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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6265228" data-attributes="member: 42582">Another couple of comments:When running a skill challenge, the fiction has to come first. In the social challenge I linked to above, a lot of the pressure in the situation came from a hostile NPC pressuring the fighter PC, who has the weakest social skills in the party. At one point another player made a Bluff check to create an excuse for his PC and the fighter to leave the table. That then meant that the hostile NPC, who was still sitting at the table, couldn't pressure the fighter, which changed the dynamics of the situation in the players' favour, at least temporarily.Also, there is no point running a skill challenge if you already know what is going to happen. You have to be prepared to let the situation unfold in accordance with the players' declared actions and the results of their checks. In a social situation, this can lead to unexpected outcomes: for instance, a player who has just made a Diplomacy check says "I want to make another Diplomacy check". So you reply, "OK, what else are you saying?" So then the player has to have his/her PC actually say something new in order to create the fictional context for the check to be made - and you never know what that is going to be! Maybe they make an offer, and then on a successful roll the NPC accepts it: now the player is bound by a promise that none of you was anticipating 10 minutes earlier.One example of this from my game was when the PCs were raiding a hobgoblin outpost: the hobgoblins retreated to regroup, and the PCs ducked into a small room to take a short breather. In the room they found a couple of duergar slave traders taking shelter from the melee. The PCs didn't want to start a fight on another front, so they started talking. And as the situation resolved - in accordance with the principle I just described, that to make checks the players actually have to have their PCs do or say stuff - they ended up reaching a deal with the duergar to redeem the slaves they had bought from the hobgoblins for an agreed price at an agreed location in a month's time. None of us was expecting that outcome when the negotiations started. (And the module writers certainly hadn't thought of it!)</blockquote>

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