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Intro to all reading:
Okay, this issue arose in another thread, and the other poster (Scott Betts) suggested that it be made into a new thread here rather than continue to hijack the thread elsewhere, so....
Short version: In my experience with 4E (before I stopped playing it), skill challenges, in RAW for 4E, were one of the biggest hindrances to/diminishers of good role-playing (IMO/YMMV, 4E RAI may have had 'skill challenges' with the idea that they would be helpful for role-playing). Scott Betts has given his view, that "Skill Challenges" do not necessarily interfere with good role-playing, but has noted that "skill challenges" are not so easy to run well (this thread is intended for real discussion of the issue, not edition wars or flame-fests :) ).
Scott--
Here's the thread, because I would appreciate it if you'd elaborate on what you were saying over on that other thread.
(to all again):
Here's copies of the relevant posts from that other thread:
That's not true. The biggest example is, of course, the skill challenge system, which is the most robust non-combat challenge resolution support that D&D has ever been given.
The one problem I do have with your post and defense of 4E this time, is this statement you've made.Unfortunately, experience in playing 4E showed me that the "skill challenge system" by the 4E RAW is detrimental to role=playing, since it makes non-combat resolution just like combat-- pick a skill, roll the dice, assess the result; continue with each character contributing one skill or another, until the conditions for success or failure have been met. As written, it doesn't lend itself to good PC/NPC role-playing interaction, but rather lends itself to rolling dice and some semblance of tactics (in choosing the best skills to apply, from among the group and from each character who can reasonably contribute).
Not saying 4E isn't a role-playing game, but this particular system within the game was one of the things that IMO took away, not added to, role-playing, when they explicitly wrote up the rules for applying skill challenges to social situations.
I didn't cite skill challenges as an example of something that added to the roleplaying aspect of the game. I cited them as an example of support for a theater of action that the game provided that was separate from the tactical combat theater.
Skill challenges are not easy to run well. They are, in my experience, the soundest test of some of the most important DM traits.
Remember, the skill challenge system is not a substitute for the roleplaying that you typically do in D&D. Rather, it is a framework that allows you, as the DM, to adjudicate the party's success or failure at a group effort by using the results of their skill checks. It is designed to be tacked onto the roleplaying portions of the game (and other portions of the game, too!) and when done best the players may not even realize they've been in a skill challenge.
I'd be happy to dive deeper into skill challenges, but not in this thread. If anyone wants to discuss them, just start a thread in the 4e subforum and I'll pop in.
Anything where you roll instead of describing your action can seem detrimental to roleplaying. There are two ways to go about it, replace roleplaying with rolls, or allow the roleplaying and the rolls to synthesize to resolve conflict.
Take combat for example, many people miss the opportunity for roleplaying within combat because there are so many rules and many people feel that it would be unfair to allow someone bonuses because it would "unbalance" the game or cause "favoring". What ends up happening is that in many games combat becomes a series of "I do [x]", "enemy does [y]" in order to keep from describing an action that would be ruled illegal. It doesn't stop the roleplaying from happening, but it constrains it greatly.
Social conflicts not being as covered by the rules in most games means that it allows more freedom which encourages roleplay but it also allows for more interpretation which can lead to either abuse or uselessness. 4E tried to do to social conflicts what it tried to do with combat, make it more fair and streamlined.
I'm not a fan of 4E, but I at least understand why they did it. Any time rules, it's to put roleplay in check to attempt order and fairness.
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Now, I'm not Scott, but still a big fan of 4E (currently converting/running Carrion Crown), and I think that as written Skill Challenges are difficult to implement. Now, I think the reason for such, is that they didn't present effectively when they introduced the system how to run it beyond how the mechanics worked.
To best hide the mechanics, I use it the same way I try to encourage quiet players. I set the scene, bringing up whatever obstacle they face, and then ask each in turn if they are doing anything, and if so, what. When they say what they intend to do, I have them roll whichever skill they chose, and apply it behind the scenes to what I have set up.
As far as they are concerned, they decided to use a skill, and I spin story as to what it did or didn't do. It harkens back to the older methods of not knowing the exact numbers you needed to succeed, as they are behind the screen.
I don't know if it arose from lack of trust in GMs or a sense of entitlement in players, but there seems to be a definite feeling that everyone needs to know the numbers involved. Maybe it works for me, because all the people I play with know I'm a rules lawyer, and will always follow the book by RAW. They don't worry if I'm just using fiat to determine success or failure. I think that the rise, though, in transparency of the rules caused many to use skill challenges purely mechanically, instead of seeing it as the cogs of the machine that no one needs to see to see the machine work. Preventing them from focusing on the outer aesthetics of the machine instead.
Finn, I don't see how you can argue that the skill challenge system isn't more robust than simply rolling a sufficiently high Diplomacy check to resolve social encounters. While skill challenges can be a bit of a mixed bag, they are definitely a good start.
As folks have said previously, skill challenges are most effective when the players aren't aware they're happening. Any skill based encounter becomes unarguably more interesting as a series of rolls rather than a single roll. It's a great tool in the DMs box for injecting some excitement and suspense into what were, previously, mundane and unexciting skill checks.
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Now, I'm not Scott, but still a big fan of 4E (currently converting/running Carrion Crown), and I think that as written Skill Challenges are difficult to implement. Now, I think the reason for such, is that they didn't present effectively when they introduced the system how to run it beyond how the mechanics worked.
Seems like the way it was written up and presented is a major part of the problem, and you have at least a few good solutions for it. However-- particularly when it applies to social interactions in the game-- do you make success or failure just about the die rolls, or do you at least change the DCs a bit to reward creative ideas and effective lines of conversation from the players?
