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<blockquote data-quote="Pedantic" data-source="post: 8736137" data-attributes="member: 6690965">My point is more broadly that player agency is increased and the resulting gameplay a more mechanically interesting set of decisions the closer you map resolution to discreet actions.I don't think we're on quite the same page here. This might be clearer if I presented the counterfactual; how would this have been resolved if 4e was printed without skill challenges? The situation you presented (admittedly in the absence of the other actions taken before this fighter's action) is no different without a skill challenge framework. You made a quite reasonable judgement call that drawing a weapon makes the other party hostile, and the fighter failed a skill check to influence them, resulting in combat.The situation did not require a skill challenge framework to resolve. The interesting decisions the fighter made (risking an escalation of tension to get a bonus to resolving it his preferred way) was not a product of the skill challenge system.Then what is the value of the skill challenge, if you're going to evaluate the fictional state after any given action? How is the game meaningfully improved by having a skill challenge framework around the above interaction, vs. a different set of rules for resolving the situation? To be completely honest, I am not entirely willing to yield &quot;some fictional consequences obviously overwhelm the system&quot; as a commonplace, because it is the source of many disagreements. The case you've presented I think is pretty clear, but the classic conceit of &quot;clever gameplay&quot; in D&amp;D involving you know, flooding caves or dousing things in oil and lighting them up could easily fall into that same category, with some players claiming they should evade the system because their proposed action renders the skill challenge moot, and others suggesting the action is just another expression of a skill check inside the skill challenge framework.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Pedantic, post: 8736137, member: 6690965"] My point is more broadly that player agency is increased and the resulting gameplay a more mechanically interesting set of decisions the closer you map resolution to discreet actions. I don't think we're on quite the same page here. This might be clearer if I presented the counterfactual; how would this have been resolved if 4e was printed without skill challenges? The situation you presented (admittedly in the absence of the other actions taken before this fighter's action) is no different without a skill challenge framework. You made a quite reasonable judgement call that drawing a weapon makes the other party hostile, and the fighter failed a skill check to influence them, resulting in combat. The situation did not require a skill challenge framework to resolve. The interesting decisions the fighter made (risking an escalation of tension to get a bonus to resolving it his preferred way) was not a product of the skill challenge system. Then what is the value of the skill challenge, if you're going to evaluate the fictional state after any given action? How is the game meaningfully improved by having a skill challenge framework around the above interaction, vs. a different set of rules for resolving the situation? To be completely honest, I am not entirely willing to yield "some fictional consequences obviously overwhelm the system" as a commonplace, because it is the source of many disagreements. The case you've presented I think is pretty clear, but the classic conceit of "clever gameplay" in D&D involving you know, flooding caves or dousing things in oil and lighting them up could easily fall into that same category, with some players claiming they should evade the system because their proposed action renders the skill challenge moot, and others suggesting the action is just another expression of a skill check inside the skill challenge framework. [/QUOTE]

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