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

[Maxperson]

Easy, Rodney McKay has the power of plot.

Though, this time, at least they knew there was a room, they had a record of a guy just disappearing down the corridor into it and they know the guy who built it was a techie who would do something like this. But mostly because the plot said so.

I thought it was Sheppard who figured it out.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I thought it was Sheppard who figured it out.

TBF he did make it into mensa

 

[Chaosmancer]

I was watching an episode of Stargate: Atlantis recently that had an interesting idea (IMO) for a secret door.

There is a hallway with a solid wall at the end.

As you walk to the solid wall at the end of the hallway, there are 3 lamps - set about 5 feet apart (one after the other - along the way to the solid wall). If you touch each lamp 1 after the other, as you are walking, (if you stop it doesn't work) and THEN walk "into" the wall, the wall is not solid (even though it still looks solid) and you walk into the next room.

@Charlaquin , @GMforPowergamers , @iserith - or anyone who wants to really.

If you were DMing, how would finding this "secret door," likely, work in your session? How would it look?

I'd have to give some sort of visual clue that touching the lamps did anything, and a cryptic riddle that made them even think to touch the lamps.

If you have plopped a hallway down with this sort of set-up, no one would ever figure it out. I'm curious, how did they figure it out in the show?

 

[Charlaquin]

I think I see it now... maybe some others can jump in... I don't see overcoming the obstacles or even reaching the goal as important as the fun we have at the table...

You may not have done so intentionally, but you’ve just positioned the process of striving to overcome obstacles as being at odds with “the fun we have at the table.” To me, striving to overcome obstacles is the fun we have at the table, or at least a significant part of it.

heck sometimes you have MORE fun by failing to overcome an obstacle (as long as it doesn't end in death)

I agree that failing to overcome an obstacle can be just as fun as succeeding, and sometimes even more fun (even if it does end in character death), just as chess can be fun even when you lose. The striving is really where the fun mostly comes from, not the end result, and in fact, I think succeeding is less fun if you don’t fail sometimes. In any given moment, I want to try my best to succeed, but in the long run the game is more fun if there’s a mix of success and failure. That’s why games have rules structures to make the pursuit of your goals challenging, so you can always be trying your best to succeed and still end up with a mix of successes and failures.

so do you think if your character slays the dragon that counts as a 'you won' moment like check mating someone in chess?

More or less. It isn’t a perfect analogy because in Chess the game is over once someone gets a checkmate, whereas slaying the dragon in D&D doesn’t necessarily end the game. Often, there will be a few overarching campaign goals and many more small individual goals, and so there can be many victories (and many losses) of varying significance, throughout the course of a campaign. The ultimate goal, of course, is for the sum of all these victories and losses to take the shape of a story - hopefully an exciting, memorable one.

 

[Mort]

I'd have to give some sort of visual clue that touching the lamps did anything, and a cryptic riddle that made them even think to touch the lamps.

If you have plopped a hallway down with this sort of set-up, no one would ever figure it out. I'm curious, how did they figure it out in the show?

They knew the room existed and were motivated to find it.

They knew the guy who had used the room seemingly disappeared down the hallway(there was a written record from someone).

There was an oddity as to the lamps (they made a chime noise when touched).

But mostly, the plot demanded it. Shows can be like that.

 

[Charlaquin]

I agree that failing to overcome an obstacle can be just as fun as succeeding, and sometimes even more fun (even if it does end in character death), just as chess can be fun even when you lose. The striving is really where the fun mostly comes from, not the end result, and in fact, I think succeeding is less fun if you don’t fail sometimes. In any given moment, I want to try my best to succeed, but in the long run the game is more fun if there’s a mix of success and failure. That’s why games have rules structures to make the pursuit of your goals challenging, so you can always be trying your best to succeed and still end up with a mix of successes and failures.

More or less. It isn’t a perfect analogy because in Chess the game is over once someone gets a checkmate, whereas slaying the dragon in D&D doesn’t necessarily end the game. Often, there will be a few overarching campaign goals and many more small individual goals, and so there can be many victories (and many losses) of varying significance, throughout the course of a campaign. The ultimate goal, of course, is for the sum of all these victories and losses to take the shape of a story - hopefully an exciting, memorable one.

This, by the way, is what I think Brennan Lee Mulligan is trying to express in this clip:

 

[HammerMan]

so do you think if your character slays the dragon that counts as a 'you won' moment like check mating someone in chess?

I thought we all agreed there was no winning in D&D long ago. I don’t know if comparing someone wanting to play a different style to wanting to win helps

 

[Charlaquin]

I thought we all agreed there was no winning in D&D long ago. I don’t know if comparing someone wanting to play a different style to wanting to win helps

I think it’s a completely fair comparison. I do, in fact, think you can “win” at D&D (though, again, winning doesn’t necessarily cause the game to end; there are many victories and many losses that will occur throughout the course of a campaign, and hopefully by the end those victories and losses will have made for an exciting, memorable story overall). In fact, I think the practice of shaming players for trying to “win” has done a great deal of harm to the hobby.

