“But…wait,” you say. “There is no skill challenge in Keep
on the Shadowfell!”
True, but I don’t feel like examining multiple 4th Edition adventure, and, if I am going
to offer some guidance about converting 4e to DCC, skill challenges have to be
addressed. At their most basic, skill challenges are an attempt to codify
complex skill uses with consequences for failure. To take it away from fantasy
games for a moment, in The End of the World, the second
episode of the Doctor Who revival, the Doctor attempts to open a door, and the
computer controlling the door “fights back”.
This is a perfect example of how a skill challenge should be
built: There is an advantage gained from the initial success, the initial
success is not sufficient for clear reasons, and the challenge itself can be
solved through bypassing the challenge and trying something else. If you know
the episode, the method the Doctor uses to solve the problem could also be
written as a skill challenge.
The point I am trying to make is that codifying a challenge
is not in itself a bad thing. In a way, that is exactly what a monster
statblock does. Nor is it entirely antithetical to the fictional narrative that
is being woven, as one could easily argue that some of the events in various
Sword & Sorcery stories could be modeled as skill challenges. In DCC, a
similar structure is used in The Imperishable Sorceress (where
three successes must be made on a Will save, with each failure reducing
Personality, before Personality is reduced to 0 and disaster befalls the PC in
question).
Okay, So How Does
This Skill Challenge Thing Work?
Remembering that our goal here is not to have to reference
the actual book, we want to glean what we can from the skill challenge
statblock itself. The most important thing is the flavor text, because that tells
us what the skill challenge is trying to simulate and what we, in turn, must
simulate in our conversion. The basic idea is that you must gain X successful
skill checks before 3 failures. There are some skills that work better than
others. Both success and failure result in their own consequences.
In some ways, a skill challenge is analogous to combat, but
in combat each roll has the potential of changing the nature of the remaining
challenge, and that is unfortunately not true with poorly written skill
challenges. That it takes three missed checks to fail is also a problem with
the system, although I suppose it makes things easier to systematize. Setting
up more dynamic fail conditions is more interesting. For instance, in The
Imperishable Sorceress, the first adventure I wrote for Goodman Games, there is a situation
where a PC has to make three Will saves to succeed, and each failure
temporarily reduces their Personality score, making future saves more likely to
fail. The similarity to a skill challenge is obvious. Equally obvious is the
difference: each roll has a potential consequence on the next, and the number
of failures before all is lost remains unknown. There is, in my opinion, more
meaning to the rolls, and more tension this way.
In our example from Doctor Who, the Doctor is trying to
keep a sun shield from rising, which would result in his companion, Rose, being
cooked to death. It is easy to see that, in the 4e model, three failures means
the sun shield has risen, and Rose is cooked. How much more interesting, more
tense, and more true to what is seen in the program if three successes lock the
fully lowered sun shield in place while each success or failure moves the sun
shield either down one step or up. One could then include potential consequence
for each step the sun shield rises to ramp up tension.
The chase sequence in The Fence’s Fortuitous Folly is,
again, resolved by a series of rolls, but each roll has potential consequences
and the rolls are broken up by encounter points in which one or more players
have the opportunity to make interesting choices. This is ultimately the key
toward any successful mini-game within the game: Each roll should be
potentially meaningful, and if the mini-game lasts more than a minute or two
there has to be an opportunity for interesting choices with consequences that
matter.
Choosing an Example for
Conversion
I am going to use a skill challenge from Kingdom
of the Ghouls as my example. This adventure was designed for 24th to
26th level characters. I will assume that I am converting the adventure for 3rd
level DCC characters.
NEGOTIATING WITH THE REAPER SKILL CHALLENGE
You
sit in the stone chair and see a smoky form begin to coalesce before you. After
a few moments, the shape takes the guise of a spectral reaper clutching a
scythe. Its eyes burn with a red, unholy light, and its skeletal body is mostly
concealed by a tattered, hooded robe. In a dusty voice, the reaper whispers, “Show
your worth to death’s true master, and pass.”
Level: 23 (XP 5,100).
Complexity: 1 (requires 4 successes before 3 failures).
Primary Skills: Bluff. Diplomacy, Religion.
Bluff
(DC 24, standard action): The character tells a tall tale of the
adventurers’ exploits that is untrue but nonetheless impresses the reaper. This
skill can be used to gain 1 successes in this challenge.
Diplomacy
(DC 24, standard action): The character explains that, despite their many
exploits, the adventurers are humbled to be in the presence of a servant of “death’s
true master.” This skill can be used to gain 2 successes in this challenge.
Religion
(DC 29, standard action): The character describes how the party's actions
have been worthy of death’s true master by citing religious texts and obscure
prophecies. This skill can be used to gain 1 success in this challenge.
Secondary Skill: Insight.
Insight
(DC 29, minor action): The reference to “death’s true master” is a clue
that the reaper serves Orcus. If the character realizes this connection, it is
easier to prove the adventurers’ worthiness to the reaper. A success on this check
provides a +2 bonus to all subsequent skill checks during this challenge.
