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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MerricB" data-source="post: 5144111" data-attributes="member: 3586">Saturday was a confusing day. It was my regular boardgaming day in town, but I was also set up to run a session of D&D Encounters if there were people wanting to play. Yes, it might be an unsanctioned "catch-up" session or something, but I've got my hands on the adventure so I might as well run it in the local store to help D&D along. This is a program to help stores, isn't it? Besides, I'm hearing enough about non-Wednesday sessions of D&D Encounters that I might as well have fun with the adventure.So, come late afternoon on Saturday, I've got a few people interested... and then the regular store-based group of D&D players turn up. Without their DM. Now, I would be amiss if I said I wasn't expecting this, because I was. This year, these players have been cursed by not one but two completely unreliable DMs. Things were mostly ok last year, but this year it's been a real curse. Now, I thought that they'd have a DM tonight, and that I might be able to run the D&D Encounter for some of them before their session if they were amenable. But, with no DM for them, plans changed. I quickly resolved to run the first three D&D Encounters for them. That's as far as the campaign has run, so they wouldn't be getting ahead of the world. While I think the Wednesday-only restriction is stupid, that doesn't mean I disagree with most of the other details of the campaign. It's entirely *because* I think it's a good idea that I've been arguing against that restriction.It helped that only Rich was there of my regular boardgaming crew; he was more than happy to play some D&D. Nathaniel was also there, but he was mostly involved in a Magic draft. There was a time when I thought we'd have to have two groups, but when the numbers boiled down there were six players, me and Nate. Nate would have liked to play, but the Magic draft had taken *far* longer than he had expected and Aimee was waiting for him. He would have stayed if we'd needed him to run an extra table, but it didn't occur.So, I found myself DMing a table of six players: Paul, and his son Ben, Rich, Jackson, Shane and Dakota. Those last two are quite new players, but Dakota has read a bunch of Forgotten Realms stuff and bought some of the books. I used my copy of the Character Builder to create a character for him (a Genasi Swordmage). Rich had spent part of the afternoon creating a Shardmind Wizard, and then the other players took some of the pregens: Jackson a Tiefling Psion; Shane a Elf Ranger, Paul the Githzerai Monk, and Ben the Tiefling Battlemind.We had a lot of fun. I have a few issues with how the encounters are constructed, particularly the final set of skill challenges, but overall everything worked. Jackson's Psion got killed in the first encounter, came back to life, but he dropped out of the game midway through the third challenge; I'm not quite sure if he wasn't enjoying it or was just tired. Everyone else stayed. And I'm quite happy with how it went.The skill challenge format? Not so much. Comments inside the tags:[sblock]The First Skill ChallengeI haven't been reading a lot of 4E adventures, but the format of the first skill challenge was close to incomprehensible. Now I've run it (poorly), I know it works, but at first blush? Urgh.Let's look at the stat block:Level 1Complexity 2Primary Skills Diplomacy, Dungeoneering, Endurance...Secondary Skills Arcana, History...I can use Diplomacy to get through the dungeon? Cool - can I make a Diplomacy check DM, please? No... only once you've made an Insight check...There's quite a bit of text here describing the challenge, but it seems that half the primary skills can't be used. In fact, some of the primary skills aren't meant to be player choice at all - they trigger based on something else. For the DM, it's extremely confusing which is which, and the summary block doesn't help at all.We need a better system for this.Level 1Complexity 2Initial Skills: (Primary) Dungeoneering, (Secondary) Arcana, History, Insight Revealed Skills: (Primary) Diplomacy, Intimidate, Streetwise.Triggered Skills: (Primary) Endurance, Stealth, ThieveryWhat is actually going on? The characters are using Dungeoneering to navigate through the dungeon towards their goal (possibly with the aid of a map). Every time they make a Dungeoneering roll, the DM* then chooses one of Endurance, Stealth or Thievery to get past the challenge they've discovered. If they're clever enough to use Insight, they realise they can talk to some of the denizens to help them get past these encounters. (*: In actual fact, perhaps the players choose between Endurance and Stealth if it's a monster; the DM chooses between Trap or Monster).In actual fact, it's quite a clever skill challenge. Unfortunately, it needs a similar explanation as to what is going on! Please, for all you adventure writers out there, skill challenges, more than anything else, need a peek behind the curtain. (I've also a feeling that limiting Dungeoneering to 3 successes is a bit low; you should be able to do this without going for help. Do you tell your players when they can't get any more successes?)The Second Skill ChallengeHmm. This is another clever skill challenge, but it's got its problems. This is the chief one: It's proscriptive in what skills can be used. Why is this formatted as a skill challenge again?You need 6 successes. How can you get them?* Two successes from Arcana* One success from either Dungeoneering or Insight* One success from Perception* One success from Religion* Two successes from ThieveryThat's it: 7 possible successes for a 6 success challenge. If no-one in the group is skilled in a couple of those skills (such as Thievery), it's extremely difficult. Acrobatics and Endurance *do* help a little, but are too easily wasted on "easy" checks. It's not like the players can see which skills help and how many times they can use them, unless you're a very nice DM. I think that these are two of the better skill challenges I've seen - especially the first one - when they've been explained properly. Unfortunately, that explanation is dreadfully lacking for the first, whilst the second is a bit too restrictive on how it's handled.[/sblock]On the Wizards boards, Alphastream has written a very good post on <a href="http://community.wizards.com/dungeonsanddragons/go/thread/view/91301/23064161/Skill_Challenges_in_Damp;D_Encounters" target="_blank">Skill Challenges in D&D Encounters</a> with tips and advice.This week, I hope to run a single D&D Encounter. We'll see how it goes.Cheers!</blockquote>

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