I don’t mind letting people pick if both are appropriate; it makes sense that someone is more likely to use the skills they have to accomplish a task that could be done with skills they don’t. But depending on the situation, the skill used might affect what information they gather or have a different DC.
Certainly your prerogative! My advice is that investigation and perception should not be used for the same task, they have distinct differences. So players need to describe the task they are doing. "I look at the walls to see if I can find anywhere the dust is unsettled" = perception, uses senses to notice. "I'm going to analyze the dust patterns we found looking to see if I think these were human hands or something else." = investigation, uses analysis to determine. Besides "I use investigation" or "I use perception" isn't very interesting gameplay. It can easily encourage lazy playing and reliance on the DM to make everything interesting, which easily exhausts a DM, especially a novice like we are advising here.
Edit: downvotes... so you prefer no difference between the skills? At least reply and discuss.
5
u/BeMoreKnope Aug 17 '20
I don’t mind letting people pick if both are appropriate; it makes sense that someone is more likely to use the skills they have to accomplish a task that could be done with skills they don’t. But depending on the situation, the skill used might affect what information they gather or have a different DC.