For context, this mini-rant is based on an event from my Iron Gods 5E conversion campaign last night, but goes beyond that. I am starting an OSE game soon with another group of folks and I expect similar issues there.
"I make a perception check" is not a valid action declaration in any version of D&D. One does not "make a perception check." One looks around, or stops and waits and listens at the door, or moves very carefully and slowly down the corridor while testing each flagstone, or runs their fingers along the edges of the old desk, or carefully pulls one book off the shelf after another. There is no "perception check" in the fiction of the game world. Stop doing that. Tell me what you DO.
I have had this argument with players constantly, and every time remind them that they need to explain what they are doing, how they are "making a perception" check. For a couple of them, itis just ingrained 3.x habits that they are working to shake. But for a couple others they just can't seem to grok that "I make a perception check" is not an actual thing.
::sigh:: /end rant
"I make a perception check" is not a valid action declaration in any version of D&D. One does not "make a perception check." One looks around, or stops and waits and listens at the door, or moves very carefully and slowly down the corridor while testing each flagstone, or runs their fingers along the edges of the old desk, or carefully pulls one book off the shelf after another. There is no "perception check" in the fiction of the game world. Stop doing that. Tell me what you DO.
I have had this argument with players constantly, and every time remind them that they need to explain what they are doing, how they are "making a perception" check. For a couple of them, itis just ingrained 3.x habits that they are working to shake. But for a couple others they just can't seem to grok that "I make a perception check" is not an actual thing.
::sigh:: /end rant