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Message: <blockquote data-quote="texred" data-source="post: 6056037" data-attributes="member: 6696299">The Duchess and The CoaltongueWe started off with this skill challenge, and it went fairly well. I've never really liked skill challenges, and have generally run them focused more on role playing with a few skill checks thrown in to see how well the plans work out. I figured I'd give the skill challenge a whirl again since this one was laid out really well. In the end it was fun, but I'll probably default back to my regular method of resolving large skill challenges in the future.Our first bit of combat, which makes my players extremely happy. We've got two martial scientists in the group and they improvised their feats pretty well, which I wasn't sure about. The rigorously structured rules of 4e make it easy for players to think there are no options open to them if they aren't written down on a card. The nice thing about that martial scientist power is it basically tells the player to make something up and I'll reward them for being creative.We also started seeing the personalities of our characters/players showing up. After they subdued the dockers there was a bit of a debate between the group regarding Thames. Some of them wanted to haul him in with the other dockers, and the others wanted to let him go since he'd helped them out. Quinn, the druid, got in his face and left a sour taste in his mouth for this group of constables.The constables really dislike Eladrin, probably because they're from Danor, which they have been at war with for quite some time.This was a rather awkward exchange. Quinn, the druid, basically told the Duchess they were going to post someone in her room while she napped. She obviously thought this was ridiculous and told him that wouldn't be happening. I figured that would be enough, but he was rather persistent. I figured I'd be able to cow him by having the Duchess threaten him by having her call the King over. For some reason, even the King telling him the guard posted in the room wouldn't be necessary wasn't enough to dissuade him. I probably broke character here and told the player that wasn't going to work. In the end, they were able to have Jak posted at the door, which seemed perfectly reasonable in comparison to having someone watching her sleep. I still scratch my head at this exchange.This is a recurring theme, Jak jumps headfirst into trouble and gets bashed.And in the end they were able to pull out enough firegems thanks to all that fire resistance.The Coaltongue encounter was pretty massive, and the players had a good time running through it. I felt I'd kind of dropped the ball on the ceremony in the King's Square when there are all those major characters to introduce. Then again, the players fixated on the Duchess and basically ignored everything else. Lorenzo did managed to shake Stanfield's hand, he's rather interested in the Deva which will be cool when he shows up again later on.The party dynamic was interesting. The group gets rather concerned whenever Quinn speaks to someone of importance, and they always think back to when he tried to tell the King what to do. Erik didn't get pushed to make any decisions for the party this night, but with everyone looking to him for direction I figured it would be coming at some point.</blockquote>

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