Gerblin Gaming

"A DC 15 Perception roll is required to see..." "A DC 20 Investigation roll will reveal..." no. Shut up. If the thing is in plain sight or can be perceived with the senses by simply existing in this space and taking a look around then the PCs are perceiving it and describing it to the players is part of your role because you are their source of sensory information about the in-game world.

Perception checks are for:

Trying to discern detail on something a mile away

(hearing) trying to eavesdrop on a conversation in a crowded area or through a door

Noticing an incredibly grown over inscription on a wall

Seeing a person or creature that is actively hiding itself

Perception checks are NOT for (and these are all things I have personally been asked to roll perception for)

The presence of furniture in a room

The location of nearby enemies who are not attempting stealth in any way

The behaviour of nearby creatures that are not attempting to hide their behaviour

Any odour or sound (which for some reason, some DMs think is "extra" information)

Basic details of a scene

Investigation checks are for

Finding a hidden switch in a desk

Locating specific information in a dense and/or cryptic tome

Searching a room for hidden objects

Investigation checks are NOT for

Reading and understanding simple text

Noticing all of the items that are inside a chest

Noticing an inscription on an object in plain sight

Knowing the direction of a noise

Recognising a smell

Any fucking thing on the perception list

Your party is full of adventurers. Unless a player has specifically chosen to roleplay their character otherwise, they are aware of their surroundings, especially when they are in a dangerous environment. They live in a world full of dangerous magic, traps, and monsters, no they do not fucking miss that there's a stool in the center of the room. Just because we are overstimulated, detached and distracted in the modern world does not mean we have to extend that to our D&D characters.

Waaaaaaay too many DMs use perception and investigation checks as a way of dividing up how information about an environment is shared. Players lose focus on extremely detailed environmental descriptions, so the response is often to give general descriptions and then wait for the players to examine specific things, breaking up the information into smaller chunks. This is fine and good, just don't fucking ask for checks for everything! Just give them the information! If someone fails a perception check everyone else is so terrified of a trap that they all want to make subsequent checks anyways, which means anything but a very high DC is making them roll for no reason.

The overuse of perception checks can also ACTIVELY MISLEAD your players into thinking the information gated behind the perception check is more important than it actually is. It creates false expectations that critical information is behind a perception check while everything else is irrelevant, and gets everybody completely tied in knots, including the fucking DM.

We end up with a situation where everyone HAS to put points into perception, because all information about a world is locked behind perception checks, checks which everyone dogpiles into irrelevance because they are so important. That is functionally the same as NOT HAVING PERCEPTION CHECKS, just with extra steps, and the possibility for important quests and fights to be completely stalled by a stroke of misfortune. I mean if you think that spending a whole session fruitlessly trying to solve a simple puzzle because somebody missed the giant statue of a man pointing to the answer is a lot of fun, then good for you, but also, fuck you, and fuck your DMing style.

Here's an example of how it should go:

DM: "you enter a small room, richly decorated. Bookshelves line the walls and an ornate chest sits in one corner next to a reading desk. There is a book open on the desk which someone has been taking copious notes from"

Player 1: "id like to read the book"

DM: "the book concerns necromancy, specifically the raising of dead pets. The notes nearby seem focussed on cats specifically. The notes mention the nearby graveyard multiple times"

Player 2: "While she's reading the book I search the ornate chest for traps"

DM: "Roll investigation."

Player 2: "17"

DM: "You find no traps, and the chest is not locked. Inside the chest are a pouch of 30 gold pieces, a ruby with 100gp, and a collar with 'Mittens' written on it. The collar seems far too large for a house cat".

Player 3: "Can I search the rest of the room while they're doing that?"

DM: "A quick search finds a packet of letters beneath the mattress, and a gold amulet worth 20gp in a dresser. As you are finishing your search you hear steps in the hallway, coming this way"

Player 1: "Is there any other means of escape?"

DM: "Yes, there's a window which overlooks a tiled roof. However it's locked with a simple lock"

Player 2: "Ive got this! I use my thieves tools to open the lock. I roll 23 on my sleight of hand check"

DM: "you open the lock with ease, and shove the window wide open. The steps in the hallway are very near now!"

