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<blockquote data-quote="Morrus" data-source="post: 5531035" data-attributes="member: 1">Because having abstract hit points serves a function; having abstract successes doesn't. Abstract successes simply aren't as immersive as tasks.&nbsp;&nbsp;You're focusing too much on the fluff text. Don't worry about my fluff text. So just change it to &quot;You can see a couple of dozen people who seem to be looking round nervously. You'll need to narrow it down a bit&quot;. Then with the second check they see that one of those people has a hidden dagger.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And I think that's fine - if you're writing for yourself. But you're writing for a thousand people you've never met who want to run this adventure, and making it task-oriented rather than abstract success-oriented makes it much clearer for them in my opinion. &nbsp;One of the most frequent complaints about 4E is the skill challenge system. This despite articles and clarifications form WotC; despite people popping up and saying &quot;Oh, I'm clever, I can run them fine, I just do X&quot;; despite all this, skill challenges get complained about a lot and a lot of people struggle with them. Heck, I struggle with them. In my current campaign I've gone so far as to actually ignore them and just wing something on the fly instead.&nbsp;I'll tell you what. I'll playtest both versions and ask my players which worked better for them. I'm willing to bet that the task-based system works better.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Morrus, post: 5531035, member: 1"] Because having abstract hit points serves a function; having abstract successes doesn't. Abstract successes simply aren't as immersive as tasks. You're focusing too much on the fluff text. Don't worry about my fluff text. So just change it to "You can see a couple of dozen people who seem to be looking round nervously. You'll need to narrow it down a bit". Then with the second check they see that one of those people has a hidden dagger. And I think that's fine - [I]if [/I]you're writing for yourself. But you're writing for a thousand people you've never met who want to run this adventure, and making it task-oriented rather than abstract success-oriented makes it much clearer for them in my opinion. One of the most frequent complaints about 4E is the skill challenge system. This despite articles and clarifications form WotC; despite people popping up and saying "Oh, I'm clever, I can run them fine, I just do X"; despite all this, skill challenges get complained about a lot and a lot of people struggle with them. Heck, [I]I [/I]struggle with them. In my current campaign I've gone so far as to actually ignore them and just wing something on the fly instead. I'll tell you what. I'll playtest both versions and ask my players which worked better for them. I'm willing to bet that the task-based system works better. [/QUOTE]

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