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<blockquote data-quote="weem" data-source="post: 5039734" data-attributes="member: 9470">I agree, and think this is a key idea.If you only reward players with a 'find' when you already know what is there (basically only when it matters for plot advancement) there are going to be a lot of &quot;nothing there&quot; moments. It won't take many of these for players to simply stop trying. Even the most simple (worthless) items can activate that rewarding feel, whether it's a piece of chalk or a scrap of clothing, it wasn't &quot;nothing&quot;, and that's something, hehe <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Also as Nagol mentioned, it can be over done. What I do is simply state (when I want to move things along) &quot;after a thorough search, there does not appear to be anything here at all worth mentioning&quot; etc. I sum it all up as searched. So, if they want to check behind the bookshelf... okay, nothing there I say... then they want to check under the bed... I know this is going to continue piece by piece so I say, &quot;you check under the bed, and I assume under, behind and on top of everything else, but aside from dust and webs you find nothing&quot;.This works for me because I can tell when they are about to simply check everything anyway. Sometimes I will ask, &quot;you check the bed and find nothing... do you continue this search throughout the room or head out&quot;, &quot;search the rest&quot;, &quot;ok, there is nothing of interest after further exploration&quot;.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="weem, post: 5039734, member: 9470"] I agree, and think this is a key idea. If you only reward players with a 'find' when you already know what is there (basically only when it matters for plot advancement) there are going to be a lot of "nothing there" moments. It won't take many of these for players to simply stop trying. Even the most simple (worthless) items can activate that rewarding feel, whether it's a piece of chalk or a scrap of clothing, it wasn't "nothing", and that's something, hehe ;) Also as Nagol mentioned, it can be over done. What I do is simply state (when I want to move things along) "after a thorough search, there does not appear to be anything here at all worth mentioning" etc. I sum it all up as searched. So, if they want to check behind the bookshelf... okay, nothing there I say... then they want to check under the bed... I know this is going to continue piece by piece so I say, "you check under the bed, and I assume under, behind and on top of everything else, but aside from dust and webs you find nothing". This works for me because I can tell when they are about to simply check everything anyway. Sometimes I will ask, "you check the bed and find nothing... do you continue this search throughout the room or head out", "search the rest", "ok, there is nothing of interest after further exploration". [/QUOTE]

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