I check this square for traps

Adding on. This also works for a party that pokes literally everything with a 5 foot pole and, in general, bogs down the game with bomb squad levels of caution. Do it once or twice and have the party legitimately miss out on something excellent and you'll notice a swift change in their tactics when they realize you're marking their time.

The most constructive solution would be to make his rolls count for the entire visible area.

The dickish solution would be to describe something minor with each high roll (e.g. there's an irregularity in the wall, one of the tiles is marginally higher off the floor than the others, this corner of the room is oddly shaded, etc.) without any of it being meaningful.

The funnest solution would overthinking.jpg

I think the player's attitude has come from the fact that they've heard a lot of dungeon delving stories. We've run regular campaigns before, but any time the game veers into anything resembling a dungeon crawler they descend into pure paranoia. It's very unfortunate because I would genuinely like to run an actual dungeon delving game sometime, but I'm not going to if they're going to be like this. It's very hard to throw surprises or twists at the party if one of them has their face pressed against the floor to look at every square inch of cobblestone.

Well, what did you do to make them so paranoid?

Literally don't play dnd: a game about monsters and traps in dungeons. It's trained behaviour from the system. Not even memeing.

If they're metagaming point out that they're supposed to playing a character. The character doesn't know they rolled low and you need to react appropriately. If he keeps doing it start rolling for him behind your screen and if he complains tell him he brought it upon himself by metagaming.

>It's very hard to throw surprises or twists at the party if one of them has their face pressed against the floor to look at every square inch of cobblestone.
But user, if you were in a temple with deadly traps wouldn't you go with utmost care to avoid getting hurt or dying?

As a party member I don't want to be surprised. I don't want to be ambushed by goblins, to receive arrows in my belly or suddenly fall into a pit fall of spikes.

In the dungeon delving games of old there were actually no perception checks at all - instead players were expected to look through things themselves, examine the walls and moose heads and fireplaces and whatever else.

Simply describe the room, ask them what they're looking into, then tell them if they found anything or not. No need for any rolls, nor any need to have another look. It should speed things up.

Add a trap that only goes when checked.

>The character doesn't know they rolled low
Nonsense. You can know if you've done a bad job and you can know how well you know something. It isn't quite that simple.

That's all well and good. Then lets hope you brought enough food and camping supplies so you can spend a week in that dungeon scouring every square inch of it for traps, secret doors and markings.

/thread

Turns out archaeology doesn't look like an Indiana Jones movie...

RPGs aren't simulators. They're games. Yes, realistically you'd go in with all the caution in the world and spend hours checking every single tile on the walls, ceilings, and floors a few hundred times. Even more realistically you'd ditch the dungeon, sell your broadsword and armor, and buy a nice plot of land to start a farm on.

But that isn't fun for anybody when you're trying to play a game.

>I check this square for traps...
>roll
>...and this square
>roll
>...and this square
>roll
>...and
>I'll stop you there. While you were meticulously searching the third perfectly normal floor tile, a small group of twenty six goblins took advantage of your lack of awareness and crept up behind you. Roll initiative.

That or install time restrictions into your dungeons. Have doors that will seal for all eternity if not unlocked within a certain time, have rising water levels or a legion of undead guardians slowly rising from their millennia-long slumber, anything that makes it very clear that stopping to molest every brick in the dungeon wall on the off chance there's a trap will have detrimental effects to their chances of getting out alive.

Let him check entire rooms with one roll, use traps logically and sparingly.

>77
Checked.

OH SHI-

How do you "look for traps poorly"? Why, in this situation, would you say to yourself "Y'know what? I wanna half ass this check".

A perception check isn't the same as a shoddy attempt at picking a lock. If you don't see anything you don't see anything.

If people behaved like you said they did, things like pedestrians being hit by cars would basically be a non-existent event.

I sort of did this. I had the room fill up with an odorless gas. The party spent so much time inside the room half of them passed out.

Have you ever done something you're unsure of? "I think it is but I'm not sure" or "I didn't see anything but i feel like I'm wrong"? Because that happens to people yknow. A good way to simulate that is dice roll numbers and hiding the dc.

Also
>reads a post saying the issue isn't as simple as he's putting across
>oversimplifies the other persons argument
No wonder you give such bad advice. You must be fun at parties.

Great, so you have a party member who will refuse to move on until they've got a roll of 15 or higher.

you're the player OP is talking about, aren't you?

