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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 5466321" data-attributes="member: 1210">Oh, absolutely! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  And skill challenges are a good example of a mechanic that needs a certain amount of finessing to avoid a really artificial feel.  Several of the early skill challenges that I ran kinda sucked; but by learning from them (and the article series about them, and published examples, etc), I really improved my mastery of skill challenges. Just like I have over the years by learning from sucky npcs, encounters, plotlines, etc.The thing with skill challenges, like just about everything else in the game, is that some groups will like them and some won't.  For those that do, I think it's worth the effort that it takes to get good at designing and running them in a way that you and your group enjoy. Unlike combat, we haven't had much of a mechanical framework for group non-combat challenges in the past (short of the dubious example of encounter traps in 3e's Dungeonscape, which were really a preview of how traps and hazards would work in 4e anyhow). Because of this, as well as the skill challenge system's own warts as originally presented, there has been a learning curve with skill challenges. I think I actually put more into designing many skill challenges than I do into designing a lot of combats- and this despite the fact that I usually take a very "tell me what you're doing" approach rather than the "here are your primary and secondary skills" approach.One trick that I have found makes the skill challenge mechanic as a whole work better with my group is to run them differently depending on the circumstances. Often I don't announce that the party is in one, though they might easily pick up on it if they are paying attention (I track successes and failures with dice). Once in a while they even get a handout with the whole thing on it (well, unless I leave out some complications or surprises!). It depends on the nature of the challenge- if it's a diplomatic encounter, I don't announce it, and I call for skill checks as the characters interact, while if it's a challenge to build a raft from Underdark fungus, they'll know how many successes they need to succeed (though the pcs might think they succeed even if they fail, despite the contrary knowledge of the players).</blockquote>

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