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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dave Turner" data-source="post: 4284673" data-attributes="member: 12329">Why is the DM presenting skill challenges in which one or more PCs have insufficient skills?  I agree that it's avoidable in some cases.  It might stretch believability that every king with which the PCs negotiate has a fondness for Acrobatics that can influence his mood.  It's a bit silly that someone could use Diplomacy to get out of the way of an avalanche. Further, I do appreciate that sometimes a player can come up with a spontaneous suggestion for an applicable skill which the DM and players really like.  I'm the last person to suggest that a DM should rigidly fold his arms across his chest and deny the clever player his due.  But skill challenges are supposed to be dramatic, as dramatic as any fight.  Where's the drama in being a torch-bearer in a fight?  Where's the excitement in being the guy who trumpets battle commands to troops?  Players want to be amongst the troops, laying waste to their foes, being active, meaningful contributors to the outcome.  Relegating "unskilled" characters to support positions robs them of the opportunity to engage with the drama of the skill challenge.  A well-designed skill challenge system (like Stalker0's alternate system found in the 4e House Rules forum) is designed so that every player feels like he has a reasonable chance of being part of the action, rather than a supporter or observer.I don't see how anyone could prefer being a torch-bearer over being a knight.This is absurd.  No one is suggesting that, in isolation, mathematicians are better DMs.  What is being suggested, however, is that by understanding the math underlying 4e's rules systems, you might become a better DM.  How?The purpose of the DM is, above all else, to ensure that his players have fun.  Fun in 4e is, in part, a function of the mathematics embedded in the rules.  Why isn't it fun for a 1st level party to fight Orcus?  Because the math works against the players and frustrates their desires to have an entertaining battle against Orcus.  This is an embedded principle of every version of D&D every created.  Any RPG which relies on numbers and dice has an explicitly mathematical foundation.  4e players and DMs are buying books by WotC because, in part, they expect that the WotC designers have done enough math to make sure that the game is fun.  After all, I could design my own RPG if I wanted to do all the math myself.  But I rely on WotC to do that work and, in exchange, I pay them for their efforts.  Any DM worth her salt must be concerned about the math in her game.So assuming we have a conscientious DM who wants her games to be fun for the players, we have a DM who is keen to make sure that the math generally works out for her players.  She's not interested in an inadvertent TPK because some designers at WotC thought that labelling a monster with 40 AC as "Level 2" was a good idea.  But our conscientious DM knows that WotC designers are human and make mistakes.  It's in her best interest, and the best interests of her players, to seek out mathematical analysis of 4e's systems.  After all, if she knows that WotC made a serious mathematical mistake, as the appear to have done with the RAW skill challenge system, she can correct for the problem and make sure that her players have fun.  Better knowledge of the underlying math (i.e. greater rules transparency) always benefits a DM who's interested in making sure that her actual games are fun for everyone involved.  Contrary to your assertion, knowledge of the math can only help the DM, not hurt her.   It's far from "useless" in DMing.To go a bit further, do you agree that WotC should not have included rules for DMs to create their own monsters?  After all, the rules there explicitly lay out the mathematics used to create monsters.  Will a DM be better off ignoring those rules and mathematics and using her native cunning when designing custom monsters?  Perhaps your DMing skills are up to the task.  But since the DMG seems to be aimed for the newbie DM, your advice is hardly of much help.</blockquote>

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