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

[DND_Reborn]

So, "I look for something weird" isn't good enough. But "I kneel down and look for something weird" is?

As @Reynard has said (if I understand correctly) it is about positioning as well. Stating "You kneel down" helps them with that positioning aspect and makes adjudicating the game easier.

I've I am incorrect, my apologies.

 

[Chaosmancer]

again by removing context we break it down to binary pass fail

I will say, I do get where they are coming from with Persuasion checks. I wouldn't make the DC harder or anything, but I do want some information.

However, I think the difference is I don't really need more information in your Prince Ken example. The party has a long-term relationship with that NPC, and I can fall back to that to figure out what happens. But if it was their first meeting, I'd need something more, because it helps me craft the dialogue.

And that's really the the biggest part with the three social skills for me. The players are often trying to get information, but I don't want to just exposit at them, I want to do it in character, and I can't respond in the character of the NPC unless I have some idea of the tact the players just went. They respond differently to an intimidating glare than to the PC grabbing a branch the size of their thigh and snapping it in half. And so I need to have some idea what the PCs did, so I can respond without a disconnect in the game world.

But also, many many times the context gives me what I need to figure out the player's actions, I just need their goal, and then I can go from there. Social is really the only time I need their goal and their approach, maybe investigation, but I can generalize an investigation.

 

[tetrasodium]

But the player isn't trying to establish their backstory. The player is trying to make a knowledge check, and their backstory is being demanded in exchange for being allowed to roll.

If you want a backstory for the PCs, establish it in the first few sessions or away from the table, not every time I try and make a knowledge check. Especially since this means PCs without knowledge skills have less backstory, which is ridiculous.

It's not about establishing backstory. There was a thread a while back that got into players using their backstory & such or bifts to pull rank with NPCs insert things into the world & so on whenever it's convenient then just wanting to "who me? nope you gotthewrongguy stoprailroadingme!" when the world pulls/pushes back. Making the player vocalize backstory elements like I mentioned in 699 when they do it avoids two problems. The first problem it avoids is that everyone hears the player saying their PC went to a university or whatever & can say nonono if you decide to retcon that out should it prove inconvenient later. The second problem it avoids is a player who is constantly reinventing their quantum spreadsheet of a character expecting to get some benefit on any problem because they did x implausible thing or simply has too many lifetimes of stuff piling up to be believable.

 

[Chaosmancer]

You and I are obviously not understanding one another and rather than assume it's in bad faith i am just going to stop engaging with you on the subject.

Throws hands up

Well, that certainly doesn't help me understand anything at all. Especially since you cut the entire paragraph where I asked about the smell situation.

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As @Reynard has said (if I understand correctly) it is about positioning as well. Stating "You kneel down" helps them with that positioning aspect and makes adjudicating the game easier.

I've I am incorrect, my apologies.

But here is where I'm confused. Clearly my character was in a position before. If it was about positioning, then instead of asking for a different action to get a different result, they would ask "where are you standing again?" right? That makes the most sense if it is a purely positional situation.

But now we find that the different action to get a different result can be as simple as kneeling in the same spot you were standing in before... which to me changes so utterly little about the situation, it seems completely arbitrary. I could have equally changed my perspective by cocking my head to the left, it seems like just needing an action for the sake of an action, to my understanding of it.

 

[Charlaquin]

No. I wouldn't even ask for the second roll. I rolled, I got what I got. I may try and find anything I may have missed to boost that roll, such as guidance, bardic inspiration, Inspiration from the Inspiration rules, or something else, but I gave it my best and I accept the results.

Fundamentally it’s the same thing. I’m just applying different mechanics than you would to resolve the action.

But there are two fundamental differences between "I make a roll and got a 10" and "defaulting to passive"

1) I could have rolled higher than 10. This is important for the feeling of agency. I had a chance.
2) Those other factors I mentioned. There are abilities that trigger only when the die is rolled. Luck, Guidance, Bardic Inspiration, normal inspiration, The Psy Knack feature. By rolling, I have a chance to utilize these elements, which I cannot use on a passive check.

True, those things are differences between rolled ability checks and passive ability checks. There are also differences between ability checks and saving throws, but you don’t get to ask if you can make an acrobatics check instead of a dexterity save because you want to apply your expertise feature. It is the DM who determines what mechanic to use to resolve an action, according to their best judgment and understanding of the rules.

Presumably they are searching for clues because the hypothetical DM has clues in the room for them to find. If there are no clues, just tell them that and they can move on. Searching an "empty room" with nothing notable, interesting, or relevant is just wasting everyone's time.

You say “clues” like there’s some sort of mystery to be solved, that I have laid intentional clues for the players to find so they can figure it out. That’s just not how I run games. Are there things in the room? Yes. Are some of the things hidden? Sometimes. If there are, I will probably try to telegraph that in some way so the players have the information they need to decide whether to spend their time searching for stuff or not. If they miss the telegraphs, that’s perfectly fine, that’s how the game goes sometimes.

I must of missed that. If we were talking investigation, then that is a completely different ball game and I would agree the players need to provide an action to investigate, at a minimum telling me what they are investigating. Because Investigation is different than perception.

