I do have a counterpoint for that... I like to think of the pilots, many times, being partially responsible for the customization of their mech. I mean, they might not customize everything, and be part of every part of the process... But they still are substantial about it. And in that sense, many pilots could see their mechs as being kind of like a whole concept they built, that's why they give them not only a specific paint job, but also accessories and specific weapons and things that they like. In a sense, it's their creation. And it's natural for you to name your creation. Is it disposable? Yes... But, honestly? So are the pilots. There's a whole session in lancer about cloning in that regard. You could even have a character that is basically a clone of a clone of many more clones, that continuously serve the same role in the same mech... (Yes, very good concept for a manticore player). So, yeah. They're disposable, but not really. Same thing with their mech. And, while I know that they can change their mech constantly... I do like to think they give them nicknames so to keep a sense of familiarity with their work. Same way a person might give a nickname for a car they bought that they really liked.

This is why the "take 20" rule in 3.5 is so much better Also, why are you asking for rolls first off, won't passive perceptions or investigate do the job?

Is your cat named Jazz?

Awesome video and concept. The jazz cat makes it the bomb!

Historically pilot call signs are never picked by the person, they are names picked by your fellows,

First thing, perception should be renamed Awareness. Because it's not about how good you can see that thing 10 miles away. It's about do you realise something is going on. Also there is often (in DnD) an overlap of perception and investigation. For exemple, you may not have seen the trap or the ambushed ennemies, but did your character saw the area and thought : "hey, that would be a nice spot for an ambush" and raised his general awareness and prepared themselves even without clear knowledge of the exact setup. Perception is not always about what you see or hear, its sometimes a feeling, like something is odd, out of place. Sometimes perception is even about what you DON'T see or hear. like "why is the forest so silent suddendly ?", "Why is this area dry ? a car must have been parked here" etc And yes, having relatives rolls instead of DC is good to avoid the "everybody fails", while still keeping the stat relevant. You have higher perception means you are less likely to be the one who set off the trap. Which also means that on the other hand, if you want to be the guy who tanks the traps, you should dump your perception.

I'm a fan of this idea. I don't think it needs to be purely based around perception, could use it elsewhere. Essentially you're saying "Instead of rolling to see if you get a good or bad outcome... why not both?" Passive perception can be used too, to prevent too many rolls. (Thank you Rangers with 15+ perception. 😂) I actually like the idea of having more passive abilities play a role, tbh. Bad rolls or out of character high rolls make or break skills sometimes. Rolling a d20 is a +/-10 from your ability score, but the lowest you could reasonably expect a score bonus to be is -4, and highest a +5 (or even with doubple profficiency/Mastery and maxxed skill a +9) Nothing can save your characters skill from potentially being worse than the person with a lucky roll who has nothing invested in that skill. That's just not always fun, and not story focused. I'd rather the characters who are genuinely best at a skill be the best typically, then if it's a bonus side thing, or a creative out of the box idea the DM doesn't expect, then sure, roll for it. Even TLMoP does this every once in a while by instructing the dm "any character proficient in x skill can do y." And then also makes clear of passive perception which is a normal mechanic regardless. Another way to deal with not missing a roll for something important, I'm actually playing a 2 person party with my S/O where I'm acting as the DM. She's our face character, obviously, and a Fey Wanderer, so she has good charisma rolls now. But regardless, in situations where we have to convince some neutral person of something, she's used Pursuasion, and if she fails, I'll go in with Intimidation. I have a good chance at beating intimidation checks, but even if not, this basically means we either get the info via persuasion, or I'll get the info intimidating, or if I fail intimidation we go to a fight which means we will fight them till they're almost down and surrender to get the info. 😂 If you really need to railroad that players succeed at something, as DM, you can do so, without making it 0 risk, or unrealistic, or just anoyyingly rerolling a thousand times.

KITTEH!!!

The algorithm gave my your perception video. Subbing for all the Lancer stuff I'm going to have to check out. And I see a bunch of pokemon stuff too. Feels like a variety channel made for me :D

Here's another way to think about this method, and maybe tune it to your group. If you know someone is going to pass, as in you're going to ask "who finds the thing" and you just have to figure out who, just have them all roll perception and the highest still gets it. Doesn't matter if they rolled a 3, but everyone else rolled 1s. That gives a better chance of players who build to be observant to fill the roll they built for. Likewise, go the other way for triggering the trap. Another option is to get some RP context. Instead of asking "who notices the ambush" ask "who's on point?" and "what are you doing while taking point?" and get an idea of how the group is acting at the moment. Then just do what makes sense position and stats wise. The problem to avoid with this method is you have to make sure your players still have a sense of agency and don't feel railroaded. The players need the opportunity to either outsmart or out skill the GM, even if you're the one giving them the tools to make them feel like they're doing that. And a lot of time you can just do something like passive perception and attribute them not having to roll their prior decision to make a perceptive character (which feels like agency, even if you set the perception check at like 5 and don't tell them).

inserts with kitty are too good xDD love the tips too!

