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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 8721683" data-attributes="member: 6801228">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. 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.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.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? And please don't say "I wouldn't expect them to do anything, they would take the actions they want to take" because that is fundamentally unhelpful to figuring out what is going on at your table. If it helps, imagine you were a player at your own table. Edit: I forgot I'd asked a very similar question below. So we can just go with that example below.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. 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.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 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) But, this is a perfect highlight of the issue I have with regulating perception to only Passive Perception. 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.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.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 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.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, 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?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.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.</blockquote>

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