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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 8721168" data-attributes="member: 6779196">Ok, let me ask you the same question I asked [USER=67338]@GMforPowergamers[/USER] earlier. If instead of a passive check, I had asked you to roll a perception check, and you got a 10 on the die (so same result as a passive check), would you then say “I want a different result. I look again?” And if I said “sorry, you got the result you got. If you want a different result you’re going to have to try something else,” would you have the same objections to that ruling?I don’t know, ask the hypothetical players.Sorry that has been your experience.Yes, I am. I said so several pages back.Actually, I don’t ask. Player says “I try to break the door open by shoulder charging it,” I say “that’ll require a DC 10 strength check, and trigger a roll of the tension pool.” They roll a die and tell me a number. Did they add their proficiency bonus for Athletics? For Arcana? For their ukulele proficiency? Did they add their proficiency bonus at all? Did they actually add their strength bonus, or did they add another, higher number instead? Did they even add any numbers together, or did they just tell me 17 because they thought I would believe it? I don’t know the answer to any of these questions, and I don’t really care to look into it. I trust that my friends are playing in good faith unless given a very good reason to suspect otherwise.I don’t have secret set of options they’re allowed to take in mind. They just have to try something and I will adjudicate the results as best I can based on my understanding of the rules and my own judgment.I no longer care to argue with you about when I call for Wisdom checks. If it helps the conversation run more smoothly, just assume that I house rule that what you would consider a perception check is always passive, and what you consider an investigation check is handled with perception. You’ll be close enough for government work.I mean, this is a pretty tough situation for these hypothetical characters. The goblin must have rolled pretty well on its Dexterity (Stealth) check to have beaten their passive perception. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of much they can do to find it without entering the room. Does their light source fill the whole space? If not maybe they could try tossing it in. If it does, maybe they need to revise their strategy. They can’t find the goblin without going into the room but maybe they can avoid getting ambushed some other way. Maybe try to lure the goblin out instead. Maybe toss something else in to make a noise?I understand that’s how you rule. What I just told you is that at my table, if consequences don’t make sense for the action, then there is no check. It just succeeds. Whether you think that’s what the rules say or not is irrelevant to this discussion, just understand that it is how I rule, and assume it’s a houserule if you have to.The DMG suggests progress combined with a setback as a potential consequence for a failed roll, which is how I think of knowledge checks. If you fail the roll, I’ll still tell you something interesting about the subject that your character remembers (another reason I need to know where you’re trying to remember it from, because that will inform what I tell you about the subject on a failure), it just won’t be the thing you were hoping to remember (another reason I need to know what that is).In combat the consequence of any failed action is the opportunity cost. You used up your action and accomplished nothing. This is part of why I find 10-minute dungeon turns (and 4-hour overland travel turns) super useful, because they lend a similar opportunity cost for failure to most actions.See my question near the beginning of this post.Just… try something that you would think of as investigation. Move around the room, move objects around, look inside of, behind, and under things. Interact with the shared fictional space we are playing in. Or if you can’t think of anything and/or don’t want to risk trying anything, then accept that sometimes you will just miss stuff. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.And you are more than welcome to that opinion, and to run your own games in accordance with that. Me, I am 100% ok with players missing telegraphs sometimes, in fact I expect it. It’s just a normal part of the game for me, just like how sometimes I don’t notice the pressure plate in a legacy dungeon in Elden Ring. That’s just how it goes sometimes.Ok, so this kind of thing is, I think, why you sometimes get accused of not reading people’s posts. In response to me saying repeatedly that I don’t know if the idol is important or not, you say, “well if it’s so unimportant, why not just tell the players that?” Like… literally, I just said like four times, I don’t know if it’s important.Maybe you would know it doesn’t matter if you put an idol into your game. That’s not how I prep or run games though.I don’t prep plots. That was an assumption you brought to the table.Ok, well do you understand now?I don’t think there’s any value to be had in discussing what the rules are “meant to do.” I interpret the rules differently than you do; if you have to conceptualize it as me houseruling, then so be it.I mean, I know what’s in the room. I know what’s plain to see and what’s hidden, and how it’s hidden. It’s not up to me what among that is or isn’t important. The players will make it important, or they won’t.Interact with stuff. “I search through the desk for anything that looks out of place.” “I cast my light on the wall and scour it for irregularities.” Whatever. Just simple statements of what you hope to achieve and what your character does to try and achieve it. I will use my imagination and my understanding of the rules to decide how to resolve the action. Sometimes that will require a dice roll, sometimes it won’t.EDIT FOR TRANSPARENCY: In an earlier version of this post I claimed [USER=67338]@GMforPowergamers[/USER] had ignored a question I had posed to them. That was incorrect, I just hadn’t yet seen their answer when I was writing the post. I edited the post to correct the misinformation, and I apologize for any confusion or frustration it may have caused.</blockquote>

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