We knew that when we started. You just seem to find discussing differences in style and goal a complete waste of your time. Because any time I critique your style, you just seem to shrug and say "so what? I don't care" and move on.
I have no investment in trying to convince you to like the way I run the game. That seems like it would indeed be a waste of time to try to do.
So, you understand that seeing is passive and looking is active. So you can understand that the passive check is different than the active check. So, again. I can use my eyes to receive visual information and "look" and that is very different than just seeing passively.
So when calling for an Active Perception roll, that's the difference. I understand you don't rule it that way and you bundle everything into passive skills for some reason, but do you at least finally understand the difference and why I can narrate a difference between the two?
I have understood all along that you treat passive checks as passive on the character’s part. I think I have made it quite clear throughout this entire thread that I treat passive checks as a way to resolve repeated or continual active actions without a die roll (making them “passive” on the player’s part). This appears to me to be consistent with how the rules say they work. I am on record saying I think they were poorly named.
If things happening in the location don't matter, why are you bothering with them at all?
How many times will I have to tell you that I don’t know if they will matter or not before you will stop saying they don’t matter?
But besides that, you know what is happening in that location, so you know what is important to convey that information within that location. You don't need for the location to have some grand importance to the sixteen act structure of the campaign to be able to have important things happening within the microcosm of the location.
Wait? Is that it? Do you think I'm using "important" to mean something like an item introduced at level 3 will have some significance to the grand plot by level 15? No. I'm talking in here, in this moment, maybe foreshadowing since I do tend to have larger goals than just the single location
I know what I need to convey to the players for them to be able to make informed decisions, if that’s what you mean. I don’t gate any of that information behind checks though, so I don’t know how this is relevant to the discussion.
(I've found, "go do whatever" tends to leave players just staring at me asking what they should do and where they should go. Overarching goals and working in opposition to something else helps them be more focused. "Here's a problem, do you want to fix it? Okay, how do you want to fix it?" works way better)
The game has a built-in overarching goal of accumulating experience and levels. That incentive structure can be leveraged to encourage more specific behavior - XP for treasure, for example, creates an overarching goal of gaining wealth. Requiring training to level up adds an additional sub-goal of finding suitable trainers. XP for combat creates an overarching goal of fighting powerful foes. XP for completing objectives allows for many small goals, in the form of quests. And of course, players often create their own individual character goals.
To me this reads like you create stuff, give it importance, then turn around and say that you have no idea what could possibly be important. If i t has a connection to the location and tells them something about the location, it is important. What else could it possibly be? How is it not important?
I don’t know, I don’t understand how you’re using the word “important” and at this point we’ve strayed so far afield of the topic in discussing “importance” that I fail to see any value in continuing to litigate it.
Honestly, what do you consider important? I've tried to explain this multiple times and your answers make no sense. So let's flip roles. What would you define as important in a location? And for the love of all that is holy, don't just say "I don't know" explain why you can't know and then an example of what would be and what wouldn't be important within the location. Unless this is entirely a "I don't know what will matter six sessions down the line" which isn't what I'm talking about.
I don’t know how to answer this then because I don’t know what you
are talking about.
No it isn't. It is basic, likely to backfire, and possibly lead to far more problems than it solved. But catching things on fire is the only thing they have left other than letting themselves get stabbed,
I disagree that it’s the only thing they have left. Create a distraction of some kind, or try to trick the goblin into attacking too soon, try to wait it out… Hell, just up and leave if you really can’t think of anything else and flat out refuse to risk getting hit once by a goblin.
That bolded part? That is BS. That is "You wanted the sword, I stabbed you with the sword and arguably now you have it. Your intent was fully realized." It is a fundamentally sadistic twisting of their words.
Whatever, if you prefer to call it failing, be my guest; what word we use for it doesn’t really affect the (fictional) reality of the situation.
No one asks to look for traps with the intent of setting off the trap in their face. They look for traps so they don't set the traps off. That's the entire point.
