Skill Difficulties (2018)

In the previous post on this topic (for Beta 4) I covered most of the fundamentals about how skill usage should be handled, in The Next Project; it's probably worth re-reading before diving into this post. Today I want to expand on that, get into the skill math a little bit deeper, and also touch on "free-form" skill use vs. more structured "skill challenges."

We've already set up the parameters of "when not to roll" -- if a course of action is either trivially easy, or impossible -- but perhaps that needs to be expanded on a bit, with some more crunch applied. Specifically, this means that if/when the DM is going to ask for a roll, there is going to be a chance of failure. So what does that mean in numerical terms?


Math behind the Madness

The 'Beta 4' post established the different degrees of competency that characters can have with each skill; with our universal difficulty (or "DC") of 10, this gives us the following success rates (including critical successes):

1. untrained: 55%
2. expertise: 60%
3. trained: 72.5%
4. trained+expertise: 81.666...%

What this means is that at the highest competency level, the failure rate caps out just below 20%, with the DM having the discretion to further reduce that to zero -- if they declare that a course of action simply succeeds without needing to roll.

Meaningful Results

If we look at the numbers when allowing multiple rolls at the highest competency level, the chance of failure almost immediately starts to approach zero (which, if that is the desired result, then the established rule for "trivially easy" actions should have been invoked.) So while it has always been enforced in my playtests, I'm not sure this has ever been explicitly written into the rules: the party should not be allowed to attempt the same skill check more than once, to overcome the same obstacle. If they are required to roll, it is because the DM wants there to be a chance of failure, and if failure is the result, then the party must attempt a different course of action, in order to proceed.

The example of this from the previous post would be "picking a lock" vs. "breaking a door down" -- if one doesn't work, the party can try the other (or they must simply choose an alternate path.) But the effect of the failure is that the approach must be changed, instead of just rolling the same approach until it succeeds.

Another tool we can put at the disposal of the DM borrows from 4th Edition D&D's skill challenges; a failure can mean a change in approach, or a loss of resources. In some cases, it might be appropriate to allow a failed course of action to succeed, if the player is willing to sacrifice one of their reserves to do so.

Structure vs. Restriction

If only one attempt can be made at each skill check, it also incentivizes party members to diversify their skill selections, across the group; each character should have their own area of specialization, and should only really overlap in case the party gets split up. With all of this in place, we can see how the system helps to facilitate teamwork and "sharing the spotlight" a little bit. The question then becomes whether this needs to be formalized mechanically, even further.

The way skill challenges worked in 4th Edition, it was essentially turn-based; you went "around the table" and everyone took a turn making a skill check of some sort. This, however, is counter to the best practices that came out of actual play experience, with the system. My own anecdotes line up with the advice that "the best skill challenges are the ones the players don't know they're in." 

The best way to achieve this is to put the party in a non-combat scenario with multiple different leads or threads that can be followed, and then ask them which ones they choose to pursue, and how. Giving everyone a chance to act and to have their share of the spotlight is important (as it always should be in gaming) but "gamifying" it into turns can sometimes get in the way of the scene evolving organically, or "the action flowing from the fiction."

Turn-based skill challenges should be a tool in the DM's kit, but one that is used sparingly. All characters in TNP are designed to be able to meaningfully contribute in any encounter; there should be no "risk aversion" on the part of the players, in non-combat encounters. If this is a problem that a DM consistently runs into with their group, then instituting a round/turn structure can be used to help cajole people into putting themselves out there a bit more.

Keeping Score

The next question when examining skill challenges is how you measure success -- and I'll just come right out and say, that I think this comes down to taste.

If a non-combat scene requires the party to amass a certain number of clues, the DM can weigh the numbers of successes and failures it took to get them all, and decide (based on that) whether to award XP or not -- perhaps even going so far as to penalize reserves for particularly unsuccessful outings.

Alternatively (if appropriate to the scene) failure at a skill challenge can end in combat (resulting in a similar expenditure of reserves) albeit with the express understanding that whatever knowledge there was to be gleaned from the skill challenge will be given to the players, at the end of the fight. In any case, the over-arching plot still needs to be advanced, regardless of the outcome.

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Next post

Work has been going on behind the scenes on compiling the new draft of the rules, but there haven't been any real revelations from that process -- it's just the usual, expected grind.

As always, check back in 10 days for the next update. If you have any questions or requests for blog content going forward, leave a comment below, or get ahold of me wherever you get your TNP links from.