How do you use questions in your tabletop RPG sessions? Are there any tricks or habits you use to stop everyone at the table rolling a Perception Check for the same thing?
Well, first off, nobody rolls for anything unless I call for a check. Players don’t get to decide when the dice hit the table.
If anybody wants to use a skill, they have to describe how their PC is going about using that skill. If they’re not doing anything in particular and want to know what the character can perceive, well…the PC perceives exactly what they got in the initial description of the place I gave when they reached it. A PC has to be actively checking things out to have any idea what they might perceive that’s out of place or unusual or whatever. Until they’re doing something actively, they’re like my family opening the refrigerator and saying there’s nothing there when they haven’t actually examined any of the many containers holding food.
As for the other players having their PCs copycat, time is an element of all that, what with them all lining up to check out whicherever corner of the room in turn, and time is not their friend. Something’s likely to show up and rain on their parade of fools.
Also, on any check where the PC would have no idea of success or failure, the players don’t roll. I do. The only thing they know about the effort is what I tell them. So, if I relay that they didn’t find anything interesting, they won’t know if it’s because the check failed or because there’s nothing interesting to be found.
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I don’t roll. I just give clues. “Thief-person, you see the rug under the bed has been moved recently as if to conceal something. Wizard-person, you see magic runes on the ceiling. It’s a warding spell, with a fire enhancer. Fighter-person, there’s blood splashes on the floor and marks on the furniture and floor from a sword or perhaps an axe. And the window is wide open, with the curtains thrust outward, also showing blood stains. What do you do, starting with Thief-person?”
Then make them go one at a time, around the table. No rolling, just declaring actions.
The time to call for a roll, in my opinion, is when an individual is attempting something where there is a significant chance of failure, or there’s time pressure. Otherwise, I just give it to them, and I try really hard not to put the group into a dogpile-the-check position with, “Roll for perception!”
That’s how I do it.
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