A GMing telling the players about the gameworld is not like real life

[pemerton]

I'd say it would depend on how the players approach it all as PCs. If they skip the town and head straight to the Caves then yeah, they're on their own and metagaming might become a problem.

However, I'd say they should have to interact with the town NPCs again, but that the interaction will take a different turn very quickly when an NPC says: "You're the second bunch of people been through here in just a few weeks intending to head out that way. No idea what became of the first lot; nobody's seen 'em since they left." It's on the DM to make sure this happens sooner rather than later.

That alone should inform the new PCs that a) there's other adventurers out there, be they alive or dead, and b) that they haven't returned red-flags the danger level, and c) that if the PCs don't already have a Ranger in the group they might want to recruit one to track the first adventuring group and see where it went.

And voila: metagaming issues largely headed off at the pass.

I've just above provided a fast-track means of achieving this end which is also perfectly plausible in the fiction.

I'm not so sure. All you are doing is creating a post hoc in-game justification for the metagaming (with big spoonful of self-delusion) rather than actually stopping the metagaming.

What Aldarc said! In the scenario desdribed the players are using out-of-game knowledge (eg their knowledge that this is the second set of PCs to tackle the Caves) and are declaring actions based on that (eg trying to trigger certain GM-narration-via-NPCs).

Wouldn't it just be quicker if the GM told the players As you travel to the Caves, you past peasant and tinkers travelling two and from the Keep. They all shake their heads when they see you, muttering about a similar group who headed off a fortnight earlier and never returned.

Or if the table cares about this sort of thing, the players could make something up.

Not every example of metagaming is bad.

<snip>

Perhaps in the context of D&D only you may claim that, but even then, it's just your opinion. I am very comfortable with certain types of metagaming in D&D.

<snip>

I think there are degrees that are allowed.

<snip>

So really, the question is "how much is allowed?" rather than "is any allowed?"

<snip>

There are plenty of ways to allow metagaming that are acceptable and which can enhance the game rather than take away from it.

D&D has its origins in wargaming.

When I replay a waragme, I'm expected to use the skill and information I acquired the first time I played it. That's how I get better.

When D&D was invented, players were expected to use the skill and information they acquired the first time the played. That was how players got better. That's part of what Gygax had in mind when he advocated "skilled play".

This is why early D&D is characterised by so much new content introduction (new monsters, new traps, etc), and sharing of these items among referees. Referees needed a constant supply of new puzzles to keep challenging their players.

(And the idea that this has anything in common with cheating at a module is ludicrous. The only person who has trouble distinguishing the two cases is [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION].)

The idea that a player who has skill would, in the course of playing the game, pretend not to have it, is one that post-dates the origins of D&D. It's certainly not the only way to play D&D, and frankly to me it seems rather degeneate - no one in this thread has even explained how it would work.

If the PC already has the knowledge because, for instance, the player has the knowledge and is acting on it, then obviously no check is required and the monster knowledge check rules do not apply.

If you house rule the bolded portion in, sure. The skill itself is intended to be used to determine PC knowledge when there is no in game reason for the PC to know the information

They are also devices for telling a knowledgeable player playing an ignorant character when the player knowledge may be used (success on the skill check) and when it may not (failure on said check).

The two of you are just making this up. I"ve quoted the rule. The rule says nothing about when a check is or isn't required: it explains how to adjudicate a check if one is made. Obviously if a player already knows, s/he won't seek to make the check; and there is nothing in the rule that suggests the GM is to use checks to gate players' use of their knowledge.

I don't know what the 5e rule for this stuff is, but frrankly it's laughable that you're trying to school me on 4e!

If you have to rationalize the knowledge, you've failed. There should be an appropriate reason for it.

"ra·tion·al·ize

verb
1.
attempt to explain or justify (one's own or another's behavior or attitude) with logical, plausible reasons, even if these are not true or appropriate."

And now you're trying to school me on logic and the English language?

Rationalise means to explain/justify with reasons. Even if those reason are not true. But also if those reasons are true but (eg) not self-evident.

In other words, even if isn't a synonym for when.

When I already know something as a player, but my character doesn't, I am indeed discovering what he knows via those activities I described. For me discovery is happening. For you, not so much.

This is incoherent. If you've deciding that your PC doesn't know about trolls, although you already do know about trolls, you're not discovering anything. Deciding isn't discoverying.

if my PC doesn't know about troll weaknesses, it's good roleplaying to portray that in character.

