Anomalies

The 200th comic by Subnormality! Take your time.

"We are looking for anomalies." This has become a staple of RPG-parlance, it basically means that the characters have a thorough look at their surroundings, trying to note everything that is peculiar, noteworthy or simply wrong, from secret compartments, a diary's pages stuffed under the carpet to a large blood spill on the ceiling. It is a way to cut to the chase if you are just tossing some guard shack, but it is a shortcut, and harms the feeling of immersion. This especially true if you are going for some period or genre feel, which in my opinion is based in large parts on the depiction of specific details: Size and make of furniture, age and disrepair of a room, traces of a personality and their role in the world etc. Of course, details take time, but the time taken to depict a search (even of some area that is not that important or special) helps to create a clearer image of a game world that exists apart from the group and the plot.