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<blockquote data-quote="Dr_Ruminahui" data-source="post: 5215498" data-attributes="member: 81104">I like your ideas.&nbsp;Something I've done (with some success) is to have each character say what part of the problem they are tackling, then that leads them done a certain path. So, they'll likely know what the &quot;gateway&quot; skill is, but not to which other skills that will lead them.&nbsp; I think this falls under your suggestion of assigning &quot;roles&quot; to the PCs.&nbsp;I used it for a courtroom drama - the PCs were trying to convince the local ruler to delay its decision under a certain treaty. The terms of the treaty were unclear because of a certain river used as a border now being a swamp instead. They had basically the night to prepare, and the next day to argue.&nbsp;Each PC decided what their general goal was, and I took them through it. This sometimes lead to different skills uses than the player might have expected. Unfortunately, I can't remember what exact skill combos this lead to, but it did result in the warlord needing to make a nature check (to find the headwaters original banks of the river), and the wizard a dungeoneering check (to figure out how to rebuild the irrigation system destroyed by the swamp), which made perfect sense in terms of what the players wanted to do, but mechanically would have been better for the warlord to be doing the dungeoneering test and the wizard the nature test.&nbsp;One thing this approach does require is that the DM think ahead of time of the various approaches there might be, yet be flexible for new ones.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Dr_Ruminahui, post: 5215498, member: 81104"] I like your ideas. Something I've done (with some success) is to have each character say what part of the problem they are tackling, then that leads them done a certain path. So, they'll likely know what the "gateway" skill is, but not to which other skills that will lead them. I think this falls under your suggestion of assigning "roles" to the PCs. I used it for a courtroom drama - the PCs were trying to convince the local ruler to delay its decision under a certain treaty. The terms of the treaty were unclear because of a certain river used as a border now being a swamp instead. They had basically the night to prepare, and the next day to argue. Each PC decided what their general goal was, and I took them through it. This sometimes lead to different skills uses than the player might have expected. Unfortunately, I can't remember what exact skill combos this lead to, but it did result in the warlord needing to make a nature check (to find the headwaters original banks of the river), and the wizard a dungeoneering check (to figure out how to rebuild the irrigation system destroyed by the swamp), which made perfect sense in terms of what the players wanted to do, but mechanically would have been better for the warlord to be doing the dungeoneering test and the wizard the nature test. One thing this approach does require is that the DM think ahead of time of the various approaches there might be, yet be flexible for new ones. [/QUOTE]

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