Sure, it's an issue that this thread is about resolving. But it's not metagaming. Yet again: not that simple.

To add to this so you're not just a shitter.

Make a dungeon that was meant to be used on a daily basis as a form of temple, it didn't have traditional traps because who the fuck is going to tip toe every fucking step on daily job?

So they enchanted the place with perception and sensory based traps, if you think you're in danger then you are in danger, but the people who made it and use it are always safe.

Play a TSR edition of D&D where you just described shit to players and they said what they did.

>"Oh, you check for traps? How?"

Also, random motherfucking encounters. Checking for traps takes time. Time when monsters might wander by.

You could trap every single square they check. Don't trap them if they don't check for it.

Mandate one roll for every surface for every party member without the possibility of a re-roll unless they have a feat for it. Use modifiers and verbal clues if you're so inclined.

>Searching for traps takes excessive time
Whoever told you that must either be a fool, a person without any understanding on how the traps work, or someone wanting you to get killed in one.

To those of you who badly want players to be caught in their traps - use magical triggers rather than mechanical. The greatest thief would have no way whatsoever to tell if there's one, and mages are usually too stupid or arrogant to check.

>a player uses the skill he brought 'detect traps' to ensure the protection of his party
>that DM makes a situation where his skill is useless and may happen anywhere, just to punish him for using an ability, one of the few protections a PC may have
Really makes me think.

How about just letting him roll once?

If he refuses to move just tell him that his character looked everywhere and haven't found traps. If he still refuses tell him to stop metagaming.

...

Impose penalties for time; food, torches, etc...

Whoever still carries torches and food to the tombs of horrors is an idiot way out of his depth.
Really, there are countless ways to have everlasting food and light, and that's even not counting simply forcing the wizard to enchant anything to glow and putting a trinket of sustenance on.

So how about playing an edition that doesn't hold your hand and let you solve literally everything just by having a wizard in the party?

Have you tried talking to them about this behavior?

Reread OP:

>I've talked with them already about this issue, but they insist that it's because they don't want anything to surprise them.

>they don't want anything to surprise them

Have a monster surprise them while they're looking for traps.

I like the idea of giving folks a sixth-sense sort of trap detection ability. Like, it just *feels* like there would be a trap in this room (based on the layout of the dungeon, the style of architecture, the culture of the people who built the place, subtle clues that are only subconsciously realized, etc.).

This falls under the "find traps" skill, or whatever is equivalent in your game, but even unskilled people have a decent chance of sensing a trap, to the point where it's better to accept it when your roll (obviously made in secret by the GM) turns up no traps than it is to meticulously search the area anyway (because of wandering monsters and so forth). Just take the highest skill in the group and roll against that (if a trap is detected, have everybody roll vs. finding traps, and whoever gets the best result is the one who senses the trap). Why not just have everybody roll separately? Because large groups would be virtually assured of finding traps and if anything, large groups would end up being more careless and more likely to walk right into the fuckers.

When a trap is sensed, you don't know precisely what or where it is. You're just pretty sure there's one in the general area, so you have to go about locating it the old fashioned way: by describing in detail what you examine and where you poke and prod.

So how about playing a caveman?
Torches and rusks are only appropriate when you're a bunch of peasants armed with wooden spears and forks investigating a den because the people have been disappearing recently. It could be fun enough, though.

Alternately, just don't have traps in your game. They don't really make a lot of sense in any case, and if they screw up play, ditch the fuckers.

They only get to check once, and have a monster pop up on them, A silent one. You were too busy checking the square, and now you are surprised. Or just make traps that only activate when found.

If it was a game of Donjon the would find traps each time

This, also people could be upfront about the shitty parts of their systems and avoid this sort of thing by just giving a flat percentage for the checking the whole area or smaller bits of it.

Like: Ok I want to check this whole room for traps, that would be 30% success rate plus bonuses or specialties for whatever system because the room consists of thirty squares, and then increasing the flat percentage for smaller areas.

Bullshit. Someone looking for a trap is on high alert anyway. He is expecting an invisible, silent threat, or a cube, a mimic or roper or even plain old cave-in.

Mixing monsters and traps makes no sense. Unless they're undead and/or obsessive trapmakers like cobolds.

Inform them that they're constantly and consistently checking for traps as they travel, and that they don't need to roll for it unless you ask them to. Because success and failure doesn't actually *matter* if there's no trap there.

