How about "I fire a magic missile into the darkness!" levels of immaturity? It's a step up from fart noises I think.
Swarmkeeper
Hero
Wasting a spell slot is a good learning experience at our table. Players need to read their spell descriptions carefully.
Cherry-picking example: in “White Plume Mountain”, there is a puzzle involving a series of numbers, and which of those are prime numbers. I pondered the numbers for maybe a second, then stated the correct answer. My PC, a Folk Hero paladin, was unaware of prime numbers (and possibly fuzzy on multiplication tables). White Plume Mountain was written with the assumption of Pawn Stance, so I played accordingly. (See also, this exchange between Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford during the filming of Star Wars. Hamill notices a continuity issue, and wants to fix it; Ford responds gruffly with “Hey, kid, it ain’t that kinda movie.”)
When did that idea or value emerge? The idea that using my knowledge of prime numbers would be “bad form”? It wasn’t the guiding principle of that puzzle in White Plume Mountain.
D&D developed from putting a name to tokens on a miniatures battlefield: this is a Squad of Archers token, this is a Heroic Warrior token - hey, what if this Heroic Warrior was named Fritz? (Two rounds later: “They've killed Fritz! Those vermin!”) There’s a long, winding road from that level of characterization, to games such as Fiasco or Masks.
Thank you for naming that particular player motivation. We’ve discussed the player motivation of “I want an easy victory over earth elementals” as a reason for declaring that the barbarian buys scrolls. The motivation of *showing off lore* is different from power gaming, and therefore responses from the DM - and from fellow players - might differ accordingly. “Shut up, your PC doesn’t know that” might provoke an even worse outcome, when the motivation is impressing one’s fellow players. “I’m glad you enjoyed that book, but look around the table: do your fellow players want spoilers?” might be more effective. (That question cuts to the root of the problem, more directly than a discussion of who in the setting knows about the githyanki.)
As an aside, one of my less-favorite rules in 5E, is that the fireball cannot ignite the musketeer's keg if it's "worn or carried". Let's assume the musketeer has set the keg on the ground. THEN we can get the secondary explosion.
iserith
Magic Wordsmith
As I think I mentioned, I'd characterize some of your positions and preferences as being rooted in D&D 3.Xe and/or D&D 4e. I think you've mentioned playing those games before, so this makes perfect sense. My "style" is based on the game system. You would notice my "style" changes when I run and play D&D 4e. Just like it changes when I run and play Dungeon World. That's my point here: I don't have one "style" that applies to multiple games. I don't think that's a good idea. My "style" is derived from the rules of the specific game I'm playing.
If you are aware of my position and then misstate it, then a reasonable conclusion is that you are doing so purposefully. After all, we've been discussing this for over a month and I've mentioned it once or twice, as you say. Yet there you are, misstating my position. What's the appropriate response to someone who knows what you're saying and then chooses to misstate it?
Yes. Do you care that what you do is or isn't in the rules? If you do, why? If you don't, then good.
"Roleplaying" is defined in the D&D 5e rules. In that same section, it says the player determines how the character acts, thinks, and what it says. There is nothing in the game about it being "bad form to use knowledge your character would not have or use." That is something you got from another game or from your group's culture. At best, the section in the DMG on "metagame thinking" suggests you should think as your character might think so as to avoid dying needlessly or wasting valuable game time because of your bad assumptions. Any such prohibition on using "knowledge your character would not have" has to exist at the level of what the DMG calls "table rules," which vary by group.
Now, I'm pretty sure if we crack open a D&D 3.Xe PHB or DMG, it does support your position on this issue. So when playing that game without any table rules to the contrary, I'd play like you play. I can max out all my skill ranks in Knowledge skills and then ask to make checks to see if my subsequent action declarations will be seen as valid by the DM.
I agree, that would be pretty fun, which is why I suggested it.
Indeed. In your scenario of the players choosing “let’s invent muskets!” as a campaign objective, and a DM interested in running that campaign, I’d recommend the following as background reading to the DM:
(1) Twain’s “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court”. The protagonist succeeds - at some levels and to some extent, but not in all his goals. He’s got the hands-on experience, as a fire-arms factory foreman and he develops the in-setting time and resources to set up the necessary production chains.
