Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;388547Frank, you have done this already on this thread at least once. You have very little ground to complain when others do it back to you. You deserve little other than abuse and contempt for your dishonesty.

When? Can you name a time that I did that on this thread, or at all for that matter, for you to have done it back to me? This is my sixth post on this entire multihundred post flame fest, so I'm certain you can find an example. You know, if it exists and you aren't just a lying sack of shit.

QuoteWell since you seem to know, Frank, what action order did we use? I'm real curious, so go ahead and tell us all what my group did to determine the order of actions, based on the information I provided.

You claimed that the opposition got an action. And further, got one each round. That's not the action order of a skill challenge. Here would be a good place to use a quote from you. And since unlike you, I am not a fucking liar, I will use your actual statement:

Quote from: PseudoephedrineThe skill challenge was that each round, everyone rolled an appropriate skill (Endurance and Athletics, mainly), as did the hulks.

The action order in a skill challenge is that the players generate a success or a failure, and then there is either an immediate result or a mere tallying towards a later result. There is no place in the action order for the NPCs.

So... fuck you. You're wrong. You're a liar. And even in the contexts of your lies, you are still wrong. So fuck all the way off you fucking piece of fucking shit.

-Frank

Good stuff...

Well, here's an actual chase skill challenge using the actual skill challenge rules. DMG, page 78.

QuoteUrban Chase
To catch up with or escape from the
NPCs, you have to navigate the cityscape faster and
smarter than your opponent.
Level: Equal to the level of the party.
Complexity: 5 (requires 12 successes before 3
failures).
Primary Skills: Acrobatics, Athletics, Perception,
Streetwise.
(lots of other stuff that's not especially useful)
Success: you catch your quarry
Failure: you lose your quarry

There's more there if you want, but you can see how this goes. One character makes 12 Athletics check with their huge athletics bonus, the rest of the characters stand there scratching themselves and either saying "Pass" or Rolling Perception checks to give Athleto a +2 bonus. After the equivalent of 12 rounds of running, the skill challenge is passed, the PCs catch the bad guys, and combat begins between all the PCs and the Bad Guys, who they just caught...notwithstanding that using Common Sense (TM) most of the party should be 500+ feet away.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;388550Well, here's an actual chase skill challenge using the actual skill challenge rules. DMG, page 78.

Yeah but don't you see, Johnson, that's just really a suggestion of one way they could possibly work.  Sure that example pretty much matches every type of skill challenge I've seen in the 4e modules I do own or have seen online, but again, that's just a framework that everyone knows you're supposed to just ignore and toss the rules out.  It's still a Skill Challenge though...

Funny how the people that keep arguing that everything is subjective appear to be the ones who are redefining terms or just plain ignoring logic.

And now, for something completely different.

Quote from: CRKrueger;388559And now, for something completely different.

SHIT YEAH FUCKING LED ZEPPELIN

Sorry. Do carry on.

Quote from: CRKrueger;388559And now, for something completely different.

That's awesome. That rivals the Chewbacca Defense for sheer stopping power...

OK, fine, maybe I'm being overly literal. If we accept a Skill Challenge as anything where characters roll >1 skill check, then ....they may or may not be nonsensical (and hence immersion breaking), mostly depending on what proportion of the actual rules were thrown out to construct something that works more organically.

Please return to whatever prior topic captures your interest.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;388562OK, fine, maybe I'm being overly literal.

I don't think you are. Pseudoephedrine is talking about the Group Chase rules from Minds Eye Theatre published back in 1996 or so. People have been doing extended and repeated opposed tests for a long time now. And it muddies the water to use nomenclature for the 4e skill challenge interchangeably with them.

QuoteIf we accept a Skill Challenge as anything where characters roll >1 skill check, then ...

