Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;827382What do you do if someone is trying to identify a magic item and rolls low, and then everybody else wants to roll too? Repeat for all the items they find that have something unfamiliar about them.

I have a few ways to approach this.

The first is to allow the characters to re-roll for a trivial roll. Sometimes players just like to roll dice, and it's fun.

The second, if they are going to succeed in due time, just give them the result. If a risk is involved, a re-roll may be more appropriate.

The third, allow only a single roll and give a bonus (or penalty) depending on the number of characters. They do not receive a second roll without the circumstances changing, such as discovering a sage with specialized knowledge.

As well, time can be a bottleneck. If each check requires one week, the rolls do take away from resources and other activities.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;827136

QuoteOriginally Posted by soltakss
If several people are watching, then why not give all of them a roll? That's what I do. If some of them succeed and some of them fail, then you tell them different things. Just having several roll in a row is the same, but if ones succeeds then the others don't need to roll.

You might as well give everyone a chance to succeed - Why wouldn't you?

Because somebody is inevitably going to get the high roll in that case, in which case, why roll at all? Just give them the information outright then.

It defeats the point of taking any of those skills.

In that case, it seems to me that your spotting system is broken. Which, many of them may be. It's not doing a good job of modelling, though, if it breaks when you roll many times instead of once. What would you do if the party entered the room one at a time, and each one searched? Some things don't really model well as 1D20 checks...

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;827382What do you do if someone is trying to identify a magic item and rolls low, and then everybody else wants to roll too? Repeat for all the items they find that have something unfamiliar about them.

That is one of those situational examples where players making checks in sequence makes sense.

Kefra: "I check for the magic. hmm. Nothing."
Me: "What? Look at the runes on that thing. Let me try you amature!"

Or why in real life you sometimes call in friends to search the room for the little widget you dropped and cant seem to find despite turning the place upside down.

Whereas if we are walking down the hall and the ranger on point fails to spot the trap or secret door then its unlikely the rest of us will even know to check since its been tunnel after tunnel of nada. As noted, the DM might allow the dwarf or elf to casually spot something. But might not.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;827382What do you do if someone is trying to identify a magic item and rolls low, and then everybody else wants to roll too? Repeat for all the items they find that have something unfamiliar about them.

Yes.

I am a computer programmer in real life. If we have a problem that I cannot fix (failed my Computing roll), then I get some other people in the team to have a look at it. Eventually, one of them succeeds. That's what happens in real life.

Treat magic items like antiques. If there are several antique experts in a group, then it makes no sense for one of them to have a look and say "I don't know what this is", then leave it, rather it gets passed around until someone recognises it.

If your car breaks down and you open the bonnet/hood and look in, but can't see what the problem is, do you leave it and walk to the nearest garage, or do the other people in the car have a look as well, to see if they know what the problem is?

Quote from: soltakss;828162Yes.

I am a computer programmer in real life. If we have a problem that I cannot fix (failed my Computing roll), then I get some other people in the team to have a look at it. Eventually, one of them succeeds. That's what happens in real life.

Treat magic items like antiques. If there are several antique experts in a group, then it makes no sense for one of them to have a look and say "I don't know what this is", then leave it, rather it gets passed around until someone recognises it.

If your car breaks down and you open the bonnet/hood and look in, but can't see what the problem is, do you leave it and walk to the nearest garage, or do the other people in the car have a look as well, to see if they know what the problem is?

Yes, but from a game perspective, it kind of makes skills like History or Nature pointless, because with the entire group rolling for it, it is almost gauranteed to succeed either way.

Quote from: soltakss;828162Yes.

I am a computer programmer in real life. If we have a problem that I cannot fix (failed my Computing roll), then I get some other people in the team to have a look at it. Eventually, one of them succeeds. That's what happens in real life.

But do you have everyone on the team look at it? That's the real question.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;828165Yes, but from a game perspective, it kind of makes skills like History or Nature pointless, because with the entire group rolling for it, it is almost gauranteed to succeed either way.

Actually it makes sense from a game perspective and makes those skills more important to have because if one fails another can try. And even with more than one rolling, theres no good guarantee its going to succeed on the next try. Usually you'll have overlap of only like two characters with the same skill for any given task.

But only when it makes sense for there to be multiple tries.

An item is a static object. You do not need to be focused on it for the duration as it were. Its not going anywhere. Its not (usually) going to metamorphose and be totally different for the next person.

A conversation is not. If you are not paying attention then it has passed you by. I am made brutally aware of this fact every day of my life.

Figuring out where multiple checks is ok and where it is not is the DMs call.

Quote from: Omega;828195Actually it makes sense from a game perspective and makes those skills more important to have because if one fails another can try.

Actually, it makes sense from a meta-gaming perspective.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;828197Actually, it makes sense from a meta-gaming perspective.

That too. But in game or even in the real world see the examples above for why it can happen and why it cant.

