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

Aldarc said:

But the point is that you can method roleplay that your characters are cognizant of troll vulnerabilities. The idea that they must method roleplay from a (DM) predetermined position of ignorance or be accused of "cheating" is the point of contention.

Imagine that we were students in a college course and the class professor presumed that we should all be ignorant about a subject matter, no matter how obscure that they may regard it, and they subsequently penalized us for having and exercising prior knowledge of the material. Why should my choices be restricted to going through the motions of feigning ignorance (largely for the sake of the professor's ego) or be penalized for having acquired prior knowledge in my experiences? And yet this is the scenario that we are facing.

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I'm sure you were aware my response was largely tongue-and-cheek, but you make an interesting point. I will attempt to play devil's advocate here, but I'm not all convinced of this position. I think @Lanefan or @Maxperson might probably do a better job defending this.

In 5e, when one plays true to their character, one may be incentivised with an Inspiration Point. i.e. the penalty might be offset by a mechanical advantage that may be used in the fiction. I don't know if that is possible in earlier editions (3.x and earlier, including BECMI).

Practically (in play) after the first round of attacks and only after some have hit (this is important), the DM could/should give the players a chance to roll an Intelligence check to figure out something with regards to the beast's vulnerability or they could just Say Yes and provide the information since the gotcha moment of the puzzle has been passed.

Maxperson said:

The section talking about skilled play does not say anything about the players being able to use metagame knowledge. Further, he says this...

"As a role player, you become Falstaff the fighter. You know how strong, intelligent, wise, healthy, dexterous and, relatively speaking, how commanding a personality you have. Details as to your appearance your body proportions, and your history can be produced by you or the Dungeon Master. You act out the game as this character, staying within your "godgiven abilities", and as molded by your philosophical and moral ethics (called alignment). You interact with your fellow role players, not as Jim and Bob and Mary who work at the office together, but as Falstaff the fighter, Angore the cleric, and Filmar, the mistress of magic! The Dungeon Master will act the parts of "everyone else", and will present to you a variety of new characters to talk with, drink with, gamble with, adventure with, and often fight with! Each of you will become an artful thespian as time goes by - and you will acquire gold, magic items, and great renown as you become Falstaff the Invincible!"

The player knows that Falstaff has a 14 charisma, but explicitly, Falstaff does not.

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Two things.

1) If a player, at the time of character generation or session 0, says that he has an adventuring uncle in whose footsteps he's following, and that he was raised hearing stories of the uncle's exploits, how would you handle that? Would you allow such a character the option to know about a monster vulnerability? Would you require a check, but lower the DC compared to another character possibly knowing it?

What if D&D 5E actually addressed this specifically in the rules? They don't; it's left entirely up to the DM (and/or players, depending). But let's say that Session 0 resulted in a very loose sketch of each PC. They have a their Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws, and their Background, but no other details. The rest is to be filled in during the course of play.

Is it somehow better if this kind of fictional detail is decided ahead of time rather than during play? I think this is the actual question here. Or perhaps, is it somehow worse to decide such things during play rather than ahead of time?

I don't see why; there's no metagaming going on in the strict sense; there's no reason that characters cannot in any way know such a detail. It's perfectly plausible to have decided it ahead of time....with approval from the DM, of course. Which is delving into the Mother May I form of play.

2) Do players in your game ever act with a mind to their current HP and/or other resources? I mean, does the Fighter get more cautious when his HP get lower? Does he try to save his single use abilities like Second Wind and Action Surge for when they are truly needed?

Isn't this a case of Falstaff acting explicitly with the stats in mind? Shouldn't Falstaff act cautious toward every single attack directed at him because we all know that any attack could be lethal? Only by acting with the metaknowledge of HP and death saves and (except at low level) a whole process that ensures the character doesn't simply die outright from a gnoll hitting him in the head with a flail (!) does the character boldly wade into combat with no fear.

Which is fine.....I want Fighters to boldly wade into combat with no fear. I don't mind how HP and death saves and related mechanics work.

But, in this way, isn't metagaming happening in every game, and by every player? Everyone involved knows you're playing a game. It's meant to be played. Why pretend that's not happening?