Well first of all, we'll have completely lost control of language and we will be unable to communicate with each other. As even Pseudoephedrine said (in between accusing people of mental illness and dishonesty while constructing and burning strawmen and deliberately and insultingly constructing falsely attributed quotations):

Quote from: PseudoephedrineThe skill challenge system is a codified framework

You're welcome to do things that are not in that framework. But you're not welcome to use things outside of that framework and then call it a skill challenge. A simple test is a simple test, an opposed test is an opposed test, an extended opposed test is an extended opposed test. None of those are "skill challenges." Doesn't make them bad things to do, but it does make them something else.

-Frank

Quote from: FrankTrollman;388566You're welcome to do things that are not in that framework. But you're not welcome to use things outside of that framework and then call it a skill challenge.

Hey, Psuedo? You're welcome to stretch the framework as far as you please and call it a skill challenge. You can also design encounters that don't fit the templates on page 58 of the DMG if you want; I'll throw that one in as a freebie.

Quote from: Thanlis;388567Hey, Psuedo? You're welcome to stretch the framework as far as you please and call it a skill challenge. You can also design encounters that don't fit the templates on page 58 of the DMG if you want; I'll throw that one in as a freebie.

Sorry to appear simple so then can we reduce  a skill-challenge to anything where you roll one or more skill checks? I think that's fine and few people would argue that it doesn't work but its not exactly a new mechanic.
As Frank points out simple checks, multiple checks with a target number of checks to complete a complex task and opposed checks have all be in use for years by everyone.
What does a Skill-challenge bring to the game if its just this sort of stuff?
I mean it is sited as a whole new aspect to D&D but it seems like its just codifying something that people have been doing since forever (3 climb rolls to get up this wall Bob, right you are squire...)

Quote from: PSEUDOEPHEDRINE

Quote from: Originally Posted by LordVreegActually, I love the session-story, and those particular skill mechanics are not dissociative, since they don't include any metagaming. It sounds like an epic rundown/escape....the part I'm talking about is not subjective, since there is an absolute, black-and-white litmus test.
The skill checks in question are not requiring metagaming/out-of-character thinking and they are not reducing in-game logic. So they are not dissociative.

I love the whole hectiv chase thing, well designed. And the way you tried to find other answers...

It's because of experiences like this that I'm not convinced that mechanics have any sort of inherent "disassociative" or "immersive" features. We take skill challenges and fiddle with them all the time, as we do with combat, and the other mechanical features of the game. Nor is this unique to 4e - we do the same sort of thing with pretty much any and every system we play. What that fiddling does is help us to immerse.

But the same mechanics, in another group, would only serve to deprive them of their immersion. Try asking anyone who's played D&D 3.x extensively how they handle the "holding a knife at a non-helpless hostage's throat" situation, and you'll find that different groups have widely varying ways of handling it.

JA also mentioned this, you're using/mixing terminology without understanding it.
Look above where I write, "the part I'm talking about is not subjective, since there is an absolute, black-and-white litmus test."  
What I am talking about here is the terms "associative" and "dissociative", which are defined 'as mechanics that require the player to think as the player and not the character, mechanics that depend on on metagame logic to operate'.  
You can argue, if you wish, that you don't believe that dissociative mechanics don't reduce immersion in every game, or something like that.  But what defines that as associative and dissociative is very black and white.


I can see in your emails, you are using the term loosely.  It looks like you are using associative to mean, 'promoting immersion', whereas that meaning is subjective, as opposed to the actual meaning, above.  JA and I may believe that a dissociative mechanic reduces immersion, but that is not the definition.


And as I said, it was a good story and a bit of GMing.  I personally don't care where it came from; whether it was houseruled or 4e directly.  I guess someone might get cranky if they felt you were using it as a description of a game that it is not from, but I felt you were just trying to use an example of a rule you thought was a good example of something, whether it really was or not.