The problem I saw in 4E, with skill challenges specifically as being a hindrance to role-playing, was that (at least in the 4E games I played, with the GMs running them) skill challenges were being used purely mechanically, and the "pick a skill/roll, did you hit your DC?" was reducing character interaction down to basic computer-game choices: did you pick the best skill for adding successes and hopefully minimizing the chance of failure, out of the options on your character sheet?
I never thought it had to be done that way, but I am concerned with whether that's what RAW in 4E encourages, or is it written/presented to encourage a different style in application, and some GMs are just being boneheads? BTW-- at that, relying on the mechanics of skill-rolls IMO works much better for skills where you're doing something concrete, say, stealth = are you moving quietly enough?, disable device = did you disarm the trap or did it go off in your face?, perception = did you see the trap before you stepped on it?-- than it does for social interactions and open-ended thinking problems. Also, having tasks that require more than one success to succeed-- complicated traps and devices, long climbs, etc-- is not new to 4E, but I don't see a problem with that in 4E or any other system.
Finn, I don't see how you can argue that the skill challenge system isn't more robust than simply rolling a sufficiently high Diplomacy check to resolve social encounters. While skill challenges can be a bit of a mixed bag, they are definitely a good start.
Heh. I'm not arguing that the skill challenge isn't more robust. So that I won't have to repeat myself in the same post, see my response to Aardvark Barbarian, immediately above.
And, if all someone does to resolve a social encounter is roll a diplomacy check-- no role-playing, no "what are you saying?/what's your approach, where are you trying to go with this conversation?", I'd consider it equally (if not more) detrimental to role-playing, regardless of whether it's 3.5, PF, 4E or any other system.
The usual use of Diplomacy, Bluff, Etc, skills in the PF games I'm in now, is to determine how smoothly or believably you're able to express yourself (since most of us are not, in RL, the 'gods and goddesses of all social graces' that some of the 'face' characters supposedly are), but the intent, basic content, etc., is still entirely up to the player, so success or failure still has a great deal to do with the player's role-playing and what the player actually decides to say. And actually, that may not be RAW in PF, but IMO it's still RAI and it works for us.
I think the bane and boon of 4E is all wrapped up in one issue. The crunch. It was simplified allowing for the rules to take a backseat, the problem is that they over-simplified some things (skills I'm looking at you). All the books had nice clean clear crunch, but because it had only the crunch, people adopted the idea that it discouraged the fluff.
It was only crunch, because that's all you need the rules for. Rules are to adjudicate any disagreements, thats what the rulebooks are for, the minimal fluff allowed the players/GM at each table to interject their own fluff however they saw fit. Or to put it in your words, I think too many people were being boneheads. Too many were expecting the rules (by example of previous editions) to tell them the "mechanics" to role-play (alignment, fluff, spell descriptions)
To move on to answering your question about bonuses for creativity, it is the same as I would for any previous edition, in that it's up to the individual player's preference. If they want to dress up their mechanics with choice dialogue, colorful descriptions of their actions, or IC speech, then they get no more than the players that don't feel comfortable doing so. I don't give bonuses, because then I get people that fake being IC just for the benefits, and fail to adopt the enjoyment of it seeing it as a task to get rewards. I try to encourage it instead, by speaking IC, etc.. and as soon as they are comfortable with it they will or wont in their own time. I try to teach RP by example, vice mechanics.
As a side note, I changed the way I run Skill Challenges, mainly to make it not decided by number of rolls (success or fail), but by a total level of accomplishment.
The goal will be a point total based on the easy DC x the # of PC's (So the target total of a lvl 1 skill in a skill challenge will be 48, DC 8 x 6 players).
The result of the roll will add directly to the total (when the prime skill is used), the result minus the difference between a med and easy will add to the total (when the secondary skill is used), and the result minus the difference between a hard and easy when a tertiary is used.
In play it will look like this - Level 1 challenge, 6 PC's, Goal 48 pts
My description of situation, the path comes to a river crossing with a description
PC1 uses Athletics to swim (total 13)
PC2 uses Nature to know how to cross safely (total 17)
PC3 uses Perception to find a path (total 7)
PC4 uses Athletics to swim (total 4)
PC5 uses Endurance to deal with rushing water (total 10)
PC6 uses Athletics to swim (total 18)
Prime Ath (DC 8), so roll taken as is (so 35)
2nd Nature (DC 12), so the roll -4 (so 13)
3rd Perc (DC 19), so the roll -11 (so -4)
non-related Endu, so no point value applied
So the crossing would have been a success if the perception guy hadn't found a false path that made him fall in, or the endurance guy hadn't needed to be helped across by the swimmers when he didn't make any progress.
In this case the party ends up cold, wet, and tired, a good distance down the bank. I would probably say they each lose a surge from the ordeal.
First, individual rolls to accomplish a single outcome, is not a skill challenge. The rogue using theivery to open a lock or disable a trap is not a group effort and more people trying to work on it really could just make it harder.
Second, it is not for one thing that can be summed up in one roll, or to quote the DMG pg 72 sidebar "It's not a skill challenge every time you call for a skill check. When an obstacle only takes one roll to resolve, it's not a challenge. One Diplomacy check to haggle with the merchant, one Athletics check to climb out of the pit trap, one Religion check to figure out whose sacred tome contains the parable - none of these constitutes a skill challenge."
Third, it is to consolidate what would normally be multiple checks of various types by most of the group to overcome something that the whole group needs to succeed at as a group.
So if I were to run the river crossing by multiple skill checks, individually, I might have each one of you roll a perception to find the best path, and an Acrobatics or Athletics check (or both) to cross the slippery rocks and or the flowing water. At a 90' crossing, moving at half speed for both those checks, it would be 6 checks for movement, and 1 more for the perception, plus maybe an additional based on the results of any one of those failing. So in looking at the possibility of 42 or more checks for the group to overcome the obstacle, I instead provide the 3 skills I would have used as options, and each player rolls one of them one time. This equates to the whole group using their talents together to make it through/past an obstacle/hazard.
