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

[Chaosmancer]

Providing challenges to players is not the same as "gotcha" DMing. You are making too many assumptions about DMs posting here.

Plus, I thought I told you I disengaged?

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Man, I have so many people blocking me and refusing engage, I can't keep track of them all. I don't know whether or not you disengaged or not.

Also, talk about some projection. I never accused anyone of "Gotcha" DMing, and I never said you cannot challenge the players. You have stated that we are "projecting" bad faith upon the DM, but mostly what we are doing is acknowledging that the entire point of the descriptions wanted are because of traps.

Every time I have asked "Why is 'I search the room' not good enough description" the response is couched in the "I don't understand what you are saying" but the end of the statement is "so I can't determine if you triggered the trap". I'm not saying you can never challenge players. I'm not saying you are a Gotcha DM who terrorizes their players. I'm saying your goal is to figure out if they auto-trigger the trap. Every time, that is what we come back to.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Man, I have so many people blocking me and refusing engage, I can't keep track of them all. I don't know whether or not you disengaged or not.

Also, talk about some projection. I never accused anyone of "Gotcha" DMing, and I never said you cannot challenge the players. You have stated that we are "projecting" bad faith upon the DM, but mostly what we are doing is acknowledging that the entire point of the descriptions wanted are because of traps.

Every time I have asked "Why is 'I search the room' not good enough description" the response is couched in the "I don't understand what you are saying" but the end of the statement is "so I can't determine if you triggered the trap". I'm not saying you can never challenge players. I'm not saying you are a Gotcha DM who terrorizes their players. I'm saying your goal is to figure out if they auto-trigger the trap. Every time, that is what we come back to.

The answer is: I told you I disengaged.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Every time I have asked "Why is 'I search the room' not good enough description" the response is couched in the "I don't understand what you are saying" but the end of the statement is "so I can't determine if you triggered the trap". I'm not saying you can never challenge players. I'm not saying you are a Gotcha DM who terrorizes their players. I'm saying your goal is to figure out if they auto-trigger the trap. Every time, that is what we come back to.

yeah... it's almost like that is the only go to example, and if you aren't going to have players walk blindly into traps the detail they ask for isn't needed

 

[GMforPowergamers]

The answer is: I told you I disengaged.

what does that even mean on a post... like in D&D it's an action but on the post?

 

[iserith]

I mean my house ruled DC scale isn't something we need to discuss... but in general it is pretty close to teh easy/moderate/hard of the book just not exact.

in general you are correct. You can give as much or as little detail as you wish and it can change from one scene encounter or situation to the next. I will attempt to match your energy and style... so the more you care about something and want it to be important the more you should pay attention to and put details into that.

I don't use inspiration or flanking... and you can count on having advantage on about half your rolls in any given night and disadvantage on about 1/4 of them... based on a ball park estimate of how my players do things ( great deal coming from spells or items or aid another) but some from equipment weather lighting. (and sometimes disadvantage on everything for 1d4 weeks cause you and the party pissed off the god of luck)

The NPCs you spend time with (hateing, loving, making friends with, making contacts with, asking for favors and doing favors) will become recurring and slowly over the game get more and more stated... Ones you ignore will fade into the background.

when I call for a check I use the real world as my rule of thumb... can 2 people attempt this and 1 do it and 1 fail to do it... that makes the outcome uncertain... HOWEVER then when I set the DC if it is 11 or less (and again we are talking about upping that) and you are prof you STILL auto make it... also if your modifier +1 makes the DC you can auto make it (cause duh) However I then add a final qustion in my head 'does anyone care' like yeah climbing a tree that isn't helpful may not matter in the long OR short run but do teh players care enough to send someone trained in climbing?

That would certainly take some getting used to before I could find a happy medium where I felt like I understand at all what I could do in your game. The rules are different, the adjudication seems arbitrary and inconsistent. Perhaps a pattern would reveal itself over months of play that I could then use to make reasonably informed decisions.

What I certainly take away from this is that my decisions don't really matter that much where it comes to how I approach a task. As the DMG says, this would definitely diminish my roleplaying - better I should just ask to roll. That said, you claim that roleplaying improved after implementing what you're doing. So now I have to wonder if we're operating from different definitions of "roleplaying," too.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

That would certainly take some getting used to before I could find a happy medium where I felt like I understand at all what I could do in your game. The rules are different, the adjudication seems arbitrary and inconsistent. Perhaps a pattern would reveal itself over months of play that I could then use to make reasonably informed decisions.

what makes you think it is arbitrary... or inconsistent... its I match energy with players and only spot light things players put effeort into.

What I certainly take away from this is that my decisions don't really matter that much where it comes to how I approach a task. As the DMG says, this would definitely diminish my roleplaying - better I should just ask to roll.

I will except that given the freedom to choose to role play or not you will choose not.

