How much do characters know about game mechanics?

[Alex319]

One question that comes up a lot in RPGs is how much characters know about things like levels, hit points, etc. Generally it is assumed that characters would not know about such topics. I will propose an argument that shows that characters would know much more about the underlying game mechanics than is commonly assumed.

My argument is based on the following premises:

1. The game world operates in a consistent manner.
2. Characters can make logical deductions based on their observations.
3. Characters have at least the minimal amount of information necessary to be effective.
4. Characters can communicate information to each other, and learn information from sources like study and training.

Consider the following example: encounter/daily powers in 4e. Would characters know about these powers, and know about their recharge limitations?

Certainly, characters must know what powers they have and know (in general, if not in exact details such as stats) what they do. Otherwise it is hard to see how they could be even minimally effective in combat if they didn't even know how their own powers worked. For example, if a character didn't know he had a particular encounter power, he wouldn't know to use that power at all, and would get no benefit out of it. (Or he might end up using the power without knowing it, but if he didn't know about it he would not be able to use any tactics to make the most of the power.)

Now when a character uses a power, he must observe its effects. Suppose a character didn't know that a particular power was encounter only, and tried to use it again in the same encounter. What happens? Whatever happens (whether he wastes his action, or whether he uses an at-will instead, or whatever) he must realize that the power didn't work as expected. Thus he would soon realize that the power only worked correctly the first time he used it in an encounter, and would soon deduce what was going on. (Note that this has nothing to do with the underlying mechanism behind the limitation. It only states that GIVEN that the limitation exists, characters should be able to figure out that it exists.)

By premise (1), this works consistently, so all fighters (and other characters with PC classes) in the game world would observe the same effects. Thus by premise (4), if the character had any sort of training beforehand, presumably this training would include how to use powers effectively, and the fact that the powers have use limitations would be part of that training. (Even if the character missed this part of the training he would still easily figure it out after a few encounters.)

---

A similar argument could apply to many different areas of game mechanics. Levels? Characters get certain powers at certain levels, so if they know what powers they are getting they know where they are in the progression. Enhancement bonuses on weapons? When crafting weapons, characters must know how much residuum they are using, and they can figure out from that that different amounts give different strength enchantments. (And presumably someone selling magic items would rate them according to their strength so customers would know what they are buying.)

[WanderingMonster]

I think your premise is valid. There would certainly be a whole lot of jargon and lingo within each class, such that a warlock and a paladin wouldn't be able to compare notes. Factor in race and region, and the waters are muddied considerably.

But if the universe had been operating consistently for ages upon ages, than these things can be overcome. It's a fun idea to think about!

[Morrus]

Originally Posted by Alex319

Now when a character uses a power, he must observe its effects. Suppose a character didn't know that a particular power was encounter only, and tried to use it again in the same encounter. What happens? Whatever happens (whether he wastes his action, or whether he uses an at-will instead, or whatever) he must realize that the power didn't work as expected. Thus he would soon realize that the power only worked correctly the first time he used it in an encounter, and would soon deduce what was going on. (Note that this has nothing to do with the underlying mechanism behind the limitation. It only states that GIVEN that the limitation exists, characters should be able to figure out that it exists.)

I disagree. D&D is fairly abstract (hp, movement rates and so forth) and there's an assumption that a LOT is going on not specifically outlined by mechanics. Every step he takes isn't described in detail; just that he moved from A to B. Every sword swing isn't described in detail. Movement doesn't stop and start in 6-second increments. not every terrain is equally easy to traverse, unless it's "difficult", in which case it's exactly twice as difficult. This is just an abstraction for us players to make it simple to play the game; but in a narrative sense, that's not what the character experiences.

From his POV, it's simply that on average he only gets opportunity to use that power once per fight. Sometimes he doesn't use it; so it's less than once per fight. It's not that he is suddenly incapable of the movement; the correct circumstances to use it didn't arise. D&D abstracts that to once per encounter, but just as we don't describe each foot placement during the character's walk, we don't describe the minuatia which encompass that situation.

I don't think that a cinematic abstraction equates to a simulationist representation. What happened - in narrative terms - isn't all that could happen; it's just what happened that time. The character is not aware of it.

[Leatherhead]

Originally Posted by Morrus

I disagree. D&D is fairly abstract (hp, movement rates and so forth) and there's an assumption that a LOT is going on not specifically outlined by mechanics.

And I shall disagree with you. The abstraction is merely for the players' benefit, so they know how to use the powers and compare them to others for the sake of balance and party roles. The characters need no abstractions to understand their world, because they already understand their world, or at least how they can interact with it and how the world interacts with them.

