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View Full Version : Scenario to grok Challenge-based gaming



Quertus
2020-07-31, 06:09 PM
Suppose you had a Perfect, Omniscient, Precognitive GM who guaranteed the "Challenge" aesthetic. That is, no matter what anyone brought, the game would have *precisely* the predetermined level of challenge. (And, if the characters and expectations made that impossible, they'd let you know that, too).

Under this scenario / within these parameters, what would your "ideal game" look like?

Would you play a Wizard who is always one misstep away from death? A mech pilot who loses his mech in roughly 50% of his battles? A dashing rogue who always lives, but often loses? A Conan expy who triumphs over everything? Someone who would fit in with my BDH party (wades through nearly all combat challenges like they were human, but struggles to convince otherwise friendly NPCs that they are the *lesser* of two evils compared to the BBEG)? Someone like Quertus (my signature academia mage for whom this account is named), for whom "challenge" should be a foreign word, yet whose contribution could have been replaced with a bag of flour? Would you be curious how Milo would fare in the world of Harry Potter, and take the opportunity to reproduce that crossover?

What if you didn't get to set the challenge level or type? Would that change what you would want to play?

What if the GM rolled randomly on a per-campaign, per scene, and/or per character basis for how challenging things would be, and built the game accordingly?

icefractal
2020-07-31, 06:48 PM
Is this simple auto-scaling so that the challenge level remains consistent over-all, or is it so customized that every facet of a character will be challenged to the given degree? Ie. if I have a very glass-cannon character, will their offense still be strong and their defense weak, relative to the opposition, or will they face a lot of "adamantine peashooter" foes?

Maybe something that's cool but mechanically anemic, like a Binder.

Kyutaru
2020-07-31, 07:56 PM
Puzzle combat. A truly balanced game will appear as though it's completely one-sided. Players underestimate their toolkit and strength. Generally lop-sided fights will still go in the party's favor if the appropriate tactics are employed. The object in a challenge-based game is therefore to analyze the opposition, determine what if any weaknesses they possess, and then exploit those weaknesses for all they are worth. The DM knowing what the party is capable of will assign a challenge they can overcome, that is without question in this scenario. So it then comes down to whether the party can recognize their advantages and utilize them appropriately to stack the deck in their favor.

Uncoordinated masses of NPCs stand no chance against a well-oiled machine exhibiting teamwork.

Zhorn
2020-07-31, 08:59 PM
Narrative consistency and encounters matching up to the description of the scene the players are making their choices off before putting a plan into action.
Be it really easy, really hard, or a perfectly balanced challenge, I'm happy as long as the scenario is played out fair, and matches the world as being described.

NichG
2020-07-31, 10:46 PM
Probably I'd ask for some kind of tiered mystery (investigative game) where challenge had to do with how quickly or how deeply the party discovered what was really going on. So on a bad day, you still are going to gain new information that you can ruminate over for one of the good days when stuff is clicking. That way failures or struggles don't lead to dead-end states for you or the campaign, so it'd be pretty robust to this DM deciding to go high difficulty on a particular day for example.

Lagtime
2020-08-01, 10:28 AM
Well, I'd need the perfect Campground Set Up first: All the gamers camping(trailer camping with city water and electricity and such) in a campground together, coming out on Friday and staying through Sunday night. So each gamer was first off choosing to isolate themselves from the world of distractions by camping and then further chhosing to isolate themselves by gaming. So, while each gamer does have a smart phone, they are more then fine with leaving it on a shelf for, eh, 36 hours.

Then I'd need perfect gamers who both want to play the game and either had perfect families that would leave them utterly alone or families they could just say "go away" to (ideally the spouses and kids would each have things they wanted to do far away).

So we'd be set for gaming from roughly 5pm Friday to 5pm Sunday, with breaks for meals and sleep and maybe a dip in the lake when the temperature was above 90 or so.

My character would be a Macguyver, Creative, Knowledgeable type that likes to think out side the box and rules. I love being given a challenge and finding a way to beat it. But I hate the rules way of the DM says "ok it's challenge X5" and a player just says "oh whatever, I use ability 27" and challenge over.

