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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5656145" data-attributes="member: 82106">I think it is too narrow to think of the SC mechanics presented in DMG etc as a systematic set of mechanics. It is a set of concepts and guidelines to start with. There is a basic structure to it, but if you read the various articles by Mike Mearls and the material in DMG2 it is pretty clear that there's no one specific set of mechanics that constitute THE 'skill challenge system' as there is for the combat system.So, you can run the game with nothing but tossing skill checks here and there. You can add in the pass/fail mechanic and have a way to measure PC progress towards a goal. You can pile variable levels of success on top of that. You can use Advantages, secondary skills, etc to allow you to reflect specific features of a given situation or give the players specific levels of control or different strategies to follow. You can also totally rework the system to use different mechanics or use them in very different ways (and DMG2 contains an example of this).The advantage is always the same advantage. The SC concept gives you a way to decide when a goal is or is not achieved and to what degree. You can 'wing it', but sometimes it is nice to be able to just go with where the players and the dice take you and when they hit 3 failures KNOW that you can just say "OK, you blew it".</blockquote>