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<blockquote data-quote="LostSoul" data-source="post: 5420359" data-attributes="member: 386">Sure.&quot;When you use a skill, you make a skill check.&quot;I think that sums up the problem: you don't resolve the action the character takes in the game world; you use a skill and make a skill check.&nbsp; This leads directly into the sort of &quot;exercise in dice rolling&quot; that many people notice when running Skill Challenges.&nbsp; Players use a skill and make a skill check against a set DC based on their level.&nbsp; Interaction with the game world isn't required, and that has an effect on the game: unexpected outcomes aren't going to happen, players will have a hard time paying attention to the game world, and smart or cunning plans aren't any more effective than saying &quot;I roll Diplomacy&quot;.I believe that the point of using mechanics at all is to get unexpected results that everyone is happy with but no one would have come up with.&nbsp; If you get expected results or results that players are not happy with, you might as well go to free-form RP.&nbsp; (I'm not talking about results that end up with PCs failing, I'm talking about results that make the players sit back and say, &quot;Well that is stupid.&quot;&nbsp; 1E d20 Star Wars snowspeeders being far tougher than AT-ATs, for example.)It seems that this was the idea behind Skill Challenges from WotC; otherwise I don't think they would have spent the time in their modules to detail what characters are doing when they make a specific skill check.&nbsp; They would have detailed the opposition, its disposition and methods and left it up to the group to work out.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="LostSoul, post: 5420359, member: 386"] Sure. "When you use a skill, you make a skill check." I think that sums up the problem: you don't resolve the action the character takes in the game world; you use a skill and make a skill check. This leads directly into the sort of "exercise in dice rolling" that many people notice when running Skill Challenges. Players use a skill and make a skill check against a set DC based on their level. Interaction with the game world isn't required, and that has an effect on the game: unexpected outcomes aren't going to happen, players will have a hard time paying attention to the game world, and smart or cunning plans aren't any more effective than saying "I roll Diplomacy". [indent]I believe that the point of using mechanics at all is to get unexpected results that everyone is happy with but no one would have come up with. If you get expected results or results that players are not happy with, you might as well go to free-form RP. (I'm not talking about results that end up with PCs failing, I'm talking about results that make the players sit back and say, "Well that is stupid." 1E d20 Star Wars snowspeeders being far tougher than AT-ATs, for example.)[/indent] It seems that this was the idea behind Skill Challenges from WotC; otherwise I don't think they would have spent the time in their modules to detail what characters are doing when they make a specific skill check. They would have detailed the opposition, its disposition and methods and left it up to the group to work out. [/QUOTE]

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