Palanan
2020-08-01, 10:40 AM
Originally Posted by Quertus
Would you be curious how Milo would fare in the world of Harry Potter...?

Who is this Milo character? He's been mentioned a couple of times recently, no idea who this is.

Kyutaru
2020-08-01, 03:21 PM
Who is this Milo character? He's been mentioned a couple of times recently, no idea who this is.

The main character of a Harry Potter Abridged fanfiction who uses 3E D&D rules and metagaming instead of their world's conventional spellcasting.

Quertus
2020-08-01, 04:14 PM
Narrative consistency and encounters matching up to the description of the scene the players are making their choices off before putting a plan into action.
Be it really easy, really hard, or a perfectly balanced challenge, I'm happy as long as the scenario is played out fair, and matches the world as being described.

I mean, I don't disagree. But, with a "perfect challenge" GM, you'd be all "whatever, just do these *other* things right"?


Is this simple auto-scaling so that the challenge level remains consistent over-all, or is it so customized that every facet of a character will be challenged to the given degree? Ie. if I have a very glass-cannon character, will their offense still be strong and their defense weak, relative to the opposition, or will they face a lot of "adamantine peashooter" foes?

Good question. This may be part of my difficulty grokking challenge-based thinking.

I *suspect* that the correct answer is, the same amount of tactical brainpower will yield the same chance of overcoming a given challenge, regardless of who you bring, because the challenge will be precognitively built to those specifications.


Maybe something that's cool but mechanically anemic, like a Binder.

So, a "take the opportunity to…" answer? In this case, to play something that would normally be challenging… to you? To optimize? For the GM? For the rest of the group?


Puzzle combat. A truly balanced game will appear as though it's completely one-sided. Players underestimate their toolkit and strength. Generally lop-sided fights will still go in the party's favor if the appropriate tactics are employed. The object in a challenge-based game is therefore to analyze the opposition, determine what if any weaknesses they possess, and then exploit those weaknesses for all they are worth. The DM knowing what the party is capable of will assign a challenge they can overcome, that is without question in this scenario. So it then comes down to whether the party can recognize their advantages and utilize them appropriately to stack the deck in their favor.

Uncoordinated masses of NPCs stand no chance against a well-oiled machine exhibiting teamwork.

So, you'd care less what you play, and more about the implementation? Or, that's meant to explain it to me?

So… is there any difference between "challenge-based" and "Combat as War"?


Probably I'd ask for some kind of tiered mystery (investigative game) where challenge had to do with how quickly or how deeply the party discovered what was really going on. So on a bad day, you still are going to gain new information that you can ruminate over for one of the good days when stuff is clicking. That way failures or struggles don't lead to dead-end states for you or the campaign, so it'd be pretty robust to this DM deciding to go high difficulty on a particular day for example.

This is to answer, "what if challenge level were random"?

Hmmm… would it be fair to generalize as, "the challenge is for the current step, not the ability to make progress, or for the mission as a whole, let alone character survival"?

Mysteries *can* be built that way; however, they can also be built with single points of failure.


Who is this Milo character? He's been mentioned a couple of times recently, no idea who this is.


The main character of a Harry Potter Abridged fanfiction who uses 3E D&D rules and metagaming instead of their world's conventional spellcasting.

Yeah, Harry Potter and the Natural 20 (https://m.fanfiction.net/s/8096183/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Natural-20) is a great and iconic read. A must for the genre(s).

Kyutaru
2020-08-01, 04:48 PM
So, you'd care less what you play, and more about the implementation? Or, that's meant to explain it to me?

So… is there any difference between "challenge-based" and "Combat as War"?
As a roleplaying game, I'm used to taking on the roles of many different characters. RPGs, especially CRPGs, will often throw you into the role of a predefined character or have you control an entire party instead of one character. Attachment to what you play matters less than enjoying the experience since every kid probably wanted to be an astronaut/ninja/pirate/wizard when he grew up. The roles are flexible and people expand into other ones as they grow more comfortable in the systems they see and grow curious of how other classes perform from watching their comrades.

