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<blockquote data-quote="Nagol" data-source="post: 7395502" data-attributes="member: 23935">In player-facing games, abilities like the elven extra secret door detection either don't exist or exist to reinforce a particular shtick; the elf finds secret doors to escape/infiltrate because that's what elves do and the ability comes up successfully as frequently as any other shtick ability will.&nbsp; You typically won't have (much of) a secret map since locales are driven by play.&nbsp; So you can't (reasonably) determine where a secret door would be nonsensical in the current place.&nbsp; Appropriateness is more determined by the game flow and player gambit than by standards of realism.&nbsp; In a DM-facing game, the secret door can offer pressure on the NPC inhabitants (who decide they need to guard an area inexplicably or are trapped behind a wall, or whatever), act as a exploratory reward, act as a trap for the unwary (use the secret door to get behind their line!), offer a potential escape route for an antagonist, provide an explanation for how X manages to be both over there and here so quickly, and a host of other values.Now some of those uses can be derived in a player-facing game as post-hoc rationales of ability use/dice results.&nbsp; The primary difference goes back to exploratory play though.&nbsp; The players can't notice oddities and respond to them -- they can force oddities if they have the abilities or can &quot;write them in&quot; if they feel they are appropriate.That's why they are similar but different tools.&nbsp; They do things that a casual onlooker would think are the same, but participation feels different for those involved.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Nagol, post: 7395502, member: 23935"] In player-facing games, abilities like the elven extra secret door detection either don't exist or exist to reinforce a particular shtick; the elf finds secret doors to escape/infiltrate because that's what elves [i]do[/I] and the ability comes up successfully as frequently as any other shtick ability will. You typically won't have (much of) a secret map since locales are driven by play. So you can't (reasonably) determine where a secret door would be nonsensical in the current place. Appropriateness is more determined by the game flow and player gambit than by standards of realism. In a DM-facing game, the secret door can offer pressure on the NPC inhabitants (who decide they need to guard an area inexplicably or are trapped behind a wall, or whatever), act as a exploratory reward, act as a trap for the unwary (use the secret door to get behind their line!), offer a potential escape route for an antagonist, provide an explanation for how X manages to be both [i]over there[/i] and [i]here[/i] so quickly, and a host of other values. Now some of those uses can be derived in a player-facing game as post-hoc rationales of ability use/dice results. The primary difference goes back to exploratory play though. The players can't notice oddities and respond to them -- they can force oddities if they have the abilities or can "write them in" if they feel they are appropriate. That's why they are similar but different tools. They do things that a casual onlooker would think are the same, but participation feels different for those involved. [/QUOTE]

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