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Courtesy of the Skill Challenge Request Line — Eric, this is for you!
Scenario: Kobolds have kidnapped a group of children from the village the PCs are currently in. The players must gather information to find out who did it, and find their way to the location in order to rescue the children before the kobolds can sacrifice them to a dragon.
Complexity: 3 ( eight successes before three failures)
Encounter: PC level -1
Goal: Gather information to find the location of the kobold’s hideout. Failure means that the PCs are unable to find the lair that day. They can try again the next day. If they have successfully completed “Gathering Information” the challenge becomes a complexity 1 challenge (four failures before three successes) and focuses solely on the “Searching the Forest” phase of the challenge.
Skills Used:
The players will use skills in two phases. The first is gathering sufficient information from the villagers and the second is traveling to the location in the forest where the kobolds are at.
Gathering information (four successes will allow the players to move to the next phase, searching the forest)
Diplomacy (easy DC, maximum two successes):
1: The villagers don’t know much, but they know that they miss their children and when they wen missing. They were out in the fields…
2: Someone does report that they thought they saw more children than normal playing for a while…
Intimidate (moderate DC, maximum one success): One child who is still in the village seems to know something. After concern for his friends seems not enough, you scare him a little bit to get him to reveal his information. He saw some creatures that look like small dragon-people. The child didn’t want to confess because he was afraid they might come after him if he told someone.
History (easy DC):
1: This area has not seen too many hard times, but goblins and kobolds can always be a menace.
2: Goblins haven’t been seen around this area for some time…
Nature (moderate DC, maximum two successes):
1: Examining the tracks in the field, and near some of the houses, fairly small creatures kidnapped these children.
2: The creatures are most likely kobolds judging by the tracks.
Insight (easy DC): Kobolds are most likely to commit this sort of act, and there are only a few places they are known to inhabit…
Searching the forest (four successes will allow the players to find the kobolds’ lair)
Perception (easy DC, maximum three successes): The kobolds are not as good at hiding their tracks as they are at making them.
Insight (moderate DC, maximum two successes): The kobold tribe is most likely worshipping some sort of dragon. There are a few places where the dragon
Nature (easy DC, maximum two successes): You understanding of the forest and the terrains helps guide the party to where they should and should not look.
Athletics (hard DC): Climbing up to a advantageous spot high among the trees grants a good view of the terrain. Grants one extra success.
Similar Posts:
- How to Design a Skill Challenge Part 4: Sequencing
- Skill Challenges #6: Move the Crowd
- Skill Challenges #4: The Better Part of Valor
A Jack of All Trades ,or if you prefer, an extreme example of multi-classing, Gamefiend, a.k.a Quinn Murphy has been discussing, playing and designing games straight out of the womb. He is the owner and Editor-in-Chief of this site in addition to being an aspiring game designer. As you would assume, he is a huge fan of 4e.
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Cool! Thanks!
Your series of articles got me thinking a lot about skill challenges.
My latest thoughts are here: http://eric.maziade.com/post/2008/11/19/Understanding-skill-challenges
Loving it – keep it up!
I still get the nagging feeling that Skill Challenges can be done through roleplaying, without rolling one die.
I can’t seem to grasp the concept well enough to try to run one. I had a post about it on my blog recently…
Why couldn’t this first scenario in the village be roleplayed, to take a break from rolling die?
Not that I am questioning your designs, they seem like finely put together SC’s, I question the concept in general…
@eric –thanks! lots more to come. BTW I agree 100% with everything you posted on your site.
@newbiedm –welcome! You can of course take any action you want outside of combat without the use of dice. But mechanics don’t stop you from roleplaying the scene out either. Personally I find the structure helps players roleplay more. It seems silly, but in my experience with Dming PCs can get lost when they have every option in front of them. Structuring a scene and narrowing the scope gives PCs less options but more opportunity to be creative within the scope that they have.
