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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Stoat" data-source="post: 4675831" data-attributes="member: 16786">To answer my own question:So far, I've tried to weave the skill challenges into the flow of the game without calling them out too explicitly.  I get a read on what the players hope to accomplish and I start calling for relevant skill checks.  I'm not in the habit of saying, "this is a Skill Challenge!" the way I say, "roll Initiative!"  I try not to give the players a lot of details about what skills to use.I've had Felon's experience.  A challenge centered around tracking some wererats in a city turned into an exercise in fairly mindless dice rolling.  They players seemed to have a hard time expressing what they wanted to do, and I had a hard time describing the action back to them.On the other hand, we had a lot of fun with a challenge centered around convincing a spoiled noble to buy some siege equipment for the party.  The players got into the NPC's head, played off his personality, and connected their skill rolls very closely to the action.  I've come to prefer Stalker0's Obsidian system to the WotC system, at least for social-type challenges.  It feels a little more freeform, and I like that it accounts for partial successes.Another question.  A lot of WotC challenges used nested skills: A successful History roll doesn't count as a success, but opens up a one-time Intimidate check.  Other times, the balance between success and failure changes: making a difficult Diplomacy check counts as two successes, but failing that check negates a success and counts as a failure.How much info do you give your players about these kinds of details?  Do they know in advance that the History check won't count as a success, or that the the Diplomacy check carries greater risks and rewards?</blockquote>

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