Since the group can not advance as a group unless all participants succeed, then whether they get across individually or not, they will need to work as a team to get everyone across successfully.
Therefore, I use group checks to represent teamwork being used to accomplish something that the whole team needs to do, to ensure that as a team they are successful.
It's no different than being the healer. Yes you could survive and get by just healing yourself. If you add your powers to the group, then everyone has a better chance of surviving. You didn't have to share/use your success with them for you to succeed, but for the team to succeed you do.
I think I rambled at the end there.
So here's the thing:
Skill challenges, run well, shouldn't add much more rolling of dice to the game than if you weren't using skill challenges.
Let's imagine a scenario that I've seen in both 3.5 and 4e games - escaping from a collapsing cavern.
Now (bearing in mind that I'm not railing against 3.5 here, but merely pointing out that 4e has a skill challenge system whereas 3.5 does not), in 3.5 the best rules framework the DM has to work with for handling this escape is the tactical rules. 4e, on the other hand, has the skill challenge framework.
In this situation, the tactical rules probably aren't ideal. After all, the cavern/cave system might be large enough that, for instance, drawing the entire thing out on a battle mat might not be feasible. It might also involve a lot of fiddly rules, like climbing, jumping, balancing, movement over difficult terrain, and so on. That's a lot of rules to keep track of, and turns what should be a high-energy escape into a drawn-out event.
With a skill challenge system, you don't need to resort to tactical-level detail. Everything is abstracted. Paizo actually did something very similar to this in the Curse of the Crimson Throne adventure path with a chase scene, and later turned that system into the Gamemastery Chase Cards Deck.
Of course, there still remains the issue of roleplaying. But, remember, you're tacking the skill challenge framework onto whatever you would have already been doing. If you're involved in the diplomatic roundtable to swear fealty to a new High King, you're going to be roleplaying in 3.5, and you're going to be roleplaying in 4e. The difference is that those Diplomacy, Intimidate, Bluff, History, Streetwise, and other skill checks are going to be super easy for the DM to not only set up, but also to adjudicate in terms of their impact on the overall negotiations. If the party accumulates enough successful rolls, their aggregate actions have come together to create a favorable outcome. If they accumulate enough failures, the DM knows when their missteps have had such an impact that the whole negotiation devolves into bickering.
Skill challenges really are a DM's tool. You don't have to guess at how hard to make the challenge for the PCs, because the skill challenge framework provides you with appropriate DCs and number of checks. It also encourages you to plan for how a number of skills will impact the challenge, and gives advice for incorporating improvised skill checks. The PCs don't need to know any of this to participate. You can run the event normally, and ask them to make skill checks at natural points during the event, secretly tabulating the results behind the screen. Even when the skills interact with one another, you can say something like, "Conan manages to distract the Prince just as you are about to inadvertently insult his mother, allowing you to reroll that botched Diplomacy check." No mention of skill challenges, or number of successes and failures. In fact, it probably would look to an outside observer like any such event run in 3.5. The difference lies behind the screen, with the DM safe in the knowledge that he's providing an appropriate challenge to the PCs.
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About the only thing I've adapted from 4e to Pathfinder is the Skill Challenge. My method is different though. I use Cumulative Checks to represent a longform challenge.
Here's an example I used recently in Kingmaker so players could climb a Mountain:
Scaling A Mountain CR 8
Cumulative DC 400
Primary Skill: Climb
Secondary Skills Climb, Survival, Knowledge (Nature), Acrobatics, Fly
Special: Any ability that grants flight adds its spell level to the check.
Check Intervals Once every 4 hours.
Random Encounter Chance: 10% Cumulative
DC Tiers/ Fixed Encounters Encounters:
0: Cave Bear (CR 8). DC 10
100: Cold Weather. Mephits on a Cliff Face (CR 8) DC 20
200: Heavy Snow (penalties to Climb) DC 25
300: Yetis! (CR 8) - Climb DC 30
400: Roc Nest (CR 11)
Notes: Random Encounters are rolled after each check. There is only 1 primary check roller. Secondary skills can be used to Aid Another.
I've used this same mechanic for mazes, and I'll be using it for infiltrating a foreign city. Should be fun.
Yeah, isn't the standard 3.0/PF way just a simplified Skill Challenge requiring 1 success with no failures?
Pretty much. Except for one thing... The math in a single trial is simple and works. The math for skill challenges in 4e as of the first DMG is borked. Turning a situation into a skill challenge by those rules generally makes them MUCH harder to accomplish. When the germ of the skill challenge system appeared in 3e as complex skill checks, the math challenge was identified. That identification was lost in translating it to 4e, an unusual opaque spot compared to 4e's general trend toward transparency.
If you really want a good skill challenge system for complex tasks, check out Star Wars Saga Edition's Galaxy of Intrigue. It's based on the 4e system and includes a lot more options and texture as well as better examples.
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To move on to answering your question about bonuses for creativity, it is the same as I would for any previous edition, in that it's up to the individual player's preference. If they want to dress up their mechanics with choice dialogue, colorful descriptions of their actions, or IC speech, then they get no more than the players that don't feel comfortable doing so. I don't give bonuses, because then I get people that fake being IC just for the benefits, and fail to adopt the enjoyment of it seeing it as a task to get rewards. I try to encourage it instead, by speaking IC, etc.. and as soon as they are comfortable with it they will or wont in their own time. I try to teach RP by example, vice mechanics.As a side note, I changed the way I run Skill Challenges, mainly to make it not decided by number of rolls (success or fail), but by a total level of accomplishment.
** spoiler omitted **...
If I'm reading your example correctly-- I don't think your way of doing things alters or helps my concerns with 4E skill challenges at all. In the first place-- yes, it's nice that you encourage people to speak in role-playing terms, but you're up front and honest in saying that role-playing in character is utterly meaningless as far as determining what the results will be. Mechanics still determine everything, and clever play gets you nowhere, according to your own statement.