There are very few instances of metagaming that I can think of that can't be justified in some fictional way after the fact just as easily as they could be before the fact. So the question really does boil down to what are the benefits and drawbacks to establishing fictional elements (such as character knowledge) ahead of play or during play.

Which I think is the interesting part of the discussion, and which relates to the Mother May I topic.

"Metagaming is always cheating" is clearly not true even across all editions of D&D, let alone when we start to include other games.

sd_jasper said:

No, but I do think they are related skills. Acting, improve, and even writing are similar to what I consider good roleplaying. They all require you to get "into the mind" of someone else. To make actions and statements seem natural even when they are not natural to you.

I, the player, am always aware that an RPG is just a game and that nothing that happens in that game really matters. But if I were to have my character act with knowledge that they were not real and the whole world was fiction, well I don't think that it would end up much fun for anyone.

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Sure. On acting / writing skill: it would need a system in which it is important; mechanically, procedurally, useful for the resolution

Dogs in the vineyard comes to mind.

Moreover, the seminal game (that also inspired DitV) Trollbabe, by Ron Edwards (circa y 2000), relies on player's description of 'failed' outcomes in the very moment of mechanical resolution (also incorporating bits, or lots, from Npc and the scene framed in advance for that conflict), in order to procede further; the Gm describes the successful ones, so Gm content authority and pc protagonism/protection, are preserved. Gm describes successes, Player failures; the fiction has changed, and eventually the Player describes if and how the Pc tries again to reach the stated goal for the conflict (putting forth unused resources from his character sheet), and rerolls... Rinse. Repeat.

This is just a single rule from Trollbabe game (of course there's more in it), but puts Player descriptions under the spotlight, after the roll, setting the changed situation with new fiction/content introducted, before continuing the game.

I run a Vampire mini game with it, cause I couldn't bear anymore the White Wolf original system. And Vampire is well known for his immersive type players, but when declaring pompose actions, the Gm was like: "Err... yeah, roll the dice first and then 'I' will describe the outcome".

Aldarc said:

So who gets to determine what "actions or activities their characters would have no knowledge of"? Does the GM get to determine that I have no prior knowledge about a town? Does the GM get to determine that I have no prior knowledge of basic math? Does the GM get to determine that I have no prior knowledge about a troll's weakness?

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In order:

1. Yes. Knowledge level regarding a town (a part of the setting) would be GM-determined in concert with looking at your character's background and history to see if you've ever been here before or have any other legitimate reason to know much about the place. (and if you don't have a background/history done up, dice are plan B)

2. Maybe. This one would largely depend on class, stats, and background. Any wizard, most clerics, and some rogues would reasonably have had some basic math training; as would almost anyone from a wealthy or merchant-based or trade-based background. But a simple farmer who has taken up fighter as an adventuring class? Nowhere near as likely, and a GM trying to play to medieval realism (where peasants got next to no formal education beyond what they were told in church) might enforce this.

3. Probably. The GM (and you-as-player if you've been in for the whole campaign) will know whether she's ever used trolls as foes before in that campaign. If no, then it comes down to how else might your PC know this; and most GMs would either give you a roll of some sort or give the collective party a roll to see if this useful nugget of info had ever crossed your transom (and - less likely but still relevant - whether you happen to remember it under stress!). But note that by 'give a roll' I also mean 'force a roll' if players start using knowledge their PCs might not have.

If the answer is 'yes,' then we are indeed engaging the sort of degenerate play that leads to Mother-May-I scenarios, because I am passively participating in a game where my character's knowledge and experiences requires permission from the DM. My own character's head space and history becomes a Schrödinger's Box of knowledge. Is knowledge of a troll's weakness there or not? My character's cognitive capacity is being determined entirely by the capricious dispensations of the DM. At this point, I would indeed be better off just letting the DM roleplay my character in my stead.

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That's taking it to the extreme, I think.

