D&D General "I make a perception check."

[Charlaquin]

I get that everyone has their own interpretations, but just dismissing that while at the same time doubling down on "you need an action" seems like it is ignoring the actual conflict here. Because many people have responded with an action, that you have since said is not an action.

When have I said it’s not an action? I have repeatedly said that looking around is an action, which the characters are constantly doing, and so I use a passive check to resolve.

And yes, again, I didn't say exactly what I am looking for... because why would I? What value do I get for saying that I'm looking for a hidden catch. instead of just asking about examining the books? By asking "do I find any hidden catches" I may get the answer of no, because the important clue on the bookshelf was the names of the titles of the books. Does looking for hidden catches also let me get that clue? Probably not in my experience, so by being more specific in what information I want, I'm doing nothing but ruining my chances of finding important information.

Why on earth would you run your fingers along the books to try to find out if there’s a clue in the names in the titles of the books? You could have simply said you read the titles of the books to see if they contain any hidden patterns or information. This is why both goal and approach are necessary parts of an action declaration. If you just said you ran your fingers along the books, I wouldn’t have thought to consider the titles, because that has nothing to do with touching the books. I can’t read your mind, so I need you to tell me both what you’re trying to accomplish and how.

But this is 100% the problem. Perception is the skill to find a hidden creature. It is impossible to hide without concealment or cover. If they don't have cover, they cannot be hidden, period.

So, I have to do something, which isn't noticing, to use the skill for noticing. Do you see how this is a fundamental issue? You are completely cutting off the ability to utilizing the skill, by demanding a non-existent action.

So, perception is a dead skill in your games, the only use of it is to increase your passive perception, because that is the only thing that ever matters. That's what I'm getting from this, because you are demanding an action, but you can't actually give any actions just "something other than trying to perceive"

Are you not actually reading my posts? I’ve told you twice now, I call for ability checks and leave it up to the player to determine if one of their proficiencies apply. If you we’re playing in my games, the usefulness or lack thereof of the perception skill would come down to your assessment of when it’s applicable, not mine. If you do something to try and detect danger, and that action could result in detecting danger or not, and the key factor in determining that was intuition and/or awareness, I would call for a Wisdom check. If the key factor was memory and/or deductive reasoning, I would call for an Intelligence check instead. Either way, it would then be up to you to decide if you thought your proficiency in Perception (or your proficiency in Investigation, or Eve. your proficiency in cooking supplies for that matter) was applicable.

Because, again, as was stated earlier, if you are just passively telling them everything their perception gets them, but they know that passive is only a 10+mod, then they may want to roll because there is something they could have missed. But they can't roll, because they need to determine some action other than perception to utilize their perception.

They shouldn’t want to roll, because rolling has a chance of failure and failure has consequences. Instead, they should want to find out if there is something they missed with their passive perception or not. And if they do want that, they should tell me so, and tell me what their characters do to try and find that out, so I can determine if a roll is needed or not. Which they should really hope it’s not, because again, a roll can fail and failure has consequences.

My keys are on my desk, if someone looked in my room, they might not see them, because while they are out in the open, my desk has a decent amount of clutter. But if they looked again, they might see them. The outcome is uncertain, but the action is the same.

Sure, and “looking again” indicates that they are performing the action of looking in your room repeatedly, so a passive perception check would be used to represent the average result of them doing so. If they still don’t see it, they would probably have to move some of the clutter, or otherwise do something that changes the circumstances in order to find them.

And if you have described the scene in perfect detail, with every relevant thing, but the players think something is hidden or they missed something... they may want to attempt to see the thing they missed. But that isn't an action they can take, according to you.

Wanting to see if they missed something isn’t an action at all, it’s just a desire - a goal. It’s a perfectly valid goal, but to achieve it they need to do something. Want in one hand and spit in the other…

So, punish people for declaring specific actions instead of general ones, after refusing them the chance to use general ones, to force them to keep moving.

What? Players are free to take general or specific actions as they like, and there is no punishment for either.

Telegraphing is important, but if you are describing an entire room in detail, they might miss you telegraphed something. They might think you telegraphed something that you didn't.

