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

[Maxperson]

[MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] and [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION]

A party has already encountered The Ranger's favored enemy (say dragons?) so many times that every Pc at the table knows every single stat, power, weakness, full stat block of dragons.
Then They encounter a dragon that is identical to a statted one in the MM, so nothing new at all.

Would the above Commune druid' spell and ranger's ability still be useful to overcome the dragon encounter, or are by now redundant and useless?

The information portion at that point would be redundant and useless, unless it is being used in a creative way. For example, the Ranger in question(as well as the party) would know about the strength and weaknesses, but may not know the hunting habits of each dragon type, and perhaps they want to set up a trap for the dragon. The Ranger's ability would still be very useful for those creative uses that lie outside of the stat block.

 

[iserith]

Sure, but that's metagaming.

Those two actions are not necessarily dependent upon each other.

I disagree. It's very clearly an experienced player trying to "find out" if it's a gargoyle monster without saying that his PC knows about gargoyles.

Whether the player is or isn't experienced doesn't matter. As above, not noticing anything peculiar about the statue and hitting it with an adamantine blade are not necessarily dependent upon one another.

This is just not the case. The rule is explicitly about remembering information about them. It is NOT about verifying what the PC already remembers. If the player decides that his PC has the knowledge, he is breaking that rule. If breaking rules is now "skillful play," then next session I'm going to have to let the DM know that I'm not stopping with two attacks, and instead I am going to engage in "skillful play" by attacking until the monster is dead.

An attempt to recall lore can be, in effect, trying to verify an assumption you may have about trolls or gargoyles. It's smart play, so that you don't run afoul of bad assumptions. If you fail to recall that lore, you can still attack the troll with fire or the statue with adamantine. Those actions can be performed independent of needing to recall the weaknesses of trolls or gargoyles. There is no rule being broken here.

Alternatively, a player may know nothing at all about trolls or gargoyles and attempt to recall lore about them. Whether he or she succeeds or fails at recalling that lore, attacking the troll with fire or the statue with adamantine is still fine.

 

[Maxperson]

One can also note, for example, that although you may say that there are no rules allowing players to make up backgrounds on the fly there are also no rules that prohibit it.

This utterly failed argument again? Really?! Once again, no preclusion does not mean inclusion. There is also no rule prohibiting my PC's longsword from now detonating a nuclear blast destroying a 2 mile radius around him with each hit. There is a rule stating that if you roll a 1 on the d20 for an attack, you automatically miss, but no rule that prohibits the normal longsword from casting hold person whenever that happens.

If something is not explicitly included or precluded in the rules, it can only happen in the game if the DM agrees to allow it to happen. Players do no get to invent rules for the game without the DM giving them that ability.

Normally there freedom exists within the spaces where rules are silent rather than restrictions.

Quote me the rule that explicitly allows players the freedom to invent things for the game in those silent spaces.

3) Perhaps most damningly, your post, most especially the first sentence, is a glaring admission that you operate by Dungeon Mother-May-I when it comes to character knowledge. The DM decides = The Mother decides when it comes to giving the other participants permissions in play.

Only if you are incapable of understanding that asking some questions and getting some answers is not "Mother May I." If you do have a failed understanding of what "Mother May I" is, then sure you could see it as that.

 

[Maxperson]

Alternatively, a player may know nothing at all about trolls or gargoyles and attempt to recall lore about them. Whether he or she succeeds or fails at recalling that lore, attacking the troll with fire or the statue with adamantine is still fine.

If it's the standard mode of attack, sure. If a wizard uses fire spells against his enemies, I wouldn't expect him to stop using fire just because he meets a troll and the PC doesn't know its weakness. However, if he uses cold attacks against his enemies, but then suddenly switches to fire as soon as the troll his PC knows nothing about shows up, that's pure metagaming. The same goes for the fighter. If he uses his adamantine sword in every combat, have at it. But if he uses his steel longsword in every combat, but suddenly pulls out the adamantine dagger against the gargoyle, that's metagaming.

It's generally pretty clear when someone is trying to play a reasonable attack that happens upon an unknown weakness, and when the player is metagaming to get an advantage in the fight.

 

[iserith]

If it's the standard mode of attack, sure. If a wizard uses fire spells against his enemies, I wouldn't expect him to stop using fire just because he meets a troll and the PC doesn't know its weakness. However, if he uses cold attacks against his enemies, but then suddenly switches to fire as soon as the troll his PC knows nothing about shows up, that's pure metagaming. The same goes for the fighter. If he uses his adamantine sword in every combat, have at it. But if he uses his steel longsword in every combat, but suddenly pulls out the adamantine dagger against the gargoyle, that's metagaming.