This does raise the issue for me of how you handle searching for hidden creatures. If the party was in the woods, and a hidden goblin was mocking them, they can't "look" or "listen" for the goblin's position, because those are passive perception and actions they have already taken. So, would you expect them to begin beating the bushes to try and find the goblin?

Move around, look behind things, maybe try to spook the goblin out of hiding, whatever. Imagine the world and how you would interact with it if it was a real place, and then describe those interactions. That’s how roleplaying works.

This isn't about good faith play, in anyway. This is about what mechanics are in play. Players don't always know whether or not their ukulele proficiency applies. Sometimes it is obvious, sometimes it isn't.

Well I don’t know what else to tell you. A player can apply their proficiency bonus to a check if they think one of their proficiencies applies. If they aren’t sure, they can ask, but I advise them to trust their instincts; they probably know what they intended better than I do.

And especially when discussing with other DMs about the skills in question being used, it is far more helpful to discuss them in terms of the skills than in terms of "I trust my players to apply the correct proficiency when appropriate" because that doesn't help us understand your game situation.

I really don’t think it’s helpful to discuss actions at my table in terms of skills, because doing so does not accurately reflect the gameplay at my table. You did say you were trying to understand that, didn’t you? One of the things that’s key to understanding gameplay at my table is that players at my table don’t “make skill checks.” They describe what they want to accomplish and what their characters do in the imagined space to try to bring that about. Sometimes, I ask them to make ability checks to find out if a consequence occurs as a result of something a player described their character doing.

Okay, but we;ve tried that. And for the last couple of days, multiple times, you've given the same response. So, pretend you were a player in your own game, but help us understand how you are picturing this beyond "They just have to try something" because we've been trying, and it has gotten us nowhere.

It’s hard for me to give you an example because I don’t have enough context. What action would I describe my character doing in the shared imagined space? I can’t answer that because we haven’t established any shared imagined space. We’re talking in vague abstractions and broad generalizations, which makes anything that resembles gameplay at my table kind of impossible. Hopefully the chasing the goblin example helped.

It really isn't that hard for a Goblin to beat the Passive Perception of low-level PCs. They have a +6, so they can easily get a 16. Passive Perception for a character is likely 14 (+2 wisdom, +2 prof)

Ok,

But, this is a perfect highlight of the issue I have with regulating perception to only Passive Perception.

I don’t, but go on.

The players have spent a resource (bardic inspiration) and while it wasn't wasted, they now are in a situation where the only thing the fighter can do is to try and draw out the goblin. They cannot achieve their original goal, and in fact they never got the chance to attempt their original plan. The bardic inspiration could have never been used.

I mean it can be used on any check they make in the next minute, if I recall correctly.

And since the Goblin ran from these PCs, I'd say it is harder to trick it, because it is aware its best chance is to attack from ambush. And I know many players who would be quite frustrated at having no recourse to attempt to find this goblin, and their only viable plans would involve either tricking it or hoping they beat its initiative when it attacks.

That’s how it goes sometimes. Your plans don’t always work out like you thought they would, and then you have to come up with new plans.

But... aren't you contradicting yourself here? Learning different information isn't a consequence of a failed roll, so you would have just had them succeed the check to begin with with no roll.

How do these two statements not contradict?

I just told you learning different information is a consequence for a failed roll, as per the DMG recommendation of progress combined with a setback as a possible consequence.

I don't like those 10 minute turns for two reasons. 1) I rarely run large enough dungeons for it to matter. 2) They also give an opportunity cost to roleplaying and goofing off, which discourages people from having fun with the game.

Now, I imagine you are going to tell me that it doesn't discourage that sort of thing. But, in my expeirence, the moment you start asking people "what do you do on your turn" They aren't going to "waste" their turn by messing around.

I mean, goofing around still happens plenty (they’re 10 in-game minute turns, not 10 real-life minute turns), but yes, the time pressure absolutely does discourage spending in-game time on superfluous actions. I’d consider that a feature, not a bug. It creates (in-game) urgency and keeps gameplay moving, which are good things in my opinion. People wonder how you’re supposed to get 6-8 encounters in a single adventuring day? This is how.

Sure, but again, if a player is trying to take actions to avoid traps, but those actions trigger the traps they were trying to avoid with no roll,

“With no roll” is an assumption you’re bringing to the table. I explicitly said in an earlier post that I wouldn’t deprive a player of the opportunity to make a save because their blind guess of how to avoid a trap was wrong; because that would suck.

then what was the point of the player's declared intent? It clearly didn't matter that they were attempting to find and avoid traps, so why should they bother telling you that was what they were trying to do?

It absolutely matters that they’re attempting to find and avoid traps. It also matters how they’re trying to do so. I use those two pieces of information to determine when and if a game mechanic (such as an ability check) is needed to resolve the action.

No, I don't understand now. I get that you are saying you don't know if it is important, but to me that doesn't makes sense. Once they pick it up, you know whether or not it ties into anything. You know what the idol is. Maybe you didn't know before they picked it up, but you can't have described it without knowing what it is and what condition it is in. And you know where it was, so... how can you not know if it is important or not?

