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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6181574" data-attributes="member: 42582">In my own case I think I've made skill challenges work, and I am following the rules as I read them.I also don't think it's that hard to put on paper. Robin Laws does a good job in his HeroWars and HeroQuest rulebooks. Luke Crane does a pretty good job in his Burning Wheel rulebooks. The WotC designers just need to follow these leads!EDIT: I think there's a reason they don't (or didn't) follow those leads - namely, fear. Key to any sort of closed scene resolution is a readiness to metagame consequences, and especially failures. So (as came out upthread) a failed climb check is narrated as a broken rope, or a damage wall for the other PCs, rather than as plunging down into the ravine. (In Burning Wheel, Luke Crane explains it this way: each check is intent + task, and when narrating the consequences of a failure the GM should focus more on intent than on task.)But some RPGers are resolutely opposed to anything smacking of metagame in this way. So the 4e designers, not wanting to offend, don't spell this out. (Though they are happy to present examples that depend upon it, like the sample skill challenge in the Esssentials books. They just don't explain what is happening in those examples.) Which means you get people trying to run skill challenges as exercises in process simulation - no different from complex skill checks - and then complaining about the sorts of silliness that [MENTION=5143]Majoru Oakheart[/MENTION] gave us upthread.If you want process simulation, skill challenges - closed scene resolution adjudicated by reference to metagame concerns with ingame causation handled via deft application of genre logic - aren't viable. Unless, perhaps, you find a way to do them with hit points, because D&Ders at least are generally happy to give hp a free pass as a metagame mechanic. (Though for those who are into "hp as meat", hp-based skill challenges still probably won't work in a lot of cases.)</blockquote>

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