want to give it out, though as there isn't any risk involved in non-combat situations."
> 
> I didn't use them because they weren't really mechanics.  They were an afterthought at best that said "Oh, and instead of monsters, some DMs might want to do non-combat things."



There were charts.  And guidelines.



> Skill Challenges are much more of an actual system.  One that balances difficulty of succeeding with the amount of XP given out in a quantifiable way.  They are modular so that when you are writing a mod you can easily say "The PCs attempt this skill challenge, if they fail, then they fight this encounter.  Both give the same amount of XP.  This way if the group decides to solve it the non-violent way they get the same XP as if they had fought the encounter."



It is a system inherently divorced from the skills.  On it's own, a Climb Rope check tells me how far a character climbs up a 30' rope, or if they slip back or fall.  Within a skill challenge, that same 30' rope is climbed with a single check.  The skill has different meanings based on its context.

Even discounting the fact that the number of players who write published modules is vanishingly small (in other words, the modular argument is irrelevant), earning XP for defeating monsters without killing them has been around since...  I dunno... 1st edition?  BECMI, maybe?

If you have the rules in your hands, surely you can come up with some better, non-NDA breaking arguments.


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## Storm-Bringer (Apr 18, 2008)

beverson said:
			
		

> At the risk of getting bounced by the mods, I'd like to say that I wish both you AND Hong would stop wasting our time and space in this thread with your petty threadcrapping and take it elsewhere.



You are absolutely correct, and I apologize for my part.



> In my opinion, any guidelines provided for adjudicating skill challenges is helpful for inexperienced GM's, and I am very excited to get the chance to read the book when it finally comes out.



I am all for guidelines.  My contention is that this codified system isn't going to help because of its flawed implementation.


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## D'karr (Apr 18, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> If you have the rules in your hands, surely you can come up with some better, non-NDA breaking arguments.




Why should he?  It is obvious that you're biased without even seeing the rules.  So why should he bother?  Your argument continues to be the same, even though others that have played the game tell you differently.  So the best thing to do is not continue the argument, it is tiring.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Apr 18, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Technically, in this example, the DM hasn't done anything, really.  I don't see how assigning some numbers to a mini-game makes it easier for players to 'imagine'.



Sure, the DM has to come up with the idea that there will be a skill challenge in the first place, figure out what it will be about, figure out what skills will be appropriate, figure out the DCs, narrate the action, and make spot rulings on skill uses.

It isn't easy, trust me.  I stumbled over running skill challenges the couple of times I've ran them so far.  And that's mainly because I had to change my way of thinking dramatically in order to run them properly.  You need to be really quick on your feet and good at improvising.  None of which I claim to be good at.  It's just a very different skill set than simply interpreting the rules as physics and letting things fall as they may.  However, done correctly, it can be a very satisfying experience.


			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> There were charts.  And guidelines.



You must be reading a different book than I was.  Although the non-combat XP rewards section went on for about a page, it didn't say that much.  It had no charts of its own.  It said to use the XP from the combat table.  It pretty much just said "The default method is to just give out XP for combat.  IF you want to give out XP for non-combat stuff, you shouldn't give more XP than one monster would give and you should keep in mind that the PCs are now lacking the treasure they would have gotten from killing that monster, so you'll have to make it up somehow.  And don't give out XP for non-combat stuff too often."

It never told you what type of non-combat things you should give XP out for and which ones shouldn't be worth XP.  It didn't say how hard they should be.  It didn't say whether to give out XP for one skill roll or a combination of 20 or 30.  Should I give out XP for completing a quest that takes one session?  What about 10 sessions?

There was just too much it didn't say.  And what it did say was a lot of "be careful giving out XP for non-combat".  I took the easy route and simply don't.


			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> It is a system inherently divorced from the skills.  On it's own, a Climb Rope check tells me how far a character climbs up a 30' rope, or if they slip back or fall.  Within a skill challenge, that same 30' rope is climbed with a single check.  The skill has different meanings based on its context.



Yes, you are right.  That's what I like about it.  It means that skills are flexible enough to either be run in "simulation mode", where you make a roll to climb every 10 feet(or whatever), figure out exactly when people fall, and the like.  Or they can be run rather fast and loose and in a much more narrative fashion in order to just answer questions.  You get to pick based on the pacing you are looking for in the situation.