I can understand not pre-plotting an adventure, but how can you run if every item is a mystery box you have no idea how it fits into the world? How can you describe an item if you have no idea what it is and what it is doing in that room? How can you even answer the player's questions if they ask them?

I'm not trying to be rude, I'm legitimately flummoxed how you can run a game this way. You have to know something about this idol.

I know plenty of things about it, I just don’t know what, if any of it, is important. That’s not really up to me to decide, because I’m not telling a story. Maybe some of that information will end up being important later, maybe it won’t. We (the players and I) are going to have to play the game to find out, together.

Okay, but you know what is hidden, so when the players ask to try and find hidden items, you know what they are looking for. Because you know what is there. "Important" doesn't neccessarily mean "plot relevant" it is just "notable". So since you know everything in the room, you know what is notable and what isn't.

Ok, sure. If they say something like “I search the wardrobe for hidden items,” that tells me what they want to accomplish (find any hidden items in the wardrobe) and how (searching through it). If there’s nothing hidden there, I tell them they don’t find anything. If there is something hidden there, I might call for a Wisdom check to see if they find it within 10 minutes (and they can add Perception, or Investigation, or… I don’t know, woodcarver’s tools if they want to). And if they fail to find it, they’re welcome to spend another 10 minutes trying again, for as long as they’re willing to risk doing so as the next roll for complications draws closer.

 

[Chaosmancer]

It's not about establishing backstory. There was a thread a while back that got into players using their backstory & such or bifts to pull rank with NPCs insert things into the world & so on whenever it's convenient then just wanting to "who me? nope you gotthewrongguy stoprailroadingme!" when the world pulls/pushes back. Making the player vocalize backstory elements like I mentioned in 699 when they do it avoids two problems. The first problem it avoids is that everyone hears the player saying their PC went to a university or whatever & can say nonono if you decide to retcon that out should it prove inconvenient later. The second problem it avoids is a player who is constantly reinventing their quantum spreadsheet of a character expecting to get some benefit on any problem because they did x implausible thing or simply has too many lifetimes of stuff piling up to be believable.

Are you even reading Charlaquin's posts to understand what they are saying? Because everything you are saying has nothing to do with the situation we are discussing. In any way, shape, or form.

Especially since Charlaquin has specifically said they don't care what you are saying, and seems to be using an emergent backstory, not trying to lock players into an unquantum state.

 

[DND_Reborn]

But here is where I'm confused. Clearly my character was in a position before. If it was about positioning, then instead of asking for a different action to get a different result, they would ask "where are you standing again?" right? That makes the most sense if it is a purely positional situation.

Honestly, I don't know since I haven't been following the exchange, I just caught that part.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think you missed the more important part of the example.

The sigil is from the city of Tyr. If the player doesn't know that, then they won't say "I think back to my childhood in Tyr" where they are GUARANTEED to know about this sigil. Instead they ask about if they saw it in the City of Sigil, which is a MAYBE.

Yes, that’s why it’s important for the player to say where they think their character might have seen it, because how I resolve the actuon may be different depending on what they describe.

For the record though, if the sigil is from Tyr and I know the character is also from Tyr, I’d just tell them it reminds them of something they saw in Tyr. That’s part of my job as DM, because that’s something the character should know but the player can’t know unless I tell them.

This is what we mean when we talk about "asking the wrong question". Because of things they didn't know, and that supposedly was not mentioned in the description, they went from a guaranteed success to a maybe, because they asked the more general arcane studies question instead of the specific non-magic related Tyr question.

But the idea that it wasn’t mentioned in the description is an assumption you’re bringing to the table. If it would be guaranteed that the character would know the thing, and the player couldn’t know the thing themselves, then it’s my responsibility as DM to tell the player the thing. That should be a given.

 

[Charlaquin]

Are you even reading Charlaquin's posts to understand what they are saying? Because everything you are saying has nothing to do with the situation we are discussing. In any way, shape, or form.

Especially since Charlaquin has specifically said they don't care what you are saying, and seems to be using an emergent backstory, not trying to lock players into an unquantum state.

Err… Establishing backstory details as you play (such as when trying to recall information, for example) is part of creating an emergent backstory. I don’t think describing the character’s backstory as in quantum superposition until a knowledge check causes it (part of it, anyway) to collapse into a defined state is inaccurate.

 

[Mort]

Easy solution (works every time I've ever had to do it):

PLAYER: "I roll a perception check!"

DM: "Okay... you fish some funny-looking dice out of your pocket, crouch down, and give 'em a roll. Everyone else in the party is giving you weird looks, wondering what that's all about. Meanwhile, while you're playing with dice..." (turns to the next player)

Players shape up real quick when you pull that on 'em.

By shaping up, do you mean leave?

If a DM every did anything remotely like this to anyone at the table, I'm gone from that table.

There is NO justification for a DM deliberately humiliating/punishing a player in this manner. It's the kind of nonsense that drives people from the hobby.