The character knows how to push, pull, make someone bleed, gain the attention of something, shoot a ball of fire from a wand, and all of the other things that they do. The characters would also know that trying to do said things all the time would not work for whatever reason, by virtue of experience and training. If the power needs to have an opening, gets blatantly obvious after the first time, that it drains their reserves of energy, or perhaps even some combination of those. A character would also know the relative potency of what they could do.

A character would understand how to riposte on an opening. A player would understand that the triggering attack receives a penalty, and they can make a melee basic attack as an Opportunity Action once per encounter.

[Alex319]

Originally Posted by Morrus

I disagree. D&D is fairly abstract (hp, movement rates and so forth) and there's an assumption that a LOT is going on not specifically outlined by mechanics.

This is irrelevant. The fact that there is a lot going on that is not specifically outlined by mechanics does not imply anything about the things that ARE specifically outlined by mechanics.

From his POV, it's simply that on average he only gets opportunity to use that power once per fight. Sometimes he doesn't use it; so it's less than once per fight. It's not that he is suddenly incapable of the movement; the correct circumstances to use it didn't arise. D&D abstracts that to once per encounter, but just as we don't describe each foot placement during the character's walk, we don't describe the minuatia which encompass that situation.

Can the character control when that opportunity arises?

If so, then why isn't he aware that he can only create the opportunity once per encounter? Why doesn't he realize what's going on when he tries again and it doesn't work?

If not, does that mean that characters have no control over when they use their encounter powers? So they can't use any standard tactics, like front-loading, setting up combos with teammates, using a burst power when the enemies are grouped together, etc?

I don't think that a cinematic abstraction equates to a simulationist representation. What happened - in narrative terms - isn't all that could happen; it's just what happened that time. The character is not aware of it.

That's true, but there are some things that couldn't have happened, like the same power being used more than once (without being recharged by some other effect).

[howandwhy99]

Character knowledge never includes knowledge of game mechanics. That's the key difference between roll playing and role playing.

However, character knowledge is absolutely an element of roleplaying. For Players, it is what they themselves learn while playing the game. The elements not abstracted by mechanics. For GMs it is the tracked information each NPC or any sort of general "knowledge holder" has, like a book for instance. Both can be tracked, but for the GM it's a requirement. At least if the world and people populating it are going to have any kind of dynamism to them.

[Christian]

Originally Posted by Alex319

Can the character control when that opportunity arises?

No. The player can, but not the character.

Originally Posted by Alex319

If not, does that mean that characters have no control over when they use their encounter powers? So they can't use any standard tactics, like front-loading, setting up combos with teammates, using a burst power when the enemies are grouped together, etc?

That's right. Only the players can use those tactics.

OK, that's too strong. I would probably alter my mental model based on the class & power source. A wizard or warlock may just need to rest five minutes before he can recharge her arcane batteries that power an encounter power, or six hours to recharge a daily power. But for nearly any martial power, I would definitely model it at the more abstract level.

[Gadget]

I just want to chime in and say Morrus has the right of it my book. He said everything I would have said only better.

[Woas]

None. The player does though and they dictate what the character does/feels. So a player would say, "I line up my laser scope on the target, right between the eyes of the target and squeeze the trigger." As the GM I'd say back to the player, "Awesome. Roll a Gun skill check! You get such and such bonus for taking time to aim, including other game mechanic examples too."
To the intangible character that exists in our imagination all he/she did was aim at a target with a gun and fire the same you or I would in the real world.

[Morrus]

Originally Posted by Leatherhead

And I shall disagree with you.

The characters need no abstractions to understand their world, because they already understand their world, or at least how they can interact with it and how the world interacts with them.

But in that case - does every character believe that everyone moves at the same basic speed? That the world is constructed of 5' squares? I mean, that is how his world works.

The abstraction is merely for the players' benefit, so they know how to use the powers and compare them to others for the sake of balance and party roles.

That's exactly what I said. The rules are an abstract simplification for the players; they only exist in the players' mind. The character does not perceive these things. He's not aware of rounds, initiative order, milestones, or anything else.

Or, to put it another way - the rules aren't gameworld physics that the character can understand. He's not aware of classes, levels, feats, etc. he just knows that he can do some thing well, and other things not so well.

If so, then why isn't he aware that he can only create the opportunity once per encounter? Why doesn't he realize what's going on when he tries again and it doesn't work?

He can't create the opportunity. The player can. 4E, in particular, puts a larger part of the storytelling in the hands of the players. The use of Action Points to insert a cinematic moment just when it's needed, for example. The character doesn't know he's just spent his one Action POint, and that he'll get another when he reaches a milestone, but that the total will go back down to one if he has an extended rest. He just knows that - for reasons of skill, luck, divine favour or whatever - he managed to do something cool.