I got rid of rogues being the only ones able to find traps through homebrew anyway- instead they get a +5 to their search checks to find traps instead.

This.

Give them a tip when to roll.

Why not use 4e/5e's passive Perception?

That doesn't make any sense, why were all the other players just watching him check for traps?

I occasionally have my players roll a perception check, then if they pass "there is something weird about here in the hall" what do you do?

Otherwise I'd probably have a trap every square they check and if they roll low it goes off in their face. Ironically there would be no traps in squares they didn't check.

Realistically I'd probably have the fucking drow army descend on them for spending 7 hours in a hallway.

Basically stop being a shitty DM

how about people who think they know everything

>rolls 2 on arcana check

you're positive it's a staff of fireball

this of course doesn't work if the player rolls in the open

>rolls 2
>has 8 points in arcana skill
>DC is 10

It works. If you want a character to know everything, you just need to pump up your skills.

>DC is 5
it's a staff
>DC is 10
it's a magic staff
>DC is 15
it's a magic staff that's not for combat
>DC is 20
it a staff of healing
>DC is 25
it's a staff of cure light wounds with 12 of 20 charges left

If they want to go super slow and carefully let them do it; it costs a lot of resources and increases the chance of wandering monsters encountering them. If they're refusing to roleplay out their failed rolls, that's METAGAMING and breaking the rules. They no longer get to roll their own trap checks, they've lost that privilege.

If it's getting super boring, it's your job to abstract it out. One idea is this: You want to go slow and careful, so I'm going to make time pass for what it takes to check for traps carefully each 5ft and give you a bonus to your trap skill check. You abstract this to a single trap check roll and roll on the wandering monster table and mark off some torches and rations. That's a strategy with tradeoffs and it doesn't waste a shitton of time.

Because OP is playing Pathfinder like the trash they are.

>If you want a character to know everything

they're not supposed to know everything ffs

>I want to become a physical powerhouse, able to wrestle dragons!
Sure. Be a fighter.
>I want to heal people, save lives, even bring the dead back to life!
Sure. Be a healer.
>I want to have powerful magic, able to call up firestorms from nothing!
Sure. Be a caster.
>I want to be able to know things!
NOEP. NEVER NOT ALLOWED

>Yes, realistically you'd go in with all the caution in the world and spend hours checking every single tile on the walls
no, because the longer you spend there, the more likely your being discovered

Then that's down for the player to roleplay. If you don't have players who step into bad situations willingly because it's in character then you have a bad group. Its not the gms job to play players characters for them. Of course you have to ensure that you have an environment that's going to be fun even if a character does something like that. Make it interesting rather than rocks fall. Within reason of course, there are some pretty dense fuckers out there
>I think the deadly poison
>you die
>Why didn't you make it interesting!? BAD GM

>no, because the longer you spend there, the more likely your being discovered
By who? The monsters who you came exactly to kill and steal the loot?

>Players always wonder if you aren't making them fail on purpose.
If you roll it on the table they will know its safe.
If you roll in secret, they will feel safer but won't know for certain, which is more interesting.

>If you roll in secret, they will feel safer
Except by the fact they will know at the first problem that you were actually rolling for them, and that you can literally say any number that pops on your mind?

>spend ages checking for traps on every single flagstone
>monster patrol appears at other end of corridor
>they very slowly advance towards the party, checking for traps on every single flagstone

Hahaha
Well depends on the system, in Old school games any encounter could mean death everyone having from 1 to 8 hitpoints at level 1 and all enemies dealing to 1d6 to 1d10 damage

Kek.

>Carefully checking a room or comparable corridor segment for traps takes an approximately 10 minute dungeon turn
>I check for encounters every 10-30 minutes depending on monster population density
>I play a system that doesn't give infinite free light and food
>I roll privately for trap-detection rolls

Sure, knock yourself out buddy

>It's very hard to throw surprises or twists at the party if one of them has their face pressed against the floor to look at every square inch of cobblestone.

OOH OOH I KNOW. Timer! You give them a deadline to meet! They literally CANNOT stop to inspect every inch of the floor because they simply don't have the time!