 

[tetrasodium]

I don't ignore it... but I try to compartmentlize (as best I can) what I the player knows and sees and what the character knows and sees.

when we played in person if the DM put down 3 minis in the next room we didn't just say "oh looks like a fight is coming lets prep" we out of game knew a fight was coming but we tried our best to play our characters as not knowing...

infact the 'assassin coming out of the shadows to talk but not hug' everyone at the table knew the battlematt was set up, the room was made and the mini for a new assassin was on the field...

I've been known to ask people "why does your character do that" and flip back to the fight down the hall or preemptively ask the rear guard how long they are going to be waiting & such before starting the stealth scouting so don't see a problem with that and was more talking about things like slice in the room with Bob watching him do stuff then be oblivious to that stuff & need recap ehen the spotlight shifts to put her on the spot.

I didn't usually get pushback unless the player just wants to show up & be told a story.

 

[Chaosmancer]

The DM decides how to resolve actions based on their best judgment and their understanding of the rules. Based on my best judgment and understanding of the rules, I would resolve attempts to look around with passive perception, because people do that constantly. Maybe you would rule differently, and if I were playing at your table, I would accept your ruling, because that’s how the game works.

Okay, but just stating "these are how rules work" doesn't mean I think your rules are good. I can still accept that you will rule that way without being required to ignore things I see as problematic or not working as intended in your rules. Just as I would hope if a player in my game felt that the rules I was making didn't work well or had problematic elements, they would tell me about it.

That is indeed what I would do. I’m not sure why you assume otherwise.

Because when I first suggested it you seemed utterly mystified by the idea.

Just because there’s nothing going on involving Shar right now, doesn’t mean there might not be later. In fact, if I had placed the idol to Shar randomly, that might inspire me to add some sort of Shar involvement. Rolling prep is a big part of sandbox play. Of course, even if I do expand the campaign to include some Shar-related stuff, I don’t know when or if the players will encounter it. That’s not up to me.

But if it is later then the idol wasn't important. It could be retroactive foreshadowing, but in the moment it still wasn't important. And you knew it wasn't important, you just went back and made it important later.

So, again, you know what is and isn't important in the moment. Whether you decide to change that later doesn't matter.

You don’t repeatedly use your senses to determine your surroundings? I find that hard to believe.

Have you ever been told about the difference between hearing and listening? I got that lecture a lot growing up. It is the exact same concept. There is a difference between seeing and looking.

I don’t prep plots.

You don't have to, you prep locations and there is SOMETHING going on at that location, or else the players wouldn't be there. You don't just place your characters in a random place for no reason with nothing going on. I refuse to believe anyone does that.

Any information could tell the PCs something they didn’t know before or confirmed something they suspected. Again, I know all sorts of information about the things I put in my campaigns, so if that’s what you mean by important, then I guess everything is important.

I don't know how to explain this to you. I'm at a complete loss how you aren't getting this.

What? I don’t see how by the definition you just used. Random treasure may convey all sorts of information the players didn’t already know.

Not if it is actually random. All random treasure does is tell you it is there. The only way to make random treasure important is to retroactively make up something that makes it important. Which you should really never do in my opinion, because that means you didn't even roll the treasure until they were about to get it, which I've never had a good experience with.

You’re going to have to be more specific about what plan I hypothetically heard for me to answer that. I was under the impression that the players said they wanted to follow the goblin and find where it was hiding (or something like that, it was like two days ago at this point, so I don’t remember the details perfectly). Bardic Inspiration could absolutely be useful in doing that. If I had known that the players hoped to try and find the goblin without entering the room it’s hidden in or interacting with anything in the environment at all, sure, I would probably have warned them that bardic inspiration is unlikely to help much.

No you remember the plan pretty much exactly as I laid it out. If you warned them, then they have a chance to come up with a different plan. Probably one involving fire and smoke to drive the goblin out of the room, since there is nothing else I can imagine that would not massively risk the player's health in the attempt.

Wait, hang on. Their goal was to find out if there were any traps in the room, and their approach was to move to the center of the room? And there was a trap that is triggered by moving to the center of the room, which they didn’t notice with their passive perception? Then, yeah, when they get to the center of the room, I would describe the initial trigger being set off - what was it, a pressure plate? So I’d describe the feeling of something sinking under their weight and the sound of a click, then ask what they do. They could then tell me what they do to try and avoid the trap, which could result in them avoiding it without having to make a saving throw. If their action wouldn’t help them avoid the trap, I would still give them a saving throw to avoid it.