You're right in that we don't know everything our characters know. The question is how do we handle this lack of knowledge at the table, particularly when there's a clear advantage to having said knowledge (e.g. the troll example). My feeling is that the default should be that the character doesn't know something unless there's evidence that it does (which can be provided by a successful die roll). Never been to this town? Unless my background says I've been here before the best I can hope for is that a die roll tells me I've heard about the town from others, or from past study. And it's on me as player to be honest enough to make (or call for) these sort of rolls.

I personally think that there is a difference of categories between a player operating their PC with knowledge about what's behind Door #1 vs. Door #2 and a player who believes that it's reasonable that their player character knows that trolls are vulnerable to fire.

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Where I don't see all that much of a difference between these. Unless something informs to the contrary and says the PC has the knowledge you're still operating your PC with knowledge of troll-lore that it doesn't have.

Same can be true of the doors. Maybe your PC received divine guidance and knows going in that Door #1 is the killer and Door #2 is safe. But without this the PC is left to guess.

If you genuinely believe that your character is ignorant of a troll's vulnerablities then you are certainly free to roleplay your player character with ignorance (and die, as per Lanefan) while other players roleplay their characters with cognizance.

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That sounds like a roaring table argument just looking for a place to happen.

If one of the PCs legitimately knows about troll vulnerabilities then one would hope she'd tell the rest of us before we die. But if none of them know then none of them know, and it's on us as players to play accordingly even if it means running our PCs into a ditch.

hawkeyefan said:

Two things.

1) If a player, at the time of character generation or session 0, says that he has an adventuring uncle in whose footsteps he's following, and that he was raised hearing stories of the uncle's exploits, how would you handle that?

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First off, it wouldn't get to the point of a player just saying this. If a player wants to delve into their character's family history before puck drop that's fine, but it'd be handled the same way any other PC's family history is handled: you can choose basic stuff that doesn't give any potential advantages (e.g. you come from a long line of farmers or brewers or what-have-you), or you can randomly roll to see if there's anything more significant but you're stuck with whatever you roll even if it's something you could have chosen.

Would you allow such a character the option to know about a monster vulnerability? Would you require a check, but lower the DC compared to another character possibly knowing it?

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If the earlier rolls had come up saying there was another adventurer in the family I'd probably give an overall check to start with to determine just how much info was passed on, i.e. did your uncle tell you tales of adventure every night or did you almost never see him, and base any subsequent checks* on that.

* - including monster knowledge; and things like dungeoneering, survival skills, and so forth at low level until the PC would have learned for herself anyway.

(side note: the place I always run into player knowledge v character knowledge isn't trolls, it's vampires)

What if D&D 5E actually addressed this specifically in the rules? They don't; it's left entirely up to the DM (and/or players, depending). But let's say that Session 0 resulted in a very loose sketch of each PC. They have a their Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws, and their Background, but no other details. The rest is to be filled in during the course of play.

Is it somehow better if this kind of fictional detail is decided ahead of time rather than during play? I think this is the actual question here. Or perhaps, is it somehow worse to decide such things during play rather than ahead of time?

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Anything like this that could make a material difference in play is ideally sorted out ahead of time...but that's ideally, and doesn't reflect reality where people just want to get char-gen over with and drop the puck.

Plan B, and IME the more usual outcome, is to sort it out whenever it first comes up in play. The problem, of course, is that doing so can sometimes put a 15-minute hole in the session while we do it.

2) Do players in your game ever act with a mind to their current HP and/or other resources? I mean, does the Fighter get more cautious when his HP get lower? Does he try to save his single use abilities like Second Wind and Action Surge for when they are truly needed?

Isn't this a case of Falstaff acting explicitly with the stats in mind? Shouldn't Falstaff act cautious toward every single attack directed at him because we all know that any attack could be lethal? Only by acting with the metaknowledge of HP and death saves and (except at low level) a whole process that ensures the character doesn't simply die outright from a gnoll hitting him in the head with a flail (!) does the character boldly wade into combat with no fear.

Which is fine.....I want Fighters to boldly wade into combat with no fear. I don't mind how HP and death saves and related mechanics work.