How does this even work? Do you just let your PC be killed by the trolls?

I wouldn't do anything at that moment. If the player metagames, that would be cheating, even if it saves the party. A win via cheating cheapens the game for all of my players as we are on the same page with regards to metagaming, so the player would be spoken to afterwards and given a first and final about cheating. What I wouldn't do is stop the declared action. It's not my job to to control the PCs.

This doesn't answer [MENTION=6972053]Numidius[/MENTION]'s question: what do you expect good play to look like in this sort of case.

 

[pemerton]

Well, assuming I am running a game where (1) there are trolls, (2) trolls and their weaknesses are not common knowledge to whatever civilization that the PCs are part of, and (3) the party hasn't previously run into trolls and learned all about them, then...

First, any PCs with the appropriate skill can roll to see if the recognize the troll. If they roll well, then I tell them they know what they are dealing with, what the weaknesses are, etc.

If they fail the skill roll, then I let them know they see "Large green humanoids" that they cannot identify. It is up to the PCs what happens next. I rarely ambush my players, so there is a good chance that if they are running into a new monster, they will have options to avoid or retreat. Maybe they decide to go back to town and research it. But, assuming they have somehow got themselves into a combat situation, then after a few rounds it will be clear that the creature they are battling has incredible regenerative capabilities. What happens then, again depends on the players. I would probably allow the players to say that they try to burn it, because trying fire is a pretty common thing no matter what the actual weakness might be. Or I might give a simple intelligence or perception check, that could give them some clue ("You notice that the creature is shying away from your torch even when it attacks"). Or they might just run away (again to try and research).

I asked about how it is meant to work if the players know about trolls but are expected to play ignorant PCs. Is that what you're explaining here? Or are you talking about ignorant players?

Also, I've bolded one bit which I don't understand: if the players declare that their PCs try and use fire against trolls, why do they need you as GM to allow this. At your table is the GM allowed to override/veto a player's action declaration for his/her PC?

 

[pemerton]

why this disconnect exists between the various posters

Differences of preference are not a disconnect. I'm not misunderstanding what [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] is posting.

[MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] perhaps doesn't understand some of my posts (and some others') because he seems not to appreciate the difference between a player move that obliges the GM to reveal some pre-established backstory (eg Bardic Legend Lore, a Commune spell, etc) and a player move that obliges the GM to author some new, immediately relevant, fiction (eg DW's Spout Lore move).

People are claiming I don't understand stuff, and in this case it's true.

First off, can we agree that the following two steps are valid

Step 1 - player-as-PC declares Spout Lore; or her Bard uses Legend Lore; or does whatever the system-in-use equivalent may be, if such exists; in order to gather some info
Step 2 - on success, the GM in response provides some new information centered around whatever it is the PC is inquiring about.

Are we good so far? Excellent.

I'm not good, for two reasons.

(1) In DW, a player doesn't declare Spout Lore (either -as-player or -as-PC, whatever exactly that means).

Here is the relevant rule (DW rulebook, p 18):

Moves are rules that tell you when they trigger and what effect they have. A move depends on a fictional action and always has some fictional effect.​

So players don't declare moves in DW. They describe what their PCs are doing in the fiction. And this can then trigger moves. For instance (as per p 66), Spout Lore is triggered if a player declares that his/her PC "consult [his/her] accumulated knowledge about something".

(2) In DW, the information provided is new to player and GM, and is authored by the GM based on a sense of current narrative trajectory: in particular, it should build on past GM moves as well as player intent (that is what makes it interestingand useful).

In D&D, the assumption is that the information is already established by the GM in advance of play. And if the GM find him-/herself having to ad lib, the assumption is that this will be done as much as possible as if it were an organic outgrowth of what is already recorded in the GM's notes.

why does it matter where that new information comes from or how it is generated?

For the same resaon that plagiarism is academic wrongdoing.

For the same reason that I enjoy playing mediocre guitar, but don't really enjoy listening to others play mediocre guitar.

For the same reason that people got to life drawing classes on weekends.

Creativity is a human talent , and creating things is a human pleasure. And for this reason (perhaps others too, but it's the one that I'm focusing on at the momennt), creating a fiction togehter with your friends is different from having one of them tell you a story.

ignoring the root source and looking only at the info gleaned, from the player's side what's the difference?

<snip>

From my perspective as a player, and ignoring anything the GM does other than the words she speaks, what difference can it possibly make to me whether the source of this info is the GM's notes or spur-of-the-moment improvising or something else?

