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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 8444115" data-attributes="member: 7006">As I've read through all the back-and-forth regarding this... there's something about [USER=6779196]@Charlaquin[/USER] and what they are saying about their traps that is making me wonder something.  And it could very well be that I might have missed it, so I'm just looking for clarity.The way they have been talking, and stating that there are infinite ways to approach finding the trap, and that it doesn't necessarily require doing any exact action to do it... I'm actually curious if the traps they are using are actual specific things, or if they are thinking that there's just a trap in the abstract?What I mean by this is that some DMs very specifically spell out all the parts of what a trap is-- what it does-- how it physically reacts to any kind of stimulus-- the mechanics or magic behind it that require deactivation-- etc. etc.  I'm getting the impression that this is how [USER=23751]@Maxperson[/USER] is reading the situation (with all their talk of pixel hunting.)  That the trap is an actual thing that can be described, found, and disabled-- "The handle of the third drawer of the desk looks to be metal but is actually fragile putty shaped as a hollow handle... inside which is a toxic poison. Any physical pressure placed on the handle will snap the putty and the poison will ooze out onto whatever broke the handle."  [USER=23751]@Maxperson[/USER] would then state that to "find" this trap, the person doing so would need to indicate that they are looking specifically at the third desk drawer's handle, and then somehow figure out without touching it that the handle is actually different than the other handles of the drawer, and then to disable it the person would need to break the handle in such a way as to not get the poison that is inside the handle onto their hand.  And any descriptions that did not involve just those bits (the handle and the pressure on said handle) would result in the trap not being discovered.  If the person said they grabbed the handles of the first or second drawers, they wouldn't find the trap.  If they said they slid a knife in between the drawers and the desk frame, they wouldn't find the trap.  If they said they looked at all three handles but didn't specify any method for determining how the three of them weren't exactly the same, they wouldn't find the trap.  And so on and so forth.  This is what I think Max is referring to when they say pixel hunting.But from what I think I've been getting from [USER=6779196]@Charlaquin[/USER] (and I could be completely misinterpreting what they've been saying, I freely admit) is that they don't have that actual specificity of the trap in their head.  They know the drawer is trapped... but they don't necessarily know what the trap does, nor the specific methodology for how it works and what has to happen to disarm it.  But to find it, the player has to state an actual action to take that might be a method to find * a * trap, should one of that type have been there.  "I go over to the desk and I examine the three drawers, trying to see if I can notice anything different about one of them-- maybe it sticks out too much, maybe it's a bit discolored, something like that."  Now since there hasn't been a specific type of trap indicated, they can't say the person got the approach right on the money.  But the approach was a very reasonable one for finding a trap of that sort had there been one specifically decided on... so they tell the person to make a check.That's been my impression of what [USER=6779196]@Charlaquin[/USER] has been saying-- state an action that reasonably could find a specific type of trap on the desk.  Once you do that, then they will allow for a roll.  But because you cannot divine from the general statement "I check for traps" what kind of trap might be found via that statement (you merely are stating "trap" in the general sense, but not the description needed to find a "pressure plate trap" or "needle trap" or "exploding run trap") they don't allow that general statement to work.  Some specificity of action needs to be stated, even though what is specifically stated doesn't have to align to anything concrete (since they haven't actually decided on the concrete specificity of the trap to begin with.)Again... I could be completely off on this-- and [USER=6779196]@Charlaquin[/USER] please correct me if my impression that you don't have a specific trap in mind when you state something is trapped is completely off-base here.  But if I'm right... then that could explain why everyone is talking past each other.  [USER=23751]@Maxperson[/USER] is thinking a player has to make a statement regarding the discovery or action of a specific trap, whereas [USER=6779196]@Charlaquin[/USER] merely expects a player to make a statement regarding the approach to find any type of trap and that is good enough for them.</blockquote>

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