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

[Guest 6801328]

And it explicitly gives DMs the authority to adjudicate those actions.

By RAW he players describe their actions and the DM adjudicated them. The games does give the DM that power.

Agreed. Where in there does it say that the DM is allowed to tell them that they may not attempt an action?

Or are you calling "No you may not attempt that" a kind of adjudication?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

This notion of "bypassing" has a presupposition of some kind underpinning it that I don't think lines up with how the game works. Ability checks aren't by default applied to tasks. They're applied only to tasks that have an uncertain outcome and a meaningful consequence for failure which is merely a subset of all possible tasks and probably quite a narrow range. Further, a character is not required by the rules of the game to have certain knowledge as a prerequisite to act. If this is understood, then the idea of "bypassing" doesn't make any sense.

And it is for the GM to determine whether the task has uncertain outcome, not for the player.

Yeah, DMs who seem to really care about "metagaming" not doing two simple things to completely neutralize its effects is a strange phenomenon. It's almost like it's not really about eliminating "metagaming" from their game at all, but rather having power over what action declarations the players may choose. Because why else wouldn't you just do those two simple things if neutralizing the effects of "metagaming" was your actual goal?

Because I don't believe resolving player behaviour issues by childishly 'punishing' them via the game. If I don't like some behaviour then we can talk about it outside the game like adults and just agree not to do that.

I mean I am super fine with altering setting details and even as a response to player actions if it feels like it would result a more entertaining game (a lot of people really aren't though,) but that is not to thwart metagaming.

I don't generally run published campaign settings unless all the players are familiar with said setting. It works better that way in my view, almost as if they were real people living in that fictional world. What does it matter to the DM that they know every detail of the setting? That just means they have more context with which to make decisions and drive the game forward.

Because surprisingly not every person living in the setting has perfect information of it. And yes, the players knowing the setting is not a problem at all, as long as they understand that their character might not have access to all that information, especially as some of the things in settings are written from omniscientic perspective rather than from a point of view of a person in the setting. And the knowledge skills exist for a reason. The character who has invested in history skill should know more about the setting's history than one that hasn't.

 

[Maxperson]

Agreed. Where in there does it say that the DM is allowed to tell them that they may not attempt an action?

Or are you calling "No you may not attempt that" a kind of adjudication?

Of course that's a kind of adjudication. One that I almost never use, but it remains one. And it's not one that I would use under these circumstances as I mentioned before.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

@Ovinomancer has already thoroughly proved the error of this conclusion of yours earlier this morning.

No they didn't. I really don't understand why you insist on making this about the rules if you are just going to ignore them when they're inconvenient for your case.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Of course that's a kind of adjudication. One that I almost never use, but it remains one. And it's not one that I would use under these circumstances as I mentioned before.

No, it's not adjudicating the outcome of an action. It's rewinding time and saying, "No, you never even did that."

You may modify the game to grant yourself this power, but it's not in the play loop as described by the game itself.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Because I don't believe resolving player behaviour issues by childishly 'punishing' them via the game.

We've spelled out in patient detail why it's not punishment, but I suppose if you're going to refuse to engage there's no point in repeating it.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Why do you refuse to believe us (those who actually play this way) when we say that the result is actually that people just stop worrying about it and play the game?

I believe that. But I assume that that is simply due the players self policing to sufficient degree, not due rampant metagaming being unproblematic in itself.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I believe that. But I assume that that is simply due the players self policing to sufficient degree, not due rampant metagaming being unproblematic in itself.

Let's pretend we have a table full of "rampant metagamers". Why does your approach solve the problems you imagine that causes?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

We've spelled out in patient detail why it's not punishment, but I suppose if you're going to refuse to engage there's no point in repeating it.

Whether it is a punishment or not, to me it seems like an attempt to correct or at least affect the player behaviour via the game and I simply don't believe in that sort of thing.

 

[Ovinomancer]

No they didn't. I really don't understand why you insist on making this about the rules if you are just going to ignore them when they're inconvenient for your case.

Well, the last on this was me pointing out that not being able to take the Attack action (capotal intended) was due to specific prerequisites for that action. Specific limitations on specific actions that the entire table can see and utilize (as a player I can leverage those limitations to prevent attacks on my character -- see "kiting").do not, on any way, make a case for a general power to deny any action on any reason.

A useful tip for arguing is that you can take a general point into the specific, but you can't take a specific point into the general. Here, you can't extrapolate a general rule for denying actions from the specific requirements for a specific action.

So, yeah, your argument holds no water if your basing your assumption of general GM power to disallow actions on an example that hinges on the specific requirements to take the Attack action by making a melee attack.

Did I say specific and general enough? I feel like I did, but also feel like I maybe didn't say it enough to get the point across.