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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5704648" data-attributes="member: 54877">Don't get to hung up on the "prepared" part of skill challenges, or the official manner of presentation. Think of a skill challenge in an adventure as an efficient way to convey a lot of information about a something that may or may not be a "challenge" to the party. If the majority of the party is involved in the activity, it requires several different skills and repeated skill checks to solve, and it is worth XP to win it--then it is probably a skill challenge. If it fails to meet that criteria, then it probably isn't a skill challenge, and should be resolved with simple skill checks. Either way, you'll still use a certain amount of player direction, GM decision, and narration to keep the story moving.  After you have run the game a bit, you can easily switch in and out of skill challenge format as the player actions warrant. If that trip through the wilderness to the dungeon turns ultra-simple because they hire an experienced guide, then that was a combination of player agency (via gold) and maybe a skill check to negotiate and a group skill check to make the trip speedily. Without more challenge, it isn't a skill challenge. On the other hand, if the party does everything themselves, requires multiple checks to keep from getting lost and avoiding hazards--or forage when they do take longer--then probably a skill challenge. Finally, you can think of skill challenges as dramatic focus on the challenge. That trek through the wood on the partys' resources will take game time to resolve, and should accordingly be fun. Maybe the players spend the gold to get the guide and bypass the challenge because they don't consider that part fun enough to go after the XP.</blockquote>

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