Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
Were you there for the thread about my party getting stuck in the tomb? Because it is pretty much the quintessential example of this.

Spoiler: The One about my players being stuck in an empty tomb for three hous.
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I was running a dungeon layout I got online. It had a "false tomb" at the start to detour grave robbers, with a trap-door leading to the real tomb. There was a switch on a statue that, if pressed, causes one of the fake sarcophagi to roll back and reveal the trap-door. I made the switch real easy to find because I didn't want to waste time, but, of course, the dice crapped out on the PCs and the rogue rolled a natural 1 to search the room.
Brian, who was playing an earth-mage, then cast a speak with stone spell to ask the statue. This was, imo, a brilliant solution , and I spent a moment coming up with a personality for the statue and asked what he says to it. He then commands it open the way. I asked him to actually RP the conversation, he refused, so I told him to roll a charisma check to get the information, and gain the dice crapped out.
(Now, later, this turned out to have been a miscommunication. I thought he was refusing to talk in character and just wanted to resolve the conversation as a dice roll, which is something he has done many times in the past with the argument "I am not as charismatic as my character so I shouldn't have to think out an argument", but it was actually that he thought the spell was akin to a divination spell that forced answers from the stone rather than a spell akin to speak with animals that merely allowed him to talk to rocks. This miscommunication ate up the previous thread entirely, but was mostly orthogonal to the actual situation imo.)
At this point, the players just shut down. They had a party of 12 competent, fully rested, mid level adventurers, including a master earth-bender and a master conjurer, all completely stymied by a simple hidden door after two blown rolls. They couldn't think of anything, either magical or mundane, that could progress the adventure, and I spent three hours of real time trying to get them to try something, anything. I could think of literally dozens of ways they could have bypasses this obstacle, none them requiring specific or hidden information, but nothing. Because after two blown rolls, they had convinced themselves that I was shooting down every possible solution until they came up with some sort of "magic bullet".
Again, here's how the situation would have played out at my table:
1) If the rogue says "I search the statue" and the switch is supposed to be easy to find, I won't even bother having him roll. He finds the switch after a few moments, they open the door. There's no point in requiring a roll there, because he has guessed the right place to look and there's no trap or hazard to spring.

2) If the rogue just says "I search the room" I might ask him to go into more detail "where do you want to start? Are you running your hands over things or probing with a 10' pole or what?". If he says "I'll go hand-search the statue," then again he finds the switch without a roll needed. If he gives an answer were it's not obvious he's going to focus on the statue or he's not using a method that will immediately find the switch (probing with a 10' pole), then I have him make a search roll.

3) So the rogue didn't look in the right place and rolled a nat 1 on his search roll. The earth-mage says "I cast speak with stone on the statue." I ask, "what do you say to it?" He says, "I command it to open the way." I say "but what do you actually say?" And he says, "I don't want to roleplay it."
Okay, the mage player is clearly trying to get the statue to tell him how to proceed to the real tomb, and he's picked the right place to look - the statue. I decide at that point if the statue has any reason to try to conceal the switch from the mage.

3A) If not, then I say: "The Statue says 'Thank you for asking so nicely. I've been very lonely here and it's nice to hear a kind voice. I can't actually move. You should push the switch on my back'," or wherever the switch is. No roll required because, again, there's no trap to trigger and the statue has no reason not to help. It also doesn't matter if the player didn't want to role-play what he said, because I can still role-play the statue's response. The players push the switch and proceed.

3B) If the statue does have a reason to conceal the switch, I ask for a persuasion roll of some sort. With a success, I say something like "The statue says, 'stupid intruder, even shattering me won't trigger the switch on my back.'" (It's made of rock, it's not all that bright). The players find and press the switch without any further rolls required.

3B) If the persuasion roll fails, then I say "The Statue says, 'I am set to guard this tomb, you are an intruder. I will not tell you anything.'"

4) At this point the players are stymied, like they were in your example. If they sit around discussing what to do but don't come up with any new ideas there is no way I'm going to let them sit there for three hours of real time. Or even one hour. Role-playing time is precious, and the adventure can't proceed until they find the switch. I'm not going to let two flubbed rolls ruin our game.

After about 10 minutes with no declared actions I'd throw them a bone. "You've been sitting here for a while. Everyone make a perception roll." Chances are that someone will make a decent roll, especially if you have a group of twelve (that's a bigger group than I would run by choice). If by a stroke of bad luck no one makes a roll then I wait another 10 minutes and repeat. Eventually (probably sooner rather than later) someone will make a decent roll.

Whoever makes the roll gets, "You hear a faint moan and notice that there is a light breeze coming from underneath one of the sarcophagi. You see a narrow seam along the base that the breeze is coming through." Now the players know there is a secret door and where it is. They can then try to force the door open, look for a switch again and get a new set of search rolls (because they have new information), etc. They should soon be on their way.