Would you find it to be non-immersive to be told that the painting is by master Higeddly you didn't know as the GM describes it to you? Would it change if you knew there was a die roll behind it?
The whole set-up you seem to be presupposing here strikes me as non-immersive: I'm playing someone who is a stranger in their mind and body, waiting for an external oracular force to tell them what they know and remember.
My approach, as a player and as a GM, is pretty similar to what @AbdulAlhazred has described: the player of the knowledgeable character takes the lead in telling us - that is, the others at the table - how things are, and if something meaningful will turn on this then a check is made to see if there is some twist or change or additional factor that they've forgotten or are ignorant of, that means things aren't quite as they expected or hoped.
So anyone with any skill just knows everything all the time about it unless the GM wants to throw a potential monkey wrench in? (That doesn't feel right, so I'm legitimately asking)
The whole set-up you seem to be presupposing here strikes me as non-immersive: I'm playing someone who is a stranger in their mind and body, waiting for an external oracular force to tell them what they know and remember.
My approach, as a player and as a GM, is pretty similar to what @AbdulAlhazred has described: the player of the knowledgeable character takes the lead in telling us - that is, the others at the table - how things are, and if something meaningful will turn on this then a check is made to see if there is some twist or change or additional factor that they've forgotten or are ignorant of, that means things aren't quite as they expected or hoped.
Is that how you run it in Traveller and D&D as well?
I'm trying to mull over why someone would think a check to see if they wrong about how they identified something would be more immersive. And then I think of all the times I've been sure a program was bug free and hit run...
So anyone with any skill just knows everything all the time about it unless the GM wants to throw a potential monkey wrench in? (That doesn't feel right, so I'm legitimately asking)
Last game I ran I regularly IDs things or gave info with no roll if it felt like something a competent character would almost certainly know. I'd it felt obscure I required a roll.
What seems to be at issue is the degree of obligation on what others say when one player declares they have some item.
System A: player decides in advance how many slots their character has
they can later declare they have any item that fits those slots (using them up as they do so)
others are obliged to agree
System B: player decides in advance what items their character has
they may later declare they have some item they didn't decide on in advance
others aren't obliged to agree; they're only obliged to agree that they have the items decided on in advance
The systems I would contrast for A and B would be BitD and TB2. To me, the comparison with Knowledge checks would imply a system like this
System C: player decides in advance the probabilities their character has of having items
they can later declare they have an item and make a roll (just as items in A have slot-values, items in C will have target numbers)
others are obliged to agree, iff they make their roll
Regarding C, per RAW DM isn't calling for an ability check in 5e just to find out if a character knows something. They're only calling for roll because there are meaningful consequences. An example might be where it matters that the character can recall the author of a painting at a glance. Another example could be where an obscure fact such as the precise time and place it was painted matters. I think one can concede that a character has the requisite knowledge, without conceding that they can always recall it in an instant, or recall every precise detail. Bearing in mind that in 5e where time-taken doesn't matter, the recollection if possible always succeeds (simply taking longer... perhaps a visit to a library, consultation with a friend, or a good ponder.) For me at least 5e doesn't here supply the best analogy.
I posted some examples from Traveller upthread. The player of the PC who knows the Imperial Navy manuals back-to-front is the one who tells us how things are done in the Imperial Navy. The character who is a Baron of Hallucida tells us what Hallucidan policy and interests are. Etc.
In 4e D&D, we had one PC with strong knowledge skills - a wizard/invoker whose Paragon Path was Divine Philosopher and whose Epic Destiny was Sage of Ages.
That player would explain how things worked - magic, the planes, etc - and declare checks based on this. If what they explained seemed to need a bit of massaging to fit with what else had been established, then we would talk it through, just as any other action declaration can sometimes require getting clear consensus on its fictional premise. If the check succeeded - which for that build it mostly does! - then that settled how things were. If the check failed, then that could be my cue (as GM) to introduce a twist.
Here are some examples of the player having his PC do magic things, which take for granted the player's conception of what is possible in this respect:
When they arrived, an Aspect of Vecna was waiting for them. It wanted to bargain to get the Eye of Vecna back from the party invoker. (Backstory to this is here.) The Eye is in the invoker's imp, placed there both to achieve a power up, and to stop Levistus (who placed the imp with the invoker) using the imp as a spy (by creating a Vecna-ish shield of secrecy). Unfortunately the party's conflict with Torog, as linked to above, had led to the invoker choosing the Raven Queen over Vecna as recipient of the souls of the Underdark's dead In retaliation, Vecna had used his control over the Eye to strike down the imp, which meant that the imp was currently lifeless (and hence the Eye inactive).