Yes, that’s part of the challenge of the game - paying attention to the environment and trying to make the best decisions you can based on that information. Sometimes you make good decisions, sometimes you make poor decisions, especially if you misinterpret the available information. That’s literally how exploration works.

They've told you what they are wanting to do.

But not how they plan to accomplish it.

You are just refusing to allow them to do it. Trying to push them to declare specific discrete actions, instead of allowing them to make general actions. And I don't understand why.

General actions are perfectly fine as long as they clearly convey a goal and an approach to trying to achieve it.

I want to know, what I don't know. How is that not clear? I, Chaosmancer the player, do not know anything about this idol beyond what you have described. Manser the Cleric of the Divine Light, probably knows a lot about religious idols. What does he know about this idol?

I have described everything relevant that he ought to know based on what I know of his knowledge base. If you want to know something beyond that, you have to tell me what, and how you might know it.

Again, it would be stupid of me say something like "I want to know if this idol is used in fertility rituals" because then you can say "No, it doesn't appear to be" and I've completely missed that the idol is a desecrated war idol, because I didn't ask about that. But also, why would I ask about that? I have no idea what this idol is, so I don't know what to ask.

You shouldn’t have no idea what the idol is. If that’s the case, I have done my job as DM poorly.

So, you have never included an item of which details you didn't immediately tell the party were important? Frankly, I have a hard time believing that. If the idol is important, it is important because it is a clue or something they were sent for, and you aren't going to just tell them what the clue is and what it means for the larger situation.

You keep saying you can't "read the player's mind" but it is really simple. They want to know what the important information is. You know what the important information is, because you placed that idol there for a reason. If you didn't and there is no important information, then you can just tell them "There is nothing special about the item, unless you want to know more about the deity/religion?"

So, either you are telling them everything they could possibly learn from a roll, because they should know it, or you know what information they are likely asking about, because it is the stuff you didn't tell them. And if it is something they can't possibly know, you tell them there is no need to roll, because they don't know anything about it. There is no 3-D chess here, the player's mind is not some unfathomable swamp you cannot possibly understand. Their intent is very clear.

I think you’re assuming a different style of game than I generally run. In an event based campaign, it would probably be true that the idol was placed for a specific story purpose, with certain information the players are supposed to be able to gain from it. But I prefer to run more location-based games. The idol might be there because it showed up on a random table. Or it might be there as set dressing, or because it makes sense to be there. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t important. It’s as important or unimportant as the players make of it.

How is "I want to know everything I could possibly know about this idol." so fundamentally different than "Can I roll religion?" after you finish describing the idol. Those are the exact same statements.

And neither conveys anything meaningful about the player’s intent or the character’s activity. You could know anything about the idol, or you could not. I can’t do anything with an infinite field of possible information. I’ve told you what I think is likely to be relevant that would be obvious to your character. If there’s something more you want to know, I need you to specify what. If it’s a lot of things that’s fine, we can resolve them as needed.

And suddenly everyone's "friend's second-cousin's mother" gets randomly brought up because they happen to apply, to justify asking for information that they should just be able to ask for anyways.

I don’t see a problem with that. It makes the world feel richer by revealing the character’s backgrounds and connections.

I've seen people do this, everyone just starts spouting off nonsense they forget five minutes later to try and justify making the check. No thank you. I'd rather just let you make the check. Especially since, you probably don't know everything that your character could possibly know. After all, we pick up random knowledge from everywhere.

You know who else doesn’t know everything your character could know about a subject? Me. So, we need to narrow it down. Tell me what you want to know beyond what I’ve already told you and where you might have learned it so I can resolve that.

Alright, so which action would get you to call for an ability check to notice hidden things in the room you just described?

That isn’t how it works. I don’t have an action in mind that you have to correctly guess to get me to let you make an ability check. If you think there might be hidden stuff in the room, tell me so, and tell me what you want to do to try and find it, and I will make my best assement of if that can work, if it can fail to, and how difficult it might be if both are possible.

So, the player doesn't roll. They just state the obvious thing they were already doing (paying attention to the NPCs body language) and you roll against a passive DC. That isn't allowing the player to roll a check.

Ok?

And this is especially strange since, clearly the NPC should have rolled already, because you were accounting for the player's passive insight when they started talking to the person right? You aren't waiting for an action declaration for their passive score to be applied.