Player 2: "I jump out the window!"

Player 1: "Me too!"

Player 3: "So do I!"

Like. For example, I am skeptical of the paradigm that using a perception/investigation check is a satisfying way to resolve actions such as "finding a hidden switch" or "searching a room for hidden objects" as opposed to having the players discover them through successfully following up on sensory clues you planted pointing to these things.

If I make a room with a hidden lever camouflaged as the arm of a metal statue, having the players figure it out by rolling an investigation check is nowhere near as engaging as having them figure it out because I described the statue's hand as looking more polished than the surrounding metal, and leaving it up to them to reason that this means that this part of the statue is touched frequently. If I make a room with an item hidden in a wall niche behind a tapestry, having the players find it because they Rolled High Number on an investigation check is way less engaging than having them find it because I described the tapestry as being slightly crooked, leading them to the conclusion that someone probably messed with it recently.

Which is kinda what I was getting at in the last paragraph of my reblog. Even for cases that DO fall under the intended use case for these mechanics, rolling a die to reveal the thing is infinitely less engaging than having the players discover the thing through organic interaction with their environment prompted by the sensory information they have access to.

While we are broadly on the same track, your position comes down a lot more on the side of "a lot of GMs use these mechanics wrong by asking for unnecessary rolls to arbitrarily withhold information that they aren't intended to be applicable to", which I definitely agree with, but my position goes a step further and comes down more on the side of "these mechanics largely fail to justify their own existence and most games that have them would be improved by simply not having them".

I think it ultimately comes down to the fact that when it comes to fantasy dungeon-crawlers I've largely moved on from modern D&D (modern being the 3e era onwards in this context) in favor of either older D&D editions (mostly the 80's Basic D&D line) OR games heavily influenced by the style and play culture of older D&D editions. These editions (and modern games inspired by them) completely lack perception or investigation rolls due to lacking a comprehensive skill system (skills as a central component that mediates most mechanical interactions in D&D's gameplay didn't really become A Thing until 3e), and in my entire experience after switching to old-school dungeon-crawlers there hasn't been a single time where I find myself missing these mechanics over the approach of "If there's something that is sensorially available to the PCs describe it to the players, and if there's something that's hidden from the players don't describe it to them but plant clues that allow them to discover it through organic environmental interaction"

For public libraries, one of the ways we secure funding year to year is lending. Governments don’t want to fund more books if they’re not being used and the way we measure use is by issues. Regardless of whether you read it or not, whether you have it for a day or a month, if you issue it to your library card, we get the stats! It makes the library look good!

And it's official, starting this Saturday at 9 pm CEST (UTC+2) I will host a live panel talking about food and ttrpg.

With questions like what are your fav snacks at the table, your ideal pizza, your classic tavern meals, which game would be your dessert in a menu, or which monster would you most like to eat.

Find me on the EUphoriaAP twitch channel

don't ask, don't get. unfortunately this is often true and even more unfortunately, this is not actually bad

being hypervigilant and constantly looking for stress and tiny ways to make other people 'better' instead of letting them deal with their problems is not morally superior

being passive aggressive instead of aggressive is also not morally superior

no-one can read your mind

this is a good thing actually

you must accept that uncomfortable things only get comfortable with practice

therefore, practice stating your wants and wishes, and recognise that whilst doing so it will be uncomfortable

whilst you are doing so, you must extend compassion to yourself: if you did not 'have' any wants and needs growing up, identifying them can take some time!

start small. tell your friends, 'I'd like to go to this cafe'. think about whether you'd prefer the chocolate or the strawberry. are you just buying the cheapest thing? if you have the money to not do that - why?

do you like red? or green? or blue? exercise these muscles by window shopping in shops you will never buy from. look online at clothes. if you're not a man - what would you buy, if you were? if you like to dress skimpily - what would wear if you had to dress modestly? if you suddenly had a holiday to norway? the bahamas? if you had to go to a ball? if you had a million pounds, what would you buy?

remember your dreams. why the treehouse? why not the castle? what is it in YOU that likes the tree? find it. look at it. hold it.

