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For what it’s worth, the specific implementation here seems far superior to how I understand 4e skill challenges. Here’s a question. What if the players had combined 2 or 3 or 4 or all of the counter arguments into their first counter argument? How would that have been handled?

the more broadly you want to define skill challenge the more case based the criticisms of it are going to be. 4e skill challenges were specifically brought up and so that’s what I’ve been discussing. If you want to discuss some other variation of them, expect the pros, cons and criticisms of...

I think social skill challenges in certain social situations can make sense. Primarily ones where the NPC motivations and reasoning aren’t very established in the shared fiction or notes so the DM has little to extrapolate from. Much lower myth than how I’d typically run an important faction of...

I’m not sure what you mean here. My understanding is that the 4e skill challenges rules do not allow this. I would be more open to a skill challenges system that did, though it would have to also be able to be adjusted for the fiction (the position and effect to borrow BitD lingo) and not...

Maybe if you directly addressed the criticism, because I don’t follow the significance of whatever point you are trying to make here. The criticism is that the default pre-skill challenge method of resolution is more responsive to the fiction than skill challenges. This is because the number...

I’ve gotten that vibe before about my play as well, but it’s usually quickly dismissed Why though? If the premise is this band of adventurers travel together and we are finding out about their deeds then surely adventures and parties are part of the situation and characters that should be...

In the very first line of your OP you go much further than identifying a fairly well known method, you say most play defaults on an assumption of map and key play. So seriously…?

I guess my interest here is that my play often gets described as map and key and while I can’t say it’s devoid of maps and keys they are more tertiary or maybe layered with other more important play concepts. Sometimes it comes across that d&d is primarily map and key, and yet some of my most...

The notion that there is some finish line and progress bar eludes me. The constraints on the DMs narration are the fiction, including unrevealed backstory if any and the unspoken guiding principle that the possible narrations should be trimmed down to only the most plausible ones (assuming they...

The question might be why are you changing the fiction before, to what ends and why is it better to do it beforehand and then run the creation neutrally in the moment rather than just changing it in the moment to meet the same ends?

Sure. But there’s no basis for which goal should be difficult and which shouldn’t be. Which demonstrates the arbitrariness of using different ones for different difficulties. It’s more nuanced though, as some PCs will fail and even the same PC can do all the checks. My point doesn’t rely on...

Yea that’s along the same thought lines I’d had, though said much more eloquently. My point was more that if someone wanted those decisions to be part of the challenge or have weight and impact more directly tied to the current fictional position then 4e skill challenges aren’t a great fit...

Why try to make it personal?

1. What does the GM base his decision to require 3 successes before 5 failures instead of 5 successes before 7 failures. Deciding one vs the other seems a bit arbitrary? 2. Every action the PCs take is of equal weight to resolving the skill challenges and thus isn’t contextual to the specific...

So question on skill challenges because that’s the implementation I’m most acquainted with. How can one take into account the changing fiction after each success with a predefined number of successes before failures mandates. Even assuming the players make logical moves each check what prevents...

To me illusionism and consent would be navigated by a type of pre-consent as the nature of illusionism is that ideally you shouldn’t know which moments it’s occurring. So there’s a few critical states, you either pre consented or not and orthogonally you either are aware it’s happening or not...

Here’s a fun question. Is illusionism inherently bad? I don’t think so. I think it’s possible for players to voluntarily sign up for some occasional illusionism as a preferred method for keeping a linear campaign moving forward. Likely preferred by some players to more overt or metagame...

IMO. One reason power gaming could be reclaimed (not sure it ever actually needed reclaiming in the first place as it was often seen as a virtue depending on your social circle), but assuming it was reclaimed is because there were other words to describe the negative aspects that were sometimes...

I agree. I’d just add I think the notion of forcing someone to do something implies, even necessitates that you are forcing that thing against their will. That’s why I don’t think forcing them to do something they want to do makes semantic sense.

I mean, in boxing is anyone being railroaded? Is anyone being forced to do something against their will?