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<blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 7906169" data-attributes="member: 6779196">I want to push back against this assertion a bit, because it’s one of the two most common arguments I hear against telegraphing hidden features of the environment (the other being the whole verisimilitude argument, which I don’t really want to get into right now.) But I disagree that a hidden feature is pointless if it’s too easy to find. On the contrary, it’s in the finding that the point of a hidden feature is realized. Specifically, the point is to give the player a sense of accomplishment for having found something they might otherwise have missed. Now, this does of course mean a hidden feature has to be missable to serve its purpose, but it also has to be findable, and in my experience DMs tend to err MUCH too far in favor of making their hidden features harder to find. I’m sure we’ve all had experiences with players failing to find or realize something that wasn’t even supposed to be hidden, so the idea that it’ll be too easy to find the secret door or whatever if you put a clue somewhere in the description is kind of silly to me.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Charlaquin, post: 7906169, member: 6779196"] I want to push back against this assertion a bit, because it’s one of the two most common arguments I hear against telegraphing hidden features of the environment (the other being the whole verisimilitude argument, which I don’t really want to get into right now.) But I disagree that a hidden feature is pointless if it’s too easy to find. On the contrary, it’s in the finding that the point of a hidden feature is realized. Specifically, the point is to give the player a sense of accomplishment for having found something they might otherwise have missed. Now, this does of course mean a hidden feature has to be [I]missable[/I] to serve its purpose, but it also has to be findable, and in my experience DMs tend to err MUCH too far in favor of making their hidden features harder to find. I’m sure we’ve all had experiences with players failing to find or realize something that wasn’t even supposed to be hidden, so the idea that it’ll be too easy to find the secret door or whatever if you put a clue somewhere in the description is kind of silly to me. [/QUOTE]

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