Making a roll for every 10 feet creates a rather slow, deliberate, and precise pacing.  It creates a very different feeling than "You succeed in your climb check, you scramble up the wall as fast as you can, reaching the roof and immediately start running again across the rooftops.  The guards who are following you start searching for an easier way to get up than the way you took."

I like being able to use fast pacing for fast scenes and slow pacing for slow scenes.


			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Even discounting the fact that the number of players who write published modules is vanishingly small (in other words, the modular argument is irrelevant), earning XP for defeating monsters without killing them has been around since...  I dunno... 1st edition?  BECMI, maybe?



I'm not talking about published modules, per se.  I write my own games the same way I write published modules as I take my cues from them.  Plus, being a Living Greyhawk Triad member and a Living Forgotten Realms Regional Administrator does often make me think of things in terms of our writer's guidelines as well as ease of use for DMs.  Since I know what we write and publish will be run by hundreds of different people all of whom have different ideas of roleplaying and how it should work.  Plus, we have to follow the rules exactly.

However, I don't mean defeating monsters without killing them.  I don't give out XP for every creature the PCs don't kill in the whole world.  I'm talking about using diverging storylines in order to give players an alternate to ever encountering a monster.

For instance, the PCs need to find out some information about where an artifact is located.  They know that there in a man in town who has a map that leads directly to it.  However, the man refuses to give it to them or let them see it.  Now, they could solve this situation by using a researching Skill Challenge at the library in order to track down all the information and build their own map.  They might be able to use a Skill Challenge in order to distract the man while someone else sneaks inside and steals the map.  Or they might simply attack the man and take the map when he was dead.

I wouldn't normally give out XP for having walked to the guys house and not killing him.  Technically, going to the library and reading some books isn't defeating him either, so it doesn't deserve XP in 3e.  However, with the skill challenge system, the rules actually support giving out XP for the research because it was a skill challenge with a good chance of failure and consequences for failure(in this case it might be that the artifact is found by someone else since it takes them too long to research).


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## pemerton (Apr 19, 2008)

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> There are no rules for 'role-playing', there are only rules for 'game'.
> 
> Your role-playing, despite your protestations to the contrary, were never impinged upon by the rules.  They may have been damaged by a bad DM, but the rules had nothing to do with it.  Hence, you can't fix it with the rules.  If you want to tell a story about your Rogue climbing up a wall before, during, or after you roll his Climb Rope skill, have at it.  I may have failed to notice it, but I am pretty sure nothing in the PHB, DMG, or any other book for any edition has a section that says 'tell the players to shut up while they are rolling skill checks'.



Except that the players have no authority to specify the consequences of a successful check. Under a skill challenge they do.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> What is left is discussions regarding mechanics.  If you can show how the skill challenge system does things so radically better and different than was done previously, I will reconsider my opinion.  But, to be quite honest, I don't give a crap about the role-playing any particular group does or does not engage in.



What is your measure for "better", if the sort of roleplaying that the mechanics support is irrelevant to you?



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> If your group picks up the dice twice per session, but spends the rest of the time weaving stories about what is happening, _great_.  I am totally jazzed, and have fun.  That has nothing to do with the mechanics.



You seem to be confusing "roleplaying" with "talking", as if, therefore, there is no roleplaying aspect to combat. That is not the only notion of "roleplaying", and probably not the most important one.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Narrative arguments are useless, because rules don't affect the narrative.  Rules have never confined how a player describes their character's actions.



Do you have any familiarity with RPGs such as HeroWars, The Dying Earth or other narrativist systems? Or even with games like RQ and RM, compared to D&D. Rules have a huge impact on how player's describe their character's actions: for example, the combat rules in RQ tell a player whether or not they can describe their blow as a strike to the foe's head, but in D&D they do not; and in HeroWars the player can narrate such matters as hit location in response to their success or failure in the skill contest (in some ways not unlike D&D), whereas in RQ the dice dictate the narration.

In short, mechanics have a huge impact on what can be narrrated.


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