Another way of looking at it - amongst all the to-ing and fro-ing and exchanges of sword blows, and dodging and weaving, the fighter tries all sorts of things. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they fail; they're not all repressented by die rolls (a ranger doesn't stand still like a statue for 6 seconds, strike out with both swords, stand still for 6 seconds, etc. - he's doing stuff all that time). So maybe that encounter power nearly got pulled off a half-dozen times; it's the one time the player gets to roll the attack roll that represents the time everything fell into place and gave him a decent shot at it.

[Barastrondo]

Originally Posted by Alex319

Can the character control when that opportunity arises?

From my reading of 4e, not as such, at least as far as the martial classes go. The player chooses when the opportunity arises. I would read it as something like this "on round 2, Faustina attempts to hamstring her opponent as part of her exchange of blows, and the player uses Hamstring" (I am making up powers here). Then, "on round 4, Faustina tries another shot at hamstringing her opponent as part of her exchange of blows, but the opportunity isn't there, and the player uses one of her at-wills to represent the blow that does have an opportunity." It's an approach that jives with the old, old idea that a combat round would involve a number of feints, parries, inaccurate strikes, but that you don't roll separately for each. The attack roll represents the culmination of the round.

Of course, a lot of mechanics in 4e are designed to represent genre conventions, rather than simulate a reality. Minions are a good example, but let's also take the idea of swarm mechanics. Consider the difference between statting out a swarm as a single entity and statting out each individual creature within it. From any realistic standpoint, a swarm of bees or a platoon of soldiers wouldn't be observed by the characters as singular entities, but collections of individuals. But mechanically, they work as one enemy because it's elegant gaming. The mechanics represent rather than simulate — or rather, they might simulate reality, but more often they simulate the dramatic conventions of romantic fantasy. (And I really want to try the "stat out an enemy platoon as a very large swarm" trick sometime; that would be a fantastic way for epic characters to stand against armies that challenge them as a whole even as individual soldiers wouldn't.)

It gets even more interesting when you look at how skill challenges can be constructed to simulate things that would often require more complicated subsystems. A skill challenge like "outrun the orc army, slaying their advance scouts as you go" is entirely feasible. However, the slaying of scouts can be handled with a simple skill check rather than full-fledged combat in this particular instance.

And of course, there's the whole "reskinning" practice, in which you can take the statistics of one monster and modify them to represent a different one; using an oni stat block for a rakshasa, for instance. Since monsters are statted out according to their role rather than an attempt at consistent biology, reskinning works very well.

Your first premise, that the world operates in a consistent manner, is not quite the same thing as saying that the world will always operate under the same rules. It seems to me perfectly feasible that the characters will see one layer of consistency, in which an angry mob is a number of individual people all swept along, while the players see the rules interface of "swarm" or "skill challenge," and react accordingly. I think in order for characters to be able to carefully deduce most of the rules of the world, they would need a system that doesn't try for elegance (a design goal that always requires some sort of compromise on "accuracy"), and that stays far away from simulating dramatic conventions. 4e is really not that game.


Edit: Okay, thought of another example. Spirit of the Century has a power called "Master of Disguise." When the player activates this power, the character leaves the scene. At any point in a later scene, the player can call in a fate point to nominate any unnamed character standing around — a random mook, a reporter in the crowd, the royal executioner — and said character whips off the disguise, and the player character is standing there. From the point of view of the rules, the player character is removing an NPC and replacing them. From the point of view of the characters, though, "Good Lord, it was Agent Ace all along!" Spirit of the Century is that kind of game. It uses the rules to simulate dramatic conventions and the feel of a pulp novel. 4e is kind of in that vein.

(I love that power so much.)

[Doug McCrae]

Characters in rpgs don't realise their lives are governed by a 300 page rulebook for the same reason characters in fiction don't realise that they are governed by rules of story and genre. They are genre blind.

[Crothian]

Only in comical games.

[Bumbles]

Originally Posted by Doug McCrae

Characters in rpgs don't realise their lives are governed by a 300 page rulebook for the same reason characters in fiction don't realise that they are governed by rules of story and genre. They are genre blind.

Unless they're She-Hulk or Deadpool.

As for the OP's original question, I suggest an extensive reading of Knights of the Dinner Table and the Order of the Stick. This subject has been covered in both of them.

Tip: do not ask new players who are RPing their characters to hit you with a stick to find out what level they are.