Right, I disagree with this ruling. You have ignored the player's intent, because they happened to guess incorrectly at which action was safe. If they had move to stand left of center of the room to search for traps, they would have been safe, and they would have had their chance to find traps. Instead, they set off the trap with no potential to find it. (I'm ignoring passive perception, because they had no active hand in that. They simply get handed a description of the room based off their passive perception. That has nothing to do with their actions or their decisions, unless you want to count character creation, which I don't)

So, again, there are many points at which they could have avoided the trap. I would first of all have telegraphed it in the initial description, which could give them enough information to know not to step in the center of the room. I would second of all have compared their passive perception to the DC to spot the trap, and if it was higher, just told them they noticed it. I would third of all have given them a chance to avoid the trap without a save after perceiving it’s initial activation and before taking any damage or other negative effects. And if they didn’t manage that I would finally have given them the chance to avoid it with a saving throw.

1) Telegraphing fails, as you have said. You telegraphed enough they knew there were traps, and therefore stated an intent to find those traps safely. An intent you ignore, in favor of their action nullifying it and triggering the trap.

2) Passive perception is not a player choice or a player action. It is just the description of the room. You might as well say that they have a chance not to touch a fire because you told them there was a fire in the center of the room.

3) A chance to avoid the trap after triggering it was not their intent. Their intent was to find it before triggering it. At this point you have told them that they have failed, that for all their potential caution and attempts to avoid this exact scenario, they said the wrong action declaration, nullified their intent, and now must desperately try to salvage the situation.

4) Traps give saving throws regardless of the players actions or choices, this is still ignoring their intent and is actually the ultimate fail condition of their chosen action. I don't think you get credit for following the rules of the game though.

So I can determine if their approach could succeed in achieving their goal or or fail to do so, and if both, set a difficulty and call for an appropriate check.

Their goal is clear. Why assume an approach that would cause them to fail in their goal to search a room? What approach could even possibly fail to search a room that wasn't a ridiculous thing no sane person would try? You know which checks apply, either intelligence or wisdom. And I'm not certain why you need to change the difficulty whether I'm going clockwise, grid search, or counter-clockwise.

In the case of a room with a trap in it, sure. In another case, such as a room with a concealed door, I also need to know what they’re doing specifically so I know if they find the concealed door or need to make a check to do so. There are many hypothetical scenarios where specificity I’d necessary to adequately determine results.

And why would a thorough search of the room, that rolled well, not find a concealed door? If the door can be found by looking in a specific spot, and you look through the entire room, then you will find it, there isn't even a question.

Sure, that’s a way someone could do it, but that leaves the fictional action very abstract, which is not my preference.

And it allows me to not ignore the intent of the players when they declare actions. Which is my preference.

And I’d rather have zero chance of failure than some chance of failure. Especially since a failed roll always has consequences, whereas simply failing due to there being no chance of success often just means no change. But different strokes, you prefer to roll, I prefer to avoid rolling. It’s all good.

You never get zero chance of failure, unless you have read the DM's notes or their mind.

That's something I don't understand about your position. You always assume you will have the correct answer and therefore have zero chance of failure and 100% chance of success, but that doesn't happen. You always have a chance of failure.

What, by making all that background detail up before play even starts? No thank you. I’m not interested in reading a bunch of lengthy player backstories before play has even started; I find that very dull, and in my experience it leaves little room for the characters to grow during play; people get stuck on “what would my character do” based on things they already decided before the game even began, instead of acting organically and figuring out why their character did what they did.

Yeah, it is terrible when someone adopts a role and thinks what they would do based on that role. /sarcasm

Honestly, I've read a few bad character backstories, but most of them have been good, and most of them have been short. And talking before the game always me to easily seed things into the game early, instead of waiting for them to randomly justify something and then I think that sounds cool and then do something with it.

But also, frankly, I can't play the game without figuring out who the person is I'm playing, unless I want to just play myself. And I'm a terrible and terribly boring person. I don't want to play me, I've been me. And there is no lack of growth in play. You can absolutely grow as a character, because most people write flaws into their character to overcome, generally by having that flaw bite them in the butt repeatedly during play. Something you aren't going to see happen with blank slates who have no personality of backstory, IME.

None of those things are relevant to making the decision to hide or where to hide. Yes, they are relevant to staying hidden, if that is uncertain, and are thus accounted for in the +17 when you make a stealth check.

How is whether or not you are within the zone of vision that is most likely to see you not involved in the decision on where to hide? How is whether or not you can blend your shape or color against that object not involved in the decision on where to hide?

These things absolutely play into that choice. And since these are factors that a +17 character would know, that an IRL non-expert wouldn't, it is fair to assume the character knows more about what they can and should do.