There's no difference in the content of the fictionbetween the fiction generated in my last session of Traveller, and me writing a short story about some adventurers on a planet, some of whom get captured but then escape first by stealing a gun and then by stealing some powered armour from their captors.

But the different in play is pretty obvious.

The difference, at the table, between the GM telling me a story and the GM responding to my creative inputs is important. And, I can tell you from experience, is also obvious in play.

EDIT: I thought I'd add that another difference, besides creativity, is exciting. Learning what the GM has decided will happen to my PC is not as exciting as finding out with the GM what happens to my PC. And, as a GM, this excitement difference obtains in exactly the same way as for a player.

 

[sd_jasper]

I asked about how it is meant to work if the players know about trolls but are expected to play ignorant PCs. Is that what you're explaining here? Or are you talking about ignorant players?

Yes I was explaining a situation where the players would know about the monster but the PCs would not. But also in that situation, I wouldn't flat out say what the monster was. I'd describe it in somewhat ambiguous terms to give the players the impression of uncertainty.

Also, I've bolded one bit which I don't understand: if the players declare that their PCs try and use fire against trolls, why do they need you as GM to allow this. At your table is the GM allowed to override/veto a player's action declaration for his/her PC?

Okay, I feel we are drifting pretty quick here... So, in a hypothetical situation where a player tried to do something that I felt was based on player knowledge, I'd stop the action, ask them to explain how they character can justify that action, hash things out, then resume.

 

[Ovinomancer]

People are claiming I don't understand stuff, and in this case it's true.

First off, can we agree that the following two steps are valid

Step 1 - player-as-PC declares Spout Lore; or her Bard uses Legend Lore; or does whatever the system-in-use equivalent may be, if such exists; in order to gather some info
Step 2 - on success, the GM in response provides some new information centered around whatever it is the PC is inquiring about.

Are we good so far? Excellent.

Now here's what I don't understand: why does it matter where that new information comes from or how it is generated?

Put another way, ignoring the root source and looking only at the info gleaned, from the player's side what's the difference? (consider, say, an online-play context where you can't physically see the GM and thus have no way of knowing whether the new info comes from prepped notes or from spur-of-the-moment - how are you-as-player ever going to know the difference?)

Let's say I'm a player in a game, and we've just by whatever means found what we think might be the long-lost Statue of Adonis*. We're not sure if it's the real one, however, all we know is that the real one was made by the famous sculptor Agrippa Kimenestra and it's rumoured that some fake copies were made later. So someone uses an info-gathering ability (along the lines of Spout Lore, Legend Lore, a knowledge or artistry check, etc.) to try to determine who made this statue we've found. The ability/check succeeds and we learn that yes indeed this statue is an authentic Kimenestra work.

From my perspective as a player, and ignoring anything the GM does other than the words she speaks, what difference can it possibly make to me whether the source of this info is the GM's notes or spur-of-the-moment improvising or something else?

* - recovering the real statue could be a stated goal for a PC or a mission goal for a party or whatever - all that matters for this purpose is that for some reason we're looking for it. (or maybe we've stumbled onto it while doing something else entirely?)

This is a good question, Lan, I'll try to work through it.

I'll start a bit differently from the other responses: in your given example, there's no difference. Yup, I agree there's no difference in outcome and the source of information is largely irrelevant.

But.... (come on, you knew this was coming)...

There's still a big difference in how you get to the outcome, and to illustrate, I'm going to change a bit of your example. I'm going to say, "what happens if the check fails?"

In the Legend Lore case (yes, I know the spell cannot fail if the statue is the Statue, but you also referenced mechanics that can fail), if you fail, the statue still is the Statue of Adonis, you just can't tell right now.

In the Spout Lore case, if you fail the check, the GM gets to make a move against you. This may be to 'state an unwelcome truth' that this is NOT the Statue of Adonis. Or it may be that some other calamity looms because of the time you spent examining the Statute, possibly putting the Statue at risk of destruction. Or, some other bad thing.

The point here is that while success states may look very similar, the means to get there is pretty different and failure states look very, very different. In your Legend Lore case, the characters are risking nothing by making a check to tell if this is the Statue they seek -- failure just means knowledge is delayed. However, in the other case, failure can mean that this isn't the Statue after all, or that you think it is, but it's a fake, or that it is the Statue, but now it's at risk of destruction! The tension and story importance of the checks is wildly different.

