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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pedantic" data-source="post: 9099164" data-attributes="member: 6690965">To be clear, I am on a full third rail here. Skills should do specific (albeit broadly effective and powerful) things, players should know those things, and in coming up with the application of those things devise a solution to the problem they're facing. There's some overlap, but I don't want an adjudication loop where the DM makes some kind of judgement call about the proposed plan. I full expect the player with high enough climb to gecko stick on ceilings to look for a way to make that relevant and useful as often as possible.To the extent possible (and here is the primary point of divergence, in that I think it's nearly always possible) there shouldn't be a need for adjudication, as the resolution process for skill actions should be encoded in the rules and not require arbitration. The GM should be describing a known world and the player, while perhaps not completely aware of the contents of that world or the decisions that will be made by NPCs, should be absolutely aware of how their own action declarations will be resolved and what impact they will have. I would prefer adjudication be the rarest and least important duty of the DM, mostly to be solved by finding the most analogous case covered current in the rules, and the largest gaps discovered treated as just that, gaps that should be solved.I think it's important to be very clear that my objection is not about the fiction, it's absolutely a question of gameplay. I don't actually see the much daylight between how "focused on the fiction" you would be in either scenario. Proponents of skill challenges point to their ability to support a broad variety of declared courses of action as a selling point, and view the structure they provide as fundamentally more fair and complete than relying on one person at the table's judgement. I'm ideologically more sympathetic to that position, I just think the gameplay it produces isn't good or interesting.I am absolutely fine with a player who's head down, looking at their character sheet for a solution: I would like them to find something more interesting than "ah yes, my +4 modifier is bigger than my +3" to use there.</blockquote>

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