>not randomly checking their sheets and rolling a d20 every now and then, just to keep your players constantly on edge

Wouldn't that also mean that a trap (such as a flying arrow) was also very lethal?

unless it's a roll -5 below the DC, you are simply unsure.
Success is "know for certain"
Failure is "can't tell"
Failure by -5 is "false positive/negative"

yes

Everything is lethal in Old school, even a dog or a cat can easily kill you

T H I S
H
I
S

Honestly, get rid of traps
If you let him continue then it'll take the players years to clear a single dungeon
If you force them to stop the hyper cautious approach you'll look like a cunt if a trap ever gives a character more than a minor cut

theangrygm.com/traps-suck/
theangrygm.com/ask-angry-traps-suck/

TL;DR ban rolling for spotting traps. Whenever there's a trap around, just straight up give them a clue. Alternatively, make traps big and obvious, and make whole encounters out of working around the trap.

You think rolling to check for traps is bad? At least it's a thing that people do in real life, and easy to understand what exactly they're looking for.
But once you make the mistake of using an illusion spell as part of a trap, you'll have a player asking to roll to disbelieve each cubic meter of air for the rest of the campaign!

Bards both get bardic knowledge and have 6+Int skill points to spend.
Investigators have inspiration and 6+Skill points.
A Phantom Thief Rogue has 8+Int, and can spend all their Skill unlocks on Knowledge Skills for bonuses, additional info, and rerolls.

It's completely allowed. Just realize you may get some complaints because your team may not recognize "guy that gives us the information to form our tactics" as a valid combat position. Kind of similar to how Big Stupid Fighter's like their big numbers because they don't realize a Controller is doing the heavy lifting that makes him capable of doing his job.

Oh yeah, and cloistered cleric, knowledge domain, memory subdomain.
And maybe lore oracle?

Or big hungry things just meandering about.

Look, there's a reason floor-based roguelikes always have a big, nearly unkillable thing that shows up if you grind on a floor too long.
It forces the player to move forwards.

We don't want unbeatable, since they do have to get out the same way they came down. But we do want it to drain their resources, and to attract more the longer they stay, forcing them to get a move on, get in and get out before we drain all our resources and die cause we don't have enough health, arrows, and spells to face the next one.

Those links are good though the author needs to tone it down. Damn.

The most direct method of curtailing infinite spot checks is to associate a cost with them. The easiest is time. Make it a 5~10 minute thorough search every time they roll, and put them on a timetable.

Second is to deflate the reward for searches. Make all traps be associated with something that players can pick up on, giving observant players a heads up to search when it actually makes sense to do so. Eliminate as many 'random' traps as possible.

>the author needs to tone it down. Damn.
I mean, it's in his name. You wouldn't tell AVGN to tone it down.

AVGN isn't trying to tell people how to make good video games either (well, on purpose anyways).

Maybe just let him know that his character is so good with traps he notices them peripherally (kinda like spies in mission impossible movies or something) and just have him roll the last moment you can before he steps on triggers a trap.

That would incentivize searching smaller areas at a time. You're reinforcing the problem behavior.

I mean let him declare where he's going to go and at the moment he would set off a trap detect trap roll and if he fails then he proceeds into the trip in which he declared if he succeeds then he may do over that move.

I feel like this approach would be more cinematic.

It needs to be streamlined not made more difficult.

OP, you have two choices
>1: The environment is deadly as fuck and a part of the narrative, so carefully edging through the area is a necessary evil that may present its own problems.
or
>2: The environment is only here to waste resources and can easily be handwaved so as to get to the more interesting bits in the story.
The worst thing you can do in anything that's cooperative and recreational is waste everyone's fucking time.

This hasn't been posted yet?

Veeky Forums you slippin nigga.

Seriously? Like, literally every game reviewer I've every watched goes into a "they should have done this" rant at some point.
Huh. Maybe I should go watch some of his stuff.

To be fair, this is not a problem exclusive to DnD. Maybe they're playing Shadowrun and pullling a heist on some big rival cooperation. OP didn't say. Stop making baseless assumptions.

It takes time both in and out of character. Make sure that they have some sort of time constraint, either in the form of needing to get shit done quickly, or in the form of enemies who gather and attack them while they're meticulously searching every nook and cranny for traps.

if he wants to find traps so dang hard, break down and just give him some traps.

He's playing a rogue, its the only way he's helpful. I'm sure a fighter playing an intrigue game would be just as frustrated, and be that one jarhead constantly readying himself for a fight chomping at the bit to solve things with violence cause that's his one chance to look badass.

time release traps that go off if you spend too much time in a room. Enemies that patrol. Or just tell him he found a trap every once in a while, that might lower his guard. I mean, it might make him worse too.

Oh shit, are we back to AD&D? Now those were good times!