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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Imaginary Number" data-source="post: 5257717" data-attributes="member: 63056">I completely agree with this as well.  As far as I'm concerned, what you've described is a big DM fail.  If the DM wants to run the players through a skill challenge, the DM needs to give the players information sufficient to determine not only that they're in a skill challenge but also what the nature of the challenge is.  I can't imagine that staring blankly at the players for an entire hour as they try to figure out what they're supposed to do would be fun for the DM or for anyone else at the table. I don't agree, however, that announcing the existence of a skill challenge to the players necessarily has to destroy immersion.  The DM standing up and yelling, "OK people, this is a skill challenge, you need to use skills X, Y, and Z, start rolling!" probably would, I suppose, but you don't need to do it that way.  I have no idea what the nature of your skill challenge was, but for the sake of discussion let's say that the braziers in the room actually are powered by magical pools of elemental fire that float high above the braziers and that the idea of the challenge is to get someone up there to disrupt the pools somehow.  As soon as your rogue made the disarm roll, I'd say something like "You initially think that you've disabled the mechanism, but soon you see hot sparks leap down from circles of fire that appear above you and repair what you've done.  You're reasonably certain that eliminating these circles of flame would deactivate the braziers, but you don't think that you can get up to them and eliminate them without help."  My players have figured out that "you don't think you can do X without help" = "skill challenge," so when they hear that they get other party members involved and try to figure out what they all can do to achieve the goal.  That's still a little metagamey even though it's all narrated in character, but it's better than the alternative.</blockquote>

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