“It’s not roleplaying.”
Yes, that is the dumbest argument from which I have defended 4e. It is usually followed by a statement like: “it’s combat with miniatures,” or “the skill challenges demolish the need for roleplaying,” or “they just repackaged their miniatures so they could sell more books.”
Let’s get right to the heart of why this argument doesn’t hold water for me: How much roleplaying there is depends not upon the rules, but upon the players and DM. Simply stated, this is the case no matter which way you look at it, and it is true regardless of the system you’re playing in.
In fact, I would argue that 4e has possibly done the most out of any edition of D&D to promote actual roleplaying. If you look in the DMG, they give tips and advice to the DM on how to run a roleplaying game (and these tips actually make sense for the ‘new to RPGs’ DM). This is a first for D&D – really, it is – DM tips in other editions tended to revolve around how to interpret rules, not on how to get your players into the scene so that they roleplay more.
I do admit that the skill challenge mechanic makes social interaction seem a bit too… mechanistic. But I understand why they put a skill mechanic in place: to give players direct, out-of-combat reasons to use their skills. Add that to the greatly reduced list of possible skills and you have a manageable system. This is a good thing and I give the designers kudos for the attempt. Having said that I will admit that I find the skill challenge mechanic a bit… clunky.
I try to balance my game so that there are equal parts role-playing opportunities and equal parts combat opportunities, and sometimes running a social encounter as a skill challenge takes the oompf out of the roleplaying. Sometimes, though, it creates an easy way for the DM to manage a situation. For example, the skill challenge mechanic is great when it comes to an environmental challenge, like surviving lost in the woods for five days with no food or water. Your players can roleplay a little bit and using the skill challenge mechanic to ascertain their ability to hunt and gather food, find water, and survive the effects of hunger and thirst doesn’t take away from the roleplaying in this scenario. This is easily manageable for me and moves the situation along so that they don’t spend three hours of our session trying to figure out if they survived the forest.
In a major social interaction I prefer to roleplay the event (with maybe a small amount of dice rolling, diplomacy checks and such). Putting a true skill challenge mechanic on this event may not be the best idea, so I don’t do it – I allow the players to roleplay and whether or not they persuade the duke’s assistant to let them have an audience with the duke depends mostly on how they roleplay it, not on dice rolls. Does this negate the Diplomacy skill? No, because if a player is not so good at roleplaying, but his character has a high diplomacy skill, I take that into account and it helps him a great deal even if I don’t roll the dice for every assertion the player makes.
This balance is sometimes hard to maintain and I admit that it doesn’t always work. But that is the nature or RPGs, things almost never go exactly as the DM planned. Fortunately, that is part of the excitement and the frustration of the game for the DM, and it’s the responsibility that we take on when we pick up the DMG and agree to run a game.
Until my next post, I wish you good gaming.
~DM Samuel
This is a reply to an old post, but this is exactly how I use the skill challenges. I use them for things that roleplaying doesn’t cover. Like your example on survival, or like Chris Perkins used it in his Robot Chicken playsession. (Videos of the session are on youtube). He set up magical barriers around the treasure that the party was after, that an arcana skill challenge could remove if successful.
I also like how he set it up that others could assist the main person like a group sneak using other skills instead of arcana. History was allowed, it could aid in finding which runes were the ones that held the trigger for the spells.
I like the idea of having a skill challenge like that. Where it doesn’t take the place of roleplaying, but it gives a believable way to overcome the obstacles.