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<blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 5065054" data-attributes="member: 2011">Precisely. This is where the skill challenge system can totally fall apart.We had a skill challenge in an online game this week where the players were just asking two captured NPCs a bunch of questions and the NPCs were pretending to not understand common, so the PCs were doing stuff like talking about how worthless the NPCs were and killing the NPCs (in front of the NPCs since they &quot;couldn't speak common&quot;) and it was a bit of fun roleplaying until the DM decided that we needed a skill challenge to trick the NPCs into talking. At that point, the game bogged down cause some of the players did not understand skill challenges and how to play them, etc., and nobody could just speak up when they thought of something, they had to wait their turn. zzzzzzzzzFrom a flow and immersion perspective, it would have been vastly better to just have the DM ask for a skill check once in a while in the middle of the roleplaying. Skill challenges make the less physical and more cerebral skill checks a lot more klunky. Even skill challenges like running through a town and having to make various skill checks to avoid the guards seems less flowing and more mechanical with a skill challenge.I'm still on the fence as to when and how often to use them. I rarely include them in my game because they do seem so forced. I just ask for an occasional skill roll instead.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="KarinsDad, post: 5065054, member: 2011"] Precisely. This is where the skill challenge system can totally fall apart. We had a skill challenge in an online game this week where the players were just asking two captured NPCs a bunch of questions and the NPCs were pretending to not understand common, so the PCs were doing stuff like talking about how worthless the NPCs were and killing the NPCs (in front of the NPCs since they "couldn't speak common") and it was a bit of fun roleplaying until the DM decided that we needed a skill challenge to trick the NPCs into talking. At that point, the game bogged down cause some of the players did not understand skill challenges and how to play them, etc., and nobody could just speak up when they thought of something, they had to wait their turn. zzzzzzzzz From a flow and immersion perspective, it would have been vastly better to just have the DM ask for a skill check once in a while in the middle of the roleplaying. Skill challenges make the less physical and more cerebral skill checks a lot more klunky. Even skill challenges like running through a town and having to make various skill checks to avoid the guards seems less flowing and more mechanical with a skill challenge. I'm still on the fence as to when and how often to use them. I rarely include them in my game because they do seem so forced. I just ask for an occasional skill roll instead. [/QUOTE]

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