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Message: <blockquote data-quote="grickherder" data-source="post: 4738998" data-attributes="member: 68043">As they are written, yep the skill challenge rules don't really work like they should.  Over time actually using them though, I found they drift into a usable format that encourages/gives structure to role-playing rather than reducing it to die rolls.  You can have some very free dialogue with great content when the participants aren't worried about getting the result they want.  The dice have been rolled and you know who has succeeded and who has not-- now it's time for a scene where that is the end result, but how it gets there and what spins out of it is up for grabs.Absolutely.  D&D has always been a combat game with free-form roleplaying tacked on.  How much emphasis you spend on the free-form roleplaying varies by player and group.Some people might find this to be a shocking statement, but characterization can happen within the confines of the combat system.  Even within the combat system, decisions communicate things about your character to the other participants.  If you prioritize such characterization, expertise is a pretty boring feat.  All it will communicate is that you are accurate.  Feats that let a defender or controller really protect or help others can communicate things about your character's priorities even though they're just doing their job.  Add in a bit of that tacked on free form roleplaying in the form of in-combat dialogue, internal soliloquies, quick narrated flash backs, etc., and you can start using the combat mechanics to do characterization.  Powers, feats, class features-- basically everything can be keyed off of to communicate things about the character to the participants of the game with a little bit of that glue that is normally reserved for stringing combat together.</blockquote>

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