I’m excited to have found this site (and wealth of skill challenge wisdom). I ran my first skill challenge last night (my blog has a write-up of it). I feel like it went well, but I immediately saw all sorts of ways to improve for next time.

My favorite aspect of the skill challenge was the way it actually encouraged role-playing in my group. Only one of my players consistently thinks in terms of role playing out his actions. The rest have not fully embraced that aspect, yet. Both my wife and my friend’s wife got very creative in their descriptions of what they were doing. I actually enjoyed the skill challenge more than the combat. That surprised me.

Ok, I’m done.

I like this challenge,but I’m thinking of trying to do it in reverse, actually playing the poker game at the table, but using the skill checks for extra cards to each player’s hand or other manipulations of the game.

Du’Cell is great. A npc that can only be bargained with through playing a poker game is an awesome idea.

• The PC is trapped in the chip in some sort of extra-dimensional plane (The Demi-plane of Gambling?) so could be freed if the other PCs go there and plot an escape
• The PC is “dead”, but another game (“Double or Nothing?”) could free him. So yes, this SC could result in a wacky TPK, but could also be an adventure in and of itself if you use the above idea, the whole party ends up there and needs to get out.
• The one I prefer –have an NPC that the players are connected to volunteer as the wager. There’s loss, but it doesn’t consist of a player being out of action.
• The player could be released from the chip with a “Raise Dead” spell.

If a PC loses, are they considered dead, or do you have a way of releasing them from the chip?

@eric I’ll post up an article on the playing out of skill challenges later, but the basics of it is to describe the options that the players have that aren’t strict skill rolls –in this case, the “All-in” option and “Hands”– then give the basic options of some valid and then roleplay out each roll. You as the DM can control the pacing of the challenge — each “hand” could represent anywhere from between a few moments to a few hours of grueling play –and then the characters are simply roleplaying and making the accompanying roll. There’s a lot to it, but I promise I’ll go into more detail later. Also, your proposed skill challenge is near the top of my list.

@daniel –I’m honored. At-Will is going international! Thank you.

@rauthik –Glad you like. Definitely more on the way.