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<blockquote data-quote="redrick" data-source="post: 6388134" data-attributes="member: 6777696">I want my players to interact with the game world. It can happen in whichever way they prefer, but whenever a player goes beyond, &quot;I perform this D&amp;D action to this D&amp;D object,&quot; I want that player to be rewarded in some small way. So, when it comes to searching a room, my approach has been, if a player asks the right questions, they will always get the right answer, regardless of any skill check. On the other hand, since I appreciate that not all players always want to &quot;ask the right questions&quot;, I also set DCs for characters to find everything in the room by just &quot;searching the room.&quot; A 12 will find that giant golden chalice under the bed, a 15 will find that wand mixed in with the pile of firewood and a 20 will find that secret compartment in the bookshelf. On the other hand, if a player says, &quot;let me see what's in that bookshelf&quot;, I'll start telling her about it I say, &quot;It's a deep shelf with thick, sturdy shelves and rows upon rows of books that are so covered in dust that you can't even make out the spines.&quot; (At this point, she might say, &quot;ok, I'm going to spend 10 minutes searching this bookshelf,&quot; and now I'll basically give her advantage and a DC of 15. Or something.) And then she might ask to clean off the dust on some of those books and then I might tell her how one looks different from the others and then she's basically found the secret compartment.That's my theory, anyhow.In practice, the only time a player has ever interacted with any of my scenery was when an NPC said, &quot;there is a secret door in that room&quot; and then the PC walked into the room to find a head hanging from a hook in an alcove. He pulled on it. Most of the time, my players just &quot;search the room&quot; and sometimes they find everything and sometimes they don't. Less good stuff for them. Less fun for me.Should I just take another opportunity to encourage my players to look more interactively? Should I remove the cop-out skill-based search, forcing myself to do a good job at setting the scene well enough for the players to be able to succeed? Should I just accept that my players want to roll dice at monsters and stop thinking of every investigation-searched room as a missed opportunity?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="redrick, post: 6388134, member: 6777696"] I want my players to interact with the game world. It can happen in whichever way they prefer, but whenever a player goes beyond, "I perform this D&D action to this D&D object," I want that player to be rewarded in some small way. So, when it comes to searching a room, my approach has been, if a player asks the right questions, they will always get the right answer, regardless of any skill check. On the other hand, since I appreciate that not all players always want to "ask the right questions", I also set DCs for characters to find everything in the room by just "searching the room." A 12 will find that giant golden chalice under the bed, a 15 will find that wand mixed in with the pile of firewood and a 20 will find that secret compartment in the bookshelf. On the other hand, if a player says, "let me see what's in that bookshelf", I'll start telling her about it I say, "It's a deep shelf with thick, sturdy shelves and rows upon rows of books that are so covered in dust that you can't even make out the spines." (At this point, she might say, "ok, I'm going to spend 10 minutes searching this bookshelf," and now I'll basically give her advantage and a DC of 15. Or something.) And then she might ask to clean off the dust on some of those books and then I might tell her how one looks different from the others and then she's basically found the secret compartment. That's my theory, anyhow. In practice, the only time a player has ever interacted with any of my scenery was when an NPC said, "there is a secret door in that room" and then the PC walked into the room to find a head hanging from a hook in an alcove. He pulled on it. Most of the time, my players just "search the room" and sometimes they find everything and sometimes they don't. Less good stuff for them. Less fun for me. Should I just take another opportunity to encourage my players to look more interactively? Should I remove the cop-out skill-based search, forcing myself to do a good job at setting the scene well enough for the players to be able to succeed? Should I just accept that my players want to roll dice at monsters and stop thinking of every investigation-searched room as a missed opportunity? [/QUOTE]

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