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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7086659" data-attributes="member: 996">Hmm... that's a point, I don't see protagonists as proactive and antagonists as reactive.   Mechanically, yes, it'd still be n successes before 3 failures.  The number of successes, difficulties, and skills in question might all be quite different, though.   SCs typically have certain skills that can be used repeatedly, some that are restricted in use or become harder the more you use them, others that you must 'make a case for' or can't be used, and sometimes one that's an auto-fail.  Which skills are which could change radically in a player-initiated vs an NPC-initiated challenge.  For instance, if the party were unaware of the Vizier's evil ways in pemerton's example, they might come to the dinner, where the Vizier tries to maneuver them into committing to a quest that would take them out of his way for a long while, or insulting the Baron, or something.  Instead of using bluff and the like to trick the Vizier, they might be using Insight to figure out what's up, and Diplomacy to reach a more reasonable deal with the Baron.  If I were running, they might also not know there's a Skill Challenge going on.  Much as I'm open about 4e being the kind of game that works best 'above board' there can be challenges where keeping more of the mechanics behind the screen can be good.  Similarly, I might run an SC where the players aren't told about the SC until they're part way into it, because part of it is figuring out what's going on.</blockquote>

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