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<blockquote data-quote="El Mahdi" data-source="post: 5465468" data-attributes="member: 59506">I agree with your overall point, but disagree with the assumption that it has to be this way.&nbsp; There's nothing that says you have to follow the Skill Challenge system rigidly.&nbsp; There's nothing that says you can't chalk up an automatic success for good roleplaying by a player, without ever having them make a skill roll (an immediated reward, regardless of actual stats).&nbsp; I think the above situation falls under one of my general rules: Good roleplaying by a player always trumps any weakness of the character.&nbsp; But also, within the Skill Challenge system, a player doesn't have to use a charisma based skill.&nbsp; Skills based on other stats not only can be used, but are encouraged to be used.&nbsp; It's a system that when used correctly promotes creativity rather than limiting it...&nbsp;I use Skill Challenges in my 3.x games to wonderful effect.&nbsp; They are great way for me to add a bit of behind-the scenes structure to non-combat encounters - so I don't have to adjudicate everything, and so there's a feeling of consistency and fairness for the players (as opposed to purely my subjective decisions).&nbsp; I like to old-school-DM encounters also, and I think I do it quite well (at least my players tell me I do<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />), but I've found Skill Challenges to be a very beneficial addition to my DM toolbox.&nbsp; But, like most in this thread have said, I almost never run them as written in the rules, and I've houserule in much of the advice I've already heard here in this thread.&nbsp; Especially: I never announce a Skill Challenge.&nbsp; I prefer them to be more transparent and less gamist (not that gamist is a bad thing, just not the style I like to use).&nbsp; I never tell players how many success or failures they need, and never provide them with a running score of their successes and failures.&nbsp; I prefer it to be a structure that's only apparent to the one behind the screen.&nbsp;But above all, I follow the advice that Mengu said in the same post you quoted:&nbsp;&nbsp;<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin&nbsp; &nbsp; :D"&nbsp; data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="El Mahdi, post: 5465468, member: 59506"] I agree with your overall point, but disagree with the assumption that it has to be this way. There's nothing that says you have to follow the Skill Challenge system rigidly. There's nothing that says you can't chalk up an automatic success for good roleplaying by a player, without ever having them make a skill roll (an immediated reward, regardless of actual stats). I think the above situation falls under one of my general rules: Good roleplaying by a player always trumps any weakness of the character. But also, within the Skill Challenge system, a player doesn't have to use a charisma based skill. Skills based on other stats not only can be used, but are encouraged to be used. It's a system that when used correctly promotes creativity rather than limiting it... I use Skill Challenges in my 3.x games to wonderful effect. They are great way for me to add a bit of behind-the scenes structure to non-combat encounters - so I don't have to adjudicate [I]everything[/I], and so there's a feeling of consistency and fairness for the players (as opposed to purely my subjective decisions). I like to old-school-DM encounters also, and I think I do it quite well (at least my players tell me I do;)), but I've found Skill Challenges to be a very beneficial addition to my DM toolbox. But, like most in this thread have said, I almost never run them as written in the rules, and I've houserule in much of the advice I've already heard here in this thread. Especially: I never announce a Skill Challenge. I prefer them to be more transparent and less gamist (not that [I]gamist[/I] is a bad thing, just not the style I like to use). I never tell players how many success or failures they need, and never provide them with a running score of their successes and failures. I prefer it to be a structure that's only apparent to the one behind the screen. But above all, I follow the advice that Mengu said in the same post you quoted: :D [/QUOTE]

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