In the second place, it appears that no matter what the player describes, it still comes down to the player correctly determining a useful skill from your pre-chosen list and making his/her skill roll-- as opposed to describing in more-or-less character terms what his/her character is trying to do, and then cooperatively determining with you what skill best represents the character's intended action. Seems like the guy who thought of using endurance should have been advised that it's not applicable and/or been told to roll something else for the actual skill effect, if the character using "endurance" was actually trying to wade across the stream-- say, "acrobatics" or "athletics" to keep his balance and forge ahead, since those skills better represent what the character was doing. Likewise, the character using "perception" shouldn't have had that as his/her final result, since the "perception" result may describe which course the character is trying to use to cross the stream... but that still IMO requires using a different skill to actually cross the stream (probably athletics to start swimming once he/she falls in after choosing the wrong path).
Bottom line-- to me, this still seems like something that hinders role-playing more than it helps, in the way you describe it in play. Of course, that's my impression-- I do not claim to have "one true way of gaming", so (obviously) this post is IMO & YMMV.
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So here's the thing:
Skill challenges, run well, shouldn't add much more rolling of dice to the game than if you weren't using skill challenges.
<Stuff cut for space, since quoted post is still in close proximity>
Skill challenges really are a DM's tool. You don't have to guess at how hard to make the challenge for the PCs, because the skill challenge framework provides you with appropriate DCs and number of checks. It also encourages you to plan for how a number of skills will impact the challenge, and gives advice for incorporating improvised skill checks. The PCs don't need to know any of this to participate. You can run the event normally, and ask them to make skill checks at natural points during the event, secretly tabulating the results behind the screen. Even when the skills interact with one another, you can say something like, "Conan manages to distract the Prince just as you are about to inadvertently insult his mother, allowing you to reroll that botched Diplomacy check." No mention of skill challenges, or number of successes and failures. In fact, it probably would look to an outside observer like any such event run in 3.5. The difference lies behind the screen, with the DM safe in the knowledge that he's providing an appropriate challenge to the PCs.
Scott--
With due respect to Aardvark Barbarian, his method doesn't work for me. This looks a lot better-- presuming that the way you run such things, how the players are role-playing, and how creative they are does have an impact on the game (i.e., what they're trying to do, how they describe it and such, does have an effect on the DCs or if the DCs don't change, at least the players' ideas may result in a positive or negative modifier for their rolls). I don't like the "the DC determined as applicable for each skill remains the same no matter how the PC is trying to use the skill" method that AB describes.Also, since you mention 'improvised skill rolls' within this frame-work-- I think it's a better, rather than worse, system, if you're willing to contemplate the use of skills that you didn't plan for in advance, if the player's explanation of what his/her character is trying to do sounds like it ought to help but also sounds like a different skill than one of the ones you'd planned for. Likewise, I'm presuming that, since you're having the players role-play, and then calling for skill rolls as applicable during the role-playing, you're either deciding yourself, or working with the players to some extent, to decide what skill they're using-- rather than leaving it up to the characters to hopefully pick the right skill for your secret "challenge" sheet-- seems like characters don't see the world in such discrete skills and are shouldn't be so likely to try to do something that doesn't apply to their circumstances at all, as the players may do when choosing discretely separated game-mechanics skills off of the character sheet. I think this does work, if you're as flexible about that as your post seems to indicate.
And, unfortunately, none of the people who GM'ed 4E games that I played in ran skill challenges like this-- I might have enjoyed the 4E games a little more than I did if they had.
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I didn't like Skill Challenges in Iron Hroes, and I definitely don't like what I'm hearing about 4E. I have people make rolls only when there's a sticky situation. Just having a skill is enough for 99% of tasks, especially in 3.5, where a lot of DCs are 5 or 10. Skill challenges seem like a needless added complication to what should be a strictly roleplaying situation.
If that's crunch, give me gooey nougat. :)
Jerry--
I definitely agree with you on this point-- in pretty much any game system. If you're supposed to be competent at a skill... then routine tasks really shouldn't be a problem calling for a roll every time you're doing something.
I'm no 4E expert, but I have definitely taken skill challenges across to pathfinder (the odd time I run it). I have a few opinions about it:
Firstly, I think it's generally a poor mechanic for social encounters. Early on WoTC gave lots of social skill challenge examples and I think that really colored people's perception of them. (there was an early instalment of the scales of war AP, for example, where you perform a skill challenge to "negotiate your fee" with the town mayor - the trouble being you know he wants something, so what happens at the end of a failed skill challenge if you just shrug and refuse to do it unless he pays you more? Either the DM is forced to overrule you on the grounds that "you've done all that in the skill challenge. Let's move on" or the whole thing becomes a somewhat vacuous waste of time - lots of die rolls you can choose to ignore are lots of die rolls not worth making, in my view). The binary nature of the mechanic doesn't model something as complex as a social encounter, in my view.
Secondly, I'm pretty sure that the rules do intend for you to adjust the DC based on player inventiveness. Certainly, if there's a skill challenge you've written up where a player gives you a way of utilizing some skill you'd never considered, you are encouraged to allow their use. When I think about skill challenges, I make a point of setting DCs for the "obvious" choices of skill, some better than others - if a player were to make a rousing speech in character, I'd definitely give them a +2 on the diplomacy check (or potentially just declare it a success - I have no problem rewarding roleplaying in that way). Similarly, if a player produces a brilliant and inventive way to use a skill, I will probably make it a lower DC than I may have initially set.