Probably? We’re speaking in pretty vague hypotheticals, so I can’t really give a definite answer.

Okay, that's a decent usage of it. Never seen it, because nobody at my tables has ever once tried to figure out an NPC's trait, ideal, bond or flaw this way. But I could see the use case.

Question. If the PC said they wanted to get the lay of the land at a party, basically getting the traits, ideals, bonds and flaws of multiple people by repeating the action over the course of several minutes, would you have them roll, or take the passive?

That sounds like a passive check, yeah.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Yeah, I don't see malicious intent on the part of the DM in this instance, I see your expecting or projecting that malicious intent though.

If you come to a door in a dungeon/house/castle/whatever, I, as the DM, tell you what you see (i.e. what you perceive):

DM: "You stand in a doorway. The floor is made of wood, very much scratched and well trod. Covering the center of the floor is a rug, what you might have thought as being luxurious is now threadbare and also worn. There is a large wooden desk directly opposite you in the room. It looks heavy and well made, in better condition than the rest of the room's contents. On the desk you see a burning candelabra, some papers, writing implements, and several small boxes, closed. You see two chests in the corner across the room, stacked, they have padlocks on them, and seem to be closed. There is an armoire to your left along the wall, and to your right is a chair, turned facing the desk."
PLAYER: "I roll Perception."
DM: "You see what I just described, would you like me to read it again."
PLAYER: "I roll Perception to see if there are any traps."
DM: (No roll) "From where you are standing, you don't see any traps. What do you do"
PLAYER: "I want to roll."

So, the player wants to roll to avoid the possibility of there being any traps they might stumble into, I get that. But its pretty ridiculous. Unless there is a tripwire across the doorway (which I would have described, by the way, because I assume the character can see (ie. has light, the room is lit), and characters don't just stumble into rooms that are unfamiliar, unless the player says "I burst into the room, what do I see?"

IF there were a trap in that room, say, a trap door in the floor, I would have given a hint of some kind - one part of the wooden floor seems to have been recently repaired, the rug seems uneven in the middle of the rug, where it is not elsewhere, there is a pull rope to the side of the desk, etc.).

The player then needs to tell me what they're doing in the room. Using Perception is not a magic ability. It doesn't do anything mystical. I can't help you find traps, unless you look for them (at least in my game). I'm of the camp that traps shouldn't be "oops, you didn't say you searched that square, you fell into a pit trap!" or "You failed that role, that's where the trap is, mwahaha!" You'll see the wire, or the trigger, or potentially something out of the ordinary that will clue you in.

See, here is the problem though. You just said "I can't help you find traps, unless you look for them" but the player in your example said "I roll Perception to see if there are any traps.".

How is that not looking for traps? Sure, the player didn't give you a specific method, but they did say perception, so you can imagine they are attempting to use visual information, olfactory information, or auditory information. Because that is all perception can cover. The five senses. They have stated they are looking for traps. But I'm being told, over and over, that just looking for traps isn't good enough.

Now, if this argument was purely "Just saying I roll perception doesn't tell me their goal" I could say that makes some sense. But people keep saying the player isn't giving them actions that they are taking. And sure, "I use perception" is vague, I haven't denied that. But you can be pretty sure the character isn't licking the floor, so you have a rather narrow range of what they are trying to do.

In the description above, the player could say, "I think there might be something under the rug, so I'll skirt around it to the desk, going the direction of the chair. Does the rug go all the way under the desk?" I might call for a Perception check there (though likely not, you can see if the rug is there or not), or maybe I'll call for a check, because now you're passing the chair, you do notice some dried blood on the arm of the chair that wasn't visible from the door (and you were focusing on the rug and desk). Or maybe I ask for a check, and then say "From this angle, the rug doesn't look like its sitting perfectly flat, something appears to maybe be under it."

Its got to make logical sense in the progression of the adventure/story. Its not a gotcha. Its not a malicious DM. I also realize that other tables want these kinds of things to go faster, <skip> passed the dialogue, investigation, exploration, not get hurt, surprised, damaged, whatever. Thats fine. My table, and its the same when I play with our group, this kind of stuff is where the interesting bits can be, when built around the action of fighting.

