Deviance #13 – Sex and Dead Skill Challenges

Section 3 of the Skill Challenge series – dead skill challenges.  What do I mean by a dead skill challenge?  A dead skill challenge is one that does not create a feedback loop, a back-and-forth with the PCs.  I used to be a big proponent of the idea that a skill challenge should feel like and be run like a combat for this very reason.  I don’t feel quite so strongly about that anymore since not every skill challenge needs to involve NPCs or forces antagonistic to the PCs.   You can have “friendly” skill challenges, like..  L..  alright, I have a sort running metaphor and I promise I’ll keep this modest but hold on a second.  (BBC Warning).  Making love to your spouse is a skill challenge.  I don’t care who you are or who you married, it’s a skill challenge.  I think many of you would agree with me.  But it’s not openly hostile to you — unless you’re into that sort of thing I guess.  Point being, if your partner just lays there you’re not going have as much fun.  In the same way, if a skill challenge just “lays there” as it were, it’s not going to be much fun.  It needs to respond to the PCs and prompt a response from them.  I have three primary methods of making skill challenges feel alive and interactive to share with you today.

First off, narrate your player’s successes and failures along linear time.  If you’re using various techniques and such with your partner but there’s no excitement building towards a climax, someone’s going to end up frustrated.  Similarly if your players are making various skill checks but you don’t narrate the events as being related to one another and getting closer to (or further from) the goal, it’s going to break immersion very fast.  Remember that your PCs should be navigating a small scene from a beginning to an end when involved in a skill challenge.  The challenge needs to tell the entire story of the scene, not just the beginning and end. “The Rushing River”, pg. 94 of the DMG2 does a very good job of this, splitting up the challenge into a sequence of smaller location-based checks; the characters literally move from one place to the next with their checks, giving them a sense of progress.  Encounter 3: Preparation from LFR Module CORE1-3 “Sense of Wonder” on the other hand, does not do this well.  The narration provided does not connect any skill checks to any other skill checks, requiring the DM to make a coherent story of the ship’s repairs.

Second, there’s structure.  Sometimes a little direction in the bedroom goes a long way – “faster” “softer” “higher” help convey individual preferences to common practices that maximize enjoyment.  In a skill challenge,  forcing a couple skill rolls is an excellent way to convey flavor without restricting number or type of primary skills.  A long forest hike that requires half the group to pass an Endurance check every once in a while is going to give the same feel as if Endurance were a primary skill to passing the challenge.   More aggressive lovers might employ a “do unto you so you’ll do unto me” approach.  Mimic this by occasionally giving your skill challenges a roll of their own against the PC’s defenses or passive skills.  Avoid doing this often or  when your PCs are near their last failure, obviously, but if they’re just breezing through the challenge without really paying much attention, a quick hit in the collective Fortitude or Passive Acrobatics is going to make them sit up and take notice.   “Traveling through Gorgimrith,” pg 92 of DMG2 really takes this concept and runs with it.  Dictating ALL of the PCs skill rolls in this way can be a little too rigid and domineering, making the PCs feel railroaded, so you probably don’t want to build a challenge quite like this one.  The point of the game is to interact with other people, not just perform a set mechanical routine, but it’s a goldmine of ideas for forced rolls.

Finally – branching.  Branching means that are several ‘paths’ through the challenge that open and close based on decisions the characters make and which checks succeed or fail.  For example, if the character succeeds on a Stealth check to sneak towards the door, the character can continue on the road to infiltration with a Theivery check to pick the lock.  On a failure, he or she may have to use Bluff or Diplomacy instead to convince the guards that he’s supposed to be there in the first place.  You can also just hand the player the opportunity to choose which path to take to involve more r-o-l-e-playing vs. r-o-l-l-playing.   Unfortunately, I don’t have a sly, risque analogy for this one, so you’ll just have to make do.  Sorry.  On to the books,  DMG2 pg 98 “Moving Through Suderham” by Mike Mearls involves a TON of implicit branching and branching by purposeful choice.  In terms of pre-written challenges, this is the gold standard for branching.  Encounter 2: Sava from EAST1-2 “Marauder’s Spear” is also good and far less complex.

Next week – we are rounding third and heading home to the last segment of the series.  Complications and Mouseguarding.  Thanks for staying with it!