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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 8725287" data-attributes="member: 6801228">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. Because when I first suggested it you seemed utterly mystified by the idea.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.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.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.I don't know how to explain this to you. I'm at a complete loss how you aren't getting this.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.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.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)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.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.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.And it allows me to not ignore the intent of the players when they declare actions. Which is my preference.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.Yeah, it is terrible when someone adopts a role and thinks what they would do based on that role. /sarcasmHonestly, 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.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.</blockquote>

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