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

[GMforPowergamers]

I think it is important to note that this isn't about narrative or story or immersion, at least not for me. It's primarily about having enough information to adjudicate the situation, and a little bit about player agency.

yeah thats the thing. I fully support asking for more information if you really don't understand what they are intending, but in alot of cases a skill or feature name is already enough most (not all) times withing context

 

[GMforPowergamers]

These would each get a "how?" from me as GM. You don't have to speak in character, you don't have to recite every bit of lore, but you do have to answer that simple question in order to be allowed to make the roll (if necessary), because I, the GM, can't adjudicate without the answer to that question.

see this is what I mean... what about use X ability/feature/skill to get king to do what we want isn't both a how and intent of it.

 

[Reynard]

see this is what I mean... what about use X ability/feature/skill to get king to do what we want isn't both a how and intent of it.

It isn't a "how" because it doesn't describe your line of argument or rhetorical approach. I, as GM, have some idea of who the king is, what is important to him and what might move him. So your choices will have an impact. Maybe you will get advantage, or disadvantage, because you hit the right, or wrong, chord. These are things you, as the player, should have some hint about from the context of play leading up to this interaction with the king.

Again, I am not looking for a soliloquy, and you as player can ask for help from your fellow PCs or ask me to remind you of facts you have encountered or things you might have heard, but I still need to know the direction of your attempt. It matters.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Those do not convey any in-fiction activity.

why not?

Either of these statements is incomplete without the other. “I try to convince the king” is a goal, but doesn’t tell me what the character is doing in the fiction.

why? the character can attempt to convince someone with IN CHARACTER abilities even if out of game the player has no clue how to get them to do it...

“I remind the king of his ancestor’s bravery” tells me what the character is doing in the fiction, but not why. I need both of those things to properly adjudicate an action.

this one I agree with... that is a fine action declaration "I remind the king of his ancestor's bravery" and maybe I don't get why and will ask why they are bringing that up... but maybe I will just keep going missing his request... so in this case "diplomancy" would have been MORE clear to me.

“I diplomacy” isn’t even a sentence, and conveys neither of the two pieces of information I require.

to you no it doesn't.... but as I said before that has become an insider joke at our table and DOES relay both bits to me.

“I want that king to listen to us” is a goal, but doesn’t tell me what the character is doing to try and achieve it.

since they have declared a goal I will if they give no other information given them some choices "do you want to try a cha skill" is my most common.

 

[Charlaquin]

yeah someone up thread asked me if I did that... I don't see a reason to add details no one cares about most times. "I check for traps" "traps?" holding up a d20, and "I carefully check the door for contact poison's, hidden needles, pullies mechanisms and wires" all work in my game and I will match the energy as best I can as a DM "you find one" "yup" "'as you are checking you come across a thin wire connecting the door knob and something in the frame"

That’s fine if that’s how you like to do it, but it’s not how I prefer to.

I don't normally add to the player. Some times this leads to some time latter 2 of us (sometimes 2 players sometimes 1 player 1 DM) having discussed a more detailed thought and we saw it differently in our minds.

except again it isn't needed.
in the perception example lets use 3 different rooms that the PC says "Can I use perception" as they open the door

room 1 has a hidden pit trap in the center under the rug
room 2 has a hidden assassin in the shadows
room 3 has a secret false brick with treasure behind it.

I let the player roll the skill (even though you would not)

"Looking more closely you see the rug is sagging a slight bit, it looks like a pit trap" or "no even looking carefully you don't see the HUGE danger...the tarrasque hit behind the table leg perfectly" then laugh

"as you study the room closer for a second you see a form hiddden in the shadows... she's cute, but she has a knife... so you know just your type" or "sorry, you missed all 17 mimics...good luck"
"as you look there is something on the wall, you think a trigger or false brick" or "Oh boy you are as perseptive as a deaf bat... you got nothing"

So, in the bolded portions, you are establishing for the player what their character is doing in the fiction, which is something I don’t like to do. Again, if that’s what works for you, that’s fine, but it’s not to my tastes.

now you may notice I didn't give him any action he didn't take in any... but I was more then a bit sarcastic on each fail

You did though. Well, except the deaf bat one, but there you established the character’s capabilities, which I’m even less a fan of, personally.

I dislike a lot of online streamed games because of the DM adding descriptions to the players actions... sometimes even changing the action.

