D&D 5E Balancing Investigation checks and player descriptions

[BoldItalic]

@OP

Don't expect the players to second-guess. If they open the chest, tell them immediately that there is a secret compartment in the lid and ask the player who opens the chest to make a perception roll to see if his PC finds it. If he rolls low, the secret compartment retrospectively never existed and its contents will never be found; if he rolls high, his PC notices the secret compartment and he has the option to try to open it, check for traps, and so on. Either way, the players are involved in the development of the narrative.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

I would never tell my players something that their PCs don't know (except for at the end of the chapter where I'm doing a "What could have been"). If they fail the roll, they won't find it. If they search again or search for a longer time, they don't get to roll again, passive value applies instead. If they come up with a better approach, I do allow a second roll, however.

 

[robus]

@OP

Don't expect the players to second-guess. If they open the chest, tell them immediately that there is a secret compartment in the lid and ask the player who opens the chest to make a perception roll to see if his PC finds it. If he rolls low, the secret compartment retrospectively never existed and its contents will never be found; if he rolls high, his PC notices the secret compartment and he has the option to try to open it, check for traps, and so on. Either way, the players are involved in the development of the narrative.

Did I read that correctly? The DM tells the player there's a secret compartment and then requires a roll to see if the character finds it? That seems a bit cheeky?

I'd prefer that detecting that the lid is off is a passive Perception check - and pretty easy DC 10 so most everyone will notice it if they fiddle with it (and probably, as I said earlier, I'd just tell them - though perhaps if they're in a hurry it would be harder to notice). If they're not in a hurry they'll find the secret compartment if they've been put on notice that the lid is funky. If they're in a hurry then an investigation check would be needed as noted by others.

I particularly like the sliding scale of difficulty depending on how fast the PCs are acting (I'm going to nab that).

 

[ad_hoc]

@OP

Don't expect the players to second-guess. If they open the chest, tell them immediately that there is a secret compartment in the lid and ask the player who opens the chest to make a perception roll to see if his PC finds it. If he rolls low, the secret compartment retrospectively never existed and its contents will never be found; if he rolls high, his PC notices the secret compartment and he has the option to try to open it, check for traps, and so on. Either way, the players are involved in the development of the narrative.

As has been said before, this just reduces the game to a series of dice rolls. This doesn't involve the players in the development of the narrative. They are just being told the story.

Here is your game as I see it:

You have entered a 10 by 10 room. There is a monster. Everyone roll a combat check. You have defeated the monster.

Now everyone roll an exploration check. You have found the treasure.

Now you are back at town. Everyone roll a Social Interaction check. You have found another quest to defeat the next monster.

And so on.

There is a balance I aim to achieve and your way is on the extreme end.

 

[BoldItalic]

If you are an adversarial DM who seeks to trick the players, then keeping knowledge from them so that they operate blindly is one way to do it. But then you have the problem that they won't do what you hope they will do. And that's your dilemma. You want them to fail to find something they have no reason to look for.

Here is a narrative:

"Wohnan wondered if there might be a secret compartment in the lid of the chest, but if there was, he couldn't find it."

Translate that into what you want to happen at the table between the DM and the player. Do you want the DM to decide secretly, or the player to decide openly, or someone to roll a dice and if so who? You choose.

 

[ad_hoc]

If you are an adversarial DM who seeks to trick the players, then keeping knowledge from them so that they operate blindly is one way to do it. But then you have the problem that they won't do what you hope they will do. And that's your dilemma. You want them to fail to find something they have no reason to look for.

Here is a narrative:

"Wohnan wondered if there might be a secret compartment in the lid of the chest, but if there was, he couldn't find it."

Translate that into what you want to happen at the table between the DM and the player. Do you want the DM to decide secretly, or the player to decide openly, or someone to roll a dice and if so who? You choose.

I have no idea who/what you are responding to and what you are trying to say.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

If you are an adversarial DM who seeks to trick the players, then keeping knowledge from them so that they operate blindly is one way to do it. But then you have the problem that they won't do what you hope they will do. And that's your dilemma. You want them to fail to find something they have no reason to look for.

Has nothing to do with adversarial. Playing is just the more fun the more equal player and PC knowledge are. Players are still free to do whatever they want. If there's a secret magic item and they don't look for it, they won't find it, end of story. If they search and find it, they are happy to have had the idea to search.

 

[BoldItalic]

I have no idea who/what you are responding to and what you are trying to say.

I'm responding to the situation you described in your first post:

PCs find a treasure chest. They pick the lock. They find a bunch of coins inside. They move on. The chest had a secret compartment in the top where magic/interesting items were hidden.

And I'm asking you to tell us your motivation: why did you put the secret compartment there? Because the answer to that will lead you to the answer to your original question.

I appreciate that you don't understand my line of thought, at least not yet. But don't fight it. The answer to your original question lies in something outside the game procedures you have considered.

You just have to search in the right way, in a place you didn't know there was anything hidden ...

 

[ad_hoc]

You just have to search in the right way, in a place you didn't know there was anything hidden ...

Yeah, still no idea what you are trying to say.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Did I read that correctly? The DM tells the player there's a secret compartment and then requires a roll to see if the character finds it? That seems a bit cheeky?

It's just an 'above board' style. It's a tad on the "gamist" side of the spectrum, players with a fragile sense of immersion may get homicidal over it, but aside from that it works fine. ;P

(JMHO, but I don't think 5e lends itself that well to that more 'above board' style. DM rulings are frequent and important, and revealing too much to the players can lead to them questioning those rulings too readily, and even undermines the basic 5e flow of DM-description > player-declares-action > DM-rules-on-results.
Besides, classic D&D has traditionally shied away from it, to the extent it 'is D&D' at all, it's a modernism.)