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Message: <blockquote data-quote="smerwin29" data-source="post: 4088954" data-attributes="member: 15050">I ran "Escape from Sembia" at DDXP, and while I cannot talk in great detail about skill challenges, I can say some things:Good DMs in any of the previous editions of D&D could do (and have been) something like skills challenges for decades.  The skill challenge system is there to help DMs create a framework that allows the PCs to have flexibility in solving problems without making it too hard or too simple.3e skills like diplomacy made it almost too easy at times: that hostile guard in now friendly, so he just walks away.  Or it made it too hard: your only chance of escape is to climb the DC 25 wall, so you need to roll a 22 to make it.The current skill challenge framework will encourage players to use their imaginations, while at the same time providing a rules mechanic to adjudicate it.  And, of course, the final call is always up to the DM.  If the players do something ingenious, she can always just decide they succeed for the entire encounter, or give them more than 1 success.I had a 50/50 fail to success ratio for that encounter in the games I ran.  We had a lot of roleplaying, a lot of laughing, and some great scenes and in-character actions.  It gave me the flexibility to allow the PCs to do something they are good at, then force them to do something they may not be so good at, all without me having to worry that one decision on my part might ruin everything.To answer the OP, I handled how things went in a variety of ways, sort of as a test of the system.  Sometimes I gave two or three choices (you can climb boxes to the roof, which is easy, but there is a chance you will be seen; or, you can scale the wall directly so you won't be seen, but it is a tougher climb).  Sometimes I let the PCs select based on easy, medium or hard, with the understanding that there might be consequences for success or failure.  Sometimes I let them tell me what they wanted to do, and I set the difficulty based on the actions described.  Sometimes I forced a specific check at a specific DC based on a corner that PC had painted himself into.  It didn't take long for each table I ran to get into the mindframe needed to make the encounter work.</blockquote>

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