But I'm really totally completely over the whole, "Everybody give me a Perception check." "18!" "Ok, you spot...."
Recent game:
<At a celebration festival>
[Everybody roll perception!]
My human barbarian is the only one to make the check. (20-something total)
"You hear wings flapping in the sky above you."
Since I have no darkvision, I can't see anything. I nudge the half-elf next to me. "Hey, do you see anything?"
<half-elf rolls a nat 1>
[The half-elf is busy trying to keep her plate of food on her lap after you nearly knock her off the bench. She glares at you, somewhat spoiled by the rib bone clenched in her teeth.]
<Backs off from the half-elf. Nudges another character on the other side> "Hey, do you—"
<rolls a 2>
<talking to another guest> "Hey, I'm busy here! Quit bugging me if it isn't important!"
[OK. Well, boulders start falling from the sky as gargoyles attack.]
~~~
In this case, I know meta-wise that the sound of wings means there's an attack incoming. Heck, I knew that before the GM even called for the perception check. However I don't know this for sure in-character, so I don't immediately react to something I can't see, and instead try to get confirmation from nearby characters.
Each of those characters had darkvision, so could be reasonably expected to be able to see the fliers up in the dark sky. The roll isn't to determine if they
can see anything, but whether they
do see anything.
The rolls informed the truth of the state of the world at that time. It wasn't a roll to determine, "Do you see anything?", it was a roll to determine "What are you doing right now, and are you in a position to pay attention?"
Failure meant status quo in the Exploratory sense — the gargoyles attacked just like they intended, without interference. However failure also helped create part of the scene — what were the characters doing other than being part of a filler scene that no one is going to remember? It tells us a bit about the half-elf gorging on food, which showed a bit of shift in her behavior related to other events that have been driving her crazy. And the other character finding someone she was interested in at the gathering provided an optional hook for another event later on.
If the rolls were only about whether the characters were
capable of seeing anything, this would be a situation where the GM just skipped the rolls and told them about gargoyles flying in overhead. It's clean, antiseptic, and...
lacking (though only in hindsight). It's Exploratory. The GM knows exactly what's there (the gargoyles), and knows that the characters could see them if they looked up. Using the goal-and-approach method, no Perception roll would be needed. Just roll initiative for combat.
However making the roll shifted it to Revelatory. The roll itself creates parts of the world, and how the characters are interacting with it. The gargoyles attacking are less important than the characters actually feeling like they're a part of the world. Failure provides something for the players that goes beyond the status quo/"You don't see anything" response.
I suppose that falls under the "consequences of failure" category — not in the sense of the action itself, but in the sense that something else could be going on which can interact with the chosen action.