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4 years ago ::
Jan 15, 2009 - 10:41PM
#21
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It is no surprise that what I described can be framed as a skill challenge. The basic scenario is ripped out of core 1-1. However, I have yet to see a skill challenge go down that way, and I don't expect that I ever will. Here is why:
Planning is about overcoming an obstacle as a team. ... .
Skill challenges, on the other hand, are about achieving X successes before Y failures. ...
Planning requires coming up with a plan that will work for everyone in your party and interacting with the world in a way that facilitates the plan. ....
Skill challenges, on the other hand require coming up with a rational excuse to use a skill that someone in your party is good at six or twelve times. ....
I agree with many of your points and this, to me, expresses the key failure of most skill challenges.
The level of abstraction is to complete and too removed from the adventure (and often, as written, the players goal is non-obvious).
I am starting to feel as if the real point of the skill challenge is not to "'have a non-combat encounter in which everyone participates" - you can already do that and it's called Role Playing. If it is logical for a skill to influence the outcome, the skill can influence the outcome whether it is wrapped in a skill challenge or not.
Rather, I suspect that the real purpose of a skill challenge is to codify and provide a framework for turning roleplaying into an encounter (and thus to allow it to be formally rewarded with experience).
To put this another way, it seems as if there are two different types of skill challenges. In the 'natural' skill challenge, it is relatively clear how the players actions lead to their eventual success - each step in the path moves them closer to their success. In the ideal case, the final (skill challenge winning) success coincides with players reaching their goal. In the 'abstract' skill challenge, the players look for various ways to use their skills but the connection between each of these success (or failures) is not obviously connected to the final success or failure of the skill challenge.
The former of these (the 'natural' skill challenge) do not need the skill challenge mechanism to work: They work just fine as roleplaying encounters without needing the success/failure formula overlay - the formalization into a skill challenge only serves to determine the experience earned. To relate this to the earlier posts - the players in this case have made and executed a plan and their success or failure is dependant upon the plan and how well they rolled and less on the skill challenge formula. These are also the ones that, in my experience, have players walking away saying "That was a great skill challenge, to bad more of them aren't like that".
The latter of these (the 'abstract' skill challenges) are the problem. Rather than working together to solve a specific problem, the players are trying to find ways to justify the use of their particular skills to address parts of the environment. The connection between the different players actions and the eventual success/failure of the skill challenge is non-obvious at best (and sometimes non-existant) and if you take away the skill challenge formula, you end up with a series of disconnected skill checks. And yes, this could be argued as disproving my statement that the skill challenge formula serves no purpose but to create an encounter/reward system but I don't see it that way - rather I see it as a litmus test. If the skill challenge doesn't hold together as a roleplaying encounter without the skill challenge overlay (i.e. if it is disconnected rolls rather than a plan coming together) it is flawed and perhaps shouldn't be used as a skill challenge in the first place.
In brief: 1) Role playing encounters should not be abstracted to the point where there is no connection between the results of the character's actions and their eventual success (and encounters that are that abstracted feel forced, flat and unsatisfying to most players). 2) If there is an apparent connection between the results of the character's actions and their eventual success, the Skill Challenge Overlay is not necessary for the determination of the eventual (in-game) outcome of the character's actions. 3) If the Skill Challenge Overlay is not necessary to determine the eventual outcome of the character's actions, it's only remaning role is to determine the rewards for that success (i.e. to provide a way to reward players for successfully solving the initial challenge).
and finally:
An alternate approach: Design the encounter as you would if it were a Skill Challenge, but present it as an obstacle/goal in the game world to the players and resolve their attempts to overcome the problem, basing their eventual success on whether or not they have overcome the challenge. And yes, in some cases, this may be a sequence of obstacles (as in a chase) or a single task (as in a diplomatic negotiation). Then, behind the scenes or in plain sight, track the number of successes and failures on the way to that success - all the while making it clear to the players that no number of failures or successes will lead to an endrun short circuit to a final success for the characters - only the character's actions can do that. (In other words, the skill challenge becomes a metagame concept used to determine the players' reward but the players' relative success at the skill challenge has no effect on the characters - their success or failure depends on the results of their actions not the abstract Skill Challenge).
And then take those successes and failures and use that to retroactively determine what complexity of skill challenge they succeeded at. If they only had 4 successes before hitting that third failure, they get experience as if it were a complexity one skill challenge while if they reached 10 successes before getting that third failure they might be rewarded as if it were a complexity 4 skill challenge (with some preset maximum complexity for those cases where they overcame the challenge without ever reaching those three failures).
The reduces the Skill Challenge Overlay into nothing more than a bookkeeping mechanism to be used to determine the reward for the Roleplaying encounter while doing away with the disconnect between the results of the players actiuons and their eventual success (or failure).
