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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6398822" data-attributes="member: 42582">As has been noted, this is a 4e mechanic carried over to 5e.I take it that these remarks about skill challenges being &quot;boring&quot; and &quot;awful&quot; are intended as autobiographical? They certainly don't describe my experience.As for &quot;rigid frameworks&quot;, the most rigid framework in D&amp;D is the combat system: all those rolls to hit, damage rolls, saving throw rolls, etc. And it's on everyone's mind when they play out a combat. A lot of people don't think that makes combat inherently boring or awful.For me, this is the same issue as any other aspect of encounter design: in a party game, how do you make all the players take part.In combat, for instance, even if the MU player is deciding to save spells, the goblins might try and break throuh or throw spears at the back line. In a skill challenge, similarly, the GM needs to narrate the situation in such a way that the other PCs will lose something they care about unless their players start declaring actions.I don't see skill challenges as trainer wheels, nor primarily as an XP delivery device. (In my experience, at least in 4e, you could replace the official XP rules with &quot;gain one monster's worth of XP for every 15 or so minutes of play&quot; and have basically the default rate of progression.)I think skill challenges are mostly an encounter-framing and resolution device, along the lines of indie-style extended contests. It imposes a discipline on the GM to keep the scene alive unti the mechanical conditions for resolution are satisfied, which means that additional content is generated which otherwise might not be (as per [MENTION=336]D'karr[/MENTION]'s comments upthread about framing and declaring skill checks and then narrating the outcomes as input into the next framing).The reasons for doing this are much the same as for resoving combat via extended rolls (hit point depletion) rather than a single set of opposed rolls: ie sometimes it is more fun, when roleplaying, to linger over a scene and explore some of the details.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6398822, member: 42582"] As has been noted, this is a 4e mechanic carried over to 5e. I take it that these remarks about skill challenges being "boring" and "awful" are intended as autobiographical? They certainly don't describe my experience. As for "rigid frameworks", the most rigid framework in D&D is the combat system: all those rolls to hit, damage rolls, saving throw rolls, etc. And it's on everyone's mind when they play out a combat. A lot of people don't think that makes combat inherently boring or awful. For me, this is the same issue as any other aspect of encounter design: in a party game, how do you make all the players take part. In combat, for instance, even if the MU player is deciding to save spells, the goblins might try and break throuh or throw spears at the back line. In a skill challenge, similarly, the GM needs to narrate the situation in such a way that the other PCs will lose something they care about unless their players start declaring actions. I don't see skill challenges as trainer wheels, nor primarily as an XP delivery device. (In my experience, at least in 4e, you could replace the official XP rules with "gain one monster's worth of XP for every 15 or so minutes of play" and have basically the default rate of progression.) I think skill challenges are mostly an encounter-framing and resolution device, along the lines of indie-style extended contests. It imposes a discipline on the GM to keep the scene alive unti the mechanical conditions for resolution are satisfied, which means that additional content is generated which otherwise might not be (as per [MENTION=336]D'karr[/MENTION]'s comments upthread about framing and declaring skill checks and then narrating the outcomes as input into the next framing). The reasons for doing this are much the same as for resoving combat via extended rolls (hit point depletion) rather than a single set of opposed rolls: ie sometimes it is more fun, when roleplaying, to linger over a scene and explore some of the details. [/QUOTE]

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