Take my descriptive blurbs as suggestions, but replace them with your own narration. There is no reason (in fact, I do this constantly) that you can’t “zoom in” on a particular check and expand it with roleplay. Say a character uses Diplomacy around town to find some information. He succeeds, and as GM you describe the success:
“Most of the townsfolk are either unwilling to speak with a stranger. Durgen, the local blacksmith however, seems all too willing to talk…about everything.”
Here you assume the role of Durgen, and roleplay the scene with the character who made the check. You already know the PC gets the info, but you expand on how he gets the info.
The other half of the equations is getting the players to understand that skills are not nearly as important to SCs as their actions are.
If a player has the ritual “find children” for instance, if they cast it they can end the whole skill challenge right there. alternatively, a player who decides to bribe some of the townfolk might get them to open up much easier. Neither of these actions are skills, but they count towards the challenge that they face.
Even when using their skills, you don’t have to let the players off the hook with descriptions. Going back to Diplomacy, you could let a player do this:
“I search around town and try to get information out of the villagers. 15 on the Diplomacy check.”
This can work, but what about:
“I’m looking for someone in the village with information.”
“Where would you start?”
“The mothers have some information, I bet. They don’t seem to want to talk to me, but they will when I remind them of their children.”
(in the guise of a mother) “My babies! Who would take them from me?”
“That’s why I need your help, milady…”
This goes to the last part of getting SCs off the ground –player ownership. As DM, you have to explain to the PCs that the “scenery” is theirs to play with as well. You have veto power, but you want to steer towards letting things exist that a player states exist. If players can set scenes, you’re given hooks as a DM to step into them and roleplay them out with player as you feel is necessary and/or cool.
Hope that helps explain it a little better.
Thanks for visiting!
@admin: your reply should be a stand alone post!
@newbiedm: This skill challenge is actually a “skill challenigification” of a scene I did twice with “conventional” role playing.
You can read about it here: http://eric.maziade.com/post/2008/11/12/Roleplaying-and-skill-challenges
I find that Skill Challenges are hard to understand as a concept… As described in the DMG they seem to be anti-role playing.
Think of it more as a draft of how to use skills in an encounter with an NPC or a situation.
Instead of following a stricter script you get to use skill challenges to help you determine which way the interaction go.
I like to think of it as:
- as a rough structure to help you flesh out encounter
- a tool to allow the PCs skills (and not the players’) determine how NPCs react.
Hey awesome articles, keep up the good work.
I’m starting to view physical skill challenges as a framework for setting the rules for a scene and social skill challenges as being based upon the NPCs disposition towards the PCs.
It also feels like a skill challenge should have multiple minor or major quests (goals?) involved. The choices made during the challenge determines which quests/goals are pursued and the rewards and outcomes for successes, as well as the penalties and consequences for failing.
I have an idea that I’m gonna try out during my next game. I’m going to try to run an entire session using just skill challenges, and encounters. I’m gonna set the scene of course, and allow exploration. But as far as planning goes, I am going to frame each scene within a skill challenge, and encounters where it is appropriate. The other part of the idea is to not let my players know of my plans, and also to not constantly announce a skill challenge. Instead I’m going to set the scene, using the skill challenge as the framework, and then let the player’s decide what they want to do.
Each scene could involve multiple skill challenges depending on the scene and I’ll hopefully be able to track all of the successes, and failures for each challenge as we go along. Some challenges they might be aware of, some might be dangers they have yet to perceive. But whenever they have successfully completed or failed a skill challenge I simply describe the outcome and reward any XP gained. If it’s a fail then I of course still describe the outcome but with less XP. If excellent roleplaying is involved I’ll let the player’s know that it contributed to some bonus XP.
If a player has the ritual “find children” for instance, if they cast it they can end the whole skill challenge right there.
Please tell me that’s not a real ritual, because I am very afraid that it would be clerics of Orcus who would find the most use for it.
Also, just like combat works better with dice than roleplaying (“I hit it with my sword. I aim for his armpit. Will you let that description work, DM?”) stuff like “I climb a tree” works better if you can actually fail than if just saying you did it makes it so.