D&D 5E Player knowledge and Character knowledge

[iserith]

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.

Challenge and difficulty are, of course, different things. And those things are player-facing. The character is just the interface the player has for dealing with the challenge. I would also add that we don't always roll a die to determine success or failure. Player skill can remove uncertainty altogether such that no die roll is required. In fact, I would say that this is the ideal strategy and that, when the player has to roll a die, they've effectively failed at achieving automatic success via application of their skill in most cases.

 

[Hriston]

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.

The character is challenged within the fiction. Ideally, according to my preferences, the fictional challenge experienced by the character should be aligned with the game-challenge experienced by the player. That way the player gets to experience those fictional challenges through the character. It's when one or the other is absent that things get a little boring for me. In fact, I would argue that the challenge presented by the game is in facing the challenges faced by the character. A game-challenge that doesn't involve challenge to the character, but only to the player, such as how to separate player-knowledge from character-knowledge, is not an appropriate subject for a role-playing game. Likewise, when challenges are only faced by the character, as when a player makes all of a character's decisions by rolling dice, the game can become rather disinteresting.

 

[Guest 6801328]

The character is challenged within the fiction. Ideally, according to my preferences, the fictional challenge experienced by the character should be aligned with the game-challenge experienced by the player. That way the player gets to experience those fictional challenges through the character. It's when one or the other is absent that things get a little boring for me. In fact, I would argue that the challenge presented by the game is in facing the challenges faced by the character. A game-challenge that doesn't involve challenge to the character, but only to the player, such as how to separate player-knowledge from character-knowledge, is not an appropriate subject for a role-playing game. Likewise, when challenges are only faced by the character, as when a player makes all of a character's decisions by rolling dice, the game can become rather disinteresting.

I like RPGs the best when physical and mental challenges are handled the exact same way: the challenge to the player lies in two things:
1) Figuring out which resources to use (including coordinating with teammates)
2) Figuring out if and how he can narrate it in a compelling and interesting way. (If the answer is no, then don't bother. In that case just do step 1 and let the next player take his turn.)

So the character ends up facing the challenges with physical and mental skills (e.g. dice) but the player has given him/her the best chance of success, both through decisions previously made and the specific action chosen.

As I've said elsewhere, I'm really not a fan of "puzzles" (traps, riddles, you name it) that are essentially unrelated to the fiction. "You see a door. On it are three knobs, each with six symbols..." Blech. Whenever that happens I feel like I've been yanked out of the game and we're just a bunch of nerds sitting around a table solving paper puzzles. May as well just have us do Sudoku.

Puzzles in the sense that you find clues that you have to interpret can be fun, but they're best when they modify the outcome rather than determine it. I.e., if you figure out the clues you will discover a weakness of the BBEG, but with luck & skill you can beat him anyway. I put those kinds of puzzles into the "figuring out which resources to use" bucket: they become inputs into your decision-making.

 

[iserith]

The character is challenged within the fiction. Ideally, according to my preferences, the fictional challenge experienced by the character should be aligned with the game-challenge experienced by the player. That way the player gets to experience those fictional challenges through the character. It's when one or the other is absent that things get a little boring for me. In fact, I would argue that the challenge presented by the game is in facing the challenges faced by the character. A game-challenge that doesn't involve challenge to the character, but only to the player, such as how to separate player-knowledge from character-knowledge, is not an appropriate subject for a role-playing game. Likewise, when challenges are only faced by the character, as when a player makes all of a character's decisions by rolling dice, the game can become rather disinteresting.

Sure, here is a fictional challenge: Chuck Dagger the rogue is trying to sneak past the sleeping ogre. Chuck might succeed or fail here. In the fiction.

However, Chuck can't do squat without a player making decisions for him. The challenge is for the player to fictionally position the character in such a way as to maximize the chances for success. Chuck is never actually challenged - but Chuck's player is.

So when someone says something like "challenge the player vs. challenge the character," this makes no sense. The player is who is actually challenged and his or her performance (plus some dice perhaps) will determine a fictional outcome.

 

[Hriston]

Sure, here is a fictional challenge: Chuck Dagger the rogue is trying to sneak past the sleeping ogre. Chuck might succeed or fail here. In the fiction.

However, Chuck can't do squat without a player making decisions for him. The challenge is for the player to fictionally position the character in such a way as to maximize the chances for success. Chuck is never actually challenged - but Chuck's player is.

So when someone says something like "challenge the player vs. challenge the character," this makes no sense. The player is who is actually challenged and his or her performance (plus some dice perhaps) will determine a fictional outcome.

Yes, but what happens if Chuck's player (not Chuck) has been through this type of scenario before and has learned that male ogres, due to a trait created by severe inbreeding, are all deaf in their right ear? Now Chuck's player is faced with the challenge of whether to use this information to Chuck's benefit and have Chuck sneak past the ogre's right side (possibly gaining advantage for Chuck or avoiding a check entirely), or whether to refrain from metagaming and leave Chuck's fate up to chance.

