This is my number one problem with 4e: it is so damn mechanical at times that it stops being fun.  Skill challenges epitomize this for me.  Obviously this is just my opinion, but the system walks a fine line between challenging and annoying for me.

I'm with longcoat000 on this one.  Rely more on the role playing and creativity at the table and just see where it goes.  That is what I have been doing with 4e and I find that it works much better.  If the players don't know it is a skill challenge they focus on the scene and not the mechanics.

No harm, no foul.  I need to find a better way to prevent the spam.  Let's see what the new measures do.

I was suspicious, but it did seem to fit in with GMing, so I answered it anyway.

There's a reverse-Turing machine irony at work here, isn't there? 

I'll be the voice of dissent.  Toss out the situations and see what they do.  Maybe they'll use their skills to overcome it.  Maybe they'll come up with something through inventive roleplaying that negates the need to even roll the dice.  But if you tell them it's a skill challenge, then you're using "loaded language" that will subconsciously tell them to start looking at the situation as more of a "what do my stats say I can do?" thing rather than, "how can we go about solving this?"

I deleted the original post because that guy was a spammer.  Sneaky bastard (the signature gave it away).

The topic is interesting, so I split your comments into a new thread.

Recently the spam has gotten significantly worse, and I've been adding security measures to try and counter the bots and spammers.  Unfortunately my experience has been that until the cops actually capture and shut down the spammers (happens quite a bit too) you see this crap keep getting worse.

I just added another measure and we'll see if that improves things.

Even in Christianity, there are all sorts of divergent views on this, as Telas mentioned. (Including a couple denominations that don't really have much going on, you're just dead in the ground until it's time to be resurrected...)

Most game worlds have a different cosmology from that. Even on earth, you have other religions with other concepts of the afterlife. (Just look at how complicated it was for the Egyptians, back in the day. For the Aztecs, what afterlife you went to depended on how you died. If you died by drowning, for example, you went to the water afterlife.)

If you're using a published world, then it should provide it. If you're homebrewing it, use whatever is interesting!
And if you want to use the Christian afterlife, then you'll have to look around for the different versions of it, and use which one you think is best. This is kind of tricky though, potentially, since you're bringing real world religion (and therefore real world theological differences) into your game. (Something I generally avoid, if I can.)

Ask a thousand Christians, get a thousand answers...

For a game, pick the one that leads to the most fun in the game. 

Without getting into a religious debate (I feel that all men and women should find their own way), here are a few interpretations:

- The dead go to Purgatory, where they are 'held' until Judgement Day.  (FWIW, the Vatican is currently reconsidering the concept of Purgatory.)
- The dead are judged when they die.  (Translations often are not literally accurate.)  Spirits and ghosts come from those who died with an important task that they still need to do, such as righting a wrong, completing a duty, etc.  The task is so important that the spirit refuses to pass into the afterlife until it is done.  (Or the death was so sudden and unexpected that the spirit is not aware that it has died.)
- Ghosts and spirits may be evil beings taking on the appearances of dead people, as well.  Finding out the truth may be difficult...

Seconded, as to using the updated rules. My first exposure to a skill check was with the original set, as a player, and I wanted to strangle the DM by the time it was done. (Luckily, he admitted it had been a debacle, and we moved on from there.)

It sounds like you know your players' stats fairly well, but I'd double check what they are, and run the math on them a bit, to make sure that you don't design an impossible challenge.

I'd also tell them that it's a skill challenge. I don't know how else you're going to explain to them that they're making so many skill rolls. I suppose you could make them, but that takes a lot of the tension/excitement out of the game, I think...

I don't run 4E, but I did play in a year-long campaign in which the GM tried a few techniques for Skill Challenges.

First off, make sure you're using the updated rules.  The original ones were nigh impossible. 

We found the most enjoyment when we knew it was a skill challenge, when it was hard, when the players were free to use whatever skills they could logically apply, and when we got a graduated level of success instead of an "all or nothing" deal. 

Were I to run skill challenges, I would also require one or two "must be used every round" skills, and possibly even a "may only be used once in the Challenge" limitation on a skill.  (Once you've done X once, doing it again will not elicit the same response.)  Our GM also let us use certain skills as re-rolls, or to negate a failure.  (This depended on the situation; Bluff might get you out of a failed Acrobatics check, or Athletics might save a Bluff failure (by running away), etc.)

Finally, I'd definitely explain that it's a skill challenge.  There's a great article in Kobold Quarterly 12 about merging combat with skill challenges.  This may help, as well: http://www.koboldquarterly.com/k/front-page4942.php

Telas