Carl
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4 years ago ::
Jan 15, 2009 - 11:29PM
#22
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Date Joined:
Apr 30, 2007
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Personally I say a good rule of thumb is that you go around the table asking how people will help the situation. No one is allowed to pass twice in a row and no one is allowed to assist without explaining how they want to contribute. I think the majority of bonuses should come from good roleplaying and creativity.
I don't think dice rolling for skill checks should ever take the place of creativity and speaking in character.
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4 years ago ::
Jan 16, 2009 - 8:17AM
#23
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Date Joined:
Dec 16, 2005
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Personally I say a good rule of thumb is that you go around the table asking how people will help the situation. No one is allowed to pass twice in a row and no one is allowed to assist without explaining how they want to contribute. I think the majority of bonuses should come from good roleplaying and creativity.
I don't think dice rolling for skill checks should ever take the place of creativity and speaking in character.
The problem with any of the "no-one is allowed to pass X times" and "Aid other is highly discouraged" ideas is that they are highly unfair to the PCs given the current mathematical structure of skill challenges. If you have to get 12 successes before 3 failures, then even with an 80% chance of success on every roll you make (which is pretty darn good for skill checks that are not using Aid Other), you will only succeed a little more than 50% of the time. Now, let's imagine that, due to the DM's perverse desire to make sure that everyone participates--even those who know perfectly well that their participation in any non-Aid Other fashion is only like to result in failure for the group--you add a few rolls with a 40% success rate. Now your odds of success are significantly below 50%.
The current rules explicitly allow Aid Other and explicitly allow passing because the probabilities of the skill challenge mechanism do not work out without those kludges. In the RPGA, the various bonuses from reward cards and especially the "That'll Do" card disguise the mathematical weakness of the approach you advocate, but try it on a high complexity skill challenge with people who don't have cards and it'll fall apart faster than wonderbread in water.
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4 years ago ::
Jan 16, 2009 - 8:29AM
#24
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Date Joined:
Dec 16, 2005
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That may be your answer, but I suspect it might not be the answer all your players would prefer. That said, if you are so filled with bitterness over skill challenges, then your answer may be the best your players are going to get. If you can't run a fun skill challenge, then that's just the way it is. Like I say, I struggle with a number of mechanics, doesn't mean that mean I let the players get worry about my hang ups.
That's the answer that I prefer as a player. In my local area, a lot of judges (fortunately) don't bother with skill challenges--just give people the xp and roleplay through the situation. Unfortunately, some DMs still insist on running through skill challenges so I roll with it as best I can and try to avoid rolling my eyes too much.
I haven't DMed a whole lot but the last time I did, I ran the skill challenge in stealth mode--having the PCs react to the situation, recording successes and failures, and telling them after the fact. I am a bit concerned about adopting this approach in the future, however, because while skill challenges in general are hard to fail if you adopt the appropriate strategies (never roll anything that you are not trained in--and if you can help it, never roll anything that does not also use one of your strong stats as well; otherwise Aid Other; and make sure to get some Aid Others regardless), they are very easy to fail if you just have one or two players rolling checks with skills that they are not good at. If I run the skill challenge in stealth mode, it is likely that the players will not adopt appropriate strategies and statistically, they will fail far more often than they ought to. So, if I run in stealth mode, the players are likely to have fun, but I can't justly give them a failure unless they completely botch it. On the other hand, I have yet to meet a player who enjoys playing skill challenges out of the book. At best, people gamely give it a try.
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4 years ago ::
Jan 16, 2009 - 8:54AM
#25
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Date Joined:
Aug 19, 2007
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So, if I run in stealth mode, the players are likely to have fun, but I can't justly give them a failure unless they completely botch it. On the other hand, I have yet to meet a player who enjoys playing skill challenges out of the book. At best, people gamely give it a try.
I think what you call stealth mode is what the designers typically think of how you're supposed to run skill challenges. When they succeed, you give positive feedback, when they start to fail, you give negative.
Perhaps if you had the players write on a notecard what their 4 highest skills are or skills which are greater than (level/2)+6, then when people are roleplaying, you ask the people with the skills to make the rolls.
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4 years ago ::
Jan 16, 2009 - 10:15AM
#26
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Perhaps if you had the players write on a notecard what their 4 highest skills are or skills which are greater than (level/2)+6, then when people are roleplaying, you ask the people with the skills to make the rolls.
To what end?
And I mean by that, not 'how can you make the best of being forced into dealing with skill challenges' but rather 'do skill challenges help the game'?
If the goal is to get by the guards and climb over the wall for the party, how should this run in a purely roleplayed sense? Let's go through this and see if it would fit in with the skill challenge framework (not, mind you, if we could make the framework fit or vice versa).
Also a question regarding how you run these challenges: if the role-played goals for the challenge were met already but the number of successes had yet to be reached, what do you do? Likewise if the result of a failed challenge is, say dramatic, how do you handle the final failure not really supporting that?
And lastly, what about skill challenges is helpful beyond a bare sense of things? How does tracking numbers of 'successes' vs 'failures' help here?
