Because the chance of a randomly selected artwork having been done by a master the player knows is related to the amount of knowledge the player has, and so it seemed like a name to use for the die roll?
Here's my personal take on knowledge checks - what a character knows is something I would prefer we use judgement and/or work together to establish as needed. The uncertainty we are resolving is not fictional uncertainty, but the uncertainty of the players at the table (including the GM).
What
@Campbell says in the second quoted sentence seems right to me: given that the uncertainty is not
uncertainty in the fiction - ie can the PC successfully recall fact X or not - but rather uncertainty at the table - ie a gap in the authorship of
who painted the painting - why is it being resolved as if it were an effort being made by the PC (ie a knowledge check, which is structurally analogous to a STR check or an acrobatics check or whatever).
I have read endless posts explaining how Come and Get It in 4e spoils immersion, because something that is largely independent of a PC's efforts - namely, whether or not some enemies close with them in melee - is determined by the player making a decision.
I have read endless posts explaining how Wises checks in Burning Wheel must spoil immersion, because something that is largely independent of a PC's efforts - namely, whether or not a certain famous wizard, sometime in the past, built a tower somewhere nearby the PC's current location - is determined by the player positing that their PC recalls that that tower is nearby.
Pejorative terms like "martial mind control", "Schroedinger's tower", etc get thrown around. And in this thread, we've seen the inventory rules for BitD described as "quantum gear" - a description that is clearly meant to have a critical tone, and to suggest that the gameworld lacks depth and substance.
And now you're telling me that this is exactly how 5e D&D knowledge checks work, and have worked all along? Yet for some reason, this has no effect on the depth and substance of 5e gameworlds, nor the ability to immerse. Are you inviting and expecting me to take this seriously? Or are you now agreeing that all those criticism of CaGI, BW Wises, BitD inventory, all misfired?
Because there was no reason to specify it before?
Because it would be pretty tedious to have detailed lists about everything in the world that a player might be interested in?
How is inventory different from this in any respect? Or geography? Or the location of ogres? Yet people on these boards will post endlessly about "quantum ogres", the need for maps to avoid railroading, etc. There is an active thread in which you are participating that deals with these very things!
Because the list of things likely to be carried feels like a really small proper set of "everything in the universe the players might possibly care about and maybe know about?"
So is the list of paintings. How many paintings come up in the typical D&D campaign? As many as the number of iron spikes? Or lengths of rope?
So the GM says sure, you find out there's a person in the town you're in who is known to have a nice specimen of artwork. Your source for that info doesn't know who the artisan is. And so you have your character do whatever and go to the location and looks at it.
Can the GM say it's by a young master Hergberty that your character doesn't know?
If you're talking about D&D as traditionally played, then surely the answer is
yes! Just like, no matter how observant and keen to spot secret doors your PC might be, the GM can specify that there are no secret doors in the environs.
Having a high Perception bonus, in traditional D&D, doesn't increase the likelihood of secret doors being around; so why would having a high Knowledge of Artists bonus, increase the likelihood that any given painting was painted by one of the artists that the PC knows about?
Does the answer depend at all on that being the GM determining something about your character's past? (That you weren't, say, one of the judges that decided Hergberty became a master.)
In traditional D&D, as I understand it - based on play and reading the rulebooks - the player does not have that sort of authority over their PCs' past. The systems that establish that sort of control - eg BW Wises, DW Spout Lore, BW Circles, etc - are the ones that tend to be dismissed or derided as "Schroedinger's X" by advocates for traditional D&D.
If it is ok, is it ok even if the GM made a roll based on your art knowledge skill to see if it was a master you knew or not, or are they not allowed to make such a roll?
If you are fine with the GM rolling themselves, but not asking the player to, please briefly elaborate. (If you previously objected, never mind).
If it is not ok for the GM to say your character doesn't know Hergberty without checking with you first, what mechanism could be used to make sure you didn't know them? (Can they ask you to name all the masters you don't recognize and which geographic regions your knowledge is less than 100% in?)
Are you still talking about traditional D&D? The GM is allowed to make secret rolls, and is also allowed to tell the player what they do or don't know - as per your post upthread about the GM telling you who you recognise when you enter a pub.