Yes, obviously, but sometimes in trying to do something, you fail to achieve your intent. Especially when in trying to find a trap you step right on its trigger mechanism.
As for disputing the trap being set off. MAYBE HAVE THEM ROLL TO SEE THE TRAP FIRST! I'm pretty sure you are a person who moves through space and has eyes, so I'm certain you have been moving through physical space and noticed something before stepping on it. You insisted that they had to "change the situation" to get a chance to roll to find traps. Well, they did. They started moving, everything is now changed, they want to look fro traps. Why are you declaring and ruling that they automatically fail to find the trap?
I am doing no such thing. They first got to make a check to try and find the trap; a special kind of check called a passive check, which is used to represent the results of an action performed repeatedly. Just because you don’t like that the mechanic I used to resolve that action didn’t involve a die roll doesn’t mean you didn’t actually have a chance. They second of all got a description of the room, including some manner of telegraph of the presence of the trap in the middle of the room. Just because you don’t like that it’s possible to misinterpret that telegraph doesn’t mean it didn’t give you the opportunity to make a decision that could have avoided setting up the trap. They third of all could have described any number of actions that didn’t involve moving to the center of the room. And, even in the case that they do, they get an additional opportunity to describe a reaction to the trap going off that could completely avoid the trap, all before any saving throw needs to be made. There are so many points in this process that could have resulted in a different outcome, but you seem to be so hung up on this one very specific possibility that you would refuse to engage with this scenario. It seriously resembles a hypervigilance response to past trauma.
Let them roll before setting off the trap, it isn't hard. They aren't robots who must move to a location before running the proper script.
Again, they got to make a check, it just didn’t involve a die roll. That is what I understand the rules to say to do in this instance.
How is looking for danger different than looking for secret doors? That is the same thing. Hint: Everyone knows that a secret door can be used to hide an ambush
What difference is there between making a map and navigating? They are the same thing.
The difference is all of these things are discrete activities the rules lay out as options you can perform only one of at a time while traveling or exploring. And it does make sense - the person making the map is absorbed in recording their surroundings on paper; the person navigating is absorbed in searching the environment for landmarks to insure they remain on their intended route; the character searching for secret doors is absorbed in carefully scouring the walls, floor, ceiling, etc. for anything out of the ordinary - I’d say you could make a good argument that this character is better positioned to spot traps than one watching and listening for monsters that may be lurking in the shadows or around any corner.
And finally, this has NOTHING to do with my point. Okay, fine, they (while in a clearly hostile and dangerous location) made the choice to look for danger. And you decide that looking at number A and looking at number B, they fail. Wonderful. Then they make a NEW choice, with the intent of trying to spot that danger again. You insist they need to take a new action. So they do. You auto-fail them and trigger the damage, because "how else could I rule it?"
I don’t see anything wrong with that summary, except perhaps that you neglected to mention the fact that the description of the environment would have contained clues as to the danger inherent in standing in the center of the room. Clues the players might or might not pick up on, true enough, but it’s not as if they’re forced to guess blindly. They have the information, it’s up to them how they will use it.
Secondly, you are big on decisions, but you seem to missed something. The player's decision isn't made in a vacuum. Informed decisions are one way to prevent a decision from actually being random chance, and the player clearly wasn't making an informed decision to step on a trap.
They absolutely were, that’s what the telegraphing is for.
But again, INTENT MATTERS.
Yes, and so does approach. That’s why I ask for both.
Let us say the player is at a fancy ball, I describe people dancing in the crowded room and the duke talking to a group of generals. The player says "I want to go across the room and talk to the Duke about the Dragon War". So I say sure, you march across the room, shoving people out of your way, and interrupt the Duke's conversation, everyone is pissed at you and now you have to figure out how to not get thrown out of the party. Decisions have consequences and sometimes bad things happen, right?