The bargaining was unsuccessful, however, as in an earlier session the invoker had already agreed to help the rest of the party try and destroy the Eye if they could find a way; and he now held to that agreement. The Aspect threatened a bit, but the PCs stood their ground and (recognising a superior force) it teleported away.
<snip>
the Aspect of Vecna reappeared bringing back up (undead cultists, lich vestiges and four demons under its control).
<snip>
before Vecna's turn could come around again, the cleric-ranger stunned him with a reasonably newly acquired daily power. To add insult to injury, the chaos sorcerer rolled a 1, pushing Vecna 1 square. Vecna failed his save and went tumbling 100' to the ledges below the earthmote. Then something (I guess one of the demons?) hit the paladin and pushed him over the edge. At which point an Acrobatics roll was requested, to "do a Gandalf" (from the Two Towers film) and fall down on top of Vecna. The roll was successful, and the paladin dealt damage to Vecna with a successful basic attack, as well as taking damage himself for the fall.
While the other PCs cleaned up uptop, the paladin successfully solo-ed the now-bloodied Aspect, but (at the behest of the invoker) only knocked it unconscious (and then used his Marshal of Letherna daily utility to prevent any regeneration that might let it come back to consciousness). The invoker then came down and used an Undead Ward ritual, with the Aspect as a focus, to try and sever the connection between Vecna and his Eye. This was successful (between stats, feats and Sage of Ages the character has bonuses of around +40 to most of his ritual checks), so the imp came back to life, still powered up by the Eye but no longer subject to Vecna's influence. (But therefore once again able to send information to Levistus. When I chided the player for his PC not sticking the liberated eye in his own socket, his reply was that Malstaph (the PC) is not foolish enough to think that he's a god.)
The PCs therefore teleported to Phaevorul (the nearest portal that they knew) and travelled through the Underdark to the duergar hold. This provided a chance to introduce a bit of colour illustrating the effects that their godslaying had had upon the world: with Torog dead the Underdark had reverted to roiling chaos, and in combination with the death of Lolth dead this meant that the drow civilisation had virtually collapsed.
In the small skill challenge to travel to the duergar hold and deal with the Aspect:
* The wizard/invoker maintained the PCs' phantom steeds (with a +40-something Arcana bonus this was an auto-success that didn't need to be rolled for);
* The player of the ranger-cleric made a successful Dungeoneering check, aided by the dwarf, to steer a path through the now everchanging, roiling Underdark;
* The sorcerer made a successful Diplomacy check (he had retrained Insight to Diplomacy and succeeded against a Hard DC) to persuade the wandering and raving drow that now was the time to return to the surface and dance once more under the stars, as they had with their elven kin in the times of old;
* Once they arrived at the duergar hold, the paladin made a successful Diplomacy check to persuade the duergar to let them gain access to the trapped Aspect of Orcus so that they could take the fight to the Abyss;
* The duergar - who had always felt comfortable dealing with a fellow bearer of diabolic taint (the paladin is a tiefling) - explained that Asmodeus was now calling upon them to join him in an assault upon the Abyss, and sought advice as to what they should do;
* The paladin cautioned them against becoming bound to devils, instancing the downfall of the tieflings as an indicator of the possible costs and pointing to the fact that the drown were now freed from Lolth's yoke - I asked, to clarify, whether he was trying to persuade the duergar not to go along with Asmodeus, and he said yes, so I called for the Diplomacy check against a Hard DC;
* The invoker/wizard indicated that he would help, and made a successful check as he cautioned the duergar against being manipulated by Asmodeus into being his fodder in a futile war; but together with the paladin player's rather dismal roll this wasn't quite enough (from memory, 6 (roll) +32 (skill) +2 (aid another) for 40 rather than 41);
* Back in the game rather than the metagame, the PC could tell that his imp was itching to speak;
* So the player spent his action point to let his imp speak to the duergar, thereby giving an extra bonus to make the roll succeed - mechanically, this was the imp granting its +4 Diplomacy bonus vs devils and their friends (from the invoker/wizard PC's variant Devil's Pawn theme) to the paladin; and in the fiction, the imp explained to the duergar that it was Levistus who, of the archdevils, had the backs of mortals, and they should not let themselves be tricked by Asmodeus into a foolish sacrifice;
* The players weren't entirely sure that switching the duergar from Asmodeus to Levistus was maximum progress - the dwarf fighter/cleric was mumbling "What about Moradin?" somewhere in the background; but at least Asmodeus will not have his duergar army when he assaults the Plain of One Thousand Portals;
