When my players are describing something, they generally get pretty specific about it. They are going to tell me, "I hid the gem in the pillow case on the bottom." or "I take out the pill, cut a small slit in it and shove the gem inside. Then I put it back in the pillowcase and return it to the bed.". I don't need a roll for how well they do that, especially since I assume a certain level of competence from heroes, even low level ones.
Where I will use a roll is when the player says to me that his PC would know better than he would about the issue, in this case hiding spots. At that point I'll have a roll happen to see how well he does and narrate an appropriate action.
That's a totally valid way to play it. As I indicated, it was pretty much the norm for AD&D. I was really making two points:
1) If the folks at the table
are making rolls for something, and find themselves with a mismatch between what the players narrated and what the dice say, it's more than likely because the players are narrating specific outcomes, rather than relying on the dice. In the running example of hiding a gem, if the player narrates that they jam it in the pillowcase then rolls a 1, it creates a cognitive mismatch. The solution to that is to say, "I hide the gem... {rolls the die for a modified 15} ...in the pillowcase." If you don't want to roll dice, move on with life. This conversation doesn't apply to you.
2) If you're playing a game with skills that are appropriate to a task and habitually ignore them (could be social, could be sneak/deception), then you're implicitly making any points sunk into those skills worth less than points put into another skill. Again, this is a valid play style. Hero (as of 5th edition, which is what's on my shelf) doesn't have the same gamut of social skills as D&D. It's part of the role play aspect. That means that a smooth-talking player will
always be at an advantage in social role play over a less eloquent one. It also means that a player who is a bit naive will never have the opportunity to play an effective "face". If the group is cool with this, more power to you -- that was, again, more or less the default for AD&D. It does run counter to the ability to play "not what I am in life" enjoyed by, say, the kid with cerebral palsy who plays the dwarven warrior with a 19 strength.