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Improvised Skill Challanges.
I have a method of improvising skill challanges that is really fun and simple! The main thing is to give the narrative to the players and let them tell me what they will try to do and how they will try to do it, any skill is alowed.
One way of doing this is to use what I like to call the montage. If a group is travelling in a storm or tracking in harsh terrain or even training for a dungeon, you can tell them you`d like them to describe a cinematic montage in skills.
I have also done bar fights as skill challanges a few times, those have been really fun, the characters have been free to swing from the chandelier, to throw mugs and chairs and even members the band or to play tricks, what ever they want...
A standard way of reward for sucsess can be temporary hp or a bonus on the next roll or maby an extra action point. Failure can mean loosing healing surges, action points... Or something more story driven for either result.
I would like to see other methods or ideas for improvising encounters and challanges. Thanks:)
One way of doing this is to use what I like to call the montage. If a group is travelling in a storm or tracking in harsh terrain or even training for a dungeon, you can tell them you`d like them to describe a cinematic montage in skills.
I have also done bar fights as skill challanges a few times, those have been really fun, the characters have been free to swing from the chandelier, to throw mugs and chairs and even members the band or to play tricks, what ever they want...
A standard way of reward for sucsess can be temporary hp or a bonus on the next roll or maby an extra action point. Failure can mean loosing healing surges, action points... Or something more story driven for either result.
I would like to see other methods or ideas for improvising encounters and challanges. Thanks:)
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How you aproach this is up to you. Maby the npc who gave them the quest advices them to train for it, maby he even knows what might await them. Reward can be some bonus in a certain environment or against a certain enemy, on attack or defense,
or getting to roll group skill checks in the entire dungeon or adventure, instead of induvidual checks, because they practiced team work.
Failing should not give to much of a penalty in a training montage, I feel, not getting the bonus is good enough.
Please, share your thoughts and ideas:)
I don't know, the people I play with wouldn't like that. They would rather get straight to the dungeon. But whatever you and your players enjoys yall should do.
killervp
"A God...Rebuilt":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/a-god-rebuilt
Duskreign's "COTM for November 2011":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/wyrmshadow/wiki_pages/112011
Just trying to help out.
The next most important thing I am doing is keeping an ear out for what players are saying. Often times they suggest using a skill either because it has a cool effect on the story -or- because they have interpreted things differently and think it will have an effect. Sometimes (mayeb lots) their ideas are better than mine so I scrap what I had and let their thing "work".
In the FATE Dresden RPG players can say cast ritual magic in preparation for a fight with a bad guy and once completed it could add an Aspect to the scene / players which can be used later. Ritual uses both a player's magic skills (Lore and Conviction for example) along with player ingenuity through declarations (which can be any skill). So my players wanted to make a ritual to make them less vulnerable to possession by an ancient aztec priest. They decided to make amulets. I decide a Ritual target difficulty and they roll Lore skill and use other skills to add aspects. One can declare through Knowledge or Lore that a spanish afrtifact would be a good choice for the centerpiece. One can roll resources to get the coin. etc. etc.