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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5465765" data-attributes="member: 42582">I just posted something there responding to one of your comments.But on the challenge itself - I like it. I've run similar sorts of challenges for overland travel, discovering monster lairs, and escaping from collapsing temples - although my notes are normally a bit more sketchy than his.Most of the mechanical techniques used in the Jester's challenge - rituals counting as successes, various actions granting bonues, using dispel magic (an encounter utility power) to get a benefit, monster attacks as a complication, etc - are standard fare from the DMG and DMG2. I've used all these techniques, as I'm sure have many other 4e GMs. The one technique I don't think I've seen before is using the ghouls to dock successes. The variant on this that I have seen and have used is to have actions of monsters accumulate failures for the party unless the PCs deal with the monsters in some fashion (in the challenge I ran, they had to stop the NPC using a minor action to progress a ritual).The Jester's skill challenge doesn't have any complications driven purely by metagame - the ghouls turning up can be rationalised as a natural consequence of hanging around in a haunted lake for too long - and it that respect resembles the two challenges I described in my OP. I would guess that the lack of metagame-driven complications is something that appeals to you.In the Jester's challenge, the main way a fighter would participate would be by fighting the ghouls and swimming after them (using Athletics). A fighter in 4e is fairly unlikely to be trained in Insight, Perception, Nature, Arcana, Religion or History, and is unlikely to have access to rituals, or to the dispel magic power. This would make me hesitant to run the challenge as written for my group, because the player of the fighter in my game is one of the most engaged players, and I wouldn't like him having little to contribute until 5 successes are accrued, which (depending on how things play out, how the rituals go etc) could easily take quite a while at the table.And related to this: my iimpression is that, to the extent that you have some doubts about the challenges that I described in my OP, it's more about the relaxed attitude to accomodating various attempted actions (via a relaxed approach to ursine psychology!) than about the skill challenge structure per se.Of course, this links to The Shaman's gonzo point.I don't agree that the OP is about "rationalizing whatever the players come up with." In both encounters there was serious discussion, among the players, about how to tackle the situations and what sorts of approaches might be viable. And I also injected my own vies on those matters.But in the end I am quite happy to err on the side of gonzo, if it means the fighter has something to contribute to stopping the water weird, or the sorcerer has something to contribute to taming the bear. This is particularly so when GMing D&D - it hasn't come up yet on the "Roads to Rome" thread, I don't think, but one part of the D&D feel for me is a bit of gonzo fantasy. (Rolemaster is gonzo, too, but in a different way - the gonzo of RM is chopping arms of enemies, or being told by the 00 'E' Impact crit to "bring a mop", whereas the gonzo of D&D is mind flayers, gelatinous cubes, and fighters who can wrestle water weirds.)The gonzo can go too far - I remember playing a 3E game in 2000, and one PC got caught in a "web" spell cast by another PC. The player of the first PC complained, and the other player - who was actually the person who introduced RM to me - replied "It's only D&D, get over it!" I take my 4e a bit more seriously than that - and my players take it at least as seriously as me - but perhaps not as seriously, when it comes to realism in action resolution, as I would take Classic Traveller or Runequest.Of course, given that in overall thematic tone I run a serious game - mythic history and all that - it goes without saying that gonzo in action resolution has to fit with that. But wrestling a water weird and cowing a bear by wreathing yourself in lightning not only fit with the "mythic history" vibe, but build on it and push it forward through play!See, one person's problem is another's opportunity. As I've just said I don't mind a bit of gonzo, and if the rules and guidelines exert a little bit of pressure in that direction, I'm happy enough to be pushed, especially if this lets me get all my players involved in a scene.</blockquote>

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