Love the nod to perception by adding music to when the cat is in the scene. I think I perceive what you did there

I’ve found that players boost their Passive Perception, usually into the range of 18-20+, removing the need to roll, with such a high passive score.

❤❤❤

Never ask a question you don't know the answer to, never ask a question to players that the entire scenarios hinges upon Never assume your players will react or act logically, in fact the opposite, assume your players will do something completely counterintuitive to the situation Hence this entire line of logic is silly, this only works if you know how your players thinks or all players are in synch with the type of game it is, something rare even in long term friend games

Great advice, the numbers are supposed to support the narrative, ultimately they're arbitrary and your method creates much more opportunities to play their characters. Success moves the event forward, failure moves the event forward, and the rolling of the dice actually matter more.

The random music made me think I was schizophrenic

Im sorry, but what happened to people asking for a perception check or using the pass perception if they dont ask failing to see a trap them going by marching order and just triggering the trap? This feels like you've taken really important parts of exploration out of the game by asking everyone to make perception checks and then asking who is taking the trap and so on.

Brilliant! I'm gonna use this immediately.

This seems to be a solution in want of a problem.

In my games I try have rolls/ checks that rather than enabling the party to move forward instead determine how quickly/ easily the party can move forward. I’ll give an example from one of the quests I have planned. The party is delivering something however the bridge that takes them to where they need to go is out, if they don’t have the requisite equipment to clear the gap (grappling hook and rope) than they have a choice circle back and take a detour (meaning they’ll be late and risk travelling during the night or figure out a way to get across (with me giving them a description of the area that gives them clues on how to get across with different checks) if they fail then well it’s back to plan B, they then have a bigger time crunch later in the quest and risk a combat in counter that night.

Interesting. Might give it a try.

Monsters in tactics ogre are the opposite gender to everyone. Good and useful fact to keep in your brain for like 20 years.

Ooh no. Your original premise was sound: Don't hinge the adventure on a single door. But better still, if they aren't actively searching, there's less chance of finding a thing. You could also make the rolls for them, which is how passive perception is supposed to work in 5E. Now if you REALLLY want to railroad them into finding that door, you can say, "So-and-so spots something!" Did the character actually spot it based on a roll? Well, they don't have to know that. I find this a bit railroady, but is an option. At least it preserves immersion. Saying there's a thing outright, then adding a dangerous element is not totally horrible, but it makes it a bit standard and boardgamey. Now every secret door comes with a trap? Eh.

I don't LOVE this idea... I think it's neat though and has promise. I'll have to still think about it. You still have my attention however since you mentioned the obscure Exalted game! I love that game...

Most of these scenarios can be solved with passive perception

Skip perception, leave obvious clues there is a secret door/trap/whatever. Players can then tell you how they feel along the wall for seams, look behind the only tapestry, or puzzle out what triggers the ominous blade trap in the wall of the room covered in dried blood.

Cat detected

Love the format.

Liked for content, comment for kitty

Honestly, having come up in the 80’s with AD&D I think one of the big problems with this is the movement away from “Because I’m the DM, that’s why.”

I mean I’m not a genius or an expert but I could also see numbers people enjoying finding the most likely person to trigger a trap.

Pbta rpg games tought me that a failed roll does not always mean you don't do the thing. It means you have a consequence occur. Eg: "roll to find an entrance." Players roll crap. "You discover the entrance.not through your efforts, but because a group of orcs rush you from within it. What do you do?" "I jump from the police car onto the terrorists truck....crap, rolled a 4" "You barely make it and pull yourself up. Your relief dissappears instantly when faced with the barrel of a Shotgun....'don't move pig' says the masked man".

Brilliant. I’m using this next session!

This is what I like about some of the PbtA modeled games, where mixed success or failure are just as important as success

Good idea. Thanks for sharing this.

