So I was thinking about the ol’ “Everybody roll WIS versus Target to see if anyone notices that hidden and dangerous/helpful thing” and what a PITA it can be because of all the metagaming it engenders in the hapless PCs whether they pass their roll or not.
And it occurred to me that a perfectly valid GM thing to do (especially with my past dabblement in Fate Accellerated and how I tend to use Fate “Fractal” Style short form notes for monsters and NPCs and even Room notes) is to treat any such hidden things in a setting as an abstract collective entity… giving the Room’s Secrets themselves a simple roll vs Target on the GMs turn to “Avoid Passive Detection” by all PCs who are in a position to notice/detect it passively.
Granted, I am usually all about putting dice in players hands for lots of stuff. Not quite Dungeon World level, but maybe 75% of the way. Even so, the ol’ “check to see if anyone notices” schtick has just always rubbed me wrong.
Doing it this way seems like it would simplify information distribution, help prevent pointless bottlenecks, and speed up the action, while cutting down some degree of metagaming all those WIS checks. And course PCs can spend their turn searching the room anytime they want and have a shot at finding things as per usual.
Thoughts?