It's generally pretty clear when someone is trying to play a reasonable attack that happens upon an unknown weakness, and when the player is metagaming to get an advantage in the fight.

How would you know with certainty?

And more importantly, why even care? It's a manufactured problem (and mostly the DM's fault to boot).

 

[hawkeyefan]

I disagree that the difference is all that meaningful. Either the players desires to affect the game through their signaling is important and should be respected, or it isn't. Once you start deciding that this player signaling is okay, but that player signaling isn't, you seriously muddy up the subject. You end up with Schrodinger's DM who is both a jerk and not jerk at the same time, and which he is will be decided by each individual separately.

If you don’t see a meaningful difference between information the players know and information they don’t know, then I don’t really know what to tell you.

And for the rest...I expect a GM to be able to exercise sound judgment.

Well, not exactly. THIS conversation started when the poster asked for advice and used a pejorative in the process. Whether he himself uses that pejorative personally isn't really relevant. If someone is quoting a pejorative as a part of his questioning, he is giving it a measure of validation. He should have chopped the pejorative out or just phrased it a different way.

Why should he have? We’re talking about RPGs. How bad can a phrase be? Personally, I have no problem with the chosen phrase.

He communicated his idea and plenty understood his intent.

You’re certainly entitled to not like his words and to explain why. I think you’ve done so very clearly by now. But you can’t stop people from using phrases just because you don’t like them.

 

[hawkeyefan]

If it's the standard mode of attack, sure. If a wizard uses fire spells against his enemies, I wouldn't expect him to stop using fire just because he meets a troll and the PC doesn't know its weakness. However, if he uses cold attacks against his enemies, but then suddenly switches to fire as soon as the troll his PC knows nothing about shows up, that's pure metagaming. The same goes for the fighter. If he uses his adamantine sword in every combat, have at it. But if he uses his steel longsword in every combat, but suddenly pulls out the adamantine dagger against the gargoyle, that's metagaming.

It's generally pretty clear when someone is trying to play a reasonable attack that happens upon an unknown weakness, and when the player is metagaming to get an advantage in the fight.

So new player Bob is playing fighter Brutus.

Veteran player Joe is playing fighter Jerrin.

They encounter trolls. The trolls regenerate. Bob decides to try fire on them, and hits one with his torch. He discovers their vulnerability!

But Joe is simply not allowed to do this. Jerrin cannot deploy fire randomly, only when some kind of knowledge trigger occurs that sayisfies the DM.

Jerrin is being limited in his actions by metagame knowledge possessed by his player.

How is this better than simply letting Joe go ahead and have Jerrin deploy fire?

 

[Maxperson]

How would you know with certainty?

As I said, it's generally pretty clear.

And more importantly, why even care? It's a manufactured problem (and mostly the DM's fault to boot).

It's not a manufactured problem. Just because you don't have an issue with it personally, doesn't mean that it's not an issue to others. I feel that bringing knowledge into the game that the PC doesn't have, or that you have to create some weak justification for, in order to gain a combat advantage is cheating. Cheating is inherently bad, not some manufactured issue.

 

[Maxperson]

And for the rest...I expect a GM to be able to exercise sound judgment.

That's all we can every really expect. The thing is, not allowing metagaming is reasonable and sound judgment for a lot of groups.

Why should he have? We’re talking about RPGs. How bad can a phrase be? Personally, I have no problem with the chosen phrase.

It's inherently derogatory. That's bad.

You’re certainly entitled to not like his words and to explain why. I think you’ve done so very clearly by now. But you can’t stop people from using phrases just because you don’t like them.

Sure, just as he's not entitled to not have his thread derailed by people who he offends with those words and fight back against them.

 

[Maxperson]

So new player Bob is playing fighter Brutus.

Veteran player Joe is playing fighter Jerrin.

They encounter trolls. The trolls regenerate. Bob decides to try fire on them, and hits one with his torch. He discovers their vulnerability!

Bob doesn't do that, though. Bob pulls out the sword he's been using and uses that. I have yet to see a new person do something that crazy. Now, if the sword is on the other side of the camp for some reason and he only has the torch to fight with, then I could see him trying to use the torch.

But Joe is simply not allowed to do this. Jerrin cannot deploy fire randomly, only when some kind of knowledge trigger occurs that sayisfies the DM.

Under the same circumstances above, Jerrin could use the torch as well.

Jerrin is being limited in his actions by metagame knowledge possessed by his player.

How is this better than simply letting Joe go ahead and have Jerrin deploy fire?

Joe is not being limited by metagame knowledge. Joe is simply not allowed to use metagame knowledge, as it gives an unfair advantage and is cheating.