Some of the posters on this thread seem to be saying this challenge, which is a challenge to Chuck's player alone and not to Chuck at all, since Chuck has no idea that his player has a chance to metagame, is the primary challenge of the game, i.e. how to faithfully portray the role of your character.

My feeling is that the above scenario represents a challenge for the DM, rather than for the player, and that the primary activity of the game should consist in interacting with the fiction, not in struggling to play the game correctly.

 

[iserith]

Yes, but what happens if Chuck's player (not Chuck) has been through this type of scenario before and has learned that male ogres, due to a trait created by severe inbreeding, are all deaf in their right ear? Now Chuck's player is faced with the challenge of whether to use this information to Chuck's benefit and have Chuck sneak past the ogre's right side (possibly gaining advantage for Chuck or avoiding a check entirely), or whether to refrain from metagaming and leave Chuck's fate up to chance.

Some of the posters on this thread seem to be saying this challenge, which is a challenge to Chuck's player alone and not to Chuck at all, since Chuck has no idea that his player has a chance to metagame, is the primary challenge of the game, i.e. how to faithfully portray the role of your character.

My feeling is that the above scenario represents a challenge for the DM, rather than for the player, and that the primary activity of the game should consist in interacting with the fiction, not in struggling to play the game correctly.

I would stop short of calling the dilemma (if you can even call it that) of using the player's knowledge of the ogre's deafness a challenge. Applying this knowledge is a way to reduce the difficulty of the challenge of sneaking past the sleeping ogre. I would say it's always fair game to use that knowledge and that it's easily justifiable in any number of ways, even if it is somehow established that Chuck has no knowledge of ogres.

Of course, the safer play would be to make an action declaration of "Chuck tries to recall what he knows about ogres in order to gain an edge in sneaking by this brute..." at which point the DM may or may not call for an Intelligence check. This would potentially allow the player to verify the assumption he or she is making about the deafness of ogres. Otherwise, the player is taking a risk that the DM didn't change the deafness on this ogre to the left side or something similar.

 

[RevelationMD]

Hi all, first post here (just finding these forums having had a 20 year D&D break lol)...

To the OP's question - I always used to play it that 'if my wife (who's never played any RPG in her life) knows it, my character would know it' when talking about starting characters knowledge. I realise that is probably a touch on the extreme side but it tends to work. The knowledge my wife has gleaned from hollywood, starting characters could glean from rumours. For example my wife knows 'some' relevant characteristics of Vampires from films she's watched - can't go out in daylight, stake through the heart, stuff like that. She also knows some terrible nonsense from watching newer vampire films (apparently they glitter in sunlight these days!). She also knows what an orc is from watching Lotr and for the same reasons has a good idea what an ogre is. She knows werewolves need to be killed by silver but isn't aware of any other type of lycanthropy. She also thinks that all dragons breathe fire.

These all seem like reasonable tidbits of incomplete knowledge a starting character might possess about the creatures that inhabit his world.

 

[Hriston]

I would stop short of calling the dilemma (if you can even call it that) of using the player's knowledge of the ogre's deafness a challenge.

I call it that because it has been suggested in this thread that the primary activity of the game, indeed that the entire game is composed of "making decisions as your character would" and, to that end, avoiding use of metagame knowledge. In this context, the use of metagame knowledge is to be avoided at all costs lest the game be played incorrectly or as a sham of actual play. The OP's question presumes this point of view to some extent, and others have expressed it directly.

I, myself, do not subscribe to this belief. I feel that this approach to the game makes a player-only challenge out of avoiding, or even rationalizing, use of such knowledge that runs contrary to the challenge faced by the character, that of sneaking past the ogre. From your response, it would appear you feel somewhat the same.

I'm not saying it's wrong to play that way, but I do object to the statements that have been made to the effect of it being the only way to play.

 

[iserith]

I'm not saying it's wrong to play that way, but I do object to the statements that have been made to the effect of it being the only way to play.

So should we all, in my view.

 

[Yardiff]

Hi all, first post here (just finding these forums having had a 20 year D&D break lol)...

To the OP's question - I always used to play it that 'if my wife (who's never played any RPG in her life) knows it, my character would know it' when talking about starting characters knowledge. I realise that is probably a touch on the extreme side but it tends to work. The knowledge my wife has gleaned from hollywood, starting characters could glean from rumours. For example my wife knows 'some' relevant characteristics of Vampires from films she's watched - can't go out in daylight, stake through the heart, stuff like that. She also knows some terrible nonsense from watching newer vampire films (apparently they glitter in sunlight these days!). She also knows what an orc is from watching Lotr and for the same reasons has a good idea what an ogre is. She knows werewolves need to be killed by silver but isn't aware of any other type of lycanthropy. She also thinks that all dragons breathe fire.

These all seem like reasonable tidbits of incomplete knowledge a starting character might possess about the creatures that inhabit his world.

I agree that common knowledge, subject of course to the GMs approval, is just that 'common'. I'm not talking about 'common' knowledge, I'm talking about knowledge of monsters that are considered more 'rare'. Personallty I nevered of a Lich before I started playing D&D way back when, but now I know alot about them, should my low level character have this info if asked?