That said, you claim that roleplaying improved after implementing what you're doing. So now I have to wonder if we're operating from different definitions of "roleplaying," too.

okay lets spell it out (again)

before we had some players making varied characters but several that always made the same... some feeling they could NOT play some classes, and others thinking they could not NOT play some classes... and the reason being 'hurting the team'

what we found was when we stopped penalizing things or incentivize things what we got was people feeling free to try new things, even things they were afraid they were not good at (or not HAVEING to do something you were good at). So we started getting more free form roleplaying.

as time went on the reward for good role playing was having fun at the table (now virtual) . Then we found that when we focused on the parts the players cared about and ignored the parts they didn't (like skipping a detailed search, or the details of what was said) to get to the parts the DID care about not only was the role playing more exciting but everyone was having more fun at the table.


so for example if I forced my players to describe what they say when they are not feeling it, or where or how they search when again they are not feeling it, that will throw off the whole fun light feeling of the session... and it will take time. OR we can gloss over it and get to what they do want to do and ARE going to roleplay and be more detailed with... BUT neither gets easier or harder for dice rolls just more fun at the table.

 

[Charlaquin]

again... you guys love to accuse others of filling in missing information (even if they tell you they are not) then you added a search roll where I woul just have it be based on passive... or not have it at all.

and again Swarmkeeper... if there was a secret worth spending time searching the rooms for and they made a search check with 0 or little details why would they THEN decide to start giving more details... in that version they already searched.

This is fascinating to me. So, in the case where there’s an assassin in the room, I would use passive perception to see if you spotted them, and you would be upset if saying “I search the room” didn’t give you a chance to roll to find them. In the case where there’s a door concealed behind the tapestry, you would use passive perception to see if I spotted it, and I would be upset if saying “I look behind the tapestry” didn’t allow me to find the door that’s behind the tapestry.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

This is fascinating to me. So, in the case where there’s an assassin in the room, I would use passive perception to see if you spotted them, and you would be upset if saying “I search the room” didn’t give you a chance to roll to find them. In the case where there’s a door concealed behind the tapestry, you would use passive perception to see if I spotted it, and I would be upset if saying “I look behind the tapestry” didn’t allow me to find the door that’s behind the tapestry.

no... still no

If There is something hidden that has a DC to find it and I ask to look for something (even if what I describe is very general or only similar to what the thing is) and you tell me not to roll, that you already told me what I saw... then I got surprised by something (an attack) that I feel I should have had a chance to notice I would expect an explanation.

IF you put a door behind an object and interacting with that object was the only way (BUT a gurenteed one) to find it and we spent any length of time trying to figure out where the door was I would also like an explanation...

the things i need explained are diffrent though

in the first one "Why didn't I get a chance to see it"
in the second one "What made you think us moving each object till we found it would be fun?"


I would not run either that way...
the first I would give them the active check and let the dice fall where they may

the second I either A) would not have a weirdly specific door, or B) would just tell the high perception character (there always is one) they notic it as part of room description

 

[iserith]

what makes you think it is arbitrary... or inconsistent... its I match energy with players and only spot light things players put effeort into.

I don't really understand what that means in a practical sense.

what makes you think it is arbitrary... or inconsistent... its I match energy with players and only spot light things players put effeort into.

I will except that given the freedom to choose to role play or not you will choose not.

If my decisions and characterizations don't actually affect the outcome, I'm not sure why I'd make much of an effort to do it.

okay lets spell it out (again)

before we had some players making varied characters but several that always made the same... some feeling they could NOT play some classes, and others thinking they could not NOT play some classes... and the reason being 'hurting the team'

what we found was when we stopped penalizing things or incentivize things what we got was people feeling free to try new things, even things they were afraid they were not good at (or not HAVEING to do something you were good at). So we started getting more free form roleplaying.

as time went on the reward for good role playing was having fun at the table (now virtual) . Then we found that when we focused on the parts the players cared about and ignored the parts they didn't (like skipping a detailed search, or the details of what was said) to get to the parts the DID care about not only was the role playing more exciting but everyone was having more fun at the table.


so for example if I forced my players to describe what they say when they are not feeling it, or where or how they search when again they are not feeling it, that will throw off the whole fun light feeling of the session... and it will take time. OR we can gloss over it and get to what they do want to do and ARE going to roleplay and be more detailed with... BUT neither gets easier or harder for dice rolls just more fun at the table.

I'm still not sure we're operating from the same definition of roleplaying. I agree with the rules in that it is a player making decisions about what their character does, says, and thinks. But if you tell me it doesn't matter what I do, I'm going to roll a die no matter how efficacious my declared action is, and it has no affect on DC or on whether you grant adv/disadv, then I'm not sure why I should bother putting any effort into that roleplaying.

 

[Mort]

I was watching an episode of Stargate: Atlantis recently that had an interesting idea (IMO) for a secret door.

There is a hallway with a solid wall at the end.

As you walk to the solid wall at the end of the hallway, there are 3 lamps - set about 5 feet apart (one after the other - along the way to the solid wall). If you touch each lamp 1 after the other, as you are walking, (if you stop it doesn't work) and THEN walk "into" the wall, the wall is not solid (even though it still looks solid) and you walk into the next room.

@Charlaquin , @GMforPowergamers , @iserith - or anyone who wants to really.

If you were DMing, how would finding this "secret door," likely, work in your session? How would it look?