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

[pemerton]

It's when players start talking in-character about their late companion and how they need to go back to town and find a replacement when they don't and can't even know she's dead yet and she's not due to return for another hour or so...that's when the smackdown hammer comes out.

<snip>

I ask why are they suddenly moving now when they'd agreed to wait here for at least an hour for her to get back - are they intending to abandon her? And if the answer comes back "well, she's dead" then someone's probably about to get yelled at.

The GM policing action declarations in this way does seem to contain hints, at least, of "Mother may I".

it's probably not the end of the world, except that if Tommy does this once what's to stop him doing a similar thing - that his PC just happens to have the answer to a situation or puzzle or whatever - again, every time his PC is stuck but he-as-player knows the answer?

If the player knows the answer, how is the PC stuck? What's the point of putting puzzles in the game, but then not letting players who know the answer solve them?

It absolutely baffles me.

I think if I'm running a game in a world where troll fire regeneration is not widely known, I might require a Knowledge check - eg Nature - for a PC meeting trolls for the first time to have that info on hand.

But if the player knows (because an experienced player) yet fails the check, how do you handle that? That's the situation that to me seems unsatisfactory.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The GM policing action declarations in this way does seem to contain hints, at least, of "Mother may I".
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I would disagree with this. If the player is clearly meta gaming with out of character knowledge, while meta gaming that way is permitted in some kinds of campaigns, it is pretty standard in many games to draw a clear line and prevent it. Unless the GM is using this as an excuse to block all kinds of actions, and just limiting it to genuine places where meta game knowledge is being used, it doesn't strike me as mother may I (especially since the players are going to know in such a game that meta gaming is a line). Honestly I really don't understand why both sides are even debating this. Obviously some people like allowing meta game out of character knowledge stuff, some don't. Some are a place in between. It is something that even gets addressed in a lot of rulebooks. People play the game differently than one another. That shouldn't surprise anyone, and it shouldn't serve as a reason to feel better than other people.

 

[S'mon]

But if the player knows (because an experienced player) yet fails the check, how do you handle that? That's the situation that to me seems unsatisfactory.

"You can't act on information your PC does not know."

IME players accept the mediation of the dice, assuming the target number is at all reasonable. In a game with no knowledge skills one could roll vs INT, eg d20 roll under INT in Moldvay B/X.

Something like this came up once in my 4e game - a player (guarding the southern exit from Stonefang Pass) knew a traitorous (Zhent agent) NPC was lying to her, because player had seen some previous RP, so we rolled NPC Bluff vs PC Insight to see if the NPC could bluff his way past her. He rolled well and succeeded. The player was happy with this approach.

 

[Maxperson]

Seems like potentially a lot of effort to avoid an otherwise simple solution. I think that, as with many examples, you're assuming that the player continually does this kind of thing. He's constantly introducing new uncles that have various areas of expertise and who have imparted their knowledge on the character. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about one instance, and it was an instance related to the players being uninterested in the content of play, so they help move things along.

I suppose it would only be done for monsters with strengths or weaknesses, which is a lot of them. I have a hard time believing that they wouldn't be okay with trolls and bring in the uncle, but would be golems and not bring in some "reason" to know about golems.

That specific example aside, I don't have a problem if the dice are used to determine such things. Maybe the uncle is introduced to the fiction as a result of a successful dice roll. I think that's the kind of emergent play that many are advocating.

Why not have them create that background as you play? Why write anything down ahead of time?

I don't like this playstyle and my players don't like this playstyle. Those are pretty good reasons I think.

I genuinely mean that. I am not saying that writing a background is bad in and of itself, but rather that it has pros and cons. One of the cons seems to be it locks things in place, but the brief nature of such a background means that what's locked in place is limited.

It seems arbitrary to me to hold the players to that kind of limited detail. Again, nothing wrong with writing it down, but I think allowing for additions to their background is likely a good idea.

There are pros and cons to allowing them to create on the fly as well. It all depends on which way is best for you, and your way isn't best for me and my game.

The character would, whether at full HP or 1 HP, expect a flail strike to the head by a gnoll to be a lethal blow. However, when the fighter has full HP, he will be less concerned about any individual attack. Hence, he is acting on the game mechanics, or out of fiction knowledge.

Again, I don't have a problem with this. I just think it demonstrates that metagaming is present in every game, and is actually often very beneficial to play.

Well, this is your very specific take on HP. There are many ways to narrate HP and what they mean (and I don't want to add that topic to this debate as well), but this doesn't change the fact that the character with full HP will tend to act more decisively because he knows he's at less risk of dying.

The PC is not aware of hit points and knows he can die to a single hit, whether 1st level or 20th level. And if by "Well, this is your very specific take on HP," you mean RAW, then yes it is.

"Dungeon Masters describe hit point loss in different ways. When your current hit point total is half or more of your hit point maximum, you typically show no signs of injury. When you drop below half your hit point maximum, you show signs of wear, such as cuts and bruises. An attack that reduces you to 0 hit points strikes you directly, leaving a bleeding injury or other trauma, or it simply knocks you unconscious."

