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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 9808838" data-attributes="member: 29398">To me there's always an element of luck in D&D, otherwise it wouldn't use dice.  And if you're going to use enough dice rolls to in effect allow the bell curve to almost complately negate luck then why bother?There's going to be times when there's no way the character can know the stakes, therefore IMO the player shouldn't either.And here, even though you might be in the same state right now on failing to find the trap you won't be in a moment when bam! you set it off the hard way.  In broader terms, sometimes there can be a very real consequence to failure only it arrives later, perhaps unexpectedly: this happened here because you blew the roll back there.An example where these ideas would apply:Party is sneaking into a palace intending to catch the Queen's Evil Vizier adviser asleep in his bed and knock him off.  On their way in they pass a secret door hiding a passage that runs straight to the Vizier's chambers.  Find it, and not only do they have a safe fast way in but they're also cutting off the Vizier's first-choice escape route.  Miss it, and they have to get to the chambers the hard way through numerous guards and patrols, and also don't learn the Vizier has an escape route.Neither the characters nor the players have any specific reason to search this particular spot for secret doors.  They might search everywhere they go on the rationale "an old palace like this has to have secret passages", slowing their progress considerably, but this spot holds no special attraction.Failing to find it (or not even looking) changes nothing now but potentially makes things much harder in the near-ish future.How do you adjudicate that?  Better yet, how do you adjudicate that without in any way hinting there might be more to this spot than meets the eye (i.e. without giving the players info the characters have no way of knowing)?Knowing a fact can be pretty random.  There's a song I've known for 40 years or more but earlier today when I tried to remember which band had done it (which I've also known for 40+ years!) I drew a blank, to the point where I had to look it up.  Any other day, odds are high to extreme I'd remember this without problem.</blockquote>

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