“Give me a perception check.”
“Fourteen total.”
“You don’t notice anything different .”
“I get out my shovel.”
DM quietly raises encounter difficulty in response to metagaming
DM should have rolled for the player secretly if they didn’t want to call attention.
It depends on your table, but I disagree.
If I ask the party for a perception check and they all fail the party should be aware of their choices (in this case, perception is important). If I then surprise them with an enemy they are clear why that happened.
Alternatively in this case it’s to locate something, maybe they want to spend a luck point, flash of genius, or other similar ability.
Sometimes I ask for perception checks when there is nothing to notice out of the ordinary just to see them squirm.
My old DM would do this.
He would also sometimes hand players little notes: often full of info that their character would know but had to be kept secret from other players.
But sometimes, the note would be empty aside from a request for the player to not say anything.
The level of tension when the DM hands out a note to everyone but you is… something.
One of the reasons why, as a DM, I like the Passive Perception mechanic in 5e. It takes some of the thrill of a roll away from the players, but it gives me the tools to resolve these sorts of situations without tempting the players to metagame.
You can also summon scratch and he will find it for you. Apparently he even finds chests that don’t have a visible survival check. But I can’t confirm that because I never have him summoned.
That’s the only reason I tried the shovel. I started using Scratch more and figured there had to be a way to reveal what he’s pointing at if you fail.
You can summon Scratch?!
Can shovel(the quazit) dig or find chests? I’m curious “beefy”.
No. Shovel is only interested in murderizing, and I love her for it.
