Newsgroup: it.hobby.giochi.gdr.dnd
Titolo: QUARTA edizione 4th - nuovo sistema risoluzione confronti e uso  skills

sempre sul sistema di skill da parte di uno dei DM della dndXP
http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=4088954&postcount=47
I ran "Escape from Sembia" at DDXP, and while I cannot talk in great
detail about skill challenges, I can say some things:
Good DMs in any of the previous editions of D&D could do (and have
been) something like skills challenges for decades. The skill
challenge system is there to help DMs create a framework that allows
the PCs to have flexibility in solving problems without making it too
hard or too simple.
3e skills like diplomacy made it almost too easy at times: that
hostile guard in now friendly, so he just walks away. Or it made it
too hard: your only chance of escape is to climb the DC 25 wall, so
you need to roll a 22 to make it.
The current skill challenge framework will encourage players to use
their imaginations, while at the same time providing a rules mechanic
to adjudicate it. And, of course, the final call is always up to the
DM. If the players do something ingenious, she can always just decide
they succeed for the entire encounter, or give them more than 1
success.
I had a 50/50 fail to success ratio for that encounter in the games I
ran. We had a lot of roleplaying, a lot of laughing, and some great
scenes and in-character actions. It gave me the flexibility to allow
the PCs to do something they are good at, then force them to do
something they may not be so good at, all without me having to worry
that one decision on my part might ruin everything.
To answer the OP, I handled how things went in a variety of ways, sort
of as a test of the system. Sometimes I gave two or three choices (you
can climb boxes to the roof, which is easy, but there is a chance you
will be seen; or, you can scale the wall directly so you won't be
seen, but it is a tougher climb). Sometimes I let the PCs select based
on easy, medium or hard, with the understanding that there might be
consequences for success or failure. Sometimes I let them tell me what
they wanted to do, and I set the difficulty based on the actions
described. Sometimes I forced a specific check at a specific DC based
on a corner that PC had painted himself into. It didn't take long for
each table I ran to get into the mindframe needed to make the
encounter work.
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Last edited by smerwin29 : 03-05-08 at 05:48 PM.
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sul sistema di skill, una descrizione più dettagliata da enworld
http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=4095786&postcount=194
In our specific game, we did not choose easy, medium or hard. We did
not know the difference. We described what our characters wanted to do
and consulted with the DM if we could. HE DECIDED whether the action
was appropriate and advanced us towards the goal. HE DECIDED whether
the specific skill use was appropriate or not. And finally HE DECIDED
what the difficulty of the action would be based on what the action
was, not the other way around. We did not know the target number for
the particular action. The only thing that he told us was whether an
action would have a penalty (e.g. using Religion instead of Diplomacy
or Bluff to incite the crowd) or if the action had a bonus
(circumstance due to other actions or setting). So the DM made ALL the
important and relevant decisions.
I don't really know where this notion, that the players somehow
"magically" shaped the environment to something that it was not, comes
from. The descriptions the players used were appropriate for the
description of the setting they were given. This whole interaction
occured without a map. It was all based on DM description.
So the interaction went something like this.
RULES SETUP
DM: Quick rundown of the mechanics of this type of encounter. You are
being chased by guards and you want to escape the town. The object is
to have more successes towards your goal than failures. You may use
any skill to accomplish your goal but only successes that advance you
towards your goal count for the purpose of achieving your goal. You
can choose one of several paths to get to your goal. Everyone can
choose the same path or you may spread out as desired. The best way,
for me, to adjudicate your success is for you to describe what your
character wants to attempt to accomplish. Then you will roll using the
skill you have chosen. If you have a success at your attempt you gain
a success for your team. If you fail at your attempt you gain a
failure for your team. The object is to continue getting successes
towards your goal before getting too many failures. You will not know
how many successes or failures are needed.
SCENE SETUP
DM: After your fight in the town square you are being chased by the
town guard and you can hear the general alarm being raised. You
suspect more guards will soon join in the chase. You may attempt to
escape the town (goal) using one of these three locations: Market
Place, Crowded Street, or Dark Alley.
Please roll initiative and decide in initiative order which path to
escape you want to take.
Players: I go towards X (Four Players decided to take the market
place, one went for the dark alley and the last went for the crowded
street)
DM: Okay, the market place is bustling with activity. You see people
trading goods, market stalls vehicle carts being pulled by horses,
etc. It is quite crowded and you can see some guards starting to come
into the area. They have not noticed you yet and are still behind.
Player 1, what would you like to do?
Player 1: I approach one of the horse handlers. "Please sir, I've
always had a fascination for horses and yours look so magnificent.
Would you mind if I climbed into one of the sacks to view your horse
more closely?" I'd like to use diplomacy to attempt to convince the
man to let me get into one of the sacks. I'd like to hide from the
guards there.
DM: (DM and group laughing) Okay, make your diplomacy roll. The man
looks skeptical but gives a hearty laugh, "You want to do what?"
Player 1: I rolled an X (If I remember correctly the player aced this
roll with a nat 20)
DM: Good, that's a success. The man still looks a little skeptical but
he allows you to climb into one of the sacks. The guards have still
not seen you. Player 2, what would you like to do?
SCENE CONTINUES WITH ALL PLAYERS
This went on with each player taking turns in initiative order. Each
player described what his character wanted to attempt and the DM
decided whether the specific skill was appropriate, whether the
environment had what the player was looking for, whether there where
any penalties or bonuses based on what was going on, and the
consequences of successes and failures. So the notion that "secret"
doors appeared out of nowhere at all games are a silly generalization
and are just ill-conceived. Of course there was table variance across
the convention. Is that a bad thing? Some DM's DECIDED to keep the
outcome close to the vest. Others gave the players all the metagame
information and had them roll based on that metagame information. Some
DM's chose to not alter the environment as they saw it or had
described it; some DM's did.
The fact of the matter is that the rules subsystem for skill
challenges was able to support each and every one of those play styles
and still worked. The system provided the DM with a solid framework on
which to BUILD and RUN the encounter. That is more a credit to the
system than some are willing to concede, mostly due to their anti-4e
sentiment.
I'll reiterate my earlier point about the Skill Challenges system. The
"beauty" of it is that IT IS PART OF THE CORE RULES of 4e. It provides
a "newbie" DM a framework on which to build interesting encounters and
it is explained in the core rules.
I've been playing D&D for nearly 30 years. I love 3.5. I play 3.5 with
the same fast, furious and loose abandon that I played my Basic
(Magenta Box) D&D. But I learned to play that way with the less RULES
RESTRICTIVE editions.
I remember all the talk when 3.0 and 3.5 came out. At that time some
were complaining that the game restricted their creativity and it took
the "decisions" out of their hands and put them in the rules. I never
really subscribed to this idea, but I had learned to play at a
different time, with much less rules restrictive play. I had learned
that my job as DM was to adjudicate the outcome of situations, using
the rules if they existed and "winging" it if they didn't. A player
would ask, "can I do this?" and I'd say, "sure you think it will be
hard but you can try, roll percentile dice." I didn't have to resort
to looking a specific rule in a book, sometimes even if a rule did
exist. I still play in a similar manner but characters now have
appropriate skills and use a d20, instead of d100. So now it is
slightly easier to adjudicate those things.
But a DM that learned to play using a newer edition, might feel way
more constrained with the rules and bound to follow them to the
extreme. This is sometimes detrimental. How many rules arguments have
you seen at tables?
I think this system is briliant in that it provides a building block
for the DM to create very interesting encounters that have that free-
form looseness. While at the same time the encounter has a solid
mechanic as a framework to fall back on. In addition, it reverts the
decision making back to the DM instead of the rules.
I'm not totally exited about all the changes in 4e, but this I like; I
like it a lot.
__________________
TROGDOR COMES IN THE NIIIIIGHT!!!!!
D'karr - Burninating the countryside since 1995.
Just like green peas but without the brains...
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Last edited by D'karr : Today at 05:22 PM.
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ciao, Fabio

