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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5586031" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't see this as an objection to skill challenges. I see it as evidence that, at least in this domain, the GM in question was not very good.The rulebooks are fairly clear. From the PHB p 259:Your DM sets the stage for a skill challenge by describing the obstacle you face and giving you some idea of the options you have in the encounter. Then you describe your actions and make checks until you either successfully complete the challenge or fail…From the DMG pp 73-75:Begin by describing the situation and defining the challenge. . . You describe the environment, listen to the players’ responses, let them make their skill checks, and narrate the results... When a player’s turn comes up in a skill challenge, let that player’s character use any skill the player wants. As long as the player or you can come up with a way to let this secondary skill play a part in the challenge, go for it… In skill challenges, players will come up with uses for skills that you didn’t expect to play a role. Try not to say no. . . This encourages players to think about the challenge in more depth… However, it’s particularly important to make sure these checks are grounded in actions that make sense in the adventure and the situation. If a player asks, “Can I use Diplomacy?” you should ask what exactly the character might be doing …The GM, in adjudicating the skill challenge as you describe, was not following these guidelines, which make it clear that the GM's (or module author's) description of the skill challenge is merely a type of preliminary guide to how the challenge might unfold - your GM was himself not thinking about the challenge in depth, nor thinking about how the skill checks are grounded in actions that make sense given the situation.To me, what you're describing here is one sort of difference between when a single skill check is appropriate to resolve a situation, and when a skill challenge is appropriate. (A bit like the difference in HeroQuest between simple and extended contests.) In the latter case, just rolling and then narrating to fit the roll isn't enough - as the guidelines in the PHB and DMG indicate, the player has to describe in advance of the roll what it is that his/her PC is attempting. Without this the GM can't adjudicate consequences, which then leads to the sort of silliness that Kinneus is complaining about.This makes sense, although I think the general tenor of the rulebooks is that it is the GM rather than the player who has principal responsbility for narrating the result (but obviously having due regard to the player's prior roleplaying).I agree - which I think is reflected in the implicit distribution of responsibility in the 4e rules (players have primary responsibility for the former, GMs for the latter). One weakness in the published examples of skill challenges (which is not present in the skill challenge rules themselves) is that they don't sufficiently distinguish these two things - so that in suggesting to the GM how s/he might narrate a result given a certain prior player roleplaying decision, they are taken by some as also licensing the GM to dictate those prior roleplaying decisions. Dismabiguating this in the examples would, I believe, have saved WotC a lot of grief with respect to skill challenges.This also makes sense to me, and is how I believe skill challenges are best conceived of given the published guidelines - and again, the decisions points canvassed in the published examples on ly make sense if treet as preliminary mullings of the sort you describe.The one point where I would depart from what you describe is in who gets to narrate the result. You say that it is the player. But at least sometimes this, in effect, puts the player in charge of setting up the next decision point - which is to say, makes the player responsible for setting up the adveristy for his/her PC - and for reasons given in <a href="http://isabout.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/the-pitfalls-of-narrative-technique-in-rpg-play/" target="_blank">this blog to which LostSoul has linked in the past</a>, I don't think that works very well.That's not to say the GM should be a dick about it. And if the GM, in narrating results, presents the PC (as opposed to the broader situation) in a light to which the player objects, then I think there has to be scope for negotiation and player input. (Eg, and referring back to AbdulAlhazrad's example, it is one thing for the GM to decide that the duke's advisor recognises the lie because more familiar with the details than the PC anticipated, but another thing for the GM to decide that the lie fails because the PC is so nervous that s/he spills wine all over the duke's shoes - a GM who wants to go with the second option should have the player on board implicitly if not explicitly, I think.)</blockquote>

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