I've been playing with the idea of a formalised system for rating challenges for characters. Obviously in my past I have come across very basic ones for D&D but they normally where a comparison  between hit dice with special abilities and the characters abilities. Unfortunately that takes no account of the tactical situation or the spread and concentration of skills and abilities that the characters have.

I would be interested in hearing of peoples thoughts on a challenge rating system.

Thank you.

Hi Flossy,

Do you already have a game in mind?  The question seems a bit vague.

Generally, the more complex the game system, the harder it is to get a solid challenge rating system.  Simple games have less "moving parts" so it's often easier to calculate challenges (Primetime Adventures, Tunnels & Trolls). 

What some of the more successful complicated games do is divorce advancement from a flat challenge system- Burning Wheel, for example, gives advancement based on each roll, which means you don't have to try to figure out how all the parts come to a whole.  (Many other games reward on things other than challenge as well...)

Chris

Some factors you might consider in putting together a challenge rating system:
Probability of success/failure.
Investment of resources required to succeed.
Risk/Reward. How much are the PC's putting at stake, and how much do they stand to gain?

Thanks for the very prompt reply.

I do indeed have an idea in mind. What I was thinking of was a simple tool to aid GMs in constructing adventures.The basic idea is that there is a setting that has been defined by the GM. The GM would then open the floor to the players and ask what they what they want to achieve. Hopefully the players are ambitious. The GM that defines a difficultly to that task which will be higher than the players can do at the moment. The players can they choose another challenge which is easier but success on that task would give a bonus on the larger challenge. My question on the challenge Rating really relates to this difficultly.

At present I was looking at a very generic system which works in abstracts to used as a framework by a GM.

Anyway, that's the basic idea. Any thoughts appreciated.

Hi Flossy,

So it's more like a "how difficult will this Big Task be" rather than encounter-to-encounter type things?

You may want to check out Poison'd, which has a system for the Captain choosing targets to pirate, which gives the GM a limited number of points to spend in difficulty, or other games that give GM budgets (Primetime Adventures, Agon)

To give anything more, you should probably nail down the system more and folks can give better advice.

Chris

I was thinking of a very simple system. Initial thoughts were something along the lines of the old Fighting Fantasy with just Skill, Stamina and Luck but ultimately I think that there may not be enough depth to it. Most of my other thoughts on it have ended up with far too many skills when working though examples. An interesting skill suggested by a friend was a tactics skill for taking account of the tactical situation, but I'm not sure how much that takes away from the players.

Yes, the idea is to boil the campaign down to "How difficult will this Big Task Be" but I'm still undecided if you make the role before or after you play though the narrative.

Got/read though Poison'd, not got Primetime Adventures or Agon. Will have to check them out at some point.

Thanks for the thoughts, any feedback appreciated.