Here you have added something to the player’s description, which is something I ask for specifics in order to avoid having happen.
Except, clearly the player did not intend to be rude. Despite the fact that I clearly followed their declared actions (move across the crowded room and talk to the Duke who is in the middle of a conversation) I completely ignored and ruined their intent. I was in fact actively hostile towards their intent.
You didn’t only ignore their intent, you changed their stated approach.
You are doing almost the same thing. "Well, you said you moved to the center of the room, the trap was in the center of the room. There is no other choice, I gave you telegraphed clues. But you did find the trap in the room at least."
But it was the player, not me, who (hypothetically) said they moved to the center of the room. It was you, not the player, who (hypothetically) said the character shoved people aside and interrupted the conversation.
Why not assume an approach that is uncertain then? Then you don't have to assume if it would fail or not fail. The player may not want to give you a detailed breakdown of their every action, you've said repeatedly you don't require that, but when we give vague actions your response is you need more detail. Why?
I do not want to assume
any approach, certain or uncertain. It is the player’s role to describe their action clearly enough that I will not need to assume their approach.
So far the only reason has been "because there is a trap in this room and I need to know if you automatically trigger it or not?" and I find that a poor reason.
In this specific scenario contrived specifically to illustrate that sometimes this DMing style can result in PCs setting off traps? Yes. There are infinitely many possible scenarios in which the specifics of goal and approach matter for reasons other than figuring out if the character sets off a trap.
So, the approach was uncertain, they rolled well, but even then you need even more information to determine if they find the door or not? Because even an uncertain result turning positive isn't good enough? It was a thorough search, how close to an inch-by-inch search do I need to get before you can determine if a thorough search checked the bookcase or not? A thorough search would check everything. That's what thorough means.
I told you. Specific enough that if the player and I both play out the action like a little movie in our heads, those movies would look pretty similar.
If you see player intent as so easily discarded, then I don't know if continuing to have a conversation will ever lead to anything productive. I can't imagine dismissing my players so casually.
I’m not dismissing intent, it’s one of two essential components of an action declaration. But nor am I glossing over approach, the other essential component. If I am accounting for both, I see no way that trying to find a trap by moving to the center of a room, when there is a trap that will be set off by someone standing in the center of the room, could have any result other than setting off the trap.
Right, so you rely on your method because it is just auto-successes all the time. And so when you encounter someone who has failed, you can't understand why they might see the possibility of failure.
Yes, I too could describe everything in excruciatingly precise detail to eliminate any reasonable chance of failure on my end. I'd rather gouge my eyes out with a spoon. It is so mind-numbingly irritating and then it gets to the point where the DM, tired of me never taking any risks, punishes me for never taking any risks, making all the risk avoidance worthless.
Ok. That’s your preference. I’m not going to force you to play that way if you don’t want to.
So, you can't understand why someone would risk a die roll that could fail? Because every described action that doesn't rely on die roll can fail too. Both methods have equal chance of failure, so it doesn't matter which you choose.
It has absolutely not been my experience that asking to make a check has an equal chance of failure to describing an action in terms of goal and approach with the intent of achieving success without a roll.
And yet one of those received an auto-pass and the other a roll (or an auto-failure in some cases), so clearly there must be some skill involved.
Yeah, some. Skill most people will have picked up in childhood.
There are people who are professionally trained in stealth, can you accept that is a thing and that they know how to hide more effectively than people not trained without resorting to "any child who played hide and seek can hide"?
Yes, and accordingly, characters with such skill will be much more likely to succeed when success is uncertain.
When the Fellowship decides to go to Moira is Gimli wanting to run through it as fast as possible to get to Mount Doom as quickly and efficiently as possible? If you think so, we got very different impressions of that story.
Weirdly, it seems that a story involving a party of Nine people might have had more than one character with more than one goal in it.
When they encounter conflict in Moria, yes, I do think Gimli wants to resolve that conflict as quickly and efficiently as possible.