The first part about describing hit point loss in different ways simply means that I might describe a "hit" that leaves no mark due to the fighter still being over 50% as a close miss, while you might describe it as a ringing blow to the helm that doesn't penetrate. The context of the rest of the paragraph makes that clear with how it directs hit points to be used.

Sure. Whether that's a bad thing or not, and whether the DM can block it, is what we're talking about. Again, I know you're coming at this from a D&D perspective, but to insist that metagaming is always cheating is where I disagree.

I disagree as well, which is probably why I've said over and over again that in MY GAME it's cheating.

Okay. I personally find that such backgrounds are not "better". They may offer an advantage such as more starting money, or maybe an extra skill or language or something similar. But they also often come with related drawbacks....familial obligations, established enemies, expectations of behavior, and so on.

Fair enough. "Better" in the way I was using it was in the context of the money advantage you mentioned, but I can see where that would not be clear and could be read as better overall. Roleplaying wise, a noble can be as fun to play as an urchin, merchant, soldier or whatever, so there would be no "better" in that regard.

I wouldn't say it's an unfair advantage, especially since the players already have the knowledge. Rather, it's a way of reconciling that player/character knowledge discrepancy.

It is an unfair advantage. The creature's difficulty is based on those strengths and weaknesses being an actual challenge. If the players are using their knowledge such that they get to automatically know about the monsters' strengths and weaknesses, those monsters become weaker as challenges and I would have to cut down the XP value of them to compensate.

I have no problem if they know about it through reasonable in game means, though, such as pre-written backgrounds and skills, because those are limited and they will sometimes get the info they need, sometimes fail to get it, and sometimes partially get it. The game accounts for that sort of inconsistent knowledge via skills and such, so that would preserve the challenge value of monsters in general.

I get the distinction you're making, but I don't think it's an unfair advantage so much as having to commit to a background detail at the time of character creation knowing it may never be relevant is more of an unfair disadvantage. Isn't it cooler to have characters whose backgrounds matter? Isn't that better for play?

This is the kind of relevance that many are pointing toward. Sure, the DM can take a background element and incorporate it into the story...I do that all the time. But letting the player introduce it as it comes up ensures that it happens, and that it happens in a way the player would like to see. And it really shouldn't be a hindrance to the DM in any way....so I really don't see the issue.

So no, it's not more of an unfair disadvantage to have the player write a background in advance. The purpose of backgrounds is informational about the PC, not to gain mechanical advantages during game play. Sure, there will be the occasional mechanical advantage such as information about some sort of monster or other, but by and large the background is just fluff. Even when I bring in a portion of it, making that aspect of the background matter and being better for play, it will generally be fluff and carry no mechanical value at all. For example, a player in my game had his PC befriend a hermit. I might one day have that hermit one day track his PC down and ask him to help with some bandits that have taken up residence near the hermit's remote location, making it difficult for him to live.

 

[Bedrockgames]

"You can't act on information your PC does not know."

IME players accept the mediation of the dice, assuming the target number is at all reasonable. In a game with no knowledge skills one could roll vs INT, eg d20 roll under INT in Moldvay B/X.

Something like this came up once in my 4e game - a player (guarding the southern exit from Stonefang Pass) knew a traitorous (Zhent agent) NPC was lying to her, because player had seen some previous RP, so we rolled NPC Bluff vs PC Insight to see if the NPC could bluff his way past her. He rolled well and succeeded. The player was happy with this approach.

I am not particularly rigid about meta game stuff. But in one of my campaigns I have players who don't like it, and one of the players will raise it as an issue if someone uses out of character knowledge (and the other players seem on board with this approach). So I think it is also something that isn't even always a GM thing. If enough players seem to be bothered by people acting on out of character knowledge, unless it is particularly crucial to the campaign that out of character knowledge be admissible for some reason, I will generally go with it.

 

[sd_jasper]

Why is it metagame knowledge? If the PC recognises the creature as a troll, and knows that it is vulnerable to fire, then this is just the player playing his/her character

You seem to have misunderstood... the character does NOT recognize the creature. That's the point.

This is the alienation that I mentioned about in response to [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]: the method that you describe, which seems like a version of what Maxperson is also putting forward, requires the player to subordinate playing as one's character and pursuing the character's interests to what does my table regard as a sufficient basis for a character to recognise the vulnerability of a troll to fire. To me, the second thing seems quite unappealing, even insipid.

Insipid? Well excuse me for having Bad Wong Fun. Good day.

 

[Maxperson]

Preclusion does not equate to inclusion in any circumstance.

And yet you keep using preclusion as inclusion.

This is self-contradictory - they're not a puzzle, they're just something to work out so as to better succeed in the game!

It's not. A puzzle is a specific kind of information seeking game. Not everything you don't know and seek to find out is a puzzle.

Playing my character as ignorant of something that I, the player, am not ignorant of is a textbook example of alienation!

No it's not. A textbook example of alienation would also apply to me and my players, and yet there is no alienation at all. Your textbook has failed.