occured without a map. It was all based on DM description.
Tutta questa parte dell'avventura era senza mappa, basata solo sulla
descrizione del DM.
(E gia' qui: si gioca uno scontro cittadino improvvisando, sulla sola
base di pochi punti fermi. Alla faccia delle avventure demo che erano
tutte combattimenti e noioso tatticismo!)
Premessa: tra gli esempi fatti c'e' quello del tiro riuscito di
Streetwise (credo. o era percezione? vabbe' la sostanza non cambia)
che "farebbe comparire dal nulla" una porta segreta solo perche' viene
trovata dal giocatore con il suo tiro di dado.
L'autore di questo post dice che non capisce bene da dove questo
concetto, sul quale si polemizza un tot, sia venuto fuori; nel suo
gruppo tutti si sono attenuti alla descrizione iniziale.
Comunque se un giocatore ha usato la sua inventiva per dire "trovo un
passaggio segreto e semino cosi' le guardie", non ci trovo
personalmente nulla di male; magari avrei da ridire se avesse preteso
di trovarci pure 10000 MO e dieci oggetti magici perche' il passaggio
attraversava la sala del tesoro del re, ma visto che non si fa cenni a
nulla di tutto questo, allora non ho da ridire.
Mio commento finale, e saro' breve: questo sistema di confronto e
l'uso che ne e' stato proposto, un chiaro invito alla creativita' di
tutti - giocatori inclusi - mi sembrano interessanti.
Parvati V
-- 
UnaMoleDiDadi (TreEmme Torino):
http://umdd.altervista.org/
IHGGera #1069, IAFa #182 ^^^
http://parvatiquinta.altervista.org

 tutti - giocatori inclusi - mi sembrano interessanti.
sopratutto visto che sarà immediatamente disponibile e spiegato ai
nuovi DM :)
Fabio