* Attention now turned to the Aspect of Orcus - it had been trapped by channelling power from Vecna, and the player of the invoker/wizard had already pointed out that Vecna would be alerted if the PCs tried to steal secrets from it; now, a successful Religion check (made easily against a Hard DC, with a +40 bonus) allowed the invoker/wizard to make contact with Vecna and ask him to rip information of a secret entrance into Thanatos from the mind of the Aspect;
* Vecna indicated a willingness to do so, but only on conditions - that the trapped Aspect of Vecna (whom the invoker/wizard and the paladin had bound drawing upon the power of the Raven Queen) be released;
* The invoker/wizard would only do this if the paladin agreed, and the latter was not keen; I told the players that with a successful Insight check vs a Hard DC the invoker/wizard could read the secret from Vecna without needing to be overtly told - so the PC said to Vecna "We'll find another way" and then rolled the check, which missed by 1, but then he activated his Memory of One Thousand Lifetimes and rolled a 6, which was enough for a success and, he hoped, enough to mean that Vecna may not know that his mind had been read;
* With the secret entrance into Everlost, Orcus's palace of bones on Thanatos, now acquired, all that was required was to cast the Planar Portal to teleport there: I read out to the players the description of Thanatos and the palace from the MotP, and they were glad they hadn't tried for a frontal assault; this also described Thanatos as being "inhospitable even by the standards of the Abyss", and so - although the PCs had Endure Primordial Elements up - I called for the 8th check of the skill challenge - a group Endurance vs Medium DC (ie 31);
* The dwarf has a +34 bonus, and so the player of the dwarf asked if he could try to shelter someone else - I said he could grant a +2 in return for facing a Hard DC (41), which he did - and he succeeded; the paladin also succeeded, as did the ranger-cleric once the bonus from the dwarf was factored in; the sorcerer failed by with an Easy success, so I docked him a healing surge; the invoker/wizard failed with a result below an Easy success, and so I rolled damage for him - about a healing surge's worth.
The session ended there, with the PCs stepping through their portal into the secret way into Orcus's throne room.
The PCs <snippage> scried on the tarrasque, which they knew to have recently begun marauding in the mortal world, identifying its location and noting that it was being observed by maruts. They decided that, to return to the mortal world to confront the tarrasque they would first teleport to their abandoned Thundercloud Tower
<snip>
When the PCs step through the portal from their resting place to the top of the tower, they find that it is not where they left it <snippage> but rather in the palace of Yan-C-Bin on the Elemental Chaos. This brought the PCs, and especially the chaos sorcerer, into discussion with the djinni who had retaken possession of the tower and were repurposing it for the coming Dusk War. Mechanically, this situation was resolved as a skill challenge.
Sirrajadt, the leader of the djinni, explained that the djinni were finally breaking free of the imprisonment they had suffered after fighting for their freedom the last time (ie with the primordials against the gods in the Dawn War), and were not going to be re-imprisoned or bound within the Lattice of Heaven, and hence were gearing up to fight again in the Dusk War. He further explained that only Yan-C-Bin (Prince of Evil Air Elementals) and the Elder Elemental Eye could lead them to victory in the Dusk War.
The PCs both asserted their power (eg the paladin pointed out that the reason the djinni have been released from their prisons is because the PCs killed Torog, the god of imprisonment), and denied the necessity for a coming Dusk War, denouncing warmongers on both sides (especially the Elder Elemental Eye, whom Sirrajadt was stating was the only being who could guarantee the Djinni their freedom) and announcing themselves as a "third way", committed to balancing the chaos against the heavens and ensuring the endurance of the mortal world.
<snip>
As the PCs continued to debate the point and explain their "third way" reasoning (mechanically, getting closer to success in the skill challenge), Sirrajadt - sufficiently unsettled by their claims - invited them all to resolve the matter in conversation with Yan-C-Bin, who moreso than him would be able to explain the situation.
<snip>
Yan-C-Bin <snippage> grudgingly acquiesced to the PCs' request, agreeing to let the PCs take the Thundercloud Tower and go and confront the tarrasque - but expressing doubt that they would realise their "third way", and with a final mocking remark that they would see for whom the maruts with the tarrasque were acting.
The player of the eternal defender had already noted that, when I read out the description of maruts and their contracts earlier in the session, the only being actually mentioned by name was the Raven Queen. So he predicted (more-or-less in line with what I had in mind), that the maruts observing the tarrasque would be there at the behest of the Raven Queen (who is served by three of the five PCs), to stop it being interfered with.
