D&D 5E Player knowledge and Character knowledge

[Sunseeker]

I used to make this same distinction, but I've come to realize it's nonsensical. A game is always a challenge to the player, provided there is the possibility of success and failure (however that's defined by the game).

So much this. The character is just the lens through which the challenges of the game are attempted.

However, there are problems. Mental challenges: puzzles, mazes, riddles, etc... are ONLY challenges for the player. Sure, you can roll a die to determine if your character realizes the answer like the player does. You could limit your answers or the amount of energy you put into arriving at an answer based on your character's mental stats, but at the end of the day: the character doesn't answer the riddle. The player does. Because mental challenges transverse the gamestate into the real world.

Conversely, physical challenges are ONLY challenges for the character. They don't exist, and can't exist IRL for the player to attempt with their own physical prowess. That boulder you need to move, that lock you need to pick, that cavern you need to jump, you can't attempt those with your own physical stats (most gamers probably wouldn't want to anyway).

So the player/character dichotomy exists within certain contexts. Understanding that it exists helps alleviate certain problems that are more/less severe based on the type of game you play. Not understanding them leads to punishing the group when people who don't have a high IRL IQ try to play a high INT character or any sort of combination of "player doesn't have, character has". It's one of my qualms with the hard role-play approach and likewise, limiting player/character knowledge.

When the DM presents you with a riddle, if you are a heavy role-player, you are going to attempt to solve that riddle with PLAYER intelligence. Because the heavy role-play approach would frown upon rolling a D20, adding your mods and asking the DM if your character got the right answer. Once the riddle has been presented, the player/character divide is destroyed, utterly. Your brain, whether you like it or not, will begin computing all the possible answers to the riddle based on any and all information it can access in your mind. You can direct this, focus this, limit this to some degree, but inevitably, your experience working on an internal combustion engine (which doesn't exist in the game), may help you solve the riddle.

If you understand the player/character dichotomy and know that when you present any mental challenge AND demand a role-play approach, you're going to have to acknowledge that you can't separate in and out of character knowledge, because the mental challenge is inherently a challenge for the real-life, living human being behind the curtain. Moving that boulder though just requires some feigned grunting and some bad acting. You can't act your way into the answer for a brain teaser.

 

[Maxperson]

There's it is again! In another thread Maxperson, another "One True Way" roleplayer, used that exact same phrase.

I've never said there was one true way. Please don't apply that tag to me again.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I've never said there was one true way. Please don't apply that tag to me again.

No, you didn't actually say it, but that's the inescapable conclusion of the views you express.

Well, ok, maybe it's not inescapable. Perhaps you are merely a "Many Untrue Ways" player. Maybe after all we eliminate all the ways that you say are badwrongfun, there is more than One Way remaining.

 

[iserith]

So much this. The character is just the lens through which the challenges of the game are attempted.

However, there are problems. Mental challenges: puzzles, mazes, riddles, etc... are ONLY challenges for the player. Sure, you can roll a die to determine if your character realizes the answer like the player does. You could limit your answers or the amount of energy you put into arriving at an answer based on your character's mental stats, but at the end of the day: the character doesn't answer the riddle. The player does. Because mental challenges transverse the gamestate into the real world.

Conversely, physical challenges are ONLY challenges for the character. They don't exist, and can't exist IRL for the player to attempt with their own physical prowess. That boulder you need to move, that lock you need to pick, that cavern you need to jump, you can't attempt those with your own physical stats (most gamers probably wouldn't want to anyway).

So the player/character dichotomy exists within certain contexts. Understanding that it exists helps alleviate certain problems that are more/less severe based on the type of game you play. Not understanding them leads to punishing the group when people who don't have a high IRL IQ try to play a high INT character or any sort of combination of "player doesn't have, character has". It's one of my qualms with the hard role-play approach and likewise, limiting player/character knowledge.

When the DM presents you with a riddle, if you are a heavy role-player, you are going to attempt to solve that riddle with PLAYER intelligence. Because the heavy role-play approach would frown upon rolling a D20, adding your mods and asking the DM if your character got the right answer. Once the riddle has been presented, the player/character divide is destroyed, utterly. Your brain, whether you like it or not, will begin computing all the possible answers to the riddle based on any and all information it can access in your mind. You can direct this, focus this, limit this to some degree, but inevitably, your experience working on an internal combustion engine (which doesn't exist in the game), may help you solve the riddle.

If you understand the player/character dichotomy and know that when you present any mental challenge AND demand a role-play approach, you're going to have to acknowledge that you can't separate in and out of character knowledge, because the mental challenge is inherently a challenge for the real-life, living human being behind the curtain. Moving that boulder though just requires some feigned grunting and some bad acting. You can't act your way into the answer for a brain teaser.

