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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gradine" data-source="post: 7106432" data-attributes="member: 57112">Well, for several reasons:* It is an element of the game, and there is an expectation that at least one PC is going to dedicate resources to that element.* The player(s) who is/are dedicating resources to that element of the game expect to be rewarded for it* Presumably, when Aragorn asks Legolas what his elf eyes see, there are people who want to play that character?Ultimately, though, as long as Perception exists in the game, there's a use (I would argue need) for Passive Perception. Without it, you really have the following choices:* Call for Perception checks only when there's something to see, which when the party fails leads to the awkward moment where they know they were supposed to see something but didn't, and have to figure out how to act in that situation, either by meta-gaming a solution, which can feel cheap, or feel like you have to foolishly blunder your character into a bad situation, which can feel frustrating.* Call for Perception checks all the time, or random times for no reason, to keep your players on their toes. This quickly bogs the game down and can get equally frustrating.Passive Perception lets you skip all of that nonsense, and when you direct those extra bits of information and hints to your high PP player they get to feel like their investments paid off.As I've said before, this is a lot less useful in my home game, when I know my players' PCs pretty well and I don't have to really design around (or with) PP because I know who is and isn't going to catch those things in the first place. But if I'm writing an adventure for an unknown party, such as for DM's Guild? I can't really just flat out ignore a major element of the game like PP. And since I'd rather not use it in a boring or non-engaging way, this is the best way I've found to incorporate it, so it feels like it means something without weakening my use of other elements, such as traps or hidden doors.</blockquote>

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