Hidden things

[Chaosmeister]

Hello all, new DCC judge here. I am currently preparing my first funnel and have a question regarding old school GM behavior as I grew up with the German RPG DSA which was not focused on loot and character skill driven.

Lets say a treasure is hidden in the boots of a skeleton. In the past we did rarely focus on the loot and players simply said "I search the body", rolled and that decided if they found it or not. Now I am wondering how most of you handle this, as well as other hidden things like doors or hidden compartments. Would you only give them the treasure if a player directly says " I look in the boot"? Would that not slow the game down to a "crawl" if everyone describes in minute detail what exactly they are doing? And I guess this would also get repetitive as they would probably do the same thing all the time?

[Ravenheart87]

Oh, DSA. I once played using 3rd edition rules I think. The skill checks and the magic system were interesting.

Back on topic... What I do depends on how specific the players are.

"I search the body." - I roll if they find it or not.
"I search the boots." - They find it automatically.

Works pretty fast. Note that less specific actions usually take more time. I usually roll random encounter if they are wating too much time.

[catseye yellow]

it also depends who does the searching. i usually let thieves & halflings find stuff like that pronto while elves have to say things like 'i pull his boots off' so that i can describe them appaling state of orcish manicure.

[Chaosmeister]

Thanks guys, makes sense to do it like that.

[Blutimate]

Oh, DSA. I once played using 3rd edition rules I think. The skill checks and the magic system were interesting.

Back on topic... What I do depends on how specific the players are.

"I search the body." - I roll if they find it or not.
"I search the boots." - They find it automatically.

Works pretty fast. Note that less specific actions usually take more time. I usually roll random encounter if they are wating too much time.

I highly recommend this and the more they experience your judging style, the more they will realize that they may have missed earlier items. In police work, officers are trained to be thorough but even highly trained officers miss things as important as hidden firearms on suspects because of apathy, routine, etc. (like the unfortunate tale of Rodney Johnson in HPD history). So, I may even have them perform a roll under Luck check to see if they get lucky and find an item that is intentionally hidden if they don't specifically tell me how they are searching. Seasoned adventurers get careless too...

David Rose