Greater Teleport: What is a reliable description?

[Guppy7]

During our last gaming session some questions about greater teleport came up. One player asserted this could mean greater teleport could teleport to a person by describing the place as "the place with X in it." and perhaps describing X in some detail. Would this work?

Greater teleport states you can teleport to a place of which you have a reliable description. What exactly does that mean? Does reliable simple mean it can contain no false information?

I guess my actual question is can greater teleport work by describing an aspect of a place or does the place have to be described in its entirety?

Assuming the descriptions below are correct which would actually work?

A complete but vague description:

"The temple of Omhetevenwie in Weetikveelwaar is made of black obsidian, each side has three pillars with arches and behind the altar is hangs the banner of Omhetevenwie"

or a more detailed description of a smaller area:

"There is an altar and behind it hangs a banner Omhetevenwie. On the artar is a ritual leetter opener, and the holy spoon of Omhetevenwie. The floor is made of tiled dark marble and the banner hangs over a black obsidian wall and is held up by glass lobsters"

or a very detailed description of a single aspect:

"Picture an altar made of dark granite, with an overlay of black glass on top. The four corners have been carved outwards as arms reaching to the floor. The front contains a mosaic in dark Jade, picturing the holy lobster. On the backside of the altar there is a small scratch as if someone took a chisel to the otherwise perfect piece."

Any suggestions?

[Archmage_Atrus]

Don't give yourself a headache trying to come up specifically what words you need to say to get a proper "description." In 18 years of gaming, I've never had to do this.

Generally speaking, if you've been there, you can teleport there with greater teleport or teleport, or if you've studied the area you can teleport there with regular teleport relatively more safely. If you haven't been there, it's up to the GM to tell you whether or not you can get a reliable enough description to greater teleport there (or at least attempt it). Usually reading a book like a travelogue has been enough in our games to get us to a particular city. (If you must have a specific example, think of what the description would be for a travelogue - specific enough to avoid vagueness but without meandering into lavish detail.)

That being said, I would never allow a player to teleport to a place where the only description is "where Charles is currently located." Because Charles isn't an aspect of the place. You actually have to have some description of the location itself before you teleport there.

Edit 1: Cleared up some wording issues.

Edit 2: The problem with your descriptions for me is you're not describing a place - except, arguably (maybe?) the first one - you're describing a thing inside of that place. I'm not sure I'd let either of the latter two fly, but I might give you the first "complete but vague" description, unless there's more than one such location in the world.

[Guppy7]

Archmage_Atrus wrote:

The problem with your descriptions for me is you're not describing a place - except, arguably (maybe?) the first one - you're describing a thing inside of that place. I'm not sure I'd let either of the latter two fly, but I might give you the first "complete but vague" description, unless there's more than one such location in the world.

That was exactly my intention with the descriptions. The second was meant to describe a small part of the place, though not necessarily a specific thing inside the place. The last one only describes the altar and the question sort of becomes "what is the difference between a place and a thing?".

Your travelogue example seems like a good guideline. Perhaps a reliable description is a description from somebody who has actually been there, in your case the author of the book.

The distinction between place and thing seems arbitrary though. Mobility may be a factor. Or maybe size?