Quasqueton said:
Doesn't this require the Player (and DM) have real life knowledge of traps? And essentially, whichever has more real life knowledge of traps, or is more devious or persistent, will "win".
You could do it that way, I guess, but it doesn't have to be an adversarial "I'm more devious/clever than you" thing. It requires a small amount of detail on the trap, but not in-depth knowledge. That is, the DM needs to know "there's a poison needle that will prick someone trying to pick this lock," but he doesn't need specific details on how the spring-loaded mechanism works. If the PC says he's searching the lock for traps, that's good enough for me (I'd only roll if the trap was especially difficult to find).
I remember playing with a guy one time who was of the real-world-knowledge school of playing, and he completely frazzled me as the DM when he insisted on searching by description. I mean, my adventure notes essentially just said, "There's a poison needle trap on this chest."
Yeah, I'd normally want more detail than that. With that kind of description, I'd assume the common "poison needle in the lock," but you could also have poison needles in the handles (side or lid).
When this Player searched the chest (he was not playing a thief), he described each place, and each action...
That'd be fine with me; I encourage it in my players. I let non-thieves find traps, too, if they're looking. (Thieves may have an easier time with especially well-concealed traps, though; I assume that thieves have a level of expertise that would help them, in such situations.)
Personally, I really dislike the real-world-knowledge and descriptive-success school of D&D gaming.
Tastes differ. I find that descriptive searching adds to the immersion and enjoyment of the game, but I understand that not everyone likes that approach. As I suggested above, it doesn't have to be an "only your search description matters" approach, though.
It's also one of those things that is DM-dependent, because it relies heavily on the DM's judgment and how he adjudicates the search situations. That makes it subject to "abuse" by a bad or inexperienced DM (e.g. the "ha, ha, I'm more clever than you" or the "you weren't anal enough in your description" approach).
All of this applies to other kinds of searching, too. For example, I typically use die-rolls for finding secret doors, but to open the secret door, I often require description (e.g. push/pull/prod/press something, etc). And if someone "twists the torch sconce," even without knowing a secret door is there from a die roll, I would let that find and open it. For things like concealed treasure (e.g. false bottom in a chest, pouch of gems hidden in the mattress), I much prefer descriptive searches over die rolls.
YMMV, as always.
