D&D 5E player knowlege vs character knowlege (spoiler)

[Burnside]

Me too - or was. I got tired of the work schedule and changed industries.

Maybe you guys are much more talented than we are, but I've never met an actor who could honestly separate himself/herself from his/her character completely (I'm not even sure what that would mean. If I don't expect professional actors to do it, I certainly can expect it from my players.

You make it sound so radical. It's not "separating yourself completely from your character." It's understanding that your character does not necessarily have access to all the information that you the actor/player have. You don't need to be Meryl Streep to wrap your head around that.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

This leans too much on the ubiquitous "A good DM would fix it" philosophy wherein the burden of accommodation always seems to fall on the DM, whether it's accommodating flawed design or flawed player behavior. A DM is free to change things to accommodate player behavior, but shouldn't be obliged to. It's just as valid to ask players to change their behavior to suit the table style and not burden the DM, who is already working harder than everybody else, with more work.

There's an easy fix: play with cooler people (however, you, personally, defined cooler).

To quote myself above:

If I'm spending my time with someone, it's because I believe my time will be better spent as a result of that person's presence. As is the basis of friendship.

If my friend uses OCC knowledge, it is because he/she believes the game will be better if he/she does. I trust my friends. Obviously something was wrong with the adventure (it was boring, too obvious, etc.) or my friend has a better idea. I go with it. We have a good time.

If my friend's wrong, and his/her idea wasn't better than the written adventure, That's fine, too. People make mistakes.

If I don't trust my friend's motive, it's my fault for choosing to spend my time with that person. At least I know better and will not waste more of my time with him/her in the future.

 

[Burnside]

There's an easy fix: play with cooler people (however, you, personally, defined cooler).

To quote myself above:

If I'm spending my time with someone, it's because I believe my time will be better spent as a result of that person's presence. As is the basis of friendship.

If my friend uses OCC knowledge, it is because he/she believes the game will be better if he/she does. I trust my friends. Obviously something was wrong with the adventure (it was boring, too obvious, etc.) or my friend has a better idea. I go with it. We have a good time.

If my friend's wrong, and his/her idea wasn't better than the written adventure, That's fine, too. People make mistakes.

If I don't trust my friend's motive, it's my fault for choosing to spend my time with that person. At least I know better and will not waste more of my time with him/her in the future.

I don't disagree with you. I guess I would just say I'm already there?

If I was running the Valindra Shadowmantle encounter and a player blurted out, "She's a lich! I read it in a terrible novel 15 years ago!", the other players at my table(s) wouldn't immediately start planning to take out the lich. They would be surprised, and a little annoyed, that the first player had spoiled the story for them.

 

[Blue]

I think he answered your question about exhibiting knowledge about something in the game that he gleaned from an outside source - he'd reward it. And to a certain extent, that's not a bad thing since it means he's engaged enough to read supplemental material and is probably getting more out of the lore of the campaign than the players who don't.

The whole issue of buying the actual adventure in order to cheat - that wasn't the original question. But ultimately, if he's OK with it, it's no skin off your nose. Why exactly bring it up when that's not even the context of the conversation?

The original back and forth was he stated he had couldn't understand keeping player and character knowledge seperate. The question I had put to him was if he acted on player knowledge that wasn't true and his character later had to answer for it, how would they explain their in-game motivation to the authorities.

After twice of no answer (once he only plays hmebrew so it wouldn't come up, and then an answer about what he'd do as a DM), I figured I wouldn't get an answer to that. He did talk about DMing so I switched my questiong to that context.

There's an old joke. A wealthy man asks if a married woman would sleep with him for a million dollars. She thinks about all that could do for her family and reluctantly agrees. The wealthy man then offers her $100 to sleep with him. It ended with:
"What type of woman do you think I am?"
"That's already been established, now we're just negotiating on price."

Basically, I was trying to see if he was really good with all player knowledge, even taken to absurd levels. Or if there was a line and we were just calibrated differently. He stuck to his guns, it's all okay for him. Got to give him respect for being consistent with it.

So that's where that question came from.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

You make it sound so radical. It's not "separating yourself completely from your character." It's understanding that your character does not necessarily have access to all the information that you the actor have. You don't need to be Meryl Streep to wrap your head around that.

I disagree. If I know trolls can only be killed by fire and acid, I get four choices:

1) Use fire and acid because my character thinks it might work.
2) Use fire and acid even though my character wouldn't know to use it.
3) Use fire and acid because my character would know to use it.
4) Don't use fire or acid because my character don't know what.
5) Don't use fire or acid because I think my character wouldn't know what.

Personally, I don't think anyone can differentiate between 1 and 2 or 1 and 3.

How does someone who's already read the MM meaningfully arrive at option 1?

 

[Bawylie]

This leans too much on the ubiquitous "A good DM would fix it" philosophy wherein the burden of accommodation always seems to fall on the DM, whether it's accommodating flawed design or flawed player behavior. A DM is free to change things to accommodate player behavior, but shouldn't be obliged to. It's just as valid to ask players to change their behavior to suit the table style and not burden the DM, who is already working harder than everybody else, with more work.

I don’t quite agree with that. This isn’t “it’s not broken because a good DM can fix it.” It’s more a recognition that the only behavior you control is your own. And because you are responsible for your own actions, you should, from time to time, ensure your actions support or align with your goals.

 

[Burnside]

I disagree. If I know trolls can only be killed by fire and acid, I get four choices:

1) Use fire and acid because my character thinks it might work.
2) Use fire and acid even though my character wouldn't know to use it.
3) Use fire and acid because my character would know to use it.
4) Don't use fire or acid because my character don't know what.
5) Don't use fire or acid because I think my character wouldn't know what.

Personally, I don't think anyone can differentiate between 1 and 2 or 1 and 3.

How does someone who's already read the MM meaningfully arrive at option 1?

Ironically, my answer to that is "a good DM would fix it."

By which I mean that as a DM, I would not put my players into a situation in which they can only survive by means of employing metagaming knowledge. The info they need would be available from an in-game source.

And to answer the specific troll scenario because this one HAS come up in my games: characters, including characters run by players who knew about trolls, attacked with all means at their disposal and learned, in character, by trial and error, what was effective.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

Ironically, my answer to that is "a good DM would fix it."

By which I mean that as a DM, I would not put my players into a situation in which they can only survive by means of employing metagaming knowledge. The info they need would be available from an in-game source.

But that's the situation that happened in the OP: the player never had the chance to guess or extrapolate that the NPC would later betray him/her.

It's also the reason I have no problem with metagaming: it's too difficult for me to wrap my head around conceptually (Use fire and acid because my character thinks it might work vs. Use fire and acid even though my character wouldn't know to use it. ).

 

[Hriston]

This leans too much on the ubiquitous "A good DM would fix it" philosophy wherein the burden of accommodation always seems to fall on the DM, whether it's accommodating flawed design or flawed player behavior. A DM is free to change things to accommodate player behavior, but shouldn't be obliged to. It's just as valid to ask players to change their behavior to suit the table style and not burden the DM, who is already working harder than everybody else, with more work.

To me, as a DM, it creates more work for a player to ask me what their character knows. I have the rest of the world to run. You run your character.

 

[Burnside]

But that's the situation that happened in the OP: the player never had the chance to guess or extrapolate that the NPC would later betray him/her.

Well - the player never had the CHANCE to guess or extrapolate because they immediately spoiled the storyline, out of character, for the whole table. Hardly the DM's fault.