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

[pemerton]

The party composition piece, though, is very easily explainable in the fiction: in-character someone looks at the group assembled in the tavern and says "OK, we've got two sneaky-types, a wizard, and me: a bard. Guys, I think we'd better recruit ourselves a healer and a front-line tank or two 'cause if we don't you just know those'll be exactly what we find we really need once crap gets real out there."

But that generates my next question: these PCs know enough about what "dungeoneering" is to understand what a proper "combined arms" force looks like; but are completely ignorant of trolls' vulnerability to fire.

They know that dungeons have traps that the "sneaky-types" might spot and disarm; they know that dungeons have monsters who will hurt them, thus generating a need for healing; but they don't know which of those monsters is vulnerable to what sort of damage the wizard might do.

That's a very arbitrary set of stipulations about "common knowledge".

 

[Bedrockgames]

But surely you can see that this begs the very question at issue: why would the character not know?

You are posting as if those who disagree with [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] are spinning nonsense out of whole cloth. But in my case I have the whole of the play tradition that I started with on my side: the rulebook told me to read it, so I did; articles in White Dwarf, by people like Lewis Pulsipher and Roger Musson, told me that a skilled player is aware of monster weaknesses and factors that into choices (eg use Charm Monster on a troll or an ochre jelly, because few monsters carry oil or torches); and nothing ever hinted that I was expected to play my character ignorant of these things that I learned as part of mastering the game.
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Pemerton I understand your preferred position on the issue. Like I said, I personally don't adhere to Maxperson's view. But your argument seems to be coming from a place of feigned ignorance. Because anyone with passing familiarity with the hobby has seen exactly what he is talking about. Your just nitpicking every other possible case of character knowledge until you can find logical cracks. But at most tables where this is a thing, you see people effortlessly make the distinctions he is making. Honestly, I'd say like 80 to 90s percent of the groups I've seen, draw the line Maxperson draws. It doesn't have to be a 100% air tight logical line to be a line. D&D is full of things that have all kinds of exceptions and cracks under a microscope. I'd say in the vast majority of games I've played in, the people at the table expected players not to act on information their character didn't have. How that was determined? Usually common sense consensus at the table (or just by the GM----in those kinds of campaigns the player asking "would my character know X" is pretty common). And I've played in a ton of campaigns with people from all over the globe. What Maxperson is describing is far from rare, not hard to understand and the scrutiny being applied to it makes zero sense to me.

 

[pemerton]

anyone with passing familiarity with the hobby has seen exactly what he is talking about.

I've been playing RPGs for over 30 years. The idea that players who know about trolls have to pretend not to know is something that I've never encountered in real life. I'd not come across it until I encountered it on ENworld.

Which I posted already upthread.

Your just nitpicking every other possible case of character knowledge until you can find logical cracks.

[MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] is the one who suggested that if a table is happy with not feigning ignorance about trolls, then they must also - by parity of logic - have no objections to someone cheating by reading ahead in the module.

And is the one who seemed to suggest that if a table is happy with not feigining ignorance about trolls, then they must also - by parity of logic - expect the GM to tell the players the weaknesses of monsters that they (the players) actually are ignorant of.

If you're going to go meta-, it would make more sense to go meta- about all the participants.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Hit points are for the player. The PC doesn't know what hit points are, or how many he has. So if the PC acts on knowledge the player has(hit points), and that the PC doesn't have(hit points), then that is metagaming.

I'm going to treat this as an honest response.

Hitpoints are not metagane, they are abstract. They are a way to summarize fir the player a huge wealth of in fiction information available to the character. As such, while the player knows how many hitpoints his character has left, the character knows how tired/bruised/motivated/blessed they are. The player says hitpoints but the character translates this into fictional terms.

Going back to [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION]'s fighter taking a hit from a gnoll because he has enough hitpoints. In fiction the fighter doesn't just stand there and take a clean hit, they make a risky move to feint past the gnoll, but overexert themselves a bit and now knows that next time they may not be fast enough. Or some other fiction. Doesn't matter, as the point is that hitpoints abstract the fighter's current fictional state, they don't metagame it.

If you are using a game mechanic (hitpoints) to make decisions within the scope of the game (combat and the resource management subgame), then you are just playing the game, not metagaming. Hitpoints aren't explicitly understood by the characters, sure, but the fiction that is abstracted into hitpoints for the players is.

 

[Numidius]

The planning isn't as important in our games as you might think. Upthread quite a ways I mentioned how I once prepped a demon invasion storyline. First session in, the players were like, "Demons!? Screw this. Let's go south, steal a ship and become pirates. So that's what they did. The demon story progressed without them. They heard about it mostly via rumors, but occasionally it affected them in minor ways directly, as it was a very large spanning plot, but beyond that it was entirely pirates. If they had in the middle of being pirates decided to take their booty, hire mercenaries and builders, and go to Chult to carve out a small kingdom, that's the direction the game would have gone and the pirates portion would be over.

My group has three of us who DM. I DM about 80% of the time, and the other two give me breaks sometimes by running the other 20% of the time. They run the game like I do. Nobody is required to take the story hook or follow a plot, and none of us gets bitter about it if the players don't want to engage. The players choose the direction that the game goes, and the DM preps along those lines.



Really? It's a fairly common saying.