When the PCs then took their Tower to confront the tarrasque, that was indeed what they found. Upon arriving at the tarrasque's location they found the tarrasque being warded by a group of maruts who explained that, in accordance with a contract made with the Raven Queen millenia ago, they were there to ensure the realisation of the end times, and to stop anyone interfering with the tarrasque as an engine of this destruction and a herald of the beginning of the end times and the arrival of the Dusk War.
(Why the Raven Queen wants the Dusk War has not fully come to light, other than that it seems part of her plan to realise her own ultimate godhood. One idea I had follows in sblocks.)
With Ometh dead, it seems possible that those souls who have passed over the Bridge that May be Traversed But Once might be able to return - repopulating a world remade following the Dusk War and the restoration of the Lattice of Heaven.
I wasn't sure exactly what the players would do here. They could try and fight the maruts, obviously, but I thought the Raven Queen devotees might be hesitant to do so. I had envisaged that the PCs might try to persuade them that the contract was invalid in some way - and this idea was mentioned at the table, together with the related idea of the various exarchs of the Raven Queen in the party trying to lay down the law. In particular I had thought that the paladin of the Raven Queen, who is a Marshall of Letherna (in effect, one of the Raven Queen's most powerful servants), might try to exercise his authority to annual or vary the contract in some fashion.
But instead the argument developed along different lines. What the players did was to persuade the maruts that the time for fulfillment of their contract had not yet arisen, because this visitation of the tarrasque was not yet a sign of the Dusk War. (Mechanically, these were social skill checks, history and religions checks, etc, in a skill challenge to persuade the maruts.)
The player of the Eternal Defender PC made only one action in this skill challenge - explaining that it was not the end times, because he was there to defeat the tarrasque (and got another successful intimidate check, after spending an action point to reroll his initial fail) - before launching himself from the flying tower onto the tarrasque and proceeding to whittle away around 600 of its hit points over two rounds. (There were also two successful out-of-turn attacks from the ranger and the paladin, who were spending their on-turn actions in negotiating with the maruts.)
The invoker/wizard was able to point to this PC's successful solo-ing of the tarrasque as evidence that the tarrasque, at least on this occasion, could not be the harbinger of the end times whom the maruts were contracted to protect, because it clearly lacked the capacity to ravage the world. The maruts agreed with this point - clearly they had misunderstood the timing of celestial events - and the PCs therefore had carte blanche to finish of the tarrasque. (Mechanically, this was the final success in the skill challenge: the player rolled Insight to see what final argument would sway the maruts, knowing that only one success was needed. He succeeded. I invited him to then state the relevant argument.)
The basic idea, at least as I see it - but I think @AbdulAlhazred more-or-less agrees - is that a character with high knowledge skills succeeds by knowing stuff, just as a character with high physical skills succeeds by performing feats of great prowess.
We (or at least I) don't see the general function of knowledge skills being to allow the players to learn the content of the GM's notes - though in 4e some knowledge skills do have a secondary function, in the form of monster knowledge checks, which permits a player to learn a monster's stat block and description.
I posted some examples from Traveller upthread. The player of the PC who knows the Imperial Navy manuals back-to-front is the one who tells us how things are done in the Imperial Navy. The character who is a Baron of Hallucida tells us what Hallucidan policy and interests are. Etc.
In 4e D&D, we had one PC with strong knowledge skills - a wizard/invoker whose Paragon Path was Divine Philosopher and whose Epic Destiny was Sage of Ages.
That player would explain how things worked - magic, the planes, etc - and declare checks based on this. If what they explained seemed to need a bit of massaging to fit with what else had been established, then we would talk it through, just as any other action declaration can sometimes require getting clear consensus on its fictional premise. If the check succeeded - which for that build it mostly does! - then that settled how things were. If the check failed, then that could be my cue (as GM) to introduce a twist.
Here are some examples of the player having his PC do magic things, which take for granted the player's conception of what is possible in this respect:
And here's an example of the truth of the most important question in the campaign, namely, Is the Dusk War upon us?, being settled by play:
The basic idea, at least as I see it - but I think @AbdulAlhazred more-or-less agrees - is that a character with high knowledge skills succeeds by knowing stuff, just as a character with high physical skills succeeds by performing feats of great prowess.
We (or at least I) don't see the general function of knowledge skills being to allow the players to learn the content of the GM's notes - though in 4e some knowledge skills do have a secondary function, in the form of monster knowledge checks, which permits a player to learn a monster's stat block and description.
So anyone with any skill just knows everything all the time about it unless the GM wants to throw a potential monkey wrench in? (That doesn't feel right, so I'm legitimately asking)
Last game I ran I regularly IDd things or gave info with no roll if it felt like something a competent character would almost certainly know. If it felt obscure I required a roll.