You played with Gygax and co?

I don't need to. I have his words explicitly stating that, as well as early play with multiple DMs who didn't play that way.

The only player posting in this thread who played D&D back in the mid-70s, as far as I know, is [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION]. What you are describing is not "the earluy days of D&D" - it's the sort of "world simulationist" style that emerged in the late 70s and which, at that time, would be especially associated with systems like RQ and C&S.

D&D has been going for about 45 years now. At this point the first 10-15 years would be early play, and I played during that period. I started in 1983, so not too long after those mid 70s.

The bottom line is that it's impossible to engage in "skilled play" when you're deliberately holding back from taking what you know to be the skilled decision.

This is just not true. You can be skilled in play, learning how best to go through the game world to minimize dangers. Searching for traps everywhere, learning where secret doors are more likely to be placed, and so on, without relying on metagame knowledge.

Adding to what Aldarc said: metagame thinking, according to the 4e DMG, is to make in-character decisions that treat the game as a game. This can also be called a form of "breaking the 4th wall". Imputing knowledge to my PC isn't doing this - it's simply a part of PC building.

Inputting knowledge to gain an unfair advantage over a monster is gaming the system, which is treating the game as a game. Even if you just seek to avoid having to "learn" something you as the player already know, that is also treating the game as a game.

Alternatively, from p 9 of the 4e PHB: "Through your character you can interact with the game world in any way you want."

That's just disingenuous. You know very well that you cannot have your character interact with the game world in "any way you want." My 1st level fighter in 4e cannot interact with the game world via the 15th level wizard power Bigby's Grasping Hands. Once you know that the statement "any way you want." is false, all that remains is to figure out the limitations. Clearly from the DMG quotes I've given, as well as preclusion not equating to inclusion, the player is limited by how the game explicitly tells him his character can interact with the world. If there is a hole in the game, a spot where there is not inclusion or preclusion, the DM has to make the call. It's not up to the player unless the DM has set up that playstyle and given the player that ability.

The text you quote from p 11 of the 4e DMG advises the GM, in some circumstances, to provide a player with information. It doesn't instruct the GM, either expressly or by implication, to regulate what a player decides his/her PC knows.

It is the only rule allowing such background information to yield information, so the DM is the only one explicitly allowed to do it. If you want to give the player the ability to do it as well, that's on you, but the game does not allow it any other way.

 

[Maxperson]

With respect, that does not seem very imaginative. Why could a successful check not notice the tell-tale sign on this particular creature that it is vulnerable to such-and-such?

Because it's rare for there to be visible sign of a strength or weakness. It's not as if they run around with words on their foreheads explaining things.

This is not new RPG tech. 4e does not preclude the use of Monster Knowledge checks against unique creatures.

Sure. If you are going to face the only Banderfratcher in existence, there more be lore on it. I'd give skill rolls to see if they might know about the creature. They couldn't just tell me that some previously unknown to me cousin of theirs once faced it and survived, telling them of all it's strengths and weaknesses, though.

 

[pemerton]

"You can't act on information your PC does not know."

IME players accept the mediation of the dice, assuming the target number is at all reasonable. In a game with no knowledge skills one could roll vs INT, eg d20 roll under INT in Moldvay B/X.

Something like this came up once in my 4e game - a player (guarding the southern exit from Stonefang Pass) knew a traitorous (Zhent agent) NPC was lying to her, because player had seen some previous RP, so we rolled NPC Bluff vs PC Insight to see if the NPC could bluff his way past her. He rolled well and succeeded. The player was happy with this approach.

I think lying has different dimensions, though - in the case you describe the player just has to let the NPC go past. (Iin a skill challenge framing, that could be treated as one of three failures.)

But in the troll case, if the player was in fact a newebie s/he could experiment with fire, etc however much s/he liked; but how does this work for the player who is not using the information? Roll a die each round to see if s/he thinks of using fire?

Putting it in more analytical terms: the player letting the NPC go past is barely action resolution (what action has the player declared?P). It's really the player acquiescing in the GM's framing of a scene (the NPC enters, having got past your guard) which is a potentially contentious framing because sometimes guards stop intruders.

But the troll case is action resolution to the max!

 

[S'mon]

But in the troll case, if the player was in fact a newebie s/he could experiment with fire, etc however much s/he liked; but how does this work for the player who is not using the information? Roll a die each round to see if s/he thinks of using fire?

Yeah I guess so - I'd probably first give everyone an INT (Nature) check, then if they all failed they'd have to wait until they saw it regenerating before I'd give a second check. I think this kind of thing would be player-GM negotiated, and normally I'd be happy with "OK, it's well known that trolls are vulnerable to fire" in any case where the result seemed to break immersion. I don't use a lot of 'trick' monsters and I can't recall anything much like this actually coming up.

I think the point is that the Gamist challenge of the trick monster causes difficulty for immersion when player knowledge and PC knowledge differ. I think the old school approach of assuming player knowledge = PC knowledge is not a bad solution and it's certainly one I'll typically accept.