To me, the advantage of skill challenges is not where the players have lots to say and lots of creative skill uses planned. It's when they are uninterested and/or uninspired by the scene. Admittedly, that's probably my fault, but it is nonetheless a structure ready and waiting to skip through a scene in a meaningful way, still involving the party. (you ever set up a "non-combat encounter" which is crucial to the story but which your players don't care about? Having a skill challenge to fall back on is useful there, IMO. Although, as I said, the need for that is probably a function of poor storytelling more than anything else. I'm not too proud to admit I sometimes need to use it though. ;)
One of the 4E gurus (maybe Jeremy Macdonald?) had a good thread about this once. He suggested a skill challenge was a good way to introduce a story element which you wanted to feature, but didn't want to bog down in tactical tedium - from memory the example given was a city under siege, where players might direct defenses, control crowds, help defend buildings, evacuate innocents and so forth - leaving the round by round tactical approach to combats with breaching invaders.
Scott--
With due respect to Aardvark Barbarian, his method doesn't work for me. This looks a lot better-- presuming that the way you run such things, how the players are role-playing, and how creative they are does have an impact on the game (i.e., what they're trying to do, how they describe it and such, does have an effect on the DCs or if the DCs don't change, at least the players' ideas may result in a positive or negative modifier for their rolls). I don't like the "the DC determined as applicable for each skill remains the same no matter how the PC is trying to use the skill" method that AB describes.
I'm actually a big fan of keeping the DC the same (the difficulty being inherent to the challenge) and then providing bonuses or penalties to the PC's roll depending on the circumstances of their action. For instance, if the PCs are negotiating at the diplomatic roundtable mentioned above and want to use Intimidate on the Duke to make him back down, that will have a set DC, and anyone who tries to Intimidate the Duke will have to meet it. But if one of the PCs knows about the Duke's illegitimate son's involvement in the local rebellion, hinting at the exposure of that secret might grant the PC a bonus for that specific check. Similarly, if the Duke knows one of the PC's dirty secrets, they might receive a penalty. Bonuses and penalties accomplish a few things - they encourage you, as DM, to keep difficulties consistent; they allow you to determine difficulty during prep time, and only require that you assign some modifiers on the fly; and they help make the checks feel unique to each PC, without feeling arbitrary.
Also, since you mention 'improvised skill rolls' within this frame-work-- I think it's a better, rather than worse, system, if you're willing to contemplate the use of skills that you didn't plan for in advance, if the player's explanation of what his/her character is trying to do sounds like it ought to help but also sounds like a different skill than one of the ones you'd planned for. Likewise, I'm presuming that, since you're having the players role-play, and then calling for skill rolls as applicable during the role-playing, you're either deciding yourself, or working with the players to some extent, to decide what skill they're using-- rather than leaving it up to the characters to hopefully pick the right skill for your secret "challenge" sheet-- seems like characters don't see the world in such discrete skills and are shouldn't be so likely to try to do something that doesn't apply to their circumstances at all, as the players may do when choosing discretely separated game-mechanics skills off of the character sheet. I think this does work, if you're as flexible about that as your post seems to indicate.
As far as requiring roleplay goes, I typically don't - or, rather, I don't hold my players up to some arbitrary gold standard of what is good roleplaying and what isn't. If a player says, "I want to intimidate the Duke," I'll ask them how they want to do it, but I'll go along with any response they give. I don't want players who are less comfortable roleplaying to feel marginalized, so as long as they give me something, I'm happy.
Within the context of a skill challenge, then, I try to adapt to the player in question and how they respond. If it's clear that they're pushing for the chance to roll a check, I'll let them get right to it after they let me know what they're doing. If it's clear that they want to engage in a dialogue and then roll checks as appropriate to the conversation as it progresses, then I'll play along with that, too. The skill challenge system allows me to do this, and still have a solid grasp of the party's shared progress in the overall challenge.
And, unfortunately, none of the people who GM'ed 4E games that I played in ran skill challenges like this-- I might have enjoyed the 4E games a little more than I did if they had.
Again, skill challenges are not easy. Few things in D&D come naturally. Combat, for instance, is an arcane procedure to someone who has never played D&D before - full of dice and movement and unfamiliar terms. For a first-time group, it can seem clunky and full of unnecessary bits and pieces, whereas an experienced group is able to appreciate the complexity it brings. Skill challenges are similar, except they suffer from the added hurdle of being new to D&D as a whole - combat's been around forever, but skill challenges are a whole new spin on non-combat events. I'm sure they seemed clunky to everyone at first, because you don't just start out being good at running skill challenges as a DM, just like you don't start out as an awesome DM the first time you run a D&D game. It takes practice, and the only way to practice is to subject a group of your friends to your awkward trial and error. Once you get the hang of it, though, it can be folded into the flow of the game naturally, even moreso than combat is.
Skill challenge doesn't have anything with role-play anymore than a simple skill check. It's merely a way to attach experience reward to a certain number of skill checks and to have some orientational knowledge how difficult it will be for PCs to pass.
You can always describe a steep cliff to the PCs and ask what they'll do. Most of them will probably try to climb, so you'll descriribe how they are scaling up and how far they have gotten. One of them may come up with a nature check to find a goat path and you approve and allow them to scale further or say that they'll get a bonus, but they'll need to search to find some (perception). Someone comes up with pitons, hammer and climbing equipment to ease the task.
You are playing a skill challenge, but with a lot of descriptions. You don't inform your players about that and they can try getting through by sheer determination rolling climb only and helping each other, or comming up with different solutions to roll other things than climb. Skill challenge mechanic underneath just tells you that after a certain number of successes you can reward the players with completed task and XP and after certain number of failures you can for example tell them that th suffered some scratches (some minor hp damage) or that theay are fatigued (condition or that they have to spend a healing surge).
Roughly determining the consequences and number of checks allows you to attach the description to some formal frame without drawing a map, usually the GM does it the other way - first drawing a map and then letting the PCs to interact with it, this is just a reversal of the same thing with formal reward attached so that everything sits well withing encounter building frame (so that the PCs get a proper share of XP and treasure for a proper number of fights and skill checks).