I would say that physical challenges are still a challenge to the player. The player is challenged to put the character in the best fictional position to overcome whatever the character is facing, leveraging its resources and the environment as best he or she can to mitigate the possibility of failure. The die roll, if there is one, just resolves any uncertainty.

 

[Maxperson]

No, you didn't actually say it, but that's the inescapable conclusion of the views you express.

No it isn't. It can't be since my views don't actually involve one true way and never have, nor have I so much as implied it here. If you come to that conclusion, it's the result of your (the specific you) tendency to assume waaaaaaaay too much about the people you engage with here. I see you do it all the time and not just in conversations with me. You should stop making assumptions and simply look with an open mind at what is being said to you.

Well, ok, maybe it's not inescapable. Perhaps you are merely a "Many Untrue Ways" player. Maybe after all we eliminate all the ways that you say are badwrongfun, there is more than One Way remaining.

Only if you ignore what I've said. I've explicitly said, "X is bad roleplay, but if you enjoy playing that way, good for you guys. Having fun is the most important thing." That's explicitly saying that your way is okay if you enjoy playing that way. It's a way to roleplay, even if the roleplay really isn't that good.

One true way must involve me saying my way is the only way. "Many untrue ways" must involve, you can't play that particular way. Neither of which have I ever said or even hinted at.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Oh, that's just ridiculous, Max. Nobody (well, again I stand corrected...maybe nobody but you) thinks that One-True-Wayism means that other ways literally don't exist. It means exactly what you are describing: that other ways are "bad" roleplaying.

Every interaction I've had on these forums with you has been some form of you saying that other people's ways of playing or interpreting the game are bad/incorrect/untenable/etc. There's never any acknowledgement that your version is simply your preference, it's always "correct".

 

[Maxperson]

Oh, that's just ridiculous, Max. Nobody (well, again I stand corrected...maybe nobody but you) thinks that One-True-Wayism means that other ways literally don't exist.

It means that the person thinks they shouldn't ever be used. His way is the only correct way. I haven't said that.

It means exactly what you are describing: that other ways are "bad" roleplaying.

So now an opinion is one true wayism? Wow. I guess we are all one true way people, including you. You've just reduced the claim of "one true way" to something so broad and useless that it might as well never be used. Well done.

Every interaction I've had on these forums with you has been some form of you saying that other people's ways of playing or interpreting the game are bad/incorrect/untenable/etc. There's never any acknowledgement that your version is simply your preference, it's always "correct".

I have explicitly said it a number if times. I'm not going to repeat myself in every post just because you have a bad memory and can't remember that I post from my view point and not as some sort of instruction to you to play my way. If you can't remember, that's on you.

 

[Sunseeker]

I would say that physical challenges are still a challenge to the player. The player is challenged to put the character in the best fictional position to overcome whatever the character is facing, leveraging its resources and the environment as best he or she can to mitigate the possibility of failure. The die roll, if there is one, just resolves any uncertainty.

True, but the player is still using resources wholly within the game. Brain teasers utilize wholly extra-game resources.

 

[iserith]

True, but the player is still using resources wholly within the game. Brain teasers utilize wholly extra-game resources.

I don't think the player is using resources wholly in the game. There is a mental challenge to approaching the problem. To that end, the game is always a challenge to the player, not to the character. The character can't be challenged because it is not real. That is why I object to the dichotomy.

 

[Sunseeker]

I don't think the player is using resources wholly in the game. There is a mental challenge to approaching the problem. To that end, the game is always a challenge to the player, not to the character. The character can't be challenged because it is not real. That is why I object to the dichotomy.

Sure, coming up with a physical solution still requires thinking about how to resolve the physical problem, but you don't actually physically interact with the problem, you still roll a die to determine success or failure. So I suppose the resources aren't wholly within the game.

I disagree that you can't challenge a character, you can by setting the appropriate DCs so that based on the roll of a D20 and their modifiers, success has a low probability. I think that sort of argument relies on how you define a challenge though. Is it a challenge to plug in the number-generating machine to the security keypad? No, not really. Is it a challenge for the number-generating machine to produce the correct pin in order to hack the keypad? Not really, since the number-generating machine (the character) doesn't inherently comprehend the concept of "challenge" (it can't, on which we agree). But is a more complex, alpha-numeric w/special characters password more difficult to generate? Sure. In that sense the character understands the difficulty of the situation and if we consider a challenge to be basically, nothing more than a less probable output, in that sense the character has been "challenged", just as the number generating machine has been challenged by a more complex password.

Does the character comprehend the "challenge"? No. Does the greater difficulty still exist? Yes.