the more you do this within yourself, the easier identifying your wants and needs may be

the more you can identify them, the easier communicating them will be (though it will still be scary)

recognise that you may have had love withheld for having wants and needs. recognise whether this is true now. if it is, consider whether you want to be in that kind of relationship/friendship.

consider whether it's maybe also your own fault

I don't mean this in a shame way. but only YOU can change how you show up in relationships. only YOU can change the people you choose

but that's not easy. not easy, but it's possible

if your partner/friends do love you in the way you want to be loved: be gentle with yourself, but recognise that you must take responsibility for this change

it's not their job to read your mind

from the other side of things: being constantly watched and examined often makes the other person feel like they can't express their emotions

they often feel stifled

they often feel avoidant, or want to pull away

they want to be in a relationship with another person. not a mirror of themselves.

you are not being kind to them, adult to adult, by being hypervigilant

you are not being kind to them, adult to adult, by suppressing your frustrations and wants because 'they should just know'

this in itself can be traumatising to THEM. it may bring up past memories. you may be, inadvertently, acting just like a parent or parent-figure

no, they don't just know. no, they can't just tell. does this make THEM worse? a bad person?

be nice. don't put them in that position. don't make them feel awful for not being able to read your mind

be kind to them

be kind to yourself

gentle discipline. that's the only way forward. loving discipline, and loving choices made every day to respect yourself, and them. this means discomfort.

it will hurt

but discomfort means growth. new life. new beginnings.

Cut fast fashion - buy used, learn to mend and/or make your own clothes, buy fewer clothes less often so you can save up for ethically made quality

Cancel subscriptions - relearn how to pirate media, spend $10/month buying a digital album from a small artist instead of on Spotify, stream on free services since the paid ones make you watch ads anyway

Green your community - there's lots of ways to do this, like seedbombing or joining a community garden or organizing neighborhood trash pickups

Be kind - stop to give directions, check on stopped cars, smile at kids, let people cut you in line, offer to get stuff off the high shelf, hold the door, ask people if they're okay

Intervene - learn bystander intervention techniques and be prepared to use them, even if it feels awkward

Get closer to your food - grow it yourself, can and preserve it, buy from a farmstand, learn where it's from, go fishing, make it from scratch, learn a new ingredient

Use opensource software - try LibreOffice, try Reaper, learn Linux, use a free Photoshop clone. The next time an app tries to force you to pay, look to see if there's an opensource alternative

Make less trash - start a compost, be mindful of packaging, find another use for that plastic, make it a challenge for yourself!

Get involved in local politics - show up at meetings for city council, the zoning commission, the park district, school boards; fight the NIMBYs that always show up and force them to focus on the things impacting the most vulnerable folks in your community

DIY > fashion - shake off the obsession with pristine presentation that you've been taught! Cut your own hair, use homemade cosmetics, exchange mani/pedis with friends, make your own jewelry, duct tape those broken headphones!

Ditch Google - Chromium browsers (which is almost all of them) are now bloated spyware, and Google search sucks now, so why not finally make the jump to Firefox and another search like DuckDuckGo? Or put the Wikipedia app on your phone and look things up there?

Forage - learn about local edible plants and how to safely and sustainably harvest them or go find fruit trees and such accessible to the public.

Volunteer - every week tutoring at the library or once a month at the humane society or twice a year serving food at the soup kitchen, you can find something that matches your availability

Help your neighbors - which means you have to meet them first and find out how you can help (including your unhoused neighbors), like elderly or disabled folks that might need help with yardwork or who that escape artist dog belongs to or whether the police have been hassling people sleeping rough

Fix stuff - the next time something breaks (a small appliance, an electronic, a piece of furniture, etc.), see if you can figure out what's wrong with it, if there are tutorials on fixing it, or if you can order a replacement part from the manufacturer instead of trashing the whole thing

Mix up your transit - find out what's walkable, try biking instead of driving, try public transit and complain to the city if it sucks, take a train instead of a plane, start a carpool at work

Engage in the arts - go see a local play, check out an art gallery or a small museum, buy art from the farmer's market

Go to the library - to check out a book or a movie or a CD, to use the computers or the printer, to find out if they have other weird rentals like a seed library or luggage, to use meeting space, to file your taxes, to take a class, to ask question

Listen local - see what's happening at local music venues or other events where local musicians will be performing, stop for buskers, find a favorite artist, and support them

Buy local - it's less convenient than online shopping or going to a big box store that sells everything, but try buying what you can from small local shops in your area

Become unmarketable - there are a lot of ways you can disrupt your online marketing surveillance, including buying less, using decoy emails, deleting or removing permissions from apps that spy on you, checking your privacy settings, not clicking advertising links, and...