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So do I, and any character always has a reasonably good idea of how badly she's hurt and-or fatigued. Players speak in numbers*, of course, but in the fiction I always translate it to using words to describe their situation. A fighter who just took a hit from 25 h.p. down to 10, for example, might yell in the fiction "Ow, that hit me hard! Not sure I can take another one of those! Medic!!!".

* - trying to get players to speak in in-fiction words rather than metagame numbers was once a crusade of mine, but eventually I kinda gave up.

But, in this way, isn't metagaming happening in every game, and by every player? Everyone involved knows you're playing a game. It's meant to be played. Why pretend that's not happening?

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Paradoxically enough, we have to pretend one thing (the game play) isn't happening in order to better pretend that something else (the fiction) is.

It really is doublethink sometimes.

There are very few instances of metagaming that I can think of that can't be justified in some fictional way after the fact just as easily as they could be before the fact. So the question really does boil down to what are the benefits and drawbacks to establishing fictional elements (such as character knowledge) ahead of play or during play.

Which I think is the interesting part of the discussion, and which relates to the Mother May I topic.

"Metagaming is always cheating" is clearly not true even across all editions of D&D, let alone when we start to include other games.

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While metagamed results can be often justified in the fiction after the fact, this is by no means preferable in the slightest - all you're doing there is damage control. Justifying it ahead of time (or even at the time, which happens occasionally) takes it out of metagame and pre-sets it in the fiction.

And a very easy example of unjustifiable metagaming: a PC scout is sent ahead to reconnoiter. The other PCs can't see her, can't hear her, and can't communicate with her. She runs afoul of a sentry and dies. The players at the table know she's dead but their characters don't...and so if they act on that player knowledge to do anything differently than had they known the scout survived the encounter with the sentry, that's metagaming that can't be retro-fitted.

Aldarc said:

But the point is that you can method roleplay that your characters are cognizant of troll vulnerabilities. The idea that they must method roleplay from a (DM) predetermined position of ignorance or be accused of "cheating" is the point of contention.

Imagine that we were students in a college course and the class professor presumed that we should all be ignorant about a subject matter, no matter how obscure that they may regard it, and they subsequently penalized us for having and exercising prior knowledge of the material. Why should my choices be restricted to going through the motions of feigning ignorance (largely for the sake of the professor's ego) or be penalized for having acquired prior knowledge in my experiences? And yet this is the scenario that we are facing.

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It isn't the only way to do things, but these are totally different examples. Your professor isn't playing a totally different game than a GM, and the GM is under the assumption that character knowledge and player knowledge are separate things (and while it isn't an assumption of every group or system) that divide is a widespread assumption in the hobby. No one is faulting you for knowing what hurts trolls. You are getting faulted for acting on that information as if your character knows what you know. I get there are different approaches here. Because I understand for some people the draw of the game is you, the player, solving the puzzle, not simulating a character solving the puzzle. Personally I favor the player being the one solving the puzzle. But I understand why people often have the expectation that you don't act on player knowledge your character doesnt have.

Lanefan said:

First off, it wouldn't get to the point of a player just saying this. If a player wants to delve into their character's family history before puck drop that's fine, but it'd be handled the same way any other PC's family history is handled: you can choose basic stuff that doesn't give any potential advantages (e.g. you come from a long line of farmers or brewers or what-have-you), or you can randomly roll to see if there's anything more significant but you're stuck with whatever you roll even if it's something you could have chosen.

If the earlier rolls had come up saying there was another adventurer in the family I'd probably give an overall check to start with to determine just how much info was passed on, i.e. did your uncle tell you tales of adventure every night or did you almost never see him, and base any subsequent checks* on that.

* - including monster knowledge; and things like dungeoneering, survival skills, and so forth at low level until the PC would have learned for herself anyway.

(side note: the place I always run into player knowledge v character knowledge isn't trolls, it's vampires)

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So when a player creates a character, they can't select something that has some kind of advantage? Like being of a noble family, so they start with more coin....that kind of thing. No one gets to do that? Because I think almost every character in my game has exactly that kind of thing going on....some kind of perk based on their background. These are baked into 5E but we also go a step or two beyond that.

