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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6550243" data-attributes="member: 4937">First of all, the 4e skill challenge is IMO, one of the worst implemented and worst conceived good ideas ever in the history of PnP RPGs.  The idea of a prolonged and important non-combat scenario needing a framework of rules about it is a good one.  But the idea that one single framework could contain all the possible non-combat challenges was as bad as the idea of having a framework was good.  And the idea of the skill interaction between the challenge and the fiction, or the setting, be one that is abstracted and non-specific was equally bad.Imagine if combat was entirely this way, and you'll quickly see I think how boring such a framework would be.  Instead of describing an action, make combat even more abstact so that it was nothing but a series of successes wearing a way a foe before they achieved a certain number of successes.  Highly static non-cinematic combats can fall into something close to that rut, and they quickly become dull.It's obvious that to make combat more exciting, it requires the rules to reference the sort of features of combat we'd expect to see in combat to add in our imagination and to associate the players actions strongly with particular events that occur in the combat.  So the rules of combat are made non-generic and specific to combat by having some sort of rules particular to the weapons being used (missile weapons are used at a distance, melee weapons up close), the sort of maneuvers made by the combatants, and that the combat occurs in some sort of imagined space and ideally a space with terrain since anyone that studies tactics knows that they occur at the intersection of weapons and terrain.  The same thing has to occur if you want exciting skill challenges.  Otherwise, they will - as you put it - feel entirely too gamey.   My suggestion to you would be to take advantage of the GM's day sale to get an entirely different perspective on this by buying a PDF that is quite excellent that is about a particular sort of non-combat (well, sometimes) skill challenge, which has the same sort of association between its mechanics and the thing it simulates as the combat engine has with combat, and that PDF is called "Hot Pursuit: The D20 Guide to Chases".   Now, this pdf is for 3e (more or less) but I think you'll see it is very adaptable to any system based on the D20s and easily tweaked to circumstances.   And what it actually does is present a vastly superior 'skill challenge' system - if you are engaged in a chase scene, either to evade something or to capture it or prevent its evasion.  And I think you'll be able from there to begin to think of less pure gamey, more engaging sorts of play that both simulate the thing better and facilitate its narration better - both your narrative response as the GM and in the imagined space going on in the player's heads. What I would encourage you to do is build your skill challenges more organicly than 4e does.  This requires more encounter design than 4e actually spells out (most of the time), but is in the long run more satisfying.   An example would be persuading a council of 9 tribal elders to vote to help you, where each tribal member has particular prejudices, weaknesses, and so forth and then just letting the players attack the problem organically with blackmail, bribery, intimidation, assassination, negotiation, favors, and persuasion however they like.   Detail how likely the obvious courses of actions are to work with each different NPC - some are cowards, some are corrupt, some are noble, others admire courage, and some are logical and respect strong clear reasoning.   And of course, investigating and interacting with these NPCs will reveal which plans are more likely to work, and what means of leverage you might could raise up - one secretly wants to avenge a murdered wife, another has an adulterous affair she wishes to keep secret, one has gambling debts, and a third is actually a traitor working for the enemy.  And so on and so forth.  Design a scenario, and the exact structure of winning isn't needed.  In the end they need to get a majority of votes.  That's how you engage both characters and players and get them to use their skills and wits.It's a rare player that cares deeply about slice-of-life low drama like that, and even among those that will engage with it, rare is the one that that is the primary reason they are setting at the table.  More to the point, typically there is space in such an encounter only for 2-3 players to stay engaged, so if you have a large group you should try to keep slice of life to a minimum except when its serving a larger purpose - things like character development, clue provisioning, plot hooking, disguised exposition and setting orientation.  You want to avoid making such slice of life events serve no purpose.  If the cabbage seller spills his cabbages in front of the PCs, it shouldn't be just because - it should be the universe arranging that something important fall in the PC's laps.  The cabbage seller is actually a smuggler transporting runaway slaves illegally out of the city, and his mishap has just attracted a number of the brutal town guards.   Now that puts the PC's in an interesting situation where they have to make choices that matter, often on scarce information.   That's the sort of situation you want to see the PC's react to.   Less heroic situations probably shouldn't occur after level 1 or so, and even then should be leading to something.</blockquote>

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