When It All Goes Wrong

OK. Fine. One more post about skill challenges and then I’m done. The reason for drilling a bit further into this topic is that there’s still a great deal of unease and confusion about how this game mechanic should work at the table, especially when the skill challenge unravels in a spectacular fashion. How should a DM respond when the challenge falls apart? How do we get back on script?

We don’t. And here’s why. Story always trumps mechanics.  Have you every run a combat and adjusted the monster’s hit points? Have you ever fudged a monster’s attack roll when you know one more hit would kill the player character? Have you ever skipped fights or handed out treasure that didn’t quite fit in the “parcel?” Of course you have. So why do so many DMs have problems bending and twisting skill challenges to fit the story?

The problem, in my opinion, is that skill challenges look like scripts, feel like scripts, and play like scripts. The skill challenge provides several different routes to get the prize and by describing those routes, there is an implicit suggestion that they are the only routes available. A skill challenge that explains how Arcana, Athletics, History, and Thievery can all be used suggests the other skills on the character sheets are somehow not available for use and thus don’t come into play. And so, the game play adopts a curious characteristic—players either spend their time aiding the one PC who’s trained in the skill or sit quietly (or not quietly) and wait for the challenge to end so they can do something interesting. I can’t tell you how badly I want to shriek when I see players sitting on their hands because they don’t have anything to do in a skill challenge or feel they don’t because they’re not trained in the right skills.

The whole point of the skill challenge is to test characters beyond class features and powers. Thus, opting not to participate out of some fear of accumulating three failures defeats the entire purpose. A skill challenge is just a framework for how to resolve a complication that doesn’t necessarily require attack rolls and power expenditures. It is not a script, but a suggested process by which characters can overcome the problem. Players shouldn’t be guessing what skill checks they should make. Players should be thinking about how their characters will overcome the problem.

In the example I gave last week, I presented a rough skill challenge that offered a few ways players could find the secret door and thus bypass the clay golem in the hallway. The skill selection I whipped up represented the most likely choices the players might make during the challenge. However, they were by no means the only ones. Another player might have thought to inspect the walls around the painting, to see if there were any architectural clues. I might have called for a Perception check or a Dungeoneering check and if the player succeeded, then I would have gladly given out a success to reward the player for engaging the game in a way I didn’t expect. Thinking on my feet, the Dungeoneering check might have revealed a strange seem around the painting’s edge or the existence of extra structural supports or something else that might hint at the passage beyond.

In fact, if a player can come up with a good story for how a skill (or ability) might apply, odds are I’m going to let the player make the attempt. Even Streetwise, my most hated 4e skill, could come into play—maybe one of the characters remembers sitting at a tavern, sucking down ales with a veteran of the battle depicted in the painting and thus know some detail about the painting is wrong.

And, here’s something that might cause people to break out in hives: I would even skip the die roll entirely if the player describes an action in such a way as to almost guarantee success. Say an adventuring party stomps through the dungeon and finds an idol with gems for eyes. A cunning player wonders if there’s something special about the eyes and reaches up to push on one of the gems.

According to the skill challenge, the players shouldn’t even get this clue unless they first succeed on a moderate Perception check. Do I ask for a check? Or do I just have the depressed gem open the secret door? The latter of course! Why in the world would you make the players go through the process of earning four successes when they have already figured out the solution to the problem?

Likewise, say there’s a ledge 20 feet above the floor and on the chest is an iron box that holds a magic sword. A strong fighter in the party decides he want to climb up to the ledge and see what’s there. I could ask for an Athletics check, but what’s gained? I would just let the fighter climb up the wall and find the damned box. Why? Because the wall isn’t an interesting challenge. The player will just make checks until he succeeds. The player will locate the chest and get the magic sword. Yet lots and lots of DMs call for Athletics checks to climb the wall, Perception checks to find the chest, Perception checks to inspect the chest, Athletics/Thievery to unlock the chest, and so on. But why? WHY? If you put a chest on a ledge, you probably want to hide the chest from the PCs, but reward them for exploring their surroundings. The fact that they thought to climb up the wall in the first place is the only test the players have to pass. Now, you could be a dick and put a trap on the lock (perfectly acceptable in D&D-land), and that might require a check or two. But if not, why demand all the checks to give the player the carrot?

This is where many DMs have become system managers and stopped being storytellers.

Handing over the chest isn’t anything new to D&D. This is how the game has played since the start. The players describe what they want to do and the DM tells them what happens. Rinse and repeat. For some reason, both players and DMs have come to believe the game only unfolds within the mathematical construct and anything less is somehow cheating or not playing the game right. I’m certainly not saying that we should toss out the rules, but what I am saying is that the rules need to take a back seat to the story. I never want to hear in a D&D game from a player—did we reach a milestone or did we finish the minor quest or how many successes have we earned? To me, that’s jargon and it masks what is so fun and engaging about Dungeons & Dragons.

Hmm. I’m not answering the question am I? Let me try again, in brief. If the skill challenge falls apart for lack of player interest, you should just abandon the skill challenge. Your job is to excite the players, make them want to participate. A dry exercise of dice-rolling feels like work. If your skill challenge falls apart because the players can’t guess the skills to use, you’re using the SC as a script. Throw it out and ask the players what they want to do about the situation and let it unfold organically.  If the skill challenge doesn’t use Arcana and some player has come up with an interesting way where the skill might apply, don’t shut that player down. If you let the player make the attempt and the attempt winds up with a success, the player will feel awesome for coming up with an unexpected solution and the game’s story will become stronger because the player is engaged. Make sense?

Tomorrow (or the next day) Healing Surges.