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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5466903" data-attributes="member: 42582">OK, I'm confused by your definition of "control".Let me put it this way: Why is it a genie that is grumpy? Why is it this particular site that is warded? Because the narrative has established (i) that a genie is involved in the situation, and (ii) that the situation is one of trying to get to that particular site.This is not control by mechanics alone. The mechanics dictate that a complication is to be introduced. The narrative determines the parameters of that complication. To me that looks like joint sovereignty. I'm not going to try to put a percentage weight on each sovereign's contribution, but experience tells me that neither is minimal.If I didn't want complications to occur in the PCs getting to the site, I wouldn't frame it as a skill challenge in the first place.That's the point of the challenge - to distribute responsibility for introducing and resolving complications. (Not that the 4e rulebooks use this sort of language - I'm borrowing it from more complete presentations of comparable mechanics.)As to the terminology of "pop quiz", I still think that that is needlessly derogatory. Suppose I'm playing Classic Traveller, and the PCs go to a planet that the GM has not developed beyond its place on the star map and a UPP, and then when they land, and the GM rolls an encounter using the rules in Book 3, the encounter entry says "Event". The GM has to come up with an interesting and plausible event. Is this "pop quiz" rolepalying?Or, suppose I'm playing 1st ed AD&D. The PCs are on the 10th level. I, as GM, roll an encounter - and through an unlikely set of rolls it ends up being an encounter with a single 3rd level monster (I don't have the table memorised anymore, but let's say its an encounter with a single ogre). What is an ogre possibly doing on the 10th dungeon level? I have to come up with a story quick-smart. Is this "pop quiz" roleplaying?The structure of a skill challenge is different from the structure of random encounters in those classic RPGs. But the fact that, from time to time, it requires the GM to come up with a story fast, the parameters of which are determined by the narrative, but the precise details of which are not, is hardly unique to skill challenges.What's the objection? Unless I've radically misunderstood him, BryonD is proposing a characterisation of skill challenges via his two slogans ("pop quiz roleplaying" and "mechanics determine narrative") and I'm the one who's objecting.</blockquote>

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