Use cash - go to the bank and take out cash instead of using your credit card or e-payment for everything! It's better on small businesses and it's untraceable

Give what you can - as capitalism churns on, normal shmucks have less and less, so think about what you can give (time, money, skills, space, stuff) and how it will make the most impact

Talk about wages - with your coworkers, with your friends, while unionizing! Stop thinking about wages as a measure of your worth and talk about whether or not the bosses are paying fairly for the labor they receive

I liked this post so much I'm making it into a series of zines.

suddenly a lot of people think they got the next Lord of the Rings in their head but they were never able to turn their stories into anything tangible because the evil elitist artists are hogging all the talent and skill and they need a bajilion years of training or something as if one of the most popular manga and anime of the past decade wasn't made by a guy that draws like this

You do not have to be Michaelangelo to make art, just make it. Also, obligatory quote from my good man Bob Ross:

Sorry to pull this out of the tags also but I absolutely agree and wanted to elaborate further, bcs like another reason I genuinely think anyone who is interested in art but feels like they suck too much to make it should really just stay away from AI and actually just give drawing a chance is because AI cannot create new art styles. It can only make copies of what you put into it, so much so that if you want something in a specific style you have to tell it the name of the artist you want it to mimic because it cannot make something that doesn't already exist. If all you ever fed it were drawings of stick figures that's all it would ever know how to do.

But humans can make new art styles, every person's art is unique. And when it comes to ONE(author/artist behind Mob Psycho 100 and One Punch Man) and Rich Berlew(author and artist of Order of the Stick), if these guys never just started making their comics we wouldn't have ever been able to see these expressive, funny, strange, and just all around captivating pieces of art!

The image I used of Order of the Stick isn't actually exactly what it looked like at this start, this is:

And THIS is what Order of the Stick looks like now:

And while it does still look similar, it's clear how much Burlew has improved and grown comfortable in his unique artstyle, how far he's come in the last 21 years. The lighting, the line art, the panel layout, all of it has improved while still essentially just being stick figures. And I cannot even begin to describe how much I fucking LOVE the way this comic looks.

Switching to ONE, his art started out super rough

And while One Punch Man did get a new artist...I genuinely think the "better" art has lost a lot of the charm the original had. I'm so glad that ONE did Mob Psycho 100 himself and that the anime mimicked his style rather than trying to make it look more standard like OPM did, because my god, this guy's stuff conveys humor in a way that is as brilliant as it is unique. It's rough, but the roughness doesn't take away from the impact or emotions, it honestly adds to them, and overall it's incredible to see how much ONE has improved, but also how much it still looks like his art:

I do not want to live in a world where ONE and Rich Burlew didn't make their comics because they were too scared of their art looking bad. I don't want to live in a world without these stories and these dynamic and original art styles. Burlew's art legit has given me confidence, I always felt bad that when I finished and colored my art all my lines were so thick and smooth and coloring-book-esque, it's why most of what I post is like, sketches, colored or not. But after reading Order of the Stick I legit cried a little because for the first time I didn't feel bad about just doing the kind of line art that feels right to me, which looks like this:

Well I had the UNBRIDLED joy of informing him that not only had I seen his email, which was insanely abusive towards me for the crime of being 1 minute late and not putting up with his shit first thing in the morning, but that I was also the manager who he demanded to speak to, and I’d now also had our IT team block his IP address from being able to contact us or order with us ever again.

A really good read about community in the context of hobby spaces from Clayton today.

Hits on why I don't think just sharing a hobby makes you part of a community (i.e., there is not such thing as an umbrella "TTRPG Community"). There can be an umbrella hobby space, or if you're a designer/writer/etc, there can be an industry space, but that does not a community make.