RP is still RP you either describe your actions or you don't and then you roll play. Skill challenge doesn't really have anything to do with that, although it can be more focused on story than on a map and thus eases improvisation as nothing is really set in stone.
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I'm actually a big fan of keeping the DC the same (the difficulty being inherent to the challenge) and then providing bonuses or penalties to the PC's roll depending on the circumstances of their action. For instance, if the PCs are negotiating at the diplomatic roundtable mentioned above and want to use Intimidate on the Duke to make him back down, that will have a set DC, and anyone who tries to Intimidate the Duke will have to meet it. But if one of the PCs knows about the Duke's illegitimate son's involvement in the local rebellion, hinting at the exposure of that secret might grant the PC a bonus for that specific check. Similarly, if the Duke knows one of the PC's dirty secrets, they might receive a penalty. Bonuses and penalties accomplish a few things - they encourage you, as DM, to keep difficulties consistent; they allow you to determine difficulty during prep time, and only require that you assign some modifiers on the fly; and they help make the checks feel unique to each PC, without feeling arbitrary.
Providing bonuses or penalties rather than altering the DC itself works for me... still gives means for the player's imagination, creativity, and good role-playing to have an impact.
As far as requiring roleplay goes, I typically don't - or, rather, I don't hold my players up to some arbitrary gold standard of what is good roleplaying and what isn't. If a player says, "I want to intimidate the Duke," I'll ask them how they want to do it, but I'll go along with any response they give. I don't want players who are less comfortable roleplaying to feel marginalized, so as long as they give me something, I'm happy.
Generally this works for me as well-- with the caveat, that I go more with the "not holding players up to some arbitrary gold standard". IMO, players should be required to at least try to throw in a bit of role-playing, but yes, I'd accept it if they give me something, rather than penalize or marginalize those who aren't so good at it (but I'm not going to give extra bonuses towards making your DC for that; while I might give someone a bonus just for outstanding role-playing-- I do like to encourage that, and don't feel that giving a little more for really good role-playing is unduly penalizing those still learning to do more than 'bare-bones expression of intent').
Heh. While usually it isn't planned out nearly as much in advance-- this now sounds much like the way my group runs complicated non-combat encounters in 3.5 and PF.
Am I missing something or is there really no difference between changing the DC and giving bonuses or penalties? Seems to me it's mechanically the same.
The difference lies in who it affects. If you raise or lower a DC, then everyone attempting an activity is affected. If you provide a bonus or penalty, it only affects the roll of the individual that earned said bonus/penalty.
DCs is another part of the thing. The general table with DCs per level is to guess rough estimation of the difficulty of a task, but I wouldn't certainly change tie difficulty once set.
Easy DCs pose a challenge to untrained people, moderate to trained and hard should be for trained teams of professionals workig together to overcome the task. It could be a good idea to use level of the monsters/NPCs for orientation rather than PC level (they are the ones nuilding/maintaining the doors after all) and social interactions I'd rather roll as opposed checks or assigned dificulties according to priorities, but for NPC's level. It's important to keep DCs similar for similar tasks or to upgrade them so that the increased DCs are reflected somewhere. 1st level fighter might have problems staying afloat in armour with gear all over him, an experienced hero is probably swimming rather well even while pulling unconscious party member along.
Where else can a player see the improvement of his character than when tasks that used to be difficult before are getting easier and impossible gets within arms reach. The same goes for training. Dwarven thief, expert locksmith shouldn't be robbed of his spotlight at the adamantine gate of lich's vault by someone without proper training.
I aggree with Aardvark Barbarian. The question otherwise shouldn't be if the task should be easy for a rogue and moderate for anyone else, but rather whethwr the task is hard. The individual ease of accomplishment is then represented by the difference between DC and individual skill. A trained, skill focused, dexterous rogue will have easier time opening locks than clumsy armoured paladin without any aptitude for anything approaching shady undertakings.
Am I missing something or is there really no difference between changing the DC and giving bonuses or penalties? Seems to me it's mechanically the same.
Having a set DC and bonuses that alter it encourages the DM to be judicious with his final DCs. The difficulty of the challenge will remain static from PC to PC, while their ability to overcome that challenge will increase or decrease as circumstances dictate. The alternative is a DM without a set DC who assigns DCs on an arbitrary basis as the check arises. I find this creates a less consistent play experience. In addition, the inclusion of bonuses/penalties gives the player the ability to mechanically feel how his decisions impact his chances of success or failure, as long as you make the presence of those bonuses or penalties explicit.
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This reminds me of the one time I ran our group in 4th edition. We had played the 3.5 conversion of Tomb of Horrors, that was brutal.
So we thought "What better a chance to try 4th edition than with the same module we beat with only one death?"
An individual you don't really have a chance of persuading in 3.5, as they are extremely hostile, has a skill challenge attached to her in 4e. The players would not have known, so I had to inform them of the skill challenge. It was something like...they had to roll 5 diplomacy checks successfully to make her non-hostile.
The problem is, that she starts AS hostile and doesn't wait. So this person was smashing them up against the wall, trying to kill them, all while the cleric screams "WAIT, NICE LADY, WE WANT TO BE YOUR FRIEND. PLEASE BE OUR FRIEND."
There was NO way for my players to roleplay it. It was just so jarring. He asked if he could talk to her...she's set to immediately attack, so my answer had to be "No, but you CAN participate in this skill challenge..."
It turned out to be far worse for RP than I had even assumed it would be.
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There was NO way for my players to roleplay it. It was just so jarring. He asked if he could talk to her...she's set to immediately attack, so my answer had to be "No, but you CAN participate in this skill challenge..."
Eh? It seems like there was no way for your players to roleplay it because you didn't allow them to roleplay it.