Yeah, consider how Dungeon World's Spout Lore works. The player says "I talk about what I know about X." 2 things now happen. First the GM says "OK, you are using Spout Lore, roll 2d6." Now, that's generally +INT, so a smart guy does 'know more stuff' than a dumb dumb. If you get a 10+ the GM tells you something useful and interesting relevant to your situation. On a 7-9 its just interesting, you may make it useful, but its up to you. On a 6- you get nothing, and the GM is now entitled to make a hard or soft move, which basically means there are going to be consequences. Note that 6- doesn't mean you know NOTHING, but what you know is going to turn out to be bad for you, somehow, etc. Additionally, no matter what you roll, you have to explain how you know what you know.
So, the fiction has to support your knowledge, and its possible what you think you know is wrong, harmful, or that you simply don't know anything (6- doesn't obligate the GM to say anything, though the move they will make probably 'follows' closely on the current fiction and thus its very likely it touches on the subject at hand). It doesn't mean you ALWAYS know everything, but the player does pretty much "know what they know about." and gets to decide which things those are, within the bounds of needing to have a narrative explanation for it. Now, your fighter could simply say "Oh, I had this wizard buddy once, so yeah I know about this spell thing." OK, but now its established that you HAD a wizard buddy. What happened to him? He ain't here, so is he still your buddy? What does he think of you sharing out his knowledge? Remember the old adage, if you give the GM a hook, they will probably stab you in the eye with it and yank hard! lol.
Right, so this is a definite point at which styles of play diverge. So, in a game like Dungeon World, if there's nothing at stake, there's really no reason to even call a move at all. If the Fighter decides he knows who painted a portrait and its in "Elder Realist Style" or whatever, so what? He can just say that. I mean, presumably he wants to play a character that is coherent with the fiction, so presumably he's not going to just say stuff like that out of the blue unless it fits. Since nothing hinges on it, a DW GM would probably just file it away. It might BECOME relevant at some point, and the GM should take the hint that art history is a thing that this player is into and wants to factor into play somehow. GMs in DW should also be asking a lot of questions. Heck, you can ask things like "what do you see that is interesting here?" and just cue the players to generate lore, personal knowledge, relationships, whatever.
This kind of thing is not that common IME in more traditional GM fiction type games. It IS possible of course, but generally speaking in trad play the GM carves out specific areas for it, like character backstory that is usually established outside of play at the table. Gygax mentions a couple of places it could helpfully be injected, like letting the character draw a map of their stronghold and its nearby terrain.
In a puzzle-solving or dungeon-crawling style game, it's not consistent with the basic logic of play for the players to just inject backstory/setting/knowledge. Because then they wouldn't be discovering the dungeon and beating it!
But otherwise, there is nothing stopping the players injecting knowledge in this sort of fashion in a system like Traveller, D&D etc (as per my post not far upthread). The actual mechanics for balancing success against consequences won't be as robust as in AW/DW, but that's true of most of the rest of these systems too!, and so being permissive in respect of knowledge is not likely to be a distinctive site of game-breaking-ness.
Oooh. @clearstream, I like that option C explanation. Would make for a neat system of inventory management too. Different items could have a different dc and the check could be based on different skills as well.
Do you have a climbing kit? Make an athletics dc X check. Do you have parchment? Maybe a knowledge check. So on and so forth. The more esoteric the equipment especially in context (umm, you are travelling over flat plains, why would you have a climbing kit?) modifies the dc.
In a puzzle-solving or dungeon-crawling style game, it's not consistent with the basic logic of play for the players to just inject backstory/setting/knowledge. Because then they wouldn't be discovering the dungeon and beating it!
But otherwise, there is nothing stopping the players injecting knowledge in this sort of fashion in a system like Traveller, D&D etc (as per my post not far upthread). The actual mechanics for balancing success against consequences won't be as robust as in AW/DW, but that's true of most of the rest of these systems too!, and so being permissive in respect of knowledge is not likely to be a distinctive site of game-breaking-ness.
Well, I agree it isn't very germane to something like classic D&D, at least in most low-level dungeon crawl style play, but it isn't really going to HURT if a player develops a backstory. The game will simply ignore it, and if the GM plays on it, or allows the player to leverage it in some way, that's cool. As you say, it really isn't guaranteed to even matter in the slightest, nor does the system really present any structural way to balance advantage and disadvantage in terms of how it plays. That is certainly something that just 'falls out' in a PbtA, you can explain your Spout Lore, or maybe call on allies or whatnot, and your backstory certainly informs things like bonds, but at the same time it forms a nice source of fiction for the GM to base moves on too! I don't know that the later is really a 'disadvantage', but it certainly provides a focus for things.
