Could you be more specific? It doesn’t make sense to you that I differentiate between content that presents a challenge and content that exists primarily to enrich the setting and story?That First part makes no sense, to me.
You seem here to be conflating “challenge” with “combat.” Many things can be challenging. Also, content does not need to be challenging to be valuable, and I don’t know what I said that gave you the impression that I think otherwise.The rest, I get but just strongly disagree in terms of creating good gameplay. I think the game loses soemthing extremely good and important when only those things which “challenge” the PCs have any chance of failure, or of meaningful differentiation as to warrant mechanical resolution. The world and people and things in it matters more than how many HP the kobold shaman has. Who the Duke of Vagarsal is as a person is more important than how many of his guards we have to knock out without getting caught in order to find the needed clues as to what he was up to before he disappeared.
I don’t disagree.The “flavor text” is quite often the most important thing by an immense margin.
And it’s often held up as one of the best published adventures for 5th edition to date. Correlation is not causation, but in this instance I think the adventure being designed this way is directly responsible for its perceived quality.Worth pointing out that LMoP seems to be written specifically with this approach in mind.
Solid analysis.Let me suggest a 2nd example where the different styles described would yield different results.
Scene: the battle has ended, the heroes having victoriously prevailed over 5 kobolds.
Style 1:
Player 1: I search the bodies. I rolled a 16 Investigation.
DM 1 (improvising): Well, in addition to a short sword, light crossbow and leather armor, one the the kobolds has a secret compartment in its boot. It holds a small agate wirth 20 gp.
Style 2:
Player 2: I search the kobolds’ bodies.
DM2: They each have a short sword, light crossbow and leather armor.
On the plus side, on a high roll, Player 1 could find something that the DM1 improvised. Conversely, on a low roll, Player 1 could miss something that DM2 would have let Player2 find automatically.
I seem to be what now? I didn't mention combat, or allude to it in any way. Its possible we draw the line between "challenge" and "flavor" differently, but so far as I can tell it isn't at combat.Could you be more specific? It doesn’t make sense to you that I differentiate between content that presents a challenge and content that exists to enrich the setting and story?
You seem here to be conflating “challenge” with “combat.” Many things can be challenging. Also, content does not need to be challenging to be valuable, and I don’t know what I said that gave you the impression that I think otherwise.
I don’t disagree.
If the DM had already decided that one of the kobolds had the gem in the secret compartment, I can see a definite issue with style 2. - It would seem to require that the player specify that their character is searching the kobold's boots.Let me suggest a 2nd example where the different styles described would yield different results.
Scene: the battle has ended, the heroes having victoriously prevailed over 5 kobolds.
Style 1:
Player 1: I search the bodies. I rolled a 16 Investigation.
DM 1 (improvising): Well, in addition to a short sword, light crossbow and leather armor, one the the kobolds has a secret compartment in its boot. It holds a small agate wirth 20 gp.
Style 2:
Player 2: I search the kobolds’ bodies.
DM2: They each have a short sword, light crossbow and leather armor.
On the plus side, on a high roll, Player 1 could find something that the DM1 improvised. Conversely, on a low roll, Player 1 could miss something that DM2 would have let Player2 find automatically.
I'm fairly confident that this claim is false, or at least strongly open to interpretation, and I have time tonight and tomorrow to dig into this. Do you think that you could provide what passages in the PHB seem to suggest this to you?Smart play in my view is opening the bureau and rifling through the folded clothes to find the key. There might be no roll here at all - you just succeed because the key is, in fact, hidden beneath a set of folded clothes. Less smart play is doing none of that and just saying "Can I make a Perception check to pace around the room and search the walls and furniture for clues?" The PHB suggests that, in this example, you don't even get a check. You just fail due to a lack of reasonable specificity in engaging with the environment.
Let me suggest a 2nd example where the different styles described would yield different results.
Scene: the battle has ended, the heroes having victoriously prevailed over 5 kobolds.
Style 1:
Player 1: I search the bodies. I rolled a 16 Investigation.
DM 1 (improvising): Well, in addition to a short sword, light crossbow and leather armor, one the the kobolds has a secret compartment in its boot. It holds a small agate wirth 20 gp.
Style 2:
Player 2: I search the kobolds’ bodies.
DM2: They each have a short sword, light crossbow and leather armor.
On the plus side, on a high roll, Player 1 could find something that the DM1 improvised. Conversely, on a low roll, Player 1 could miss something that DM2 would have let Player2 find automatically.
I think that looking for something that the characters don't know is there is a situation where it isn't obvious whether the multiple ability checks are applicable or not. If the characters spend 10 minutes searching a room on the offchance that there might be a secret door, but don't find one (fail the roll), would they automatically find it if they look for another hour and a half?Yeah it is a suggestion. I’m away from the book atm but I don’t think it’s even presented as an optional rule or anything, it is just straight up a suggestion to solve a potential problem of players wanting to make check after check until they win.
Not sure why it’s being presented as if it is “the rules”.
I'm fairly confident that this claim is false, or at least strongly open to interpretation, and I have time tonight and tomorrow to dig into this. Do you think that you could provide what passages in the PHB seem to suggest this to you?