Challenge-based gaming then comes down to well-designed puzzles. This is seen even in non-RPGs. The most challenging boss fights and video games are the ones that feel downright impossible or overwhelming at first glance. Dark Souls is routinely touted as some sort of masterpiece of challenge while I personally think it's far easier than old school games like Ghosts and Goblins. But the point is that players will hammer at wall and hone their skills through trial-and-error and practiced failure. Experimenting with moves is common when new abilities are learned in games and theorycrafting is done throughout these boards to find the optimal combinations for effective play and min-maxing. When a game gets solved, some grow bored and move on because there's no more mystery to the mechanics, no more puzzle to solve. Complaints of overly simplistic combat keep people away from many games that are otherwise well made and heavily funded. If the player isn't motivated to overcome the obstacle then the obstacle isn't threatening enough (or TOO threatening). No one likes beating their head against a brick wall but no one likes being awarded legendary items for matching shapes and colors either.

Cinema uses this idea as well with the number of twists and turns and high school level dialogue they employ. Make a TV show too smart and people become lost, but make it too dumb and they will feel their intelligence insulted and grow bored. Creating an appropriate level of drama, mystery, and feeding the audience scattered clues will seem to some obvious and forcefed but for many will be just enough obscurity that the viewer feels clever for figuring out where the plot is headed before the big reveal. Magicians do the exact opposite, preying on the mindset of the audience to expect certain outcomes then turning those expectations on their head with illusion and a grand finale that shocks and amazes.

In short, invoking a sense of challenge is merely about engaging the player's brain and having them analyzing the available puzzle pieces to determine the solution without it being immediately obvious nor preternaturally plausible. War games tend to be more about attrition and maintaining the advantage turn after turn without letting the enemy get too far ahead. If 2 more enemies show up every turn and you're not killing 2 enemies per turn, it's going to be unsustainable in the long run and lead to pressure.

NichG
2020-08-01, 07:53 PM
This is to answer, "what if challenge level were random"?

Hmmm… would it be fair to generalize as, "the challenge is for the current step, not the ability to make progress, or for the mission as a whole, let alone character survival"?

Mysteries *can* be built that way; however, they can also be built with single points of failure.


Well, it works if the challenges aren't random too, but I guess my thinking started from 'what would make me comfortable or enjoy playing in a game where the game is designed around the challenge first, rather than other aesthetics?', especially in terms of the focus being achieving a particular success/fail rate (like your example of losing your mech 50% of the time). Normally having a few moments in a game where you have to fight to retain your agency is okay for me, but if the game is solidly made of that then it's too high stress for me to really find enjoyable long-term. So I thought 'what could both be consistently challenging, but also be something where I wouldn't really ever need that challenge to be stepped down (or where if I was having a bad week/etc, I could have a bad session and have it not be a big deal)'.

Based on that, the sort of thing I like 'about' challenge is that it's a resistance that I can push against as strongly as I'm motivated to push at that particular time, and there's always something there to make those differences in push discernible in their outcome. So if I'm terrible but I exert a bit more effort than usual, I should feel it. If I'm brilliant but exert a bit more effort than usual, I should feel it. Therefore I want a game which lets me push at different levels, and have some game element exist that is ready to receive that and engage with that level of thought. That means recasting challenge as 'how far do you get' rather than 'do you succeed Y/N?'. Something like an old-school blobber has some of these aspects, where you as the player decide the depth that you want to delve to (and if you just want to grind easy monsters on floor 1 for gold and XP you can), but it's not quite ideal (since the challenges in a game like that still place agency and ability to retain progress at risk, it's still sort of chance-focused, and I think it'd still be exhausting over the long haul).

Combining those aspects, something like an intellectual mystery where maybe you can do what you were asked to do with minimal effort, but if you have some insights you see bits of something deeper, and if you really push you find that there's a lot more going on than what the surface asked. But the stuff is all sort of 'there' for when you want it. Even if the campaign ends, for example, you could still post-facto figure out stuff you missed.

Or basically as a tl;dr: the thing I enjoy about challenge isn't the feeling of being threatened or experiencing loss, it's the feeling of figuring stuff out or making a breakthrough against a noticeable resistance. So if I'm going to make a request to a challenge-aesthetic DM, I'm going to angle things in that direction.

