Tag: Skill Challenge

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DM Resources Skill Challenges

Creating and Running Engaging Skill Challenges (Part 1)

The best skill challenges pose a very open-ended problem to the party. Open-ended problems allow for a diversity of possible approaches as well as interpretations of the actual nature of the problem. The other great virtue of open-ended problems is that they have the unique ability to develop in any number of directions allowing for a multitude of possible resolutions. Good skill challenges allow the party to overcome the problem presented to them in their own way while forcing them to interact with increasing complications. These challenges allow the party to exercise their wide range of skills as they see fit and interact with the results that they generate. Perhaps an example is in order.

The Dungeon’s Master team welcomes Bauxtehude, our newest contributor and author of today’s post. We’ve written a lot of article on skill challenges and thought Bauxtehude’s take on the subject provides new and exciting insights.

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Month in Review

Month in Review: March 2010

March was a great month for D&D and for Dungeon’s Master. Wizards of the Coast released the Player’s Handbook 3 and they began the new D&D Encounters program. Our article on D&D Encounters (Week 1) was referenced on the Wizards site in their D&D in the News article from Monday, March 22. They also linked to Dungeon’s Master from the Dungeons & Dragons Facebook page. We always appreciate it when we get a shout out from Wizards. For readers who found us through these links, we welcome you to Dungeon’s Master. On the 1st of every month we do a round-up of all the article we published in the previous month. This gives everyone a chance to check out any of the articles that they might have missed the first time around.

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DM Resources

I Took The Railroad To The Sandbox And Told A Great Story

At its core Dungeons & Dragons is a role-playing game. When you put aside all the mechanics, character classes and dice rolling the game is about the story. The story is usually narrated by the DM who explains what transpires. The DM is literally responsible for everything the PCs experience. The DM is also responsible for shaping the direction of the story. From planning encounters, designing skill challenges and writing the adventures the DM fills some pretty big shoes.

One of the most important decisions a DM makes is choosing which mode of storytelling they want to adopt for a particular campaign. Do you use existing adventures from Dungeon magazine or Living Forgotten Realms (LFR) modules? Do you create your own adventures and storyline. How much choice will you allow the PCs to have? Will you railroad the PCs down the path you want the adventure to progress in or will you allow the PCs any choice they wish and run a sandbox campaign? Why not a little bit of both?

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DM Resources

Effective Use Of Weather

I was cleaning out my dice bag the other day when I came across an old gem, the weather die. It’s been years since I’ve seen it, and probably over a decade since I’ve used it in a game. These days the only random element to the game I enjoy are when the PCs take a right turn when I was expecting a left. To me, and I know others will disagree, random encounter detract from the central story that is being told. Random weather is well, random and pointless.

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DM Resources Skill Challenges

Skill Challenge: Lie To Me

Training in Insight does not make you a human lie detector. Too often in D&D a PC rolls Insight and on a successful check knows immediately if a person is lying. This shouldn’t always be the case. Sometimes you need to work at it. If you’ve never met this person before how do you know that they’re lying. Everybody lies to some extent. Figuring out if the lie they just told you impacts your current line of questioning or not requires work.

For situations where more than one simple roll is required, a structured skill challenge may be more suitable. This is not to say that every attempt to detect a falsehood requires anything this complex, but it might be a good idea to remind the PCs that sifting through an intricate web of lies often takes time and many skill checks.

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DM Resources Eberron Editorial

Novel Adventures: Games with Predefined Endings

In February’s issue of Dungeon (#173), Craig A. Campbell has created a three-encounter delve called Haruuc’s Tomb: A Novel Adventure based on events from Don Bassingthwaite’s fantastic Eberron novel, Word of Traitors. As a big fan of Eberron and a huge fan of this book I was very concerned about how this adventure would turn out. But before I get into the good and bad of Campbell’s undertaking I have a questions for all the players. Have you ever played an adventure that was inspired from a D&D novel?

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DM Resources Skill Challenges

Skill Challenge: Olympic Games

The Dungeon’s Master team has used the basics of the skill challenge to create a unique form of athletic competition. Each skill check is scored as the PCs vie for top spot. PCs can compete against each other or against the world’s greatest NPC athletes. This is more than just opposing Athletics checks.

Since this is a test of individual ability, each PC must accomplish the required number of checks by himself. After all, outside help would be considered cheating.

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DM Resources Skill Challenges

Skill Challenges On The Fly

What happens when your PCs make a choice that takes your adventure 180 degrees away from where you intended? Or when those same PCs kill the NPC who will provide the information they require to move onto the next step? Or when the PCs just aren’t picking up on the very obvious, to your mind, clues that you are leaving them? What do you do?

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DM Resources Skill Challenges

Skill Challenge: Tavern Treachery

It’s well known that the PCs bring vast amounts of wealth back to town after a weekend plundering the local ruins. However, the citizens of a local town are tired of catering to the needs of spoiled, holier-than-thou adventurers. The town isn’t getting rich from the adventurers and no monsters ever attack. Add on the property damage that drunken adventurers cause and something needed to be done. A plan is hatched, when the PCs return to town the locals will take advantage of their need for rest. As the PCs enjoy a meal the locals will poison their food and drink.

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DM Resources

Traps & Hazards: The Open Portal

During the coming weeks we’ll be looking at traps and hazards in 4e D&D. I’m not going to waste time taking about pit traps or exploding doors, there’s plenty of that stuff in the DMG. What I’m going to focus on are traps and hazards that are much more elaborate and interesting.

These are things that make up a significant part of an encounter that is not the monsters. It’s usually going to take the form of a skill challenge or at the very least some skill checks. My intention is to provide examples of traps and hazards I’ve used in my campaign, describe how and why they were created, and give suggestions for using them in your campaign.

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