Hazards, obstacles, chases, and haunts mostly involve various skill checks that can be made to overcome them -- using some skills can be more difficult than others to overcome them. I know chases usually have the caveat of "if the PCs come up with something reasonable" let them try it.
My question is how do you run these? There are several options from a more gamist perspective all the way to a more narrative perspective.
Let's take overcoming a Violent Crowd for example:
Succeed at two of the following checks in any combination:
Athletics DC 25 (trained) to confiscate dangerous debris, Diplomacy DC
25 (trained) to calm the crowd, Intimidation DC 23 (untrained) to scare
the crowd away, Will DC 28 (trained) to maintain a brave and confident
demeanor; an effect such as calm that can target an area counts as one
automatic success.
The more gamist approach to running this makes it much easier than a narrative approach.
Gamist approach (easy mode): You let the PCs know their options for overcoming the obstacle/hazzard. Essentially you tell them the skills/saves/attacks they could attempt, whether training is required, and at the very least a relative difficulty. This allows the PCs not not waste fruitless actions guessing what they should do.
Narrative approach: You simply set the stage that will certainly include hints, but nothing outright that alludes to specific skills, training requirements, and certainly not difficulty.
Middle Ground: And of course there's somewhere in between those two, where you could describe the options they might want to take, like confiscate the debris, clam them, scare them, or be brave and confident, without giving away the actual things they'll be rolling to start with.
I've personally done all three before. And I'm not sure which I prefer. I find in Chases, because of the "creative caveat" PCs will just try to use their best skill over and over again and waste game time trying to convince me whey they should be able to use their best skill every time.
Because the Narrative Approach above can result in "wasted actions," the Middle Ground might result in very ineffective actions, and while the Gamist Approach will result in efficiency of actions -- it seems it may come down to a question of game balance. Should appropriate leveled obstacles/hazards take into account there may be "wasted actions" or not as PCs may be trying to figure out the best course of action. This isn't clear to me within the rules. When dealing with a Creature, sure there may be wasted or ineffective actions if a Recall Knowledge isn't successful. But skill challenges with Chases, for example, don't really allow for a Recall Knowledge in a Chase round.
So what's the advice for how to approach? Do you guys use the Gamist, Narrative, or Middle approaches above? And what were the designers' intent, do you think?