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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5632920" data-attributes="member: 42582">I wondered where that buzzing was coming from!I agree with all of this, except maybe on the "chits" bit - the game has lots of chits, and DMG2 gestures toward using them in challenges, and I'd like more about that - especially, more examples of how it can be made to work!But everything you say about framing and resolution is spot on. This is what I've been trying to say above, when I say I want more guidelines and examples and advice.It's also why I've been using HeroQuest and Maelstrom Storytelling rather than Burning Wheel as my comparitors. They're both much more streamlined, mechanically, than Burning Wheel's Duel of Wits or Fight! subsystems, and so I think provide a better model for how to explain skill challenges and get them to work.Very good points here.On the "constant reframing" issue - at the moment, given that I'm using the "3 strikes" mechanic, I would benefit from more advice on how to handle this. And examples. The original HeroWars rulebooks have a good discussion of how to frame contests, and then narrate resolution, so that sufficient flexibility is maintained to permit meaningful and consistent narration of whatever the climax turns out to be. But 4e has some features that differentiate it from HW/Q - a default assumption of all the PCs being engaged, for a start, as well as the lack of active opposition. Advice tailored to those distinctive features could go a long way.On the "more flexible core mechanic" issue - maybe. An alternative is to be given better advice on how so-called "advantages" can be used to undo failures.Part of what is needed on both these issues is also more advice about the metagame aspect of skill challenges. For example, suppose that the challenge is primarily a social one. And the party socialites have been doing well, making progress and so on (and the narration reflects this), although 2 failures have also accrued. And then someone rolls a 1 and the challenge fails. How should this be narrated? Did the player make a faux pas? Break wind unexpectedly? Lose his/her mojo at the last minute. Or did her henchman, or perhaps another PC, drop a crystal decanter that is an ancient heirloom of the Duke's estate, and this is what makes things go wrong? And if the latter, can the Ranger in the party save the day by catching the decanter with a successful Acrobatics check (perhaps also paying an Action Point to act out-of-turn like that)? Or can another socialite PC make a final Diplomacy check to ensure that, even though the party as a whole has failed, s/he remains in the Duke's good books?Advice on, and ideas for, this sort of stuff would in my view go a long way to making what we've already got work better.</blockquote>

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