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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mannahnin" data-source="post: 8718786" data-attributes="member: 7026594">Agreed.  And as pointed out earlier in the thread, actually telling the DM what your character is doing allows them to adjudicate the action better and any risks.If from the doorway my character can't see the assassin hiding in the alcove to my left, then what I declare next makes a big difference.  If I say "I want to make a perception check" that's unhelpful to the DM.  If I say "I toss my torch into the middle of the room to try to light the place up better" then the DM knows I still can't see the assassin because he's not in LOS.  But maybe the assassin will react in some way to that torch.  If I say "I move into the middle of the room and look in all directions" I may just AUTOMATICALLY see the assassin because I now have direct LOS into the alcove where he was hidden.OTOH, say there was no assassin, but instead a pit trap concealed under the rug in the middle of the room.  If I threw my torch onto the rug, there's a good chance I just revealed the trap!  Whereas if I instead walked into the middle of the room and looked in all directions, I've walked into the trap!If I just want to roll dice and expect the DM to explain what's actually happening in the fiction, am I going to be happy if I roll low in the second situation, and he interprets that as me walking right into the trap?If I know there's a safe hidden behind a painting on the wall, and my player says "I check behind the painting" there's no roll needed.  Similarly, if I know there's a trap on the painting, and my player says "I check behind the painting" I now know they've actually interacted with the painting and may have triggered the trap.We can also discuss shorthand and abstractions and come to agreement, say something like...Players:  "We want to search this room thoroughly from top to bottom."DM: "Ok, it's a well-furnished room with a fair amount of junk in it; if you want to go through all the junk, inspect the furniture and walls for hollow spaces, etc. that's going to involve touching everything, and will take about thirty minutes.  If anything is dangerous to touch, I'll randomize which one of you was searching it.  Is that ok?"Players: "Yes, that's fine.  Except none of us want to touch that demon statue you described earlier, and Mig the Mage is going to wait out in the hall on watch while we do it; he's low on HP."DM: "Ok, fair enough.  Since there are only three of you searching instead of four, we'll call it forty minutes, cool?"Players: "Cool."And then the DM calls for any rolls or automatically reveals anything he thinks would automatically be found with that kind of search.</blockquote>

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