The planning isn't as important in our games as you might think. Upthread quite a ways I mentioned how I once prepped a demon invasion storyline. First session in, the players were like, "Demons!? Screw this. Let's go south, steal a ship and become pirates. So that's what they did. The demon story progressed without them. They heard about it mostly via rumors, but occasionally it affected them in minor ways directly, as it was a very large spanning plot, but beyond that it was entirely pirates. If they had in the middle of being pirates decided to take their booty, hire mercenaries and builders, and go to Chult to carve out a small kingdom, that's the direction the game would have gone and the pirates portion would be over.

My group has three of us who DM. I DM about 80% of the time, and the other two give me breaks sometimes by running the other 20% of the time. They run the game like I do. Nobody is required to take the story hook or follow a plot, and none of us gets bitter about it if the players don't want to engage. The players choose the direction that the game goes, and the DM preps along those lines.



Really? It's a fairly common saying.

Having multiple Gms is so cool. I believe this single feature would have solved most of the problems and saved most of the tables I been playing at.

If I had prepped Demons, and Players wanted Pirates, I'd probably got very bitter

If you had to start a new campaign, would you discuss with Players the theme in advance, mindful of the Demon-Pirates episode, or would it be considered like an immersion-breaker? I know many players that would refuse to discuss themes, plots, goals, in advance with the Gm.

 

[Ovinomancer]

But that generates my next question: these PCs know enough about what "dungeoneering" is to understand what a proper "combined arms" force looks like; but are completely ignorant of trolls' vulnerability to fire.

They know that dungeons have traps that the "sneaky-types" might spot and disarm; they know that dungeons have monsters who will hurt them, thus generating a need for healing; but they don't know which of those monsters is vulnerable to what sort of damage the wizard might do.

That's a very arbitrary set of stipulations about "common knowledge".

Again, the distinction becomes a bit more obvious when you consider it from the GM notes side of things. Monster stats are part of GM notes and used by GMs, therefore they are part of those things that players shouldn't know until revealed by the GM. Set aside any in-fiction reasons, this is really the fundamental division of what's knowable and what isn't.

Characters can know of traps, and skills to find them and bypass them, but they cannot know the details of _this_ trap until such information isprovided by the GM.

Characters can know of the general existence of monsters, and train in ways to fight and kill them, but can't know of _this_ monster (a troll) and its abilities until such information is provided by the GM.

The gate here is what's in the GM's notes.

 

[pemerton]

The gate here is what's in the GM's notes.

The point is understood. It's generalisation to trolls still puzzles me, because (i) when I started playing the rulebook told me to read the monster chapter (so not secret), and (ii) whether or not I've read the book, once the monster's been encountered, it's continuing status as a "secret" in the GM's notes is a bit weird.

To me, it seems very clear that the reason why new monsters and new magic items and new traps - that is to say, new stuff for GM's lists - were such a big part of the game in the late 70s/early 80s was recisely to keep GMs suppplied with stuff that would be genuinely secret.

I can see that there's a tension between ever-growing lists and "living, breathing" world-building. But pretending that trolls are secret is still weird.

Presumably, in this style of play, the players also have to pretend to be ignorant of (say) details of the Forgotten Realms, even if they've read the campaign guide and/or played many campaigns in that setting before.

 

[Ovinomancer]

The point is understood. It's generalisation to trolls still puzzles me, because (i) when I started playing the rulebook told me to read the monster chapter (so not secret), and (ii) whether or not I've read the book, once the monster's been encountered, it's continuing status as a "secret" in the GM's notes is a bit weird.

I carefully didn't say "secret."

It does not matter what you, as player, know. If it is within the bounds of GM notes, then your character cannot know it until revealed by the GM. If you apply this lens, it resolves nicely.

And, I don't say this to be mean, just blunt. I very much thought this way until rather recently, so I'm just analyzing what I thought and what was taught to me by many groups. It's a valid way to play, as evidenced by the large number of people who do play this way (evidence: ENW). That I no longer care to play that way doesn't make it non-valid.

Consider how many people have tried more narrative games and bounced off because they prefer more GM control as players. Playing in a GM centered game is low emotional risk compared to many more player centered games where players must constantly abd voluntarily risk things they care about. It's not for everyone.

This is just a microcism of that larger divide.

To me, it seems very clear that the reason why new monsters and new magic items and new traps - that is to say, new stuff for GM's lists - were such a big part of the game in the late 70s/early 80s was recisely to keep GMs suppplied with stuff that would be genuinely secret.

I can see that there's a tension between ever-growing lists and "living, breathing" world-building. But pretending that trolls are secret is still weird.

Presumably, in this style of play, the players also have to pretend to be ignorant of (say) details of the Forgotten Realms, even if they've read the campaign guide and/or played many campaigns in that setting before.

Yep. Yep. And, IME, yep.

 

[Maxperson]

Then why do you think a RQ rulebook admonition against using real-world chemistry in playing one's PC equates to, or implies, an admonition against using one's knowledge of trollish vulnerabilities in playing one's PC?

Probably because that's what it said. The admonition was to play what the character knows, and that doesn't change just because you have one single example of real world knowledge. Especially given that the MM information is also knowledge gained in the real world, so it isn't any different in that regard than chemistry. You learn chemistry in the real world. You learn about the monsters in the MM in the real world. Knowledge of both of those things can be taken into the game world and used. Why would you think that one example of knowledge gained in the real world(chemistry) would be forbidden, but the other example of knowledge gained in the real world(MM info) isn't forbidden?

 

[Bedrockgames]

I've been playing RPGs for over 30 years. The idea that players who know about trolls have to pretend not to know is something that I've never encountered in real life. I'd not come across it until I encountered it on ENworld.

It is very, very, very common IRL.