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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DNH" data-source="post: 4967924" data-attributes="member: 63615">The group I DM for had its first real Skill Challenge last week and we encountered significant problems.  Now, I don't know about your players but mine are the kind who see someone making a skill check then grab the dice themselves to see what *they* can do with it!  That's not normally a problem (indeed, sometimes it's useful) but I find it to be a critical issue in Skill Challenges, where the whole thing lives or dies by the numbers of successes and failures.First off, we use a VTT (Fantasy Grounds 2) so it's not like I can just ignore this behaviour as dice-rolling to pass the time.Second, and this is my key point really, I later received a whole heap of complaints that I "hadn't told them this was a Skill Challenge".  No, I hadn't.  And I had resolved not to do so.  Moreover, I had explained as much in a lengthy e-mail prior to the session.  I had explained how I would tell them what is expected of them and ask how them how they mean to achieve it.  The actual instance from the session was presented along very similar lines to the example given in the e-mail.Of course, they started grabbing for the dice.  One player said "I will look for a path" (they were trying to locate a remote mountain monastery ... yeah, okay, it's Siege of Bordrin's Watch) so I called for a Perception check - done, one success.  What else?  Erm, someone asked if the monastery might have some cultivated land nearby for food.  Good, says I, roll a Nature check ... everyone rolls a Nature check.  Then everyone rolls a Religion check, a History check, an Endurance check (although I actually called for this last one).  Things had pretty much fallen apart by that point.  With five characters each rolling every single check, we ended up with about 20 successes and 8 or 9 failures at the end (not technically possible, I know, but you see what I mean).I called a time out at that point and explained that they had completely misread the situation, completely failed to realise that this was a skill challenge and that they *must not* just keep rolling their dice willy-nilly.  A protracted and rather aggressive argument ensued.I will concede the fact that this was the first one they had played through, but temper that with the fact that I had spelled things out very clearly in an out-of-game e-mail beforehand.I was told that I should make it clear that we are doing a Skill Challenge.  In short, they said I should be telling them "This is a Skill Challenge ...".  (They stopped short of actually asking for the numbers of successes and failures required, but I get the feeling they would like that too.)The thing about them all rolling the dice each time was explained away as perfectly normal behaviour.  "Say we want to figure out something about this monastery," they said.  "Our characters would talk amongst themselves to see who knows.  That means we all make the skill check."  I appreciate the argument but I counter it with the fact that they should simply compare skill check bonuses to decide who is most likely to know something in a given field; *that* person then makes the actual skill check.  That didn't go down too well though.Another thing about our group is that we generally do not like didactic DMs.  (You know what I mean here!  There is one in the group who regularly makes my life a misery!)  I am on the verge of writing out very clear house rules of how Skill Challenges will be run in my game, but I just know that this will be met with opposition, amendments will be sought and if I try to use the old "my campaign, my rules" approach, I will be facing open rebellion, probably.  Deary me!I think what I am asking here is how other DMs run their Skill Challenges.  I really want to avoid anything like "Okay, this is a Skill Challenge.  You need to convince the gate guard to let you in.  What skills are you using?"  That would be the worst case scenario for me (well, except for declaring how many successes they need).</blockquote>

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