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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6800712" data-attributes="member: 6696971">[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] already answered this one but I'm just going to add a bit.4e's noncombat resolution mechanics have three discrete functions in the game:1)  To interface coherently with the combat engine to facilitate precise and balanced adjudication of movement within the square-based paradigm.2)  To facilitate the resolution of player action declarations related to Stunting/Terrain Powers and Countermeasures (within the Trap/Hazard system).  3)  To facilitate the abstract conflict resolution system of Skill Challenges.Pulling this kind of triple duty means that the system and its attendant instruction needs to be robust such that the table can pivot/toggle intuitively and somewhat nimbly.  There is disagreement on how well the designers accomplished this.  I think there is room for some "fair grumbling" on this in the core books (I would have written them a bit differently or at least I wouldn't have had different people writing different chapters or I would have had a unified editorial influence to confirm the message coheres and is utterly transparent throughout - consider the difference between the 13th Age book with Heinsoo and Tweet.  Further consider how easy writing "every moment of play should be about conflict and action" vs "skip the guards and get to the fun" is.).  However, once we get into the extremely informative and "on-message" Dungeon articles, DMG2, Dark Sun, Neverwinter Campaign Setting, that "fair grumbling" vanishes fairly quickly.On "fail forward", 3 is where you will find it in 4e.  4e Skills/deployable resources (as inputs to resolution) are extremely broad (by design intent).  PC action declarations are meant to follow suit.  In 3 (Skill Challenges), those inputs are meant to broaden further still (like 13th Age Backgrounds) with the outcomes (outputs to resolution) broadening in lockstep.  If I'm facing several different varying levels of adversity (visual field issues, dealing with incoming artillery, riding horseback in a high-speed chase) concurrent with a primary PC action declaration that is about navigation (Nature), we're going to "say yes" to the PCs handling those secondary issues (unless the GM demands the players make a preemptive Group Check as part of the challenge...which s/he may very well do) and focus on the question of navigation.  If successful, then the PCs get what they want and the fiction moves forward in a way as if they had earned the insurance of a Burning Wheel Instinct (I can't reframe the situation to bring about new adversity based on a navigation gaffe).  If they fail, then my job is to change the situation dynamically (forward unless this is the final failure of the challenge).  I may hone in on the 1st order input of navigation and create a like 1st order complication/cost/hard choice output for the PCs to deal with/endure; missing the trail "turn-off" and being cornered by Schrodinger's Gorge.  Or I may nab a 2nd order complication due to the intensive focus on navigation (yielding an issue with one of the things we're "saying yes" on).  Perhaps they find their way but a horse is lamed due to artillery finding home.  How do they manage to evade the fast-charging pursuit now?I've written it many times; Skill Challenges fundamentally do not work without deft GMing of the technique of "fail forward" and interesting/dynamic change to the situation on a micro-success.  Every micro-failure must be forward while every micro-success must come with a new avenue of adversity that interposes itself between the PCs and their macro goal.  This must continue until hard success or hard failure is ultimately cemented (which the system's framework does).  When deft GMing is applied (assuming the players understand their role and the stakes) the abstract conflict resolution system of SCs is robust, coherent, and versatile.  When it is not applied, or it is applied clumsily, things don't go well and the table is frustrated and/or bored.  When it is not, you get a stagnant, unchanging fiction that yields PC action declarations in-kind ("he doesn't believe/like you"..."well then I Bluff/Diplomance MOAR/HARDER!").</blockquote>

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