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Message: <blockquote data-quote="TaranTheWanderer" data-source="post: 8134652" data-attributes="member: 15882">You don't use Passive skills when people aren't actively looking for it.  The term 'Passive' refers to the mechanics and not in-game character actions.  In fact, if a player doesn't tell me they are looking for traps, I DON'T use their passive perception.  I assume they are focusing on something else and just walk into any traps that are in their way.  A player who tells me they ARE looking for traps gets to use their passive perception to spot traps before they walk into it.  Passive just means the Players don't need to roll.  It, literally, has nothing to do with character actions.If the players want to search a specific thing and there is something to find, I'll let them roll.  Like, in the example where they search the desk for hidden drawers.  If the player asks to do something, I'll let them roll.  I usually let the passive skill be the default, though.Well, in the example I used, I'm just indicating to them that, in the time they allowed themselves, they have yet to find something.  It gives them the option to spend more precious time.  It doesn't mean there's something there to find.  It could be that there is nothing to find but how are you going to know without spending time?  In a situation where there are no time constraints, I can just hand-waive it: "You spend 30minutes searching and find This room doesn't have anything interesting."   But, for me, because I'm tracking things like wandering monsters and players might have hour-long spell durations going, time matters.   I always determine the amount of time something takes and I have them make rolls after the time passes.Yeah, that'd be nice.  Maybe one of us should start one.I usually roll physical dice when playing online.  It's faster than using a dice roller when I'm tracking multiple open windows on my computer so I can roll any time I want and no-one knows I'm doing it.  Or I just set a DC.  Like, in the situation where a PC wants to know if someone is lying but NPC is not (and therefore Deception is inappropriate, I might just set the DC to 10+CHA modifier of the NPC and compare it to the passive Insight of the player.  If their Passive is higher than the DC they get a good feeling that the NPC is being sincere.  I'd only do this if there was a consequence for failure:  Maybe the PCs really hate/distrust the NPC and 'not knowing' if they're being sincere will affect their decisions in a way that will bring them down some interesting rabbit hole.   Otherwise, I just tell them.In your example above, I'd only use Passive Insight for any player that declare they are paying attention.  I assume the rest are not and they don't get a check.  You can't discover something if you're not searching.  Although, that's not 100% true all the time for me.  Ambushes, times of high danger, stressful situations etc...Or at least, they might get it at disadvantage because they are focusing on something else.  Like, if you are picking a lock, you are going to have disadvantage to notice the assassin sneaking up on you.</blockquote>

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