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<blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 6284455" data-attributes="member: 27160">Well, firstly I don't find I need to make any specific announcement <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />I just place down glass beads (green for successes, red for failures) on the table and the players know what's going on without anyone verbalising it.I agree that Skill Challenges are far from perfect as a system for non-combat challenges. They lack inherent interesting decisions for the players (the GM has to add those in via the way the challenge is constructed out of tasks and sub-objectives) and they don't allow easily for NPC/world &quot;active opposition&quot; to play a part (the GM can add that as a way to get the required number of rolls, as I think [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] does, but it's still rather &quot;static&quot; as opposed to &quot;dynamic&quot;). I wish WotC had put some serious design resources into making a proper replacement (instead of fiddling at the edges). But they didn't, and now it seems they never will.I still consider, however, that Skill Challenges are a country mile better than what has laughably passed for a &quot;system&quot; for such situations in previous versions of D&amp;D. Flawed they may be, but at least they acknowledge the need for mechanisms to &quot;model the world, not reality&quot; for out of combat challenges. At least they give an unequivocal model that players can comprehend of how non-combat challenges will be resolved.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Balesir, post: 6284455, member: 27160"] Well, firstly I don't find I need to make any specific announcement ;) I just place down glass beads (green for successes, red for failures) on the table and the players know what's going on without anyone verbalising it. I agree that Skill Challenges are far from perfect as a system for non-combat challenges. They lack inherent interesting decisions for the players (the GM has to add those in via the way the challenge is constructed out of tasks and sub-objectives) and they don't allow easily for NPC/world "active opposition" to play a part (the GM can add that as a way to get the required number of rolls, as I think [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] does, but it's still rather "static" as opposed to "dynamic"). I wish WotC had put some serious design resources into making a proper replacement (instead of fiddling at the edges). But they didn't, and now it seems they never will. I still consider, however, that Skill Challenges are a country mile better than what has laughably passed for a "system" for such situations in previous versions of D&D. Flawed they may be, but at least they acknowledge the need for mechanisms to "model the world, not reality" for out of combat challenges. At least they give an unequivocal model that players can comprehend of how non-combat challenges will be resolved. [/QUOTE]

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