D&D 5E Are there actions not covered under a skill?

[Fenris-77]

One of my favorite things about the Black Hack is how it treats traps and secret doors, which I think is at least somewhat pertinent here. The BH treats both traps and secret doors as mysteries to be solved. Each has three clues, indexing Location, Trigger, and Action. The BH has the DM roll a d6 the first time a character moves nearby (which is a range band in BH) to a secret door or trap, and on a 1 the character notices something off. In addition, a targeted search based on an attribute test will also reveal a clue.

I tend to view challenge and stakes as two separate but related sliders for determining the need for an ability check. The task itself can be challenging, like the above cliff climbing example, or the stakes and context can be high stress, like trying to pick a simple lock while a zombie gnaws on your leg. Once either slider reaches what I feel is an appropriate difficulty level, I call for a check. I also use those two dials to set DCs. That cliff climb might be mostly easy, say DC 10, but in the middle of an ice storm it might be DC 20. If the PC has climbing gear and the time to use it, I might set the ice storm difficulty lower, or conversely, I might just use the gear to adjust the consequences of failure but not the DC. It's all about what makes sense in the fiction at the time.

The notion of what makes sense in the fiction is also my guiding light for the kinds of investigate checks we're talking about. It can be hard to extrapolate broader concepts from specific examples sometimes. I can talk about how I generally treat the key hidden in the drawer, but the reality is that in the moment, I'll do what makes sense in terms of the fiction. By which I mean based on specific action declarations, prior PC actions and knowledge, and everything that characterizes and contextualizes the narrative to that point. I might very well treat two identical instances of hidden keys in two very different ways. The problem I see with having a rigid idea of what is necessary to achieve X, in this case finding the key, is that it can be very tough to say exactly what a group of PCs will do in a given situation. I'm not going to just give them the key, but I'm also not going to hold it back because someone didn't utter the magic words, if that makes any sense. I prefer to leave room for a broader swath of possible PC actions and ideas to be able to achieve that X.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Oh, as an aside, I think this may be why you and I frequently have trouble understanding each other in these discussions. You seem to be thinking of these things much more broadly, where I tend to be speaking very concretely. I tend to favor specific, actionable DMing advice and find more broad, conceptual discussion unhelpful.

Yep I view useful discussion in entirely the opposite way. Sticking to concrete examples is, IME, counter-productive. Which may be in part because my particular ADHD memory issues make concrete examples in any detail literally next to impossible for me to ever provide. I’ve no control over what details my brain retains and what it only retains the gist of.

 

[Charlaquin]

Maybe the hidden thing is intended as another non-guaranteed path. If they don't find the secret door, they might figure out that the books are all the same age; likewise the other way around. Multiple paths to get to a goal, none guaranteed. If those things make the world and/or the NPCs seem more real or more realistic, that's at least a bonus.

I’d consider that part of a challenge then.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

This is the opposite of the statement to which I was responding with confusion. In your previous post you said it doesn’t need to be a challenge for the stakes to matter, now you’re saying the stakes don’t need to matter for it to be a challenge. I understand the latter, but not the former.

That’s fair. To me, the first statement is too “obvious” to be easily explained, but I will try in a bit when I’ve eaten and had coffee.

The two statements are two sides of the same idea, though.

 

[prabe]

I’d consider that part of a challenge then.

Which is why they had to roll to find it, and why they had to roll to figure out the books clue, and why (eventually) the BBEG's clone made enough noise that the party figured out there was a room they hadn't found, yet, and they looked again.

 

[Charlaquin]

That’s fair. To me, the first statement is too “obvious” to be easily explained, but I will try in a bit when I’ve eaten and had coffee.

The two statements are two sides of the same idea, though.

I see it as a square/rectangle thing, but I’ll be interested to read your thoughts on it.

 

[Charlaquin]

Which is why they had to roll to find it, and why they had to roll to figure out the books clue, and why (eventually) the BBEG's clone made enough noise that the party figured out there was a room they hadn't found, yet, and they looked again.

Ok, so we’re back to my original point that, as the person designing the challenge, I would include some kind of time constraint or other consequence that made “spend as much time as we need thoroughly searching the room” not a viable option.

 

[Fenris-77]

Ok, so we’re back to my original point that, as the person designing the challenge, I would include some kind of time constraint or other consequence that made “spend as much time as we need thoroughly searching the room” not a viable option.

For the sake of clarity, do you actually mean less viable?

 

[Oofta]

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.
If they specify searching boots of the kobolds, then presumably the compartment is obvious and they will automatically see it and get the gem.
If the player does not specify searching boots on the kobolds, then the character will not find the gem, despite having access to knowledge that the player does not.

The problem I've seen in games with that style is that it can become player vs DM. The players specify exactly what they were doing and after the game the DM tells you that because you didn't specifically look for a false bottom in that barrel you missed out on some fantastic loot.

That teaches the player that they have to be obnoxiously detailed. The players now feel like they have to measure the depth of every container to ascertain if it has a false bottom. Scenes like that slow the game down to a crawl and everyone is frustrated and bored.

I'm not saying that anyone posting to this thread does that, just that I've seen it happen and you need to be careful to not overdo it. As an example in a module, IIRC LMOP had some treasure at the bottom of a water barrel in the bandit's hideout that you had to specifically search. Except that there was nothing special at all about this barrel, there was no reason for any player to specifically call it out. I don't want my players searching every piece of furniture or fixture.

There also seems to be this assumption that these things are 100% binary. I don't think they need to be. Some people may enjoy a completely descriptive approach (for a better term), others just want to minimize this type of activity and ask for rolls. I would assume most people fall somewhere in the middle or vary depending on the current situation.

 

[Charlaquin]

For the sake of clarity, do you actually mean less viable?

Umm... Kind of? Like, very broadly speaking I guess any searching they do will take time, and if they find the key, then clearly the amount of time they spent searching was as much time as they needed. So in that sense, yes, taking as much time as they need to find it is viable, but difficult, under time constraints. But I was talking about “we thoroughly search the room, taking as much time as we need” as an approach to the goal of “find the key.” In any scenario I’m designing to be challenging, that isn’t going to be a valid approach, because some time pressure or other consequence for failure will be preventing them from spending an arbitrarily long time searching.