Dude, the thing that is annoying is that you keep making these statements about "auto-play checklists" as if that is what is being done by GM's who ask players to describe their actions and intents and adjudicate actions based on that.
What I do, and what I think many DMs do, is not "an auto-play checklist." I am not a pre-programmed text adventure game with a series of conditions that lead to a series of outcomes. I am trying to imagine the game world and communicate that game world so that the players can imagine it as well. Within the context of that game world, I am trying to understand how the actions of the player characters will impact that game world, and I am trying to make sure that my understanding of it and the players' understanding of it gels.
If the player says something that I don't understand, or that clearly demonstrates that the player doesn't understand the world as described, I don't just move on and say, "Well, sucks for that player." I talk to the player. I clarify. I ask the player to clarify.
If a player says, "While we travel, I'm going to look out for ambushes," I don't, in my mind say, "Well, obvi, we know the character is doing that already. No change." I say, to the player, "Your character is generally looking out for ambushes — that's what your passive perception score is. However, if you'd like, you can choose to move at a slower pace to allow you to scout your surroundings more carefully and give you Advantage on your passive perception score for the trip. I'm also open to any other ideas you might have as to how to prepare for an ambush."
RE the bold...
So in my very first post that initiated this thread i stated the following
"If this rule was based on in-character actions/trade-offs, that would be fine - "if the characters move cautiously, checking for tracks, they will travel slower but gain advantage on checks for spotting ambushes. As a result of moving cautiously... bla blah" where the slower movement causes maybe more encounters/checks with wandering beasties, the "catch to be either closer to the enemy camp or even not able to catch the camp, etc or a chance that a storm wipes away the tracks etc. Also, certain features or proficiencies could also trigger the change in the odds of spotting - like say favored terrain/enemies. Focus is on whether the character is going to be exceptional at the spotting, whether the characters take a deliberate trade-offs to gain help at the spotting and not whether a player says the right phrase with no actual changes to in-game actions. Even if they added "but the character would suffer a disadvantage on other checks for perception due to being focused on the ambush sites" that would provide an actual differentiation between those "looking for ambushes" and those not."
So, i do not see any major gap between our positions on this subject - declarations vs trade-offs etc - some definition of differences between characters' actions as opposed to what the players state as say was illustrated in the original product text.
I am pretty sure either in there or a later post i even said i would have offered them some options for how they wanted to do this ambush spotting thing...
So no major daylight there, mo major gaps...
but that is a whole different animal than the selection you cut out of my response (somewhat tongue in cheek) to the sidebar discussion of the metagaming thing and auto-play checkist, right?
In that bold section you even reference the character perception score... which is a significant departure from cases where GMs claim they make the auto-play without reference to character stats, right?
You know that thing you just quoted from me... it was about the latter, not the former.
Did you get confused and shove those two topics together by accident or what?
Or when other Gms here say they do not consult character traits until after they do the auto-play determination, do you think they are lying?
Again, maybe you are right or wrong for getting annoyed at how i see the auto-play before stats thing, but the case of the ambush example you go into such detail in that statement of yours is not about that, right, its about the needs to get clear understanding and trade-offs into play understood between the player and GM.
You might as well have told me you are annoyed at how i talk about ice cream because [insert something about pizza.]
But hey, if it made sense to you, thats fine.