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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Herpes Cineplex" data-source="post: 1803431" data-attributes="member: 16936">But the real question is, is that what your PLAYERS would like it to be?  Is that something that they would find rewarding to do, or are they happier with searches being abstract and quickly resolved and using the time they save to concentrate on parts of your game that are more fun for them?It's at this point that you should probably think "Hey, the people on ENWorld are cool and all, but they aren't actually playing in our game, so how much help can they be in the end?  I'm going to bring this question up with my gaming group and see what they think."Present your case to them: tell them you're getting upset because searching for hidden items is so abstract, allowing highly skilled characters to do all the searching and always find things, without ever having to get down into specifics.  Apparently you like specifics, and you have fun adding them into the game.  In contrast, I'm guessing that your players are at the very least comfortable with keeping searching abstract (they aren't the ones complaining about it here, after all), so you should probably expect that you will have to meet them halfway.Turning searching into the old-school, pre-skill-system game of Twenty Questions ("Is it under the bed?  Is it under the table?  Is it ON the table?  Is it behind the paintings?  Is it under the rug?") probably won't fly, because it makes having the skill basically useless.  Raising the DC for nonspecific searches only postpones the problem, as has already been pointed out.  The suggestion to lower the Search DC for characters who specify where they're searching is fairly elegant, though, and seems like a viable compromise; it encourages the behavior you want from your players (they tell you where they're searching instead of leaving it entirely abstract), it opens searching up to more characters than just the rogue and the bard, and if you have a player who really does prefer a high level of abstraction he can always just keep pumping skill points into Search.  So if I were you, that'd be what I would suggest to my players.But for god's sake, whatever it is you think you want to try, talk with them about it first.  Especially if you've been going by the book and handling Search as an abstract process, because no one likes a bait-and-switch.  Besides, they might be able to come up with another alternative method that you all would like better than anything that this thread has suggested.--personally, if our gm tried de-abstracting searches, i'd tell him to cut it outryan</blockquote>

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