Any reason the PCs couldn't do stuff like use Total Defense to hold off the NPC while they try to talk? Maybe one PC who could take a bit of punishment could have tried to Grab the NPC while the others stay out of reach?
Or worse case take the NPC down to zero Hit Points and state your are knocking them out rather than kill them, and then tie them up, wake them up with some healing and talk from a position of power?
An individual you don't really have a chance of persuading in 3.5, as they are extremely hostile, has a skill challenge attached to her in 4e. The players would not have known, so I had to inform them of the skill challenge. It was something like...they had to roll 5 diplomacy checks successfully to make her non-hostile.
The problem is, that she starts AS hostile and doesn't wait. So this person was smashing them up against the wall, trying to kill them, all while the cleric screams "WAIT, NICE LADY, WE WANT TO BE YOUR FRIEND. PLEASE BE OUR FRIEND."
There was NO way for my players to roleplay it. It was just so jarring. He asked if he could talk to her...she's set to immediately attack, so my answer had to be "No, but you CAN participate in this skill challenge..."
It turned out to be far worse for RP than I had even assumed it would be.
So what is the problem? Trying to negotiate with somebody while the rest of the party is trying to kill her is obviously futile -- but since she could be the only one acting hostile, going full defensive and attempting to negoatiate is a perfectly valid tactic, especially against a foe who could take down the entire party singlehandedly.
I ran a skill challenge on the fly this week for my 4E group and it's probably the first time I managed to pull one off and not feel like the whole process was awkward.
I chose a medium complexity framework (8 successes before 4 failures) and used the three DCs listed on the GM screen for 9th level challenges. I didn't give the players any instructions to start (I actually prefer not to call out certain skills, or even to let them know that they are in a skill challenge). When one of them was floundering, though, I said, "Think of it this way: come up with an interesting way of using one of your skills to solve this problem, and justify to me the reason you believe this skill is appropriate for use in this situation."
The situation was this: they had accepted a contract from an evil mage to recover his rival's phylactery - an ancient gnoll-made totem of extraordinary dark power. The mage insisted that he wanted to destroy the item, but the PCs didn't trust him to do it on his own. Plus, the phylactery was a statue made of solid gold, and they wanted some extra loot out of the deal. So they convinced the mage to come with them while they devised a method of melting the statue down - but they had to hurry, because the statue was obviously alarmed and the lich whose soul was contained within would soon arrive to defend his property.
I don't remember all of the rolls, but below are a few examples of the skills they chose to use; with each skill choice they made, I pushed the narrative action forward with an additional twist as needed.
This process involved first finding a blacksmith in the nearest city that was open in the middle of the night (Streetwise). The shaman then used his magical knowledge to aid the smith in getting his forge hot enough to melt the statue down (Arcana). Unfortunately, the statue's defenses kicked in and dominated the paladin; the ranger crept up behind the paladin and knocked her out with a sap before she could hurt anyone (Stealth). The warlock realized that gemstones mounted in the statue's head as eyes had a protective effect on the gold and pried them out (Thievery). As the statue continued to melt, its liquified remains animated and took on the form of an amorphous arm, lashing out at the PCs from the forge. The ranger tumbled through the golden arm's guard (Acrobatics) and distracted the hand while the warlock and shaman collaborated to devise a magical means of containing the thing (Arcana once again).
It was a tight skill challenge, with the final score being eight successes and three failures, but it was fun. And not once did I have to dictate to them what skills to use or make them feel like they were in a highly structured game construct. It was very freeform and easy to improvise once I had the DCs and success/fail ratio set up.
I've had skill challenges fall flat many times before, and I still maintain that they are very poorly presented both in the core rules and the modules that feature them - but the underlying framework the SC system provides is great once you learn to roll with it and worry less about the mechanics and more about whether everyone is having fun and feeling like their actions contribute to moving the scene forward.
Power Word Unzip, that was an amazing retelling of how fun Skill Challenges could be.
For my group, I ran one for them a while back and it worked out pretty well. They were on a ship and tracking down a vicious Hobgoblin pirate (Captain Gnash) and his infamous ship 'The Much Kill'. As they searched, they came upon one of the ships that flew his flag and so they went off in pursuit. So the Skill check has the same difficulty as yours (8 successes before 4 failures). I had the human Knight steer the rudder (Athletics check) while the dwarf fighter was 'Lookout' from the crow's nest to help keep thier course and maintain their proximity with the sunset to mask their approach (Perception check). The human assassin worked with the ropes, masts, and crew (Acrobatics check) while the eladrin kept an eye on the water current and used what Nature skills she had to help with weather patterns, thus knowing how to better use the sails and direction (Nature check).
A successful Skill Challenge rewarded them by getting into weapon and spell range with combat advantage AND able to board within 1 round without provoking Opportuinity Attacks. If they failed, but only by 1, then they wouldn't get the drop on them and it would be an even fight with both ships getting 1 round of attacks before boarding. If they failed by 2 or more then they really didn't know what they were doing, the other ship catches sight and they turn and get a few free founds of magic and catapults attack on the PCs ship.
As it happens, the PCs failed but only by 1 and it ended up being a fair fight though the PCs all lost 2 Healing Surges for all the frantic navigating and trying to do stuff they weren't really designed for (none of them had been on a boat let alone attempted to steer it).
But it was fun and they didn't even know they were in a SKill Challenge until I told them as they boarded the enemy ship, lol.
Nicely done yourself, Diffan. =]
It's interesting that D&D is often criticized by players of games such as nWoD and Unisystem for lacking in cinematic excitement. I can see why, because many people tend to run D&D (any edition of it, or Pathfinder for that matter) as grindy, tactical hash-outs. But the skill challenge system in 4E is actually a very good cinematic-style system for driving action forward and making for exciting story sequences without having to be overly concerned about rules. It doesn't matter, for instance, that the shaman and warlock in my party don't know a specific ritual that will disenchant a construct made of molten gold, or that Diffan's group ran PCs who didn't have experience being sailors - at least, no more than it mattered that Anakin Skywalker had never flown a real starfighter before hijacking one on Naboo in "The Phantom Menace" (though you could maintain that Artoo did all that work!).
