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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9516875" data-attributes="member: 42582">First, an explanatory prelude:There's an idea in the 4e DMG that the complexity of a skill challenge is also a reflection/expression of its difficulty for the players. But I don't think that that idea is correct: I think the complexity of a skill challenge is more like a reflection/expression of its "weight" or significance in the unfolding fiction. I think this alternative view of complexity becomes clearer in the 4e rulebooks when the Essentials Rules Compendium introduces the idea of "advantages", which are roughly proportional in number to the complexity of a skill challenge, and that ameliorate mechanical difficulty.This prelude underlies my answer to your first question: what the mechanical complexity of a skill challenge requires is for the GM to narrate consequences, and reframe the unfolding situation, in such a way as (i) to keep the situation "alive" and unresolved, while (ii) allowing for success or failure in the overall challenge to be a tenable result of any check being attempted that has the mechanical possibility of producing that outcome. As the tests unfold, the GM has to bring things towards a resolution while both honouring individual successes and failures, reframing on this basis for the next check, and being ready to bring the overall challenge to its appropriate conclusion.In my experience, the challenge isn't therefore to come up with X number of tests, but rather to modulate the way the fiction is unfolding in order to meet constraints (i) and (ii): and (i) on its own is easy; it's the combination with (ii) that can be quite demanding on a GM.  Absolutely. In this respect I follow p 179 of the 4e PHB:Whatever the details of a skill challenge, the basic structure of a skill challenge is straightforward. Your goal is to accumulate a specific number of victories (usually in the form of successful skill checks) before you get too many defeats (failed checks). It’s up to you to think of ways you can use your skills to meet the challenges you face.Page 259 of the PHB is also relevant:In a skill challenge, your goal is to accumulate a certain number of successful skill checks before rolling too many failures. Powers you use might give you bonuses on your checks, make some checks unnecessary, or otherwise help you through the challenge. Your DM sets the stage for a skill challenge by describing the obstacle you face and giving you some idea of the options you have in the encounter. Then you describe your actions and make checks until you either successfully complete the challenge or fail. Chapter 5 describes the sorts of things you can attempt with your skills in a skill challenge. You can use a wide variety of skills, from Acrobatics and Athletics to Nature and Stealth. You might also use combat powers and ability checks. I think it can be helpful for the GM to give the players some idea of their options: this is part of the framing process. That could be mentioning skills, or obvious in-fiction possibilities, or both. It can also be provocative, reminding a player about what might be at stake: eg, after narrating a NPC saying something at odds with a PC's interests, "Do you respond? Or do you let <so-and-so NPC's> declaration go unchallenged?" But all of this I regard as facilitative, not directive.Here's an example from actual play:As you can see, that last check leaned heavily into the player's proposed action, plus the fiction of that particular PC (a Deva invoker/wizard Divine Philosopher and Sage of Ages with unrivalled knowledge of both the past and the future), plus the fact that this was the final roll (either the Nth success (I can't remember the complexity of the skill challenge) or 3rd failure), to help manage the way the situation worked out.Here's another example:This shows not only how the players' declared actions shape the events of the skill challenge as it resolves; it also shows how the players can shape the goal and hence the outcome of a skill challenge, as it unfolds.That "shaping" is obviously going to be not much of a thing in a low-complexity skill challenge. But I think for high complexity ones it is important, as it allows early actions to play a bit more of a "sounding out" and "setting up" role, setting the direction for things which are then brought home as the overall challenge resolves.(In this example, the player suggesting the jellies as part of the dessert resembles "I punch the nearby dude", although more meta as it is an outright suggestion. I don't recall anyone at the table finding it controversial. It complemented, in an amusing fashion, the in-fiction discussion of a fight against gelatinous cubes.)Here's a final example for this post:The skill challenge here begins in a manner heavily guided by me as GM, with the demon's three cries. But then the players took over, and established their goal (of trying to control the demon to send it on a rampage against their enemies in the Feywild).Even in the GM-guided bit, though, you can see the example of the sorcerer player identifying ways to use his PC's skills, and also an encounter attack power, to help with the challenge.</blockquote>

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