(2) Piper’s “Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen”. Greater success, with different social commentary.
(3) Poul Anderson’s “The Man Who Came Early”, which demonstrates, as a counterpoint, ways in which such attempts could fail disastrously (with technologies other than gunpowder).
(4) Stephen Stirling’s “The Reformer” dives deep into many of the problems which one might face, along the way, including social (such as what happens when a jealous noble decides to thwart the upstart who's suddenly become so popular with the King).
Yes. THAT is the core of the play style which I consider unskilled and immature, now that you've handed me a low-hanging, easily-skewered version. Anyways, I agree with you, that this is a problem which is not best solved by the DM responding "Your PC doesn't know that".
Tony Vargas
Legend
The idea that any "player knowledge" (and I recall people spitting it out like a curse, that way, back in the day) would be bad form was already familiar when I was still the annoying youngest kid at the table, c1981 (probably was in '80, too, but I was playing with other annoying kids my own age, and we hadn't a clue what we were doing).
Prettymuch as soon as people started thinking of it as a Role Playing Game rather than "Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns Playable with Paper & Pencil & Miniature Figures." It was a 180 from the Gygaxian ideal of 'skilled play,' still apparently expected in the Tournaments of the day (of which I went to exactly one and found it awful, for the record), and quite popular with some groups, to this very day.
Of course, that was in one region, limited to the radius a kid's bicycle could reach.
Edit: Now that I think of it, the idea might have been broached in Out on a Limb, too, or in some TD editorial, around that time. Not at all certain.
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In 1981 or 1982, at age 14 or so, I started a group using "The Fantasy Trip", in which PCs allocate stats, then choose skills up to the limit of their INT. When I handed off the role of DM, I wrote a PC with lots of INT, so that my PC could have all the major lore-related skills, and thus I could *in character* reasonably draw on my extensive knowledge of the setting. I named that PC "Loremaster Chester", riffing off a character in the Niven and Barnes novel "Dream Park". Chester wasn't particularly effective in combat, with neither high STR/DEX, nor spellcasting to make good use of high INT. It just seemed narratively necessary, since I was the only player who'd read the setting book (such as it was) (not that the next DM actually drew much on that book for lore).
So yeah, sometime between 1974 and 1981, a schism had developed (or was developing?) between gamers who preferred solving prime number puzzles in Pawn Stance, and gamers who preferred actor stance.
Celebrim
Legend
It was a pretty early division. At the time, they wouldn't have used the terminology. They would have distinguished between games that described characters in terms of "what they can do" versus games that described characters in terms of "who they are". And very likely they would have described the problem with player knowledge as it being "unrealistic" because back then, everything that was a problem was perceived as a problem with a lack of "realism" and a game that enforced "realism" on the play and resolution was perceived as being the cure all for all problems - whether poor role-playing or table arguments or fun.
They probably had other terminology that I'm not familiar with, but there was definitely a schism between role-playing as played by the wargamers and role-playing as played by the thespians that developed early one.
Chaosmancer
Legend
You want to disprove my point, but you are actually proving it. White Plume Mountain is an old module, published in 1979 by TSR in an era where they expected player skill and knowledge to be highlighted and used. The same with The Tomb of Horrors, it is designed for the players to check everything and the characters are just the board pieces they are using to interact with the Tomb.
It has been forty years since then. The game has evolved, and this applies to trap design as much as it does to player interactions. We've been down the long, winding road, I don't understand why we what to pretend like modern DnD is the same as it used to be.
Yes, you should always be polite and understand when talking to other people.
At least face to face, it gets harder and harder to do that over the internet.
I've actually never played 3.5 beyond a single starter set adventure. Had the rulebooks and read them for a while, but no one ever wanted to play after that first game. We talked about playing, just never did.
Played 4e once and ran it once, and I've been playing 5e for years.
So, I guess I was just corrupted by the one game of 4e I played and it taught me all those 3.5 -isms that have rooted my games.