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So what is the problem? Trying to negotiate with somebody while the rest of the party is trying to kill her is obviously futile -- but since she could be the only one acting hostile, going full defensive and attempting to negoatiate is a perfectly valid tactic, especially against a foe who could take down the entire party singlehandedly.
I have to disagree - and despite what was said above, I did allow them to roleplay. The problem is that in 3.5, the PC could have just made a single diplomacy check. If the check was good enough, I could have moved her from hostile to neutral and had her stop to consider, so perhaps there could be roleplay.
The way the skill challenge is set up, she goes from 'wanting to rip you in twain' hostile, to 'ooh, hey, you're kind of cool, you can go!' friendly. There is no in between. Why would you continue negotiating with a monster trying to murder you while it is trying to bash your face in?
Because of the skill challenge and how it is set up, the roleplay has no freedom.
So what is the problem? Trying to negotiate with somebody while the rest of the party is trying to kill her is obviously futile -- but since she could be the only one acting hostile, going full defensive and attempting to negoatiate is a perfectly valid tactic, especially against a foe who could take down the entire party singlehandedly.I have to disagree - and despite what was said above, I did allow them to roleplay. The problem is that in 3.5, the PC could have just made a single diplomacy check. If the check was good enough, I could have moved her from hostile to neutral and had her stop to consider, so perhaps there could be roleplay.
The way the skill challenge is set up, she goes from 'wanting to rip you in twain' hostile, to 'ooh, hey, you're kind of cool, you can go!' friendly. There is no in between. Why would you continue negotiating with a monster trying to murder you while it is trying to bash your face in?
Because of the skill challenge and how it is set up, the roleplay has no freedom.
Where was this skill challenge from?
Isn't the DM the one who says what will be the result? The one who says what will success look like and what failure will look like? Where's the lack of freedom? The skill challenges in DMG and DMG2 are examples. In modules they have to be set somehow, especially if they are in scenarios for organized gaming where the result has to be somewhat predictable, but that is not a problem that is integral to 4E, but to organized gaming in general.
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I have to disagree - and despite what was said above, I did allow them to roleplay. The problem is that in 3.5, the PC could have just made a single diplomacy check. If the check was good enough, I could have moved her from hostile to neutral and had her stop to consider, so perhaps there could be roleplay.
The way the skill challenge is set up, she goes from 'wanting to rip you in twain' hostile, to 'ooh, hey, you're kind of cool, you can go!' friendly. There is no in between. Why would you continue negotiating with a monster trying to murder you while it is trying to bash your face in?
Because of the skill challenge and how it is set up, the roleplay has no freedom.
I would be curious to read how the skill challenge was written up, but it seems like in a Skill Challenge the "in between" you are looking for would be when the party has achieved some successes toward the Skill Challenge, but not all of them.
E.g. for a Complexity 1 skill challenge (4 successes before 3 failures) maybe it goes as such:
GM: The hostile lady launches herself at Farg the fighter slashing with her clawed fingers <rolls, hits, rolls damage>. The claws bite deep even penetrating Tarvik's chain shirt and blood begins trickling out. "You will never release the Lich from his bondage while I live!" she spits.
Bob (playing Balfar the Bard): Balfar shouts out to the group "Don't hurt her she is not our enemy!" and then turning to the lady pleads "My lady, we are not your foes here today, our quarrel is with Lykor the Lich. Is he not your foe also?"
GM: Okay pretty good, make a Diplomacy check with a +2 bonus for mentioning Lykor as a common enemy. <Bob rolls, succeeds and the GM notes the success>
Fin (playing Farg the Fighter): "Damnit Bob, I don't think she will listen to reason. Still..." Farg attempts to Grab the woman so she can't get at the others < rolls & succeeds, this isn't part of the skill challenge but rather part of the combat that goes on alongside it>
Celia (playing Celessia the Cleric): Celessia will call out to the foe that she is a follower of the Raven Queen and as such could not at all be wishing to free Lykor, but rather seeks to undo his curse. Celessia will emphasise that by stating the tenets of the Raven Queen.
GM: Okay roll Religion <Celia rolls and succeeds, the GM notes a second success on the skill challenge>. The lady's expression turns from one of hate to one of puzzlement, perhaps uncertainty.
Bob: Yay, hopefully she is starting to realise we aren't her foes.
GM: "I cannot allow any to enter the lich's tomb, I swore to King Fazel that no one would pass."
And so the skill challenge and combat could continue. Maybe one of the players strikes at the lady thinking it best to knock her out and negotiate with her once she has been bound up - maybe that causes one skill challenge failure and the foe to struggle free of Farg's grasp and attack the others who go Total Defense.
Maybe Balfar uses History to remember that King Fazel was the ancestor of the Queen who dispatched the PCs on their mission and therefore whose command could overturn the lady's orders (scoring another success for the skill challenge) etc.
For me this sort of skill challenge in parallel with a combat would give a much more satisfying scene than it all resting on a single Diplomacy check that if failed would simply mean the PCs have little choice but to kill the foe ("sorry guys I rolled a 2, go ahead and kill her").
With a Skill Challenge - success or failure doesn't rest on a single die roll and the failure of one party member can still be made up for by other PCs making successes - all the while having the tension of some PCs having to try to contain the foe.
Its the sort of scene where if it were to be run in 3.5 I would likely use Complex Skill Checks (Ordinary Complexity requiring 4 successes before 3 failures) although with Complex Skill checks the rules don't technically allow for a mix of skills (all checks would need to be Diplomacy, whereas in 4e you can have the mix of Diplomacy, Religion, History, etc).