If Kef fails a check on IDing the magic item. I might take a crack at it. Jan or Dev with no ID skills cant and dont even bother asking to unless its something that also happens to fall into their fields like say the item was a bow or had some sort of heraldric emblem on it.

We are walking down the hall with Jan on point searching for traps and secret doors. She fails to find a trap then the rest of us arent likely to know or have a chance because there is no way the characters could have known she failed a check because the rest of us dont have any applicable skills. But if say we had a dwarf in the group. He might get a try. Or not.

We are negotiating with a NPC. Said NPC tries a deception. I botch my detection check. Jans paying attention to the conversation and can try to check too. Kefra and Dev werent and thus dont. But if everyone was paying attention then maybee it makes sens for them to check too of the situation is suspicious. Otherwise they take my word that this guy is fine.

As said. Situational.

Quote from: Omega;828201That too. But in game or even in the real world see the examples above for why it can happen and why it cant.

If Kef fails a check on IDing the magic item. I might take a crack at it. Jan or Dev with no ID skills cant and dont even bother asking to unless its something that also happens to fall into their fields like say the item was a bow or had some sort of heraldric emblem on it.

We are walking down the hall with Jan on point searching for traps and secret doors. She fails to find a trap then the rest of us arent likely to know or have a chance because there is no way the characters could have known she failed a check because the rest of us dont have any applicable skills. But if say we had a dwarf in the group. He might get a try. Or not.

We are negotiating with a NPC. Said NPC tries a deception. I botch my detection check. Jans paying attention to the conversation and can try to check too. Kefra and Dev werent and thus dont. But if everyone was paying attention then maybee it makes sens for them to check too of the situation is suspicious. Otherwise they take my word that this guy is fine.

As said. Situational.

But how do you determine who is paying attention? It's not like the other characters all announce ahead of time "I'm paying attention to this convo."

Usually they're just standing around while the party face talks to the NPC. Then when the party face flubs a roll they all step in.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;828223But how do you determine who is paying attention? It's not like the other characters all announce ahead of time "I'm paying attention to this convo."

Usually they're just standing around while the party face talks to the NPC. Then when the party face flubs a roll they all step in.

Actually when I am the DM I ask them what they are doing during conversations. Before said conversations start. If they dont declare it themselves.

Exception being when more than one character is talking with the NPCs. Even then its rare to get a cascade effect for checks.

They do though have some procedures for a few things. Like they have the dragonborn whos good at lock-picking try the locks first before the wizard wastes a spell. The Sorcerer and the Wizard sometimes both go over the odder items to see if they can learn something from different angles of learning. Usually instead one will try like arcana while the other tries history to pick up possible lore.

As a player I had one guy in a group that the moment NPC negotiations started up. He would scamper off if, he could, into town. Usually to do shopping. If he couldnt then he was watching the back and pretty much never participated in talks unless someone was directly talking to him.

It's so easy for them to just say "we're all listening" though. It doesn't solve that main problematic situation.

Especially since my players rarely do other stuff separately.

You break things up piecemeal, according to where their attention currently is. Searching a room by simple, immediate observation doesn't open drawers, looks behind objects, or under covers (etc.). Similarly, someone mentioning an offhand comment and dropping a twitch (a possible 'tell') doesn't explain what is being hidden, let alone why, or its ramifications.

Now some players can't process all this IC, let alone live up to their PC's stats, and for them you switch out to accommodate their capacity.

Passive checks are there to provide varying amounts of description, and at times baseline competency, but are no substitute for active usage. And it is bad form to publicly discuss en masse the details observed as a team about someone while they themselves are present. That sheer level of rudeness would likely shut down the conversation in full.

This really is not that hard, though players throwing dice at the problem over the years has atrophied many a GM's skills here. Any examples you'd like to work on right now?

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;828168But do you have everyone on the team look at it? That's the real question.

Yes.

Quote from: Omega;828195Actually it makes sense from a game perspective and makes those skills more important to have because if one fails another can try. And even with more than one rolling, theres no good guarantee its going to succeed on the next try. Usually you'll have overlap of only like two characters with the same skill for any given task.

But it doesn't matter whether it succeeds on the next try, only that it succeeds on any try.  And if everyone can try, then the math quickly starts to favor them.

Say you have a Nature skill in your game, since that was mentioned previously.  It's not something highly-specialized, so all characters should be able to make a default roll on it, with, say, a 25% chance of success.  Low enough that they'll never pass a Nature check unless a ranger-type invests in it, right?

Wrong.

If you've got a group of four PCs and all of them get to roll Nature, then there's a 68% chance that at least one will succeed.  Add a fifth PC and it's 76%.  Or maybe it's four PCs with two henchmen each...  12 rolls?  97%.  All without anyone knowing anything about Nature beyond the default roll they receive just for having a pulse.

So why, then, would you need anyone to invest significantly in their Nature skill when "have everyone make unskilled rolls" is as (or more) effective and costs less?  (Speaking purely from a mechanical standpoint here.  Characterization is a good reason, but outside the scope of this discussion.)