Success: The reaper disables all four pillar traps and unlocks the
curtains.
Failure: The reaper takes a toll in life force for the time it has
spent in negotiation. All characters who have taken part in the skill challenge
lose a healing surge. The reaper then unlocks the curtains but does not disable
the pillar traps.
You can see, I hope, that this would lead to game play were
the player says “I roll diplomacy!” and the DM then tells the player what their
character does. In my opinion, humble or not, this is the opposite of how game
play should proceed. Of course, the DM could have the players in question say
what they wish to do, and then determine what skill this is closest to; there
is nothing in the system preventing that. While 4e is far from my favorite
edition, and the one I have the least play time with, it has been my experience
that the skill challenge system encourages deciding what skill to use over
deciding what your character actually does.
(Arguably, the same is true for combat, which is one of the
reasons that the Mighty Deed system in DCC is so wonderful…it encourages you to
think about what your PC is actually doing! DCC also encourages judges to
include monsters which require engaging in the fiction to defeat, rather than
simply relying on rolls, as in The Emerald Enchanter.)
On the other hand, earlier editions of D&D tend to focus
on combat and traps, because that is where the quantifiable interesting choices
lie in those systems. You wouldn’t tend to see something like Negotiating With
the Reaper in earlier D&D, because those games weren’t built for that kind of
challenge. It isn’t that people weren’t interested – see the interaction with
the guards of at the gate of The Keep on
the Borderlands – but that the game wasn’t designed to quantify those
interactions.
A DCC Conversion
The goal of this conversion is to focus on player choices
within the game milieu, rather than what skills might be most likely to succeed
on a character sheet. DCC players don’t tend to roll for what their characters
think; that is determined by the player. Because there is no Insight skill, the
players need some way to reason out that “death’s true master” refers to Orcus,
through a past encounter, inscription, legend, etc. The clue need not be found
in the current adventure – one of the greatest rewards in old school play is
that past adventures allow the players a better understanding of the world
their characters inhabit. That Orcus is “death’s true master” could be a clue
from a funnel adventure, with a payoff now which rewards players who paid
attention to, and retained, that information.
My version would look like this:
Negotiating With the Reaper
As
you sit in the stone chair, a smoky form coalesces before you. After a few
moments, the shape becomes clear – it is a wraith-like reaper clutching a
scythe. Its eyes burn with an unholy red light, and its skeletal body is mostly
concealed by a tattered, hooded robe made of charnel ash and grey cobwebs. In a
dusty voice, the reaper whispers, “Show your worth to death’s true master,
and pass.”
Characters may attempt anything
they wish, but the spectral reaper is immune to all mundane attacks and most
magic. Effects that would charm or otherwise delude it into thinking the PCs are
friendly to the worship of Ahriman may work, but the spell check for these
magics must be made at a -1d shift and the reaper saves with a +8 bonus. Clerics
or patrons of Ahriman who swear their devotion to the god of death and disease
likewise sway the reaper. Otherwise, depending upon the PC’s tactics, a
Personality check is in order.
Attempts to tell some tale of the
adventurers’ exploits, whether true or otherwise, may impress the reaper,
especially if they highlight the death and destruction the party has caused (DC
15). Citing
religious texts and obscure prophecies to show that the party is chosen to walk
this path may also work (DC 20). Characters with appropriate occupations or
classes roll using 1d20; others must use 1d10. Two things may modify what die
the PC rolls on: (1) demonstrating humility before a servant of “death’s true
master” allows a +1d bonus on the roll, and (2) recognizing that Ahriman is “death’s
true master” allows a +1d bonus on the roll.
Players may come up with other
tactics, which the judge must set a DC for, but unless particularly brilliant,
such tactics should have DCs of 30 or higher. Note that it is not necessary to
impress the reaper for the PCs to move forward; doing so just makes moving
forward easier.
PCs may attempt to diverse tactics
so long as one remains seated on the stone chair. However, each failed roll
(whether a spell check that fails to affect the reaper through failure or a
successful save, or a failed Personality check) causes the PC 1d3 Stamina
damage, with death resulting at 0 Stamina (recovering the body is still
possible).
If the reaper is impressed, it magically
disables all four pillar traps and unlocks the curtains. If the reaper remains
unimpressed (including if the PC simply rises from the seat without engaging
it), it unlocks the curtains but does not disable the pillar traps. In either
case, as it fades away, it intones “Go
forward then, to the doom which awaits you.”
That really is about all there is to it. If you want further
examples, I converted both Dragora’s Dungeon and Curse
of the Kingspire from 4e to DCC for Goodman Games. And note that, while I snipped the explanatory image
of a skill challenge from an online
4e SRD, conversion didn’t require opening a single 4e rulebook. A simple,
intuitive conversion is often the best conversion!
Next: D&D 4th
Edition: Keep on the Shadowfell (4): The Keep Itself
