I keep reading this and feel that passive wisdom just makes it too easy for a player to find something without really engaging in the environment if their score is high.
"You walk down the hall...oh, look you found a secret door!"
What I don't want or try to avoid impeding the flow of the game by making the door a required ingress or egress to the next location in the adventure.
See, that just sounds... ideal, to me. It feels like an empty contest to have it be a roll. Instead of simply providing a chance for a particularly perceptive character to shine it turns into:
"Oh, look, despite my +7, I rolled a 3." DM: "Nevermind."
or:
"I only have a +1, but I rolled a 19!" DM: "You are rewarded with something that is totally unearned. Congrats."
(Or, "Hey look we all rolled crap." DM: "Nevermind.")
...As far as stories go, I guess it just puts the dice in the driver's seat too much for my taste. I can come up with reasons for all of those outcomes to make a reasonable and even entertaining narrative. But it falls flat as an experience for the players themselves. It occurs to me this happens in combat all the time, but, because there's a bunch of rolls over a series of rounds involved, you get a better average experience (IE: combat would feel equally unrewarding if you only got one die roll in total and results varied wildly).
My general take on passive perception is that I assume that you need to take an action to search for traps and secret doors, but outside of combat if you're slowly and methodically moving through an area you can be treated as taking a search action every round (in which case passive perception works as normal).
...As far as stories go, I guess it just puts the dice in the driver's seat too much for my taste. I can come up with reasons for all of those outcomes to make a reasonable and even entertaining narrative. But it falls flat as an experience for the players themselves. It occurs to me this happens in combat all the time, but, because there's a bunch of rolls over a series of rounds involved, you get a better average experience (IE: combat would feel equally unrewarding if you only got one die roll in total and results varied wildly).
D&D puts the dice in the driver's seat too much by using a flat probability distribution that runs from 1 to 20 when most good bonuses are only +5 for the first several levels of play. This vastly overemphasizes random chance relative to character skill. That's a big problem for me.
But sometimes people miss things. If you don't want any random chance, why are you playing a game?
D&D puts the dice in the driver's seat too much by using a flat probability distribute that runs from 1 to 20 when most good bonuses are only +5 for the first several levels of play. This vastly overemphasizes random chance relative to character skill. That's a big problem for me.
But sometimes people miss things. If you don't want any random chance, why are you playing a game?
Fair! And I agree that tier 1 and sometimes tier 2 suffer more from the extreme unpredictability that rankles me. That dang d20...
The flipside for me is that I could play a video with an unrelenting interface but I choose to play a game with people so that it's not about guessing what to do correctly in order to find success or have fun. People can just decide to change to what works for the sake of fun. And, I guess this is one small thing I feel like doing :)
D&D puts the dice in the driver's seat too much by using a flat probability distribute that runs from 1 to 20 when most good bonuses are only +5 for the first several levels of play. This vastly overemphasizes random chance relative to character skill. That's a big problem for me.
On the other hand, in 3.5e you frequently had the situation of "if you aren't a specialist, you might as well not roll". There's a difficult line between giving specialists their due, and making it so non-specialists might as well not play.
For a generic situation, yeah, I'd have their passive perception always on. And, technically, I wouldn't even say I'm referring to that mechanic.
If the party has specified that they're rushing through the room, it would make sense that I'd have no one notice the secret door. But if they're wandering through, I don't see what the story loses if the keen-eyed rogue notices the tell-tale signs of a secret door--even if opening it is not assured. (IE: maybe there's a lock to pick, magical command word, puzzle to sort out, or they have to smash their way in.)
well this related to secret doors is that depending ware there are placed or there mechanics that no one will think to look or do like say you party had just climb down a letter that Leeds to a long hall way to some ware.... what are the odds that one of them will look behind the letter for a hidden door
another one if you come up to a door that was broken in a way that wile the door handle and lock are still in place you can easily just walk through it how ever if some one unlocks it and opens it like it was not broken it will open a hidden magical door that led into a pocket dimension the size of a room or larger.
basically play on the "ya this is a stupid/odd to do" mind set for no one will think to look for a secret door on the secret door.