Yeah, I don’t care for when they do that either. But I can accept it’s how their group likes to do things and enjoy it as passive entertainment, even if I know I probably wouldn’t like it as a player in the game.

I still don't see the difference between a detailed explanation of what they do or just giving a skill name or feature name and intent

You’re still focusing on detailed explanation which is not the key factor for me. As I keep saying, alI need is to know what the player wants to accomplish, and in a reasonably specific sense (such that I can clearly visualize it) what the character is doing to try and accomplish that. Beyond that, the player can be as detailed or as concise as they like - in fact, I generally prefer they favor being concise, because we get more gaming in that way.

 

[Charlaquin]

yeah thats the thing. I fully support asking for more information if you really don't understand what they are intending, but in alot of cases a skill or feature name is already enough most (not all) times withing context

I don’t agree that it’s usually enough. At least not for me to assess if what the character is doing can succeed or fail at bringing about the player’s desired outcome and if there might be consequences for it failing to do so, without making assumptions or establishing for the player what their character is doing.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

A consequence for failure requires a possibility of failure. If the box has a false bottom, and you check the box for a false bottom… you can’t really fail at that. Sure, hypothetically if you did fail at it, that would be consequential, but there’s no reasonable chance of that happening.

this seems so weird to me... in real life I check for things, don't find them, then my fiancé looks and finds them (or vice versa) all the time.

in fact just the other day this week I lost my keys... I checked the table in our dinning room twice. I picked up the stuff on it and looked all around it, and told her the keys were not there, she came in and picked up 1 item (a sheet of paper about my D&D game ironically) and found the keys right away...

in a game we both had similar declarations. We both looked for the keys. We both did so on the table. We both picked up things (in fact we both picked up the half map half notes paper but I didn't see them)

so just saying "I look for a false bottom" doesn't tell me 100% sure you will find it if it is there.

 

[Charlaquin]

why not?

I don’t know how to explain to you that “I use my character’s skill in perception” doesn’t convey information about fictional activity. It just doesn’t. The only information contained in that sentence is about game mechanics.

why? the character can attempt to convince someone with IN CHARACTER abilities even if out of game the player has no clue how to get them to do it...

But I need to know what that in character attempt to convince him looks like to adjudicate the action. Different approaches could have different results, and it’s not my job as DM to decide what approach your character takes.

this one I agree with... that is a fine action declaration "I remind the king of his ancestor's bravery" and maybe I don't get why and will ask why they are bringing that up... but maybe I will just keep going missing his request... so in this case "diplomancy" would have been MORE clear to me.

“I remind the king of his ancestor’s bravery@ tells me one of the two things I need to know to resolve the action. “Diplomacy” tells me neither of them. So I can’t properly resolve either action, but the former is at least closer.

to you no it doesn't.... but as I said before that has become an insider joke at our table and DOES relay both bits to me.

since they have declared a goal I will if they give no other information given them some choices "do you want to try a cha skill" is my most common.

But “a cha skill” isn’t a thing the character does, it’s a game mechanic the people at the table use to find out what happens as a result of the (currently unspecified) thing the character does.

 

[Charlaquin]

this seems so weird to me... in real life I check for things, don't find them, then my fiancé looks and finds them (or vice versa) all the time.

in fact just the other day this week I lost my keys... I checked the table in our dinning room twice. I picked up the stuff on it and looked all around it, and told her the keys were not there, she came in and picked up 1 item (a sheet of paper about my D&D game ironically) and found the keys right away...

in a game we both had similar declarations. We both looked for the keys. We both did so on the table. We both picked up things (in fact we both picked up the half map half notes paper but I didn't see them)

so just saying "I look for a false bottom" doesn't tell me 100% sure you will find it if it is there.

We aren’t talking about finding keys though, we’re talking about finding a false bottom in a box that definitely has a false bottom. I don’t know if you’ve ever handled a box with a false bottom before, but there’s not a lot of room for error. You put your hand in the box and you push at the bottom to see if it’s false. If it is, you’ll know immediately.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Sure seems like we agree, but you want to fight about it. Question is of table flavor. “I make a perception check”… “yeah, I know what you want to do but please instead tell me what you’re character wants to do, I promise I won’t be a dick about it”. Seems very simple.

You are right, it seems simple, and I don't want to fight about it. But again, the action the character is doing is largely passive. So what is the player supposed to do when they tell you the action their character wants to do, the goal of that action, and you dismiss it by saying "you've already done that, you need to do something else" but from the player's perspective, they haven't done anything?