Lanefan said:

Anything like this that could make a material difference in play is ideally sorted out ahead of time...but that's ideally, and doesn't reflect reality where people just want to get char-gen over with and drop the puck.

Plan B, and IME the more usual outcome, is to sort it out whenever it first comes up in play. The problem, of course, is that doing so can sometimes put a 15-minute hole in the session while we do it.

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But what makes it so okay to decide it ahead of time rather than later? Here is were I ask you the same question....how is this result different from the perspective of the player?

Lanefan said:

So do I, and any character always has a reasonably good idea of how badly she's hurt and-or fatigued. Players speak in numbers*, of course, but in the fiction I always translate it to using words to describe their situation. A fighter who just took a hit from 25 h.p. down to 10, for example, might yell in the fiction "Ow, that hit me hard! Not sure I can take another one of those! Medic!!!".

* - trying to get players to speak in in-fiction words rather than metagame numbers was once a crusade of mine, but eventually I kinda gave up.

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This is not my point....sure, people may know they're hurt. But no one would ever rush into a fight thinking "it'll be at least 10 or 12 hits before I'm down!" But Fighters do exactly that when they have full HP.

Metagaming is constantly happening in the game. Avoiding some while turning a blind eye to a whole lot more just seems odd. There are degrees, sure, and even I would say that some metagaming actions would be "bad", but no game is free of metagaming.

Lanefan said:

Paradoxically enough, we have to pretend one thing (the game play) isn't happening in order to better pretend that something else (the fiction) is.

It really is doublethink sometimes.

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I don't know what this means. As immersive as the game gets, I can't forget that I'm rolling dice and marking numbers on a character sheet.

Lanefan said:

While metagamed results can be often justified in the fiction after the fact, this is by no means preferable in the slightest - all you're doing there is damage control. Justifying it ahead of time (or even at the time, which happens occasionally) takes it out of metagame and pre-sets it in the fiction.

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Why is it only damage control? Tommy decides his fighter is following in the footsteps of his uncle, and that he's heard all kinds of stories about monsters and dungeons. Why does it matter if Tommy decides this in session 0 or session 4?

Lanefan said:

And a very easy example of unjustifiable metagaming: a PC scout is sent ahead to reconnoiter. The other PCs can't see her, can't hear her, and can't communicate with her. She runs afoul of a sentry and dies. The players at the table know she's dead but their characters don't...and so if they act on that player knowledge to do anything differently than had they known the scout survived the encounter with the sentry, that's metagaming that can't be retro-fitted.

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There are any number of ways to allow for this. Perhaps she screams before she dies? Perhaps she actually holds off long enough to shout a warning? Perhaps the cleric or wizard get a weird hunch? Perhaps she leaves signs that things are all okay up to this point, and the PCs reach a point where they expect the next sign but none is to be found?

But even if you don't want to go with anything like that.....wouldn't the lack of her return be enough to "justify" that the other PCs proceed with caution?

And even if you didn't want to do that....couldn't they just be cautious anyway? Do you make them proceed carelessly?

jonesy said:

they determine whether a certain, shall we say fine print, in a characters backstory is set up

<snip>

I was using an extreme example of a backstory fine print to try and illustrate why it's alway good for DM to go through the character backstories

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"Fine print" normally refers to elements of a contract that are concealed/obscured from a consumer party to the contract.

I'm not sure how you see this term applying in the case of a RPG.

If a player knows that trolls are vulnerable to fire, the GM can't direct the player not to know it: if a player knows something, s/he knows it. What's the "fine print"?

If a player purports to stipulate that NPC Z believes such-and-such and has such-and-such intentions, and the GM actually has control of Z in play, then the GM can stipulate whatever s/he wants about Z's beliefs and intentions. (The GM may or may not which to have some regard to what the player has stipulated, depending on the details of who introduced Z into the fiction and who is responsible in play for playing Z - as I discussed in my post not far upthread.) What's the "fine print"?

