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<blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6252658" data-attributes="member: 2067">I think by &quot;looking around,&quot; we mean two different things.Yes, adventurers in a trap-filled monster lair are not being willfully obtuse. They are &quot;on the look out for danger.&quot; On high alert. This can be assumed.But this does not necessarily translate to them being preternaturally aware of things hidden from them. They have no special skill and are taking no special action. They are on the lookout for things that look funny, but if such a thing is trying NOT to look funny, then they have no special capacity to notice that. In game terms, this means to me that they see everything -- if there is a desk in the corner of the room, I'm not going to hide that fact from them until someone says &quot;I check the corner of the room.&quot; Yes, there's a desk, you can see it, you don't need to do anything special to see what is right in front of your face. I will describe the room, and I will include &quot;there's a desk in the corner of the room&quot; in my description, no special action required.They see everything, unless that thing is hidden from them. If that desk is actually a mimic, they're not going to see that just because they're on high alert. Mimic trumps default. If they go up to the desk to ransack it, guess Mimic gets surprise!Now, lets say they were in a dungeon full of mimics, or had some intel that indicated that there's desks that aren't real, or something, and they wanted to see if that desk was what it seemed to be. Or someone just gets a gut feeling that the desk is weird. That's when they get a roll: they're actively examining the thing to see if it's weird. Doing a thing with an intended outcome of getting more information. Engaging the world. No jerk DM moves like &quot;You examine it...and it surprises you!&quot;They could also have some special trait. Like, if they had something like the Alertness ability above, they'd get an automatic check to prevent the Mimic from surprising them, even if they just ran over and ransacked the desk. Some sort of &quot;dungeon sense&quot; or &quot;wood appraisal skill&quot; or something might let them do the same thing. But that would be defined in the ability itself.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="I'm A Banana, post: 6252658, member: 2067"] I think by "looking around," we mean two different things. Yes, adventurers in a trap-filled monster lair are not being willfully obtuse. They are "on the look out for danger." On high alert. This can be assumed. But this does not necessarily translate to them being preternaturally aware of things hidden from them. They have no special skill and are taking no special action. They are on the lookout for things that look funny, but if such a thing is trying NOT to look funny, then they have no special capacity to notice that. In game terms, this means to me that they see everything -- if there is a desk in the corner of the room, I'm not going to hide that fact from them until someone says "I check the corner of the room." Yes, there's a desk, you can see it, you don't need to do anything special to see what is right in front of your face. I will describe the room, and I will include "there's a desk in the corner of the room" in my description, no special action required. They see everything, [I]unless that thing is hidden from them[/I]. If that desk is actually a mimic, they're not going to see that just because they're on high alert. Mimic trumps default. If they go up to the desk to ransack it, guess Mimic gets surprise! Now, lets say they were in a dungeon full of mimics, or had some intel that indicated that there's desks that aren't real, or something, and they wanted to see if that desk was what it seemed to be. Or someone just gets a gut feeling that the desk is weird. That's when they get a roll: they're actively examining the thing to see if it's weird. Doing a thing with an intended outcome of getting more information. Engaging the world. No jerk DM moves like "You examine it...and it surprises you!" They could also have some special trait. Like, if they had something like the Alertness ability above, they'd get an automatic check to prevent the Mimic from surprising them, even if they just ran over and ransacked the desk. Some sort of "dungeon sense" or "wood appraisal skill" or something might let them do the same thing. But that would be defined in the ability itself. [/QUOTE]

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