The SkillCast
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skill challenges are about actions not skills
Published: November 14, 2008Posted in: Uncategorized
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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.
By day he is a technologist.
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Hey audio! Awesome!
An interesting idea would be to record a skill challenge being played and post the audio.
At a later time, post the actual challenge.
Ah-ha! Thank you! You explained that well; I now have a good idea of what skill challenges are for and how to run them in an entertaining way. Will have to think about how to add a few into my sandbox campaign, the City of Talon.
And completely agreed about 4th Edition; if anything, it’s helping my players role-play *more*.
@eric I will do just that.
@brent –glad it was clear! I wasn’t sure if I was rambling to much. I’ll probably convert that rant into a full out article as well.
Thanks for the comments guys!
Great stuff. Thank you for this. I guess my biggest issue is the ebb & flow. My PC’s are always looking for clues so it’s hard to give answers without swaying them too much pro or con depending on their actions. Also, I worry about telling too much info along the way. For example, if they are trying to interrogate a captured goblin to find out where the hidden goblin lair is, if I give them tidbits along the way, if they fail, they still may have enough info to succeed anyway. Yet the goal is pass/fail. They shouldn’t be able to fail yet succeed…or should they? I am not sure here.
As for utilizing their character sheets, I have been encouraging this. I mean, the PCs know what they are good at. Sure, they should take chances. That’s great advice to give 3 successes or auto all necessary successes when they do take chances. But would a wizard with no skills in interrogation use Intimidate or perception. Then what would he use? Should I taylor all challenges to my players?
Anyway, I feel like my SC’s aren’t very fun for everyone. So I think what I am doing so far isn’t wrong, but it isn’t right. Yet when I listen to your sample challenge, it seems like it’s what I am doing. Maybe it’s the little things? Help please.
Skill challenges are about actions and not skills…this concept I am going to make my new mantra. I will pass this along to the PCs as well.