I'm not certain, but you seem to be suggesting that if a player writes into his/her PC's backstory I know what Z thinks, where Z is a NPC played by the GM, then the GM is obliged to tell stuff to the player about Z's thoughts. But 4e doesn't work like that. If a player wants to oblige the GM to provide that sort of information, then the player has to declare an appropriately-framed Knowledge check.

jonesy said:

A player writing in advance knowledge of enemy weakness into a characters backstory is fine if such a thing works within the particular world, but what if the world in question has no such knowledge?

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Again it's not clear to me what you have in mind.

I am asserting that if a player actually knows that standard D&D trolls are vulnerable to fire, and if a GM frames that player's PC into a confrontation with a standard D&D troll, then there is no rule in 4e that directs the player not to use his/her knowledge, nor any rule that permits the GM to decide what action declaration the player should make.

If a player wants to write something into his/her PC's background that would explain that knowledge about trolls, that's the player's prerogative.

jonesy said:

What if in this particular world knowledge of the weaknesses of trolls is secret, because no trolls have been seen or heard for hundreds or thousands of years? Where did the knowledge come from in such a case?

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That's up to the player and GM to decide.

But it also goes back to my principal point: if a GM wants to run a game in which XYZ is secret, but in fact the players in the game know XYZ, then something has gone wrong. Because - self-evidently - XYZ in that case is not secret!

Aldarc said:

I personally think that there is a difference of categories between a player operating their PC with knowledge about what's behind Door #1 vs. Door #2 and a player who believes that it's reasonable that their player character knows that trolls are vulnerable to fire.

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There are at least two differences here:

(1) It is generally considered that sneaking a peek at a module is cheating. Modules tend to say things like "If you're a player, don't read past this point." Whereas learning that trolls are vulnerable to fire is not cheating. It's part of learning to play the game well.

And related to this, re-playing a module you've already played isn't a core activity for D&D, and arguably it's not something the game is designed around. Whereas there is a clear intention that the Monster Manual is to be re-used from campaign to campaign.

(2) If it turns out that a player is re-playing a module, most of the time it is easy for that player to avoid deploying his/her knowledge of the module. Nothing will go wrong, for instance, if the player doesn't mention that there is treasure in such-and-such a chest. There may be some exceptions to this - eg the idea of replaying ToH yet remaining silent makes almost no sense. The "player" in that case would really be more like a co-GM playing a NPC.

Whereas a player who knows that trolls are vulnerable to fire, yet declines to use fire to fight some trolls his/her PC has encountered, is actively subverting the play of the game. S/he is not trying to win the combat, and is precluded even from taking the actions that a newbie player might take in that situation to try and win the combat. It's degenerate!

sd_jasper said:

if I were to have my character act with knowledge that they were not real and the whole world was fiction, well I don't think that it would end up much fun for anyone.

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But attacking trolls with fire is not a case of acting as if the situation is not real and the whole gameworld a fiction.

sd_jasper said:

Acting, improve, and even writing are similar to what I consider good roleplaying. They all require you to get "into the mind" of someone else. To make actions and statements seem natural even when they are not natural to you.

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If you know that trolls are vulnerable to fire, but are pretending that your PC does not, when does it become natural to try fire? Players who are actually ignorant of the trolls' vulnerability, but whose PCs are engaged in combat with trolls, will try various stuff to try and beat the trolls - including, pehaps, fire.

If you already know the puzzle, how do you work this out? Actors who portray characters solving puzzles to which the actors already know the answer are following a script, and contrive their response. But how is a player in a RPG supposed to do this?

pemerton said:

4e is a tightly-designed game. It doesn't assume that (1) the GM will use puzzles to which (2) the players know the answers but which (3) the players must pretend they don't know in the play of the game. Because that - to be frank - is terrible design!

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jonesy said:

This part I can't parse at all. I honestly don't know what you're saying here. The sentence structure is confusing.

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Numidius said:

It means 4e does not assume orwellian doublethink

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To elaborate on what Numidius said:

(A) 4e is a tightly-designed game. Therefore it lacks terrible design.

(B) Here is an example of terrible RPG design: the GM is encouraged to use puzzles, knowing that the players know the answers to those puzzles, but expecting that the players - when they play the game - will pretend that they don't know those answers.

Because 4e lacks terrible design, the example I've just spelled out is not part of 4e.