Zhorn
2020-08-01, 07:58 PM
I mean, I don't disagree. But, with a "perfect challenge" GM, you'd be all "whatever, just do these *other* things right"?
Maybe I should have some examples to illustrate what I meant:

Party is about to ambush some guards in an warehouse a good 100+ yards away from the nearest building. The time is in the middle of the night. A lookout is posted to keep track of if anyone is approaching.
Combat inside is going alright, though some help is needed. The lookout has not seen anyone approaching, goes inside to help finish things up.
In the immediate next turn, enemy reinforcements arrive through the doors of the warehouse to attack the party...
Where did they come from? How did they get there so fast? How did they know the party was there? Considering the lookout was watching just 6 seconds earlier, why didn't they see them approach?


Party is trying to stop a local BBEG from taking over a town. Spying through the town leader's window, the DM describe the town leader is in their office getting attacked by the BBEG and their Shield Guardian.
Party bursts through the window to save the town leader... Only the battlemap comes out and the office is now a grand hall, with the BBEG and co at the far end out of reach of the party (and out of view from the window they were looking through), and the BBEG has 10+ guards between him and the party...
Doesn't match the scene the party was reacting to.


An enemy force of frost giants are raiding a port town, and can bee seen in the distance fighting the town's siege equipment throwing rocks at each other.
Too many giants for the party to take on, so the plan is for the party to attack the ship, described as only having two winter wolves on deck, to weaken it so the giants cannot use it for additional raids and will be forced to take it back to their base.
First round of combat; the wolves with their whopping INT of -2 are strategic enough to howl to the giants, who despite being engaged in the distance fighting the siege equipment, immediately notice, are no longer engaged in said combat, and are now really close to the ship so they can join the fight.... in less than a 6 second round.

It all just irks me when a scene's challenge is described one way, the party responds to that the challenge with a plan to match that description, and then the scene is retconned to be different...

Jay R
2020-08-02, 08:48 AM
You haven't given any single fact that has anything to do with how I build a character.

I'd ask the DM to describe the political or social background of an area, and what important things are going on. Is there a long wars with ogres? Was a new continent discovered that needs to be explored? Has a long-lost deserted castle been recently found? Is there a curse on the land? Are dwarves semi-isolated or mistreated Are we starting near a jungle, glacier, marsh, or haunted forest? Has the king's heir been lost for twenty years?

Then I'd build a character who fit into the world, with ties to the possible scenarios.

Quertus
2020-08-02, 10:07 AM
Something like an old-school blobber has some of these aspects, where you as the player decide the depth that you want to delve to (and if you just want to grind easy monsters on floor 1 for gold and XP you can),

I'm pretty sure that this is the opposite of what I'm asking about.

NichG
2020-08-03, 12:48 AM
I'm pretty sure that this is the opposite of what I'm asking about.

Well isn't that kind of the point? You're asking 'what would you request from the DM if they were challenge-focused and wanted to know what degree of challenge to use?'. I don't usually want to play something with a linear series of fixed-challenge-level gates because my appetite for challenge will vary depending on my feelings week to week, how I did on recent past challenges, etc. So I'd rather ask for a campaign where, even if the challenge level is fixed and flat, the meaning of challenge has more to do with the depth to which you manage to explore. That's the thing which would most effectively simulate what I actually want, given the constraints of working with this hypothetical DM who sees everything through the lens of challenge level.

Challenge in the form of 'finish the run and see what your score was' rather than challenge in the form of 'see if you manage to actually finish the run, or do you die halfway?'.

icefractal
2020-08-03, 03:13 PM
The thing that's confusing me, I think, is that this being described as "the challenge aesthetic", but it doesn't really fit how I've seen that term used.

IME, saying that a game is challenge-based usually implies:
1) A "let the dice stand" attitude where if an encounter leads to a TPK, then oh well, that's what happened; there's not going to be any fudging to prevent it.
2) The opposition constitutes a legitimate threat to at least baseline PCs.
3) Tactics matter, which means (as a goal at least) it should never be so easy you can beat it without thinking, or so difficult that nothing you do will be enough.

I've seen scaling used in pursuit of this, but it's general scaling the opposition to the overall strength of the party, not individual scaling to match exact numbers.