I'd hope you would understand that after reading pages and pages to catch up and then writing three to four pages worth of response on word to copy and paste back into ENworld that I might take the occasional shortcut in formulating a response. I mean, it is rather annoying to have to state things like "an intelligence check using Arcana Proficiency" instead of just saying "an Arcana check" and then having to remember to preface that with "a player will declare an action such as thinking back to their education as a wizard to recall the effect thunder magic has on earth elementals, then the DM will determine if there is a chance for success, a chance for failure, and a meaningful consequence for failure and then only after that might they call for a d20 to be rolled, which a player should try and avoid."
And doing that every single time UNLESS I WANT ALL CAPS FURY DIRECTED AT MISCHARACTERIZING YOUR POSITION.
It does get a little tedious after a month.
You know what, fine. Let me dust off that 3.5 PHB I buried.
Let us see here, pg 4 "The Core Mechanics: Whenever you attempt an action that has some chance of failure, you roll a twenty-sided die (d20). To determine if your character succeeds at a task (such as attacking a monster or using a skill), you do this:" It then lists out roll, add, check against DC and explains that meeting or beating the DC means you succeed and rolling below it means failing.
Maybe in this part on pg 5, What Characters Can Do "A character can try to do anything you can imagine, just as long as it fits the scene the DM describes. Depending on the situation your character might want to listen at a door, search an area, bargain with a shopkeeper, talk to an ally, jump across a pit, move, use an item, or attack an opponent. Characters accomplish tasks by making skill checks, ability checks, or attack rolls, using the core mechanic" This must be the rule you are looking for right? After all, it says character accomplish tasks and then give a list... though the first quote also says you only roll when there is a chance of failure. Hmm. I'll keep digging around.
The Player's Role? "As a player, you use this handbook to create and run a character. Your character is an adventurer, part of a team that regularly delves into dungeons and battles monsters. Play where everyone feels comfortable and there's a place to set ....[List of potential supplies]... and character sheets. The DM sets each scene and describes the action. It's your job to decide what your character is like, how he or she relates to the other adventurers, and act accordingly. You can play as... [another list, they loved listing different archetypes in this book]... With your character in mind, respond to each situation as it comes up. Sometimes combat is called for, but other situations might be solved through magic, negotiation, or judicious skill use."
Is this the rule that says players shouldn't use out of character knowledge in 3.5? It sounds like it, after all it is calling for players to play with their character in mind, to keep their character in mind when reacting. Of course, in 5e, there is an entire section of the book dedicated to player's backstories and personalities. So, while the rules never directly state you should keep your character in mind while responding to situations... it seems kind of heavily implied doesn't it? Your background and personality get their own chapter in 5e, while 3.5 they get a single paragraph each, with multiple pages written about the gods of greyhawk and the alignment system.
But, this isn't about personality, this is about using out-of-character knowledge. I doubt I'll find it in the races or classes section, so let us skip to skills. Surely if it is anywhere, it will be there right?
Well, what do you know, a whole sidebar about it. "It's pretty simple to measure a character's knowledge of things the player doesn't know. That's what a Knowledge skill check represents-for instance, the player of a character with many ranks in Knowledge (geography) isn't required to memorize all the geographical data about the campaign world to use his character's skill ranks. The opposite case, however, is harder to adjudicate cleanly. What happens when a player knows something that his or her character does not have any reason to know? For instance, while most veteran players know the black dragon breathes acid, it's entirely likely that most inexperienced characters don't know that fact. Generally speaking, it's impossible to separate completely your personal knowledge (also called player knowledge) from your character's knowledge. Ultimately, the decision on how (or if) to divide player knowledge from character knowledge must be made between the players and the DM. Some DMs encourage knowledgeable players to use their experience to help their character's succeed. Other prefer that characters display only the knowledge represented by their skill ranks and other game statistics. Most fall somewhere between those two extremes. If in doubt, ask your DM how he or she prefers to handle such situations. The Dungeon Master's Guide has more information on this topic."
So, I guess that is the final verdict. I was corrupted by the sidebar in the 3.5 PHB that said that is was up to the DM whether or not players should use out of character knowledge. Wait, no, I was probably lured in by homebrew table cultures of people in my area to think that using out of character knowledge was discouraged.
I mean, 3.5 said either way is fine, and 5e doesn't even talk about it at all except in that section where they talk to DMs about how they might want to handle this exact issue. The rules in these two games are just so entirely different, I'm shocked I got them so mixed up.
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