Just remember - secret doors are intended to be missed by those not in the know so your passive perception checks should always be high. Investigation checks should be lower.
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Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
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I keep reading this and feel that passive wisdom just makes it too easy for a player to find something without really engaging in the environment if their score is high.
"You walk down the hall...oh, look you found a secret door!"
What I don't want or try to avoid impeding the flow of the game by making the door a required ingress or egress to the next location in the adventure.
See, that just sounds... ideal, to me. It feels like an empty contest to have it be a roll. Instead of simply providing a chance for a particularly perceptive character to shine it turns into:
"Oh, look, despite my +7, I rolled a 3." DM: "Nevermind."
or:
"I only have a +1, but I rolled a 19!" DM: "You are rewarded with something that is totally unearned. Congrats."
(Or, "Hey look we all rolled crap." DM: "Nevermind.")
...As far as stories go, I guess it just puts the dice in the driver's seat too much for my taste. I can come up with reasons for all of those outcomes to make a reasonable and even entertaining narrative. But it falls flat as an experience for the players themselves. It occurs to me this happens in combat all the time, but, because there's a bunch of rolls over a series of rounds involved, you get a better average experience (IE: combat would feel equally unrewarding if you only got one die roll in total and results varied wildly).
My general take on passive perception is that I assume that you need to take an action to search for traps and secret doors, but outside of combat if you're slowly and methodically moving through an area you can be treated as taking a search action every round (in which case passive perception works as normal).
I feel the same.
As an alternative, if someone has proficiency then just give them the result, no roll required.
GM: Alex, because your rogue has proficiency in perception, they notice scratches on the floor.
GM: Aidan, because your cleric has proficiency in medicine, they notice the signs of an ingested poison.
GM: No-one in the party took proficiency in history, so no-one knows who the statue is.
Player: But don't I get to roll?
GM: No, sometimes you don't.
Over time, the players will learn that it is a good strategy to cover a wide range of proficiencies in the party. :-)
D&D puts the dice in the driver's seat too much by using a flat probability distribution that runs from 1 to 20 when most good bonuses are only +5 for the first several levels of play. This vastly overemphasizes random chance relative to character skill. That's a big problem for me.
But sometimes people miss things. If you don't want any random chance, why are you playing a game?
Fair! And I agree that tier 1 and sometimes tier 2 suffer more from the extreme unpredictability that rankles me. That dang d20...
The flipside for me is that I could play a video with an unrelenting interface but I choose to play a game with people so that it's not about guessing what to do correctly in order to find success or have fun. People can just decide to change to what works for the sake of fun. And, I guess this is one small thing I feel like doing :)
On the other hand, in 3.5e you frequently had the situation of "if you aren't a specialist, you might as well not roll". There's a difficult line between giving specialists their due, and making it so non-specialists might as well not play.
Would you subscribe that Passive Perception is always on or do you need to be within a certain range for it to trigger a discovery?
For a generic situation, yeah, I'd have their passive perception always on. And, technically, I wouldn't even say I'm referring to that mechanic.
If the party has specified that they're rushing through the room, it would make sense that I'd have no one notice the secret door. But if they're wandering through, I don't see what the story loses if the keen-eyed rogue notices the tell-tale signs of a secret door--even if opening it is not assured. (IE: maybe there's a lock to pick, magical command word, puzzle to sort out, or they have to smash their way in.)
well this related to secret doors is that depending ware there are placed or there mechanics that no one will think to look or do like say you party had just climb down a letter that Leeds to a long hall way to some ware.... what are the odds that one of them will look behind the letter for a hidden door
another one if you come up to a door that was broken in a way that wile the door handle and lock are still in place you can easily just walk through it how ever if some one unlocks it and opens it like it was not broken it will open a hidden magical door that led into a pocket dimension the size of a room or larger.
basically play on the "ya this is a stupid/odd to do" mind set for no one will think to look for a secret door on the secret door.
Just remember - secret doors are intended to be missed by those not in the know so your passive perception checks should always be high. Investigation checks should be lower.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.