Add onto this a few things others have said -- that knowledge that you're just getting more information that the GM decides is less thrilling for some (although it can be very thrilling for many others, as evidences by GM centered games being, by far, the dominate playstyle) vs knowledge that this roll will mean that the searching part of the Quest for the Statue has concluded and now we're moving onto the recovery part or it will mean that we must continue searching. The difference is in the import of the roll, and this is a very big difference. Outcomes may look the same, but how you got there, what you risked, is the crux, here.

 

[Manbearcat]

Before this gets away from us, here is the thing.

When you shout an ally’s hand back on, it’s important to understand that gorges are Shrodinger-ey, hit points aren’t meaty, Fire effects are flame-y, and misses and Wizards are damage-y and overpowered-ey respectively.

* 1275 posts and we’re somehow still roughly on target!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The DM can't, but there's certainly items in the game that can forcibly change one's alignment...and were a DM to force one of these onto a character it wouldn't be the first time I've seen it done.

(a long time ago a PC got a bit - well, quite a bit more than a bit - out of hand and was put on trial; on being found guilty part of the sentence was a forced alignment change)

True, there are a bunch of such items. Universally reviled by players and often panned as things that should probably not be used exception in some pretty specific situations. I guess old school classic D&D also is envisaging an environment where buying a 'remove curse' is not super hard (just expensive, haha, you got dinged!).

Is it, though? The descriptions of it I saw further upthread reminded me greatly of the Legend Lore ability of a D&D Bard.

Yeah, kinda. I mean, it somewhat depends on exactly what the situation is. There are certainly a bunch of times when 'Spout Lore' might simply deal with "do you know about X?" and that's pretty much 'Legend Lore' in a can. BUT it can go into other territory, like what if the DM starts telling you stuff about your character? That's definitely not out of bounds! Now, some of that stuff would be fine in D&D too, "you learn your great grandfather is a vampire!" or whatever. You learn YOU are a vampire! Eek! That's just a soft move in DW... (of course getting bit is just hard luck in D&D, so I wouldn't say DW is TOO much different from D&D, but Torchbearer OTOH is WAY different!).

 

[Maxperson]

I really can't speak to what you do or don't understand, Max. But I can state with confidence that Lanefan's posts, in general and in this specific instance, demonstrate that he filters his observations through a very particular scrim. And this specific post of his to which I responded demonstrates a conflation of two very different game design principles. If that isn't misunderstanding, I don't know what would be!

He didn't say it was exactly like the Legend Lore ability. He was saying that it is similar enough to still be in the "wheelhouse" of classic D&D, and it is. They are similar enough.
[MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] was also incorrect in his statement about the Bard ability Legend Lore/Bardic Knowledge. If a Bard in 3.5 used his Bardic knowledge to find out about an important place, it's purpose wasn't get at DM secrets. The DM probably doesn't even have secrets about most of the important places, items and people that the Bard could use the ability on. In all likelihood, the DM will have to make up something relevant and useful about that important thing, just like he describes Spout Lore as doing. The big(little) difference is that in D&D, the DM might have something written down ahead of time that is relevant and useful to tell the bard, so sometimes he won't have to improv it.

 

[Maxperson]

And Spout Lore is akin to making a Intellegence (knowledge) check, while Legend Lore hides this sort of agency to learn such knowledge (much like many other things in D&D) behind a spell.

He wasn't talking about the spell. He was talking about the Bard's knowledge class ability.

You mean after all these discussions where y'all repeat the same misunderstandings, errors, and baseless assumptions regarding basic points about other playstyles and how other games are played and we are forced to repeat ourselves in explaining the basics all over again even after y'all claim to get it? You may understand it, but hopefully you can appreciate how we are often led to believe that y'all don't.

You mean much like you, @Ovinomance, [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] and others continually misrepresent/misunderstand our playstyle? Calling it "Mother May I", "Railroading" and more, just because it's a DM facing style? I get what you mean.

 

[Maxperson]

Bluntly? Yes. The true mark of understanding a thing is the ability to advicate for it. I do not think you could fairly advocate for the play of, say, Dungeon World.

Change my mind.

There are people here I would make that effort for. You are not one of them, as you have repeatedly shown me that you are not interested in discussing things with me in good faith. You asked me to explain realism to you for the 6th or 7th time earlier in the thread. The reason I ignored is that you wouldn't have bothered with the explanation, and just come back with your stock, "Realism doesn't exist in D&D, it's just being internally consistent." If you want me to be willing to go out of my way for you, you're going to first have to show me that you are willing to discuss in good faith.