Quote from: jibbajibba;388568Sorry to appear simple so then can we reduce  a skill-challenge to anything where you roll one or more skill checks? I think that's fine and few people would argue that it doesn't work but its not exactly a new mechanic.
As Frank points out simple checks, multiple checks with a target number of checks to complete a complex task and opposed checks have all be in use for years by everyone.
What does a Skill-challenge bring to the game if its just this sort of stuff?
I mean it is sited as a whole new aspect to D&D but it seems like its just codifying something that people have been doing since forever (3 climb rolls to get up this wall Bob, right you are squire...)

Well, you're right that people have used skill checks forever, and we hope they always will.  We also hope people will continue to use rulesets as frameworks but have the balls and common sense to houserule to make a better game experience.  no problem so far.

what a few people are having a problem with, I think, is the idea that someone is using a houserule solution to defend a system/ruleset.  Anyone can houserule anything, so the general feeling is talk about any rule or houserule you want to, but only use RAW to define a system.

Quote from: LordVreeg;388574what a few people are having a problem with, I think, is the idea that someone is using a houserule solution to defend a system/ruleset.  Anyone can houserule anything, so the general feeling is talk about any rule or houserule you want to, but only use RAW to define a system.

Fortunately, the skill challenge framework is explicitly defined and designed as a framework rather than a hard and fast set of rules. The dead giveaway is the example which doesn't doesn't use failures to determine the end point, etc., etc.

Quote from: Thanlis;388576Fortunately, the skill challenge framework is explicitly defined and designed as a framework rather than a hard and fast set of rules. The dead giveaway is the example which doesn't doesn't use failures to determine the end point, etc., etc.

framework is the operative word here.  More games should look at this idea.

Quote from: jibbajibba;388568As Frank points out simple checks, multiple checks with a target number of checks to complete a complex task and opposed checks have all be in use for years by everyone.

That's all that skill challenges are. Although there's a certain a mount of organization, just because the whole point is that it's something that a single skillcheck alone can't resolve.

Here's a recap of one of the ending scenes of my D&D3 campaign from 5 years ago.. Aside from combat, there were a lot of things that were handled as skills in order to reverse the ascension of a lich into godhood. Multiple skill checks, with a possibility of failure after accumulated failures.

I have another far less detailed recap that involves a 3-part challenge- they had to steal one part of a key from an unbeatable foe (during a wrestling match), roll aside a heavy rock (and fend off an allip) for another, retrieve the third part from a giant wasp nest.. and then swim down a 200' underwater tunnel, solve a puzzle and unlock the resting place of the final treasure.

QuoteWhat does a Skill-challenge bring to the game if its just this sort of stuff?
I mean it is sited as a whole new aspect to D&D but it seems like its just codifying something that people have been doing since forever (3 climb rolls to get up this wall Bob, right you are squire...)

The only people who are up in arms about them aren't actually playing D&D4, so I don't think it matters that much. The point is, all these are is frameworks. Skill checks are rules, sure, but skill challenges are not as rigid as people are trying to make them out to be.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;388579That's all that skill challenges are. Although there's a certain a mount of organization, just because the whole point is that it's something that a single skillcheck alone can't resolve.

Here's a recap of one of the ending scenes of my D&D3 campaign from 5 years ago.. Aside from combat, there were a lot of things that were handled as skills in order to reverse the ascension of a lich into godhood. Multiple skill checks, with a possibility of failure after accumulated failures.

I have another far less detailed recap that involves a 3-part challenge- they had to steal one part of a key from an unbeatable foe (during a wrestling match), roll aside a heavy rock (and fend off an allip) for another, retrieve the third part from a giant wasp nest.. and then swim down a 200' underwater tunnel, solve a puzzle and unlock the resting place of the final treasure.



The only people who are up in arms about them aren't actually playing D&D4, so I don't think it matters that much. The point is, all these are is frameworks. Skill checks are rules, sure, but skill challenges are not as rigid as people are trying to make them out to be.

They actually appear to be one of the better and more malleable parts of the particular ruleset.
They seem to bring out the best in many GMs, when I read the descriptions of games using them.,