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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5437055" data-attributes="member: 42582">Ariosto, I've been playing the game since 1982. I started on Moldvay Red Box. As far as I can tell (by comparing you posting record with my own knowledge) I know the 1st AD&D rules as well as you do. I also know and have played RQ, CoC, Rolemaster, Classic Traveller, Pendragon and Stormbringer/Elric, to name some RPGs that fit your description of "commerically published RPGs until the mid 1990s".I know the way in which a skill challenge resembles skill-based action resolution games, and the way it differs from them. I've pointed out those differences in great detail in my posts upthread.But the notion that skill challenges are intended to play like a 2nd ed/White Wolf railroad is ludicrous. You seem to be extracting this from the phrase "Setup: For the NPC to provide assistance, the PCs need to convince him or her of their trustworthiness and that their cause helps the NPC in some way." As if the GM has forced the players into this setup. When it is obvious to anyone who reads the 4e DMG that the presupposition here is that there is an NPC whose help the PCs are trying to obtain.From the fact that my dungeon key contains an entry "Room 10: 3 orcs who attack on sight" it doesn't follow that any PC will be attacked. Maybe they won't go to the room. Maybe they won't be seen. Heck, maybe they are seen but get of Mass Charm first, or through some other stratagem bring it about that the orcs don't attack on sight.Likewise, if the PCs never find themselves needing to persuade an NPC to provide help, the negotiation skill challenge won't come into play. (And for those who missed it the first time, the passage I quoted from DMG2 makes it utterly explicit.)The difference from traditional games isn't the presence or absence of railroad. It's the structure in terms of DC setting and relationship between successful skill checks and resolution. And this isn't an "innovation" borrowed from 2nd ed AD&D or White Wolf. It's very obviously borrowed from "indie" games like Burning Wheel, HeroWars/Quest, The Dying Earth (that one may techncially not be indie) etc.In a "loyalty" skill challenge in 4e one would expect the GM to have regard to prior behaviour towards the creature in determining complexity and DCs. (Like the DMG says, "more so than perhaps any other kind of encounter, a skill challenge is defined by its context in an adventure.")Also, in 4e, some things can't be accomplished despite dice rolls. For example, in the negotiation skill challenge you cited, the GM has determined that no amount of dice rolling can intimidate that NPC.This is also true in 4e. The GM is the one who has the job of determining the consequences of a successful skill check (as per the rules text quoted by me upthread).The difference is that the rules of 4e impose certain constraints upon the relationship between such decisions, and the pattern of successful and failed checks. Thus, if the GM has decided to run an encounter as a complexity 4 skill challenge, the first successful diplomacy check, no matter how successful and no matter how erudite the PC's entreaty for friendship, is not going to end the challenge. Why not? Well, it's the GM's job to work that out. Maybe the NPC harbours a secret grudge that somehow needs to be brought out and resolved. Maybe the end of the speech was overshadowed by a loud explosion from a nearby earthquake. The GM may have worked some of this out in advance, and may work some out on the spot (just as GM's have been doing with encounters since the beginning).How does a GM determine the complexity of the skill challenge? Sadly, the rules are mostly silent on this, and so leave it up to the individual GM. I take my cue from HeroWars/Quest, and treat it mostly as a pacing issue - how much time do I think it might be worthwhile to spend on this in the game?LostSoul, in his 4e hack, does it differently. He treats the complexity of a social skill challenge as depending upon the intial result on the reaction dice. (I don't use reaction dice in my own game.)Sometimes it also makes sense to be guided by the complexity of the situation - if what is at stake is simply moving from point A to point B without incident over the course of a couple of days, there may simply not be enough game elements or player interest avaiable to support more than a complexity 1 challenge.How does a GM decide on the complications that unfold in the course of the challenge - whether it's a failure to be persuasive enough, an erupting volcano, a secret grudge, or something else that means the first successful diplomacy roll doesn't resolve matters completely? Again, the rules are sadly silent on this. Again, I take my cue mostly from HeroWars/Quest, and to a lesser extent from The Dying Earth and Burning Wheel also.So I introduce complications that seem to arise naturally from the unfolding dynamic of the fictional situation (like a failure to be completely persuasive), or that will engage some other part of the game that is interesting and relevant to one or more players (like a secret grudge) or that will bring to light some otherwise unrelated element of the gameworld that seems like it might be exciting and engaging (like the erupting volcano).Now I get that you don't like this system. Fine. Why might someone else? Maybe they like how it facilitates pacing. Maybe they like how it helps produce engaging and dynamic situations. Maybe they like that it helps them reduce elements of "mother may I" or GM fiat in resolving social conflict. For me, it's all of the above. After many years of Rolemaster's Interaction Skills table, with its vague descriptions, complete lack of guidance in setting difficulties, and complete randomness as far as pacing is concerned, I feel like something a bit different.</blockquote>

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