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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Herremann the Wise" data-source="post: 5966557" data-attributes="member: 11300">I think this sort of planning "unexpectedness" comes about in two ways. One is certainly things and situations that the players would not be expecting. The other is where you change your initial plans to add in something new that you had not previously planned. This is still before the actual game session and before the players have gotten their teeth into it. Then of course is the real unexpected impromptu stuff where you get a weird idea and run with it during the game. As a DM, I derive enjoyment from each of these aspects of storycrafting. They keep the campaign fresh and alive for the DM.These are two good points regarding skill challenges. They place the players in the decision hot seat and they guide the DM in pacing and resolving the role-played scenario. We have a DM in our group who is notorious for using these roleplaying scenarios to convey his story and that of the NPCs. Unfortunately, he often overlooks that it is how the players interact with the story that should be the focus, rather than his fiction just on its own. The other example is the hour of roleplaying that accomplishes very little, does not resolve what was hopefully going to be resolved and thus leads to a repeat scenario to try and achieve something similar. I agree that the skill challenge rules provide a very good framework for avoiding these problems and as you say, keeping the DM disciplined and on task.I think someone mentioned the d20 Star Wars galaxy of intrigue book that covered some excellent guidelines and skill challenge examples. I think if they are going to do SCs as a module option, then this treatment would be a better way of presenting SCs than what was done in the early 4e books. Either that or they can search these forums for some of your excellent examples. <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    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Best RegardsHerremann the Wise</blockquote>

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