Its also why I switched to OSE/Basic. No skills. We adjudicate what happens as you describe what happens. If you stand there in the door, I read the above, and ask you what you want to do. Now, there are no skills on your sheet. What DO you do?

I also don't see this as an instance of <skip> mentality. It isn't about <skipping> as much as it is about simplifying. I have zero interest in sitting down at the table with my fantasy hero, then pulling out my three page checklist to go over all the possible things I could check.

It isn't actually interesting to say "I search the top of the desk. I look under the desk. I pull out the first drawer of the desk. I look under the first drawer of the desk. I pull out the second drawer of the desk. I look under...."

I just want to say "I search the desk" and we can assume I go through the whole list, instead of me having to spell it out for you. Because if we are already at the stage where a desk with important clues has been found and we are looking for clues, the interesting part is what happens AFTER you find the clue, not the process of finding it.

 

[Chaosmancer]

At this point, I'm going to disengage from this conversation with you as it doesn't seem like you are at all interested in understanding a legitimate playstyle. It appears you may have had bad experiences in the past with gotcha DMs who just want to punish players and you can't imagine anything but malicious intent in what several of us have been trying to describe to you.

Happy gaming.

And that's now two people saying I'm a malicious actor. Let's see if I get a hat trick.

 

[Charlaquin]

You keep acting like the players are doing something wrong, trying to force you to read their minds, or acting poorly by not engaging in the game, however, in my experience, a lot of this comes back to the player being screwed over by other GM's in the past and are now terrified of declaring "the wrong action".

Err… That’s because the purely hypothetical players we’re discussing are (hypothetically) acting poorly by not engaging with the game, because they were made up to try and illustrate some point about why the way we run the game is wrong. In real life, I have never had problems like this. Turns out, when I tell a real human being in real life “I’m hearing X, I still need to know Y,” they’re pretty generally willing to tell me Y. And then I resolve the action, and the game moves on.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

So what do you mean by that? For example, if the player says, "I have a grappling hook. Can I throw that to the top of the wall and use the rope to gain some advantage?", do you respond, "No. I don't care how much detail you give. I only care how well your character can climb."? Because I'd guess what you actually mean is only, "I don't care how well you the player know how to climb, and I'm not going to give your character an advantage in climbing if you do."

it depends, but most likely depending on other things about it I would either just say "okay and you climg up" or "Okay give me an atheltics check"

That's another form of railroading.

no way...
I have been accused of this enough... in what way is asking for clarification ESPECIALLY when someone has chosen a harder way to do something railroading?

You are rejecting player propositions

who rejected... I said as long as they showed they understood the situation I would let them... I just would first ask for clairity

if you don't think that they are good propositions. Rejecting propositions is a form of taking away player agency.

except I rejected nothing... like the jumping in lava example, it is simplly makeing sure they understand the stakes and difficulties.

You may well have good reasons for doing that such as keeping the game going, but that is railroading.

no... the fact that every once in a blue moon I have to ask for clairfication in no way is railroading...

As for the answer to your question, because the ivy could be poisonous, the tree could be carnivorous, and the carved stone wall with its projections could be hiding traps. But you, by answering, "Wait what, why?" have just given me a huge amount of information about the scene out of character that I will now use to metagame.

well if you use TOO MUCH meta game you just wont be asked back for the next campaign... but the answer you gave of

ecause the ivy could be poisonous, the tree could be carnivorous, and the carved stone wall with its projections could be hiding traps.

would be fine without the metagaming.

So in absence of specificity, you are deciding for the player what they do? Again, taking abstract propositions and making them concrete using knowledge the character couldn't have is another form of railroading.

no, if they say "Can I climb a wall" I wont ask them what one... I will just say, "yes", "No", or "That would take an athletics roll DC XX"

You decided which wall the player climbed on their behalf rather than asking the player for some more specific proposition so that you wouldn't have to decide that as a GM (thereby playing their character for them). Again, I'm not saying you are wrong to do so, I just want you to be aware of what you are doing.

no... if they care enough to give details I take them if they don't even if we all imagine it differently it doesn't matter.

