D&D General "I make a perception check."

[Swarmkeeper]

A lot obviously depends on the scale of the area being examined, too.

True, to some extent. What I've been describing is the play loop from 5e. The DM describes what's obvious about an environment and then the player decides what their PC wants to do next. It scales just fine. Larger areas might have more stuff to examine or simply take more time to fully search, which could have its own complications (e.g. wandering monster checks).

But even if you've got something like a closet, a casual look is pretty likely to fail to notice the hidden release for the secret door in the back (even with someone with good Perception) but a more extensive look for detail might not.

Sure, just looking into the closet might not reveal anything but a more thorough search of the closet might auto-succeed in finding the secret door. Perhaps the release is not as obvious and so we get to an Int(Investigation) check to figure out how the secret door works.

Its hard to one-size-fits-all these kinds of things.

I think the 5e play loop description actually does cover all these kinds of things rather elegantly.

Based on some of your other comments, do you perchance mainly play a different edition?

 

[kenada]

Paranoia about triggering traps, I'd guess.

Maybe? I pinged him on our Slack to see if he remembers. I’m curious because it was Pathfinder 1e, and I was running official adventures at the time. Paizo doesn’t really do gotcha stuff with Perception checks. digs through old modules

I think it was Dragon’s Demand area A4. There are a couple of mithral daggers hidden in the rubble. The party completely missed them. I can’t remember if/how they got access to the treasury in A12, which requires using the daggers as keys.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

They're saying in your games you probably roll first, then you/DM describe what the character does after based on the roll. Instead of the way the game is actually structured which is, that players describe what they want to do, maybe roll, then DM describes the outcome.

that isn't true then... declaration then decided if roll needed, then roll then results.

 

[Celebrim]

They're saying in your games you probably roll first, then you/DM describe what the character does after based on the roll. Instead of the way the game is actually structured which is, that players describe what they want to do, maybe roll, then DM describes the outcome.

Yeah, he almost has to be describing Fortune At the Beginning where propositions are in the form of Moves. If he isn't, then well, proposition matters and well he's not as different from everyone else as he thinks.

 

[Reynard]

that isn't true then... declaration then decided if roll needed, then roll then results.

So it is the same loop but with an explicit player request to use a skill, rather than the GM determining the skill?
How are DCs established, since 5E has very broad DC categories? Are the DCs subject to "player skill" as you defined it?

 

[Reynard]

Yeah, he almost has to be describing Fortune At the Beginning where propositions are in the form of Moves.

No. You guys are reading too much into it. He is simply saying that their go-to is the character sheet. Everything else appears to be essentially the same, play loop wise.

 

[iserith]

that isn't true then... declaration then decided if roll needed, then roll then results.

Yeah, he almost has to be describing Fortune At the Beginning where propositions are in the form of Moves. If he isn't, then well, proposition matters and well he's not as different from everyone else as he thinks.

But it sounds like your declarations are in the form of asking to make ability checks which essentially skips describing what you want to do. It gets to the roll with some built in assumptions as to the character's action at which point the DM can confirm or deny the roll.

 

[Reynard]

But it sounds like your declarations are in the form of asking to make ability checks which essentially skips describing what you want to do. It gets to the roll which the DM can either confirm or deny.

No. he is saying, "I make a stealth check to hide in the closet" instead of saying "I hide in the closet" and the GM saying "Make a stealth check" or not. It's the same loop.

 

[Celebrim]

No. You guys are reading too much into it. He is simply saying that their go-to is the character sheet. Everything else appears to be essentially the same, play loop wise.

If you are right, and without watching his process of play I can't know that, then he's not adapted the process of play so far that I'm wrong. He's still going to have player skill matter and mental and social skills will still be different than physical skills.

 

[Reynard]

If you are right, and without watching his process of play I can't know that, then he's not adapted the process of play so far that I'm wrong. He's still going to have player skill matter and mental and social skills will still be different than physical skills.

Sure. I understand that it is a unique take on play based on some apparent bad viking hat GM stuff in the past.

What I really think is that keeping the discussion up is not helping anyone understand anyone else and is probably pretty frustrating for everyone involved.