[howandwhy99]

Originally Posted by Barastrondo

It seems to me perfectly feasible that the characters will see one layer of consistency, in which an angry mob is a number of individual people all swept along, while the players see the rules interface of "swarm" or "skill challenge," and react accordingly. I think in order for characters to be able to carefully deduce most of the rules of the world, they would need a system that doesn't try for elegance (a design goal that always requires some sort of compromise on "accuracy"), and that stays far away from simulating dramatic conventions. 4e is really not that game.

The elegance versus accuracy trade off is probably better named abstraction versus roleplay. The degree to which the characters interact with the world in the same way their players do, are acted out in that world by the players, is the same degree of roleplaying happening in the game. The more or less one must act out their role in the game, the more or less one is roleplaying in that game. The choice is: what elements do we want to roleplay, and which do we want to abstract (or must abstract as in magic). 4e, as you point out, is really more of an abstraction game than D&D was previously.

[Fallen Seraph]

Morrus has seemed it up basically everything I would have said. To put it simply for me I always have viewed it as:

• Mechanics = Out-of-Game/Setting
• Narration = In-Game/Setting

The mechanics are just abstractions to help the Players and DM control the game, emphasis on "game". The rules are what is the game part, the narration is what happens to make it a narrative, a story, a roleplaying experience.

[Leatherhead]

Originally Posted by Morrus

But in that case - does every character believe that everyone moves at the same basic speed? That the world is constructed of 5' squares? I mean, that is how his world works.

I don't see how this is a problem?

Firstly, I would like to point out the average human walking speed is about 4 mph. In the game world not everyone moves at the same base speed (different races you know), and the abstract nature of the square, especially when moving diagonally, easily allows for variations with peoples gait.

Secondly, we divide up the world into latitude and longitude for mapping purposes. We do not often see the grid, but we know it is there. Even without the grid, people use relative distances. We measure distances the world we live in with feet, meters, city blocks, football fields, and other such things. People with weapons training know about how far they can shoot, I don't see it as much of a stretch to believe that characters understand distance.

That's exactly what I said. The rules are an abstract simplification for the players; they only exist in the players' mind. The character does not perceive these things. He's not aware of rounds, initiative order, milestones, or anything else.

Or, to put it another way - the rules aren't gameworld physics that the character can understand. He's not aware of classes, levels, feats, etc. he just knows that he can do some thing well, and other things not so well.

I am not sure if I am being clear enough. The character understands the physics of the world, but the player has to use the rules to interpret them. Or perhaps: The rules are there so that the player can understand what the character knows. I suppose what I am saying is that the characters know more about the game world than the players do.

[Umbran]

Originally Posted by Leatherhead

I don't see how this is a problem?

Firstly, I would like to point out the average human walking speed is about 4 mph. In the game world not everyone moves at the same base speed (different races you know), and the abstract nature of the square, especially when moving diagonally, easily allows for variations with peoples gait.

Actually, given the diagonal rules for D&D, having the world be chunked up into squares has some funny effects on geometry: a circle 10 feet across has an area of 100 square feet! (In our world it is about 78 square feet). Bascially, the characters would live in a spacetime that is rather strongly curved, where we live in one that is largely flat.

This starts to get ugly when the DM normally sets his grids up along the cardinal North-South, East-West axes, and then every once in a while does not. If characters notice the change in movement along the diagonals... theological issues could erupt over such areas that are so clearly warped.

I think the whole issue isn't a right/wrong, agree/disagree thing. It is a style choice - you can use the rules as the physics of the game world, or you can use the rules as an abstraction for the players. It is a choice, not a truism one way or the other.

I personally prefer the abstraction.

[Hairfoot]

Originally Posted by WanderingMonster

There would certainly be a whole lot of jargon and lingo within each class, such that a warlock and a paladin wouldn't be able to compare notes.

I think that's true, to an extent. Traditionally, D&D wizards are fantasy scientists, with a deep, structured understanding of thaumaturgy. That's gone with 4E, of course, in which all magic is equal.

However, the abilities of other classes are assumed to be spontaneous or internalised through practice, so I think that a cleric, a paladin and a fighter would have a lot to talk about, though not in theoretical terms.

Regarding the abstraction of rules, more rules means more PCs engaging in de facto metagaming as their players seek the most advantage.

[Slife]

Game mechanics are how the world acts when the player characters are around.

That said, a certain cleric of Boccob did some experimentation with how many applications of cure minor wounds were necessary to recover people from the brink of unconsciousness. He published his results to little fanfare.

Now there's a mercenary company advertising they can take 20% more wounds than their competition without losing fighting strength.

Across the street, there's a mercenary company advertising that their mercenaries require a sixth less healing to get back to full combat potential.