No the fact that flanking can't give advantage in your game is really interesting. Like that is not only a process of play, but a house you seem to have adopted to reduce the role of player skill in the game. I think it really interesting that the only choice you seem to be happy with granting an advantage is a Move (aid other).

flanking is an optional rule I don't use... but some do. I don't see how what I choose to use for optional rules matter...

Again, railroading. I don't mean that pejoratively. I mean that as an exacting description of what you are doing. See my essay for times when railroading is a good process of play, and I leave it up to the GM to decide how much they want to lean into those techniques.

letting my players decided how much detail in a given scene they have... if they declair an action I don't understand why I ask to clairfy but don't disallow... how is this railroading? what did I force them to do again?

And this is the statement you made that I think indicates we are starting to meet in the middle. As long as you are talking about quantities of character versus player skill, that's a valid discussion. As soon as you start saying you perfectly 100% want to take player skill out of the game, it's at that point you are stating an impossibility. But if you only mean, "I want player skill to matter as little as is practical", then I understand you.

from my first answer on this I said "perfect would be 100% but that is impossible so I maximize the character an minimize the player" I don't understand how you take that to mean anything but what it says...

And again, if you are quarreling with the player proposition for reasons of outcome, it's a form of railroading. I'm mostly interested at this point in whether you know you are railroading and accept that as a valid play style because you enjoy the benefits of it more than you enjoy the lost aesthetics of play implied by that

no...
if (real example) 6 session and 9 weeks (around holidays) ago ross learned the password to open a secret door... ross shows up gets to the door and is stumped and says "I wish we had the password" I would remind him that 9 weeks ago he learned it... it would then be up to him what he did with that knowledge... the fact that it was 3 days ago in game and 9 weeks out of game means ROSS the player didn't remember but there was no reason Dusk the character shouldn't have.

Which is fine, and I cite this of an example where railroading a player can be justified. But the truth is, it's very hard to separate "This is what your character would know" from telling the player what to do. At some point the player is going to start metagaming you as a GM hard having learned you have that quirk, looking for the thing you are giving approval for. Or to put it another way, they'll start trying to figure out what you think will work based on all the out game information you are leaking to them the player, and they'll just do that. After all, if there are rails, the best move is often to just sit back and enjoy the ride.

I mean would you let a player jump to there death just for them to say "I didn't think that would kill me?"

 

[GMforPowergamers]

To be clear, are you saying that players don't want to decide what their characters think, do, or say? I'm not sure how they're even playing the game if this is the case.

not in detail.. like "I use X to do Y" is it... no "how do you do it" will interest them

 

[Charlaquin]

Because this level of specificity always seems to come with a dose of "They didn't do the right thing, therefore trap"

That’s an assumption you are bringing to the table, not something anyone has actually said they are doing.

Notice, by the way, that @Reynard mocked me in their response instead of answering the question of why a player moving to the center of the room and asking to roll perception cannot roll perception to discover the trap before they trigger it. This seems like a legitimate question to me. They have taken an action, declared an intent, but because that action happens to have been a trigger for a trap, their intent is ignored and they get hit by the trap, no save, no check, nothing.

Woah, woah, woah, who ever said there’s no save or check if the player’s action triggers a trap??

 

[iserith]

not in detail.. like "I use X to do Y"

Same as my table, except X isn't an ability check.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

It depends on the situation. Often Passive Perception is used when determining surprise (per the traveling and hidden rules), so no roll is made. If you want to take an action to search for a hidden threat, that's a specific reason, not "because I want to be sure." Also, if there's no hidden threat I often don't bother with a roll, since the outcome is not in question.

again if I declare an action to look around, and you say "Nope you got everything" and then I walk in and get suprise attacked I am going to ask for clarity

 

[GMforPowergamers]

But I’m not asking “how do you look.” I’m applying the rules for determining what you perceive when you look for danger (a passive Perception check) and narrating the results. This is something that it’s assumed your character is doing all the time, so I would have included that narration in my description of the environment. If for some reason you suspect there may be danger beyond what you already noticed with your passive perception, and you want to do something to try to find it, you’ll need to tell me what that is. You already tried looking around. It’s up to you to come up with something else if you want to do something else.

what it is is pay more attention then my normal and actively look