Naturalist vs Alertness for search rolls

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by Sinanju

This is the point at which I would stop worrying about the rules and start thinking about FUN. Is it more interesting if the players find what they're looking for, or not? If there's nothing there to find, I'd tell them as much. "You've searched thoroughly and there's nothing there." Move along.

If there *is* something to find, and failing to find it means they wander off without ever exploring the cool little minidungeon I designed behind that secret door...well, they're gonna find it.

Different players have different ideas of what is fun, though. As a counterpoint, some players want to play a game about situations that behave logically, and don't want or expect the GM to fudge/force particular outcomes.

Fudging can obscure both from the players and from the GM himself what the game situation is and what the game part of it is. Though sometimes rolling and getting a result that will result in an outcome you don't want to play out, can indicate that maybe your table is bad or you ought to have designed the situation differently.

Rather than roll at all, the GM can define the situation (or the scope of the game) as including certain situations, which can either just be logical (the thing to discover is so easy to find there is no roll), or described as a fluke but out of scope of the game to roll about (the king just happens to choose you to send on a mission).

But on the other hand, there is a magic that in my experience many players really love (and that even new RPG players can appreciate) in setting up a detailed situation and then playing it out logically, and letting whatever happens, happen. It lets players interact with the world for what it is, rather than expecting a pre-planned story to be what they're supposed to do. And at least with the players I've been lucky enough to have, it tends to inspire a lot of curiosity to explore and think of their own things to go do and try proactively, rather than waiting for the GM to tell them what happens next.

Not to say this is what you were suggesting but I think it ought to be mentioned that when a GM fudges rolls, forces outcomes, and/or provides many very convenient clues and adventure paths, the players instead tend to just wait for those to be handed to them, and experiences the game passively to one degree or another.