-James
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4 years ago ::
Jan 16, 2009 - 10:27AM
#27
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Date Joined:
Aug 19, 2007
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To what end?
And I mean by that, not 'how can you make the best of being forced into dealing with skill challenges' but rather 'do skill challenges help the game'?
I'm not sure what the point of the question is - skill challenges are part of the game and will continue to be part of LFR. There are lots of different ways to run them - some are fun, some are not.
Elder Basilisk has a way he likes to run them that the players enjoy, but he feels as if he has to dump the rules to do it. But he doesn't. You can roleplay your actions and have the best players roll their skill checks - no matter how well you might roleplaying ideas about how to overcome the skill challenge, maybe you still fail anyway. Same thing happens all the time in combat - you do the right tactics, but the monsters get the combo of luck and good tactics and overwhelm you.
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4 years ago ::
Jan 16, 2009 - 12:51PM
#28
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Date Joined:
Apr 30, 2007
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The problem with any of the "no-one is allowed to pass X times" and "Aid other is highly discouraged" ideas is that they are highly unfair to the PCs given the current mathematical structure of skill challenges. If you have to get 12 successes before 3 failures
well actualy, you'll almost always see 12 sucesses before 6 failures, which means the lucky number players need to roll is 8s. So if the skill checks are about DC 15 (for first level), and the player is trained with an average stat of 14, then they will get a +7 and need an 8 or better.
If the party needs to roll 8s for a skill challenge, then they will have about a 50/50 of succeeding the challenge. The party can "even their odds" by either being creative, or by using skills above +7 (which every party has).
By the "rules as written" you can have everyone pass while the one paladin with +11 diplomacy makes all the checks and the rest of the party roll to assist.
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4 years ago ::
Jan 16, 2009 - 3:42PM
#29
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Date Joined:
Jan 26, 2005
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well actualy, you'll almost always see 12 sucesses before 6 failures, which means the lucky number players need to roll is 8s. So if the skill checks are about DC 15 (for first level), and the player is trained with an average stat of 14, then they will get a +7 and need an 8 or better.
If the party needs to roll 8s for a skill challenge, then they will have about a 50/50 of succeeding the challenge. The party can "even their odds" by either being creative, or by using skills above +7 (which every party has).
By the "rules as written" you can have everyone pass while the one paladin with +11 diplomacy makes all the checks and the rest of the party roll to assist.
Errata makes this 3.
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4 years ago ::
Jan 16, 2009 - 7:09PM
#30
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Date Joined:
Dec 16, 2005
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Well, the point of this question is whether or not skill challenges are a success. If they are, then we can run, dance for joy and use them prodigiously. If they are not, then, as writers or as judges, we should stop using them. They can keep skill challenges in the DMG, but they aren't making us put them in modules. They can put skill challenges in modules, but they can't make us run them. (And in fact, DM Empowerment could be seen as permission to throw them under the bus and back up a few times--I generally have not done this mostly because I am not sold on DM Empowerment to the extent that some others are). My general feeling (if it wasn't clear already) is that, in their original form and as currently errated, they are a complete and utter failure (that cannot and should not be redeemed). I have a few ways of dealing with them and I am not happy with any of them. The mechanic rewards and supports tactics that are 180 degrees from the role-playing situations that they are meant to model and actively punishes the tactics that the situations would normally call for in the absence of the skill challenge mechanic. I only know of one location in my neck of the woods where DMs will typically run them as written. (And since I DM there on occasion, it's not exactly unanimous). At the other two major LFR play hubs in the area, it is typical to see them ignored entirely, run in stealth mode, or run with major house rules that dramatically change the math of the challenge. Now, they are a part of 4th edition, yes. On the other hand, that does not mean that they will necessarily continue to be a major part of LFR. I hope that as more people get over the honeymoon period of 4e and have more experience with skill challenges, their utter failure will be recognized and module writers will quietly stop putting them in modules--or will start modifying the mechanic and come up with encounters that are labeled skill challenges but which no longer reflect the basic 4e skill challenge mechanics. (The maze encounter in the recent LFR core special is an example of this. It is treated as a skill challenge for the purpose of XP, but it deviates significantly from the standard skill challenge mechanic by allowing an unlimited number of failures with set consequences for each failure). And if word of this filters up to the top, we may mercifully see skill challenges removed from 5th edition or heavily modified and relegated to a sidebar like Weapon vs. Armor type was in 2nd edition. Bad ideas do not have to be eternal.
I'm not sure what the point of the question is - skill challenges are part of the game and will continue to be part of LFR. There are lots of different ways to run them - some are fun, some are not.
Elder Basilisk has a way he likes to run them that the players enjoy, but he feels as if he has to dump the rules to do it. But he doesn't. You can roleplay your actions and have the best players roll their skill checks - no matter how well you might roleplaying ideas about how to overcome the skill challenge, maybe you still fail anyway. Same thing happens all the time in combat - you do the right tactics, but the monsters get the combo of luck and good tactics and overwhelm you.
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