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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 4203830" data-attributes="member: 42582">It's not entirely clear from the excerpt, but assuming that D&D skill challenges are meant to resemble the mechanics in other RPGs that they resemble (eg contests in HeroWars/Quest) then they will have another important difference from skill use in games like RQ, RM and typical 3E.In the above-mentioned games, success or failure on the skill roll indicates success at a certain task (eg climbing a wall, reciting a beautiful poem). It is typically left up to the GM to arbitrate whether or not succeeding at that task actually helps the PC get closer to the goal that the player is aiming at. With a skill challenge, on the other hand, it is the case that if the players rack up sufficiently many successes then they achieve their goal - and they thus earn the entitlement to explain how it is that, by doing those things, the PCs have got what the players wanted.The skill challenge therefore removes a degree of control over the story from the GM, and hands it to the players - by successfully rolling skill checks in a skill challenge the players are able to make it be the case in the gameworld that doing those things that the PCs have done ensures success.Whether the narration of the ingame events that gives voice to this state of affairs will be performed by the GM, or by the players, I think will vary from group to group. I am hoping that the DMG discusses this issue at least as well as it is discussed in other RPG books (eg the Hero's Book for HeroQuest).</blockquote>

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