If you do that, why do you have stats on your character sheet? You could easily run the entire campaign just asking who or how the bad events planned and the good ones that advance the plot are distributed. And of course the tension is lost, because the possibility of planning things well to avoid the trap is lost, for example, and there won't be a sense of risk because it will never happen that a character can die if they can always simply choose how to distribute the attacks/damage according to their convenience... but not because of planning, it's different if the group plans that the Paladin or a prisoner goes ahead to swallow all the traps all the time, because they are the ones who came up with that idea, and they handle that damage with their own strategy or luck or their characters' skill (giving credit to the choices they made when creating characters). What feels more natural/organic and what feels more like they are a group of amateur actors/writers deciding how they are going to improvise a script? If you ask to make a Perception roll, or any other roll, only to ignore a result until the result you want to appear comes up... then why ask to make the roll? What is failing there isn't the rule or system of Perception, is the laziness of the GM who is doing something on rails without roleplay or an agenda for the characters... yes, you are letting them choose, but you are deciding what is going to happen at all times... as if in Skyrim the game, instead of giving you the choice of whether to kill some NPC or not it only gave you the choice of how to kill them or if it will be your character or one of your followers. If they all fail the Perception roll... well, that's it, they don't find the hidden passage/door, for them the cave ends right there and there is nothing else. And you as a GM have to adapt, probably with the antagonist being able to appear later better prepared or attacking again or whatever appropriate thing.

Awesome content

nah. perception failure leads to the lowest roller has to make a reflex save as he literally bumbled into it and is about to fall down the stairs/ladder/ominous pit for xDy fall damage. THIS RAILROAD HAS NO BRAKES CHOO CHOO

Roleplaying AND an interrupting cat??? Dagnabbit, I'm in! Am I really that easy?

I have been finding success with the way Shadowdark handles it, which isn’t too different from this.

Very interesting video. Definitely sharing this with the group

this is the format youtube was meant for

The music cut-ins are really distracting.

I do use this at times, it just depends on how likely the thing being perceived is to be looked over. Normally I punish low rolls for perception, and that tends to move things along. Fail the perception check, you won’t just not find the trap, you’ll trigger it and maybe it’ll just open the way out once triggered, maybe the trap going off is their next hint after failing the check. And I don’t call for it if it’s not necessary like any good dm. High perception character? They’re gonna be handed a decent amount by me. Character just moving through the right space to see something, they’ll probably see it, checks are only necessary at my table when there is chance involved with the actions completion.

It makes me think of one of my favorite tactics rpgs of all time: tactics Ogre:L the Knight of Lodis. There were gender locked classes, and some of them made sense to me and didn't seem like a problem, and others did. Beast master being male only and dragon tamer being female only always felt weird to me. It felt like there was no good reason for those to be gender locked, and in later games they weren't iirc. The witch class being female only feels fine, because femininity and the expression of femininity outside the bounds of what society dictates feels pretty integral to the class fantasy- maybe I'm wrong about that. I also think its important that female units were not relegated to ONLY being witches, they had access to all the standard caster classes male units had as well. I also think gender differences can be fine in very specific fantasy contexts. For example, if you have a fantasy species of bug people where only a female can become a queen of a hive- makes sense. I also think of the legend of zelda series and gerudos as an example of where something felt okay vs not okay because of some small changes to the lore. In ocarina of time the gerudo were a race of all female desert dwelling people, with a culture around witches and thievery- and heavily implied immaculate birth through witchcraft. A male was only born to them every 100 years or so, and as such was heralded as a unique or special person who was then made a ruler. It was not about "oh men should be rulers over women" because we see that the Gerudos don't trust any men and think them incompetent like the carpenters that get captured in that game, and that the male born to them every 100 years is uniquely special and really the only man worth having around. There isn't even weird implied harem stuff because of the immaculate births and witchcraft culture. I think this isn't sexist or problematic and honestly really cool lore with logical conclusions. In breath of the wild they changed it to be that Gerudos go out into the world to fawn over men and find their soulmate or something and a surprising amount of gerudos you find and talk to talk about nothing but men. Even having the school in the village teach only about how to find a man to the little girls. It feels really weird and obsessive and honestly super lame. idk just my rambling thoughts.

Definitely a good technique to have in my DM tool belt :)

I will often just use my player's passive perception to decide who finds something, or if it is found at all. I also do this commonly for other skills. I will also instead of having a roll, just ask if the character has proficiency in something, with an automatic success if they do. This rewards character choice without letting the randomness of the dice throw a wrench in something that definitely should happen, at least eventually.

Don't roll perception. Use passive perception to weed out who can roll perception.

What, so you can't play well enough to avoid triggering a trap? It's just always going to happen, no matter how well everyone's characters are built and no matter how thorough they are at checking? That's ass. I would leave a group like that immediately