How Visible To players Should The Rules Be?

[hawkeyefan]

Because it isn't defined as a number in the setting, just in the game as an abstract.

Neither are the characters’ stats, skills, AC, hit points, attack bonuses… and so on. But they’re there for the players to understand how their attributes relate to others.

But hard numbers do? Where is the PC getting those numbers from?

The PC isn't getting them. The player is. The PC doesn’t think “this thing has an AC 14” or “this thing has 90 hit points”.

Sometimes yes, sometimes no; not all monsters are met at their lairs.

But consider this:

Pre-set scene: mid-dish level party are walking through an unexplored forest en route to a castle or similar they know to still be at least a few miles away.

DM: "As you break out of the trees and are able to see across a clear shallow valley ahead, you notice a strange-looking creature about 400 feet away from you, just on your side of a creek that runs down the valley. If the creature were a lot smaller it would be similar in many ways to a St Bernard dog, but from here it looks to be about 8 feet high at the shoulder and probably has a few more legs than a typical dog would - looks like six instead of four. Safe to say none of you have ever seen anything quite like it. It was drinking from the creek, but as you appear it hears you and looks at you, then its mouth opens (and those teeth are huge!) and it charges toward you at high speed. It'll probably only take a couple of rounds to get to you, given how fast it's moving. What do you do?"

At this point, what's the justification for giving the players any further info as to the giant dog's capabilities, AC, intentions, or anything else?

Because you’ve given them very little that relays this information. Far less than the characters would glean from simply seeing it.

Which raises a point: should the GM be mostly communicating in character-speak (i.e. as a narrator describing what the characters see-hear-smell-etc.) or in game-speak (i.e. inserting game-mechanical numbers into that narration)?

Me, I far prefer the former.

As I mentioned earlier, I look at it as a translation. The characters perceive X, and the players are told Y. X is going to be descriptive, in-world information. Y is going to be game mechanics. I don’t see any good reason to limit either.

What I would not do, and don't think i have ever done, is say "The bandit captain looks like she is CR4/3rd level/4+ HD".

But you’d certainly tailor the description based on comparative CRs and Level, I expect. So the CR 4 NPC may be described as very dangerous if the PC is level 1, or relatively harmless if the PC is level 14.

Which just shows… these numbers are representative of things that are observable in their world. Telling the players the numbers is similar to the characters observing their surroundings.

 

[Corinnguard]

At this point, what's the justification for giving the players any further info as to the giant dog's capabilities, AC, intentions, or anything else?

At this point in the encounter, the players aren't going to be wondering about what it's capabilities are, it's AC, it's intentions or anything else. They'll be too busy trying to survive, and rely on years of training as adventurers to deal with what they see as a threat. Thinking takes a backseat to rote behavior.

 

[aramis erak]

I have literally never seen this happen over decades of gaming with many different groups, including at cons.

I've done it, but not without backing skill rolls. Mostly in Starships and Spacemen, due to the computer rules.

 

[Lanefan]

At this point in the encounter, the players aren't going to be wondering about what it's capabilities are, it's AC, it's intentions or anything else. They'll be too busy trying to survive, and rely on years of training as adventurers to deal with what they see as a threat. Thinking takes a backseat to rote behavior.

Exactly; and if it comes to that they'll learn its capabilities as they fight it.

I've run that dog "against" a party. It's a pet, and is "charging" the party because it wants to play with them - though its play can be a bit painful to little humans.

 

[James Gasik]

I have literally never seen this happen over decades of gaming with many different groups, including at cons.

It was pretty much standard with my 4e and Pathfinder 1e groups due to monster knowledge checks.

 

[Corinnguard]

Exactly; and if it comes to that they'll learn its capabilities as they fight it.

Especially when the fight is happening very quickly in the span of mere seconds. A combat round in the game world is only about 6 seconds. Do you have the time to think about your opponent's stats in that span of game time? Probably not. You are more likely to be relying on your rote behavior at this point.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

So I can totally appreciate wanting the discussion at the table to be more about the fiction than the rules and the narration to be evocative and immersive rather than mere mechanics. I just think that sometimes the players knowing the numbers makes the former easier.

Player does not know the AC:
Player: 17 to hit, do I hit?
GM: Yes you do, roll damage.
Player: 12 points of damage.
GM: You slash the orc with your sword, causing a grievous wound. The orc staggers back, growling at you. It is badly wounded but still standing.

Player knows the AC:
Player: I hit the orc for 12 points of damage.
GM: You slash the orc with your sword, causing a grievous wound. The orc staggers back, growling at you. It is badly wounded but still standing.

In the latter we spend less time with the mechanics and get to the narration faster.

 

[soviet]

So I can totally appreciate wanting the discussion at the table to be more about the fiction than the rules and the narration to be evocative and immersive rather than mere mechanics. I just think that sometimes the players knowing the numbers makes the former easier.

Player does not know the AC:
Player: 17 to hit, do I hit?
GM: Yes you do, roll damage.
Player: 12 points of damage.
GM: You slash the orc with your sword, causing a grievous wound. The orc staggers back, growling at you. It is badly wounded but still standing.

Player knows the AC:
Player: I hit the orc for 12 points of damage.
GM: You slash the orc with your sword, causing a grievous wound. The orc staggers back, growling at you. It is badly wounded but still standing.

In the latter we spend less time with the mechanics and get to the narration faster.

Agreed. It's a shorthand. In real life if I get into a fight with someone I might not know my precise chances to hit or whatever but I will very quickly have a strong sense of whether I'm outmatched, in which ways, and by how much.

All the more so if I was a professional adventurer that's survived dozens of fights.

 

[soviet]

It's also about agency. Visible rules mean the players and the GM are on the same page. As a player I can make decisions about likely outcomes without further input from the GM and I can often see from my dice rolls whether my action has succeeded.

If everything is gated through the GM's narration then even with the best will in the world I am operating at a distance and any misunderstandings that result are likely to be to my detriment (as a PC and/or as an agent in the game).

 

[Corinnguard]

So I can totally appreciate wanting the discussion at the table to be more about the fiction than the rules and the narration to be evocative and immersive rather than mere mechanics. I just think that sometimes the players knowing the numbers makes the former easier.

Player does not know the AC:
Player: 17 to hit, do I hit?
GM: Yes you do, roll damage.
Player: 12 points of damage.
GM: You slash the orc with your sword, causing a grievous wound. The orc staggers back, growling at you. It is badly wounded but still standing.

Player knows the AC:
Player: I hit the orc for 12 points of damage.
GM: You slash the orc with your sword, causing a grievous wound. The orc staggers back, growling at you. It is badly wounded but still standing.

In the latter we spend less time with the mechanics and get to the narration faster.

So how much time do you think a player would save if we knew an opponent's AC beforehand? I can imagine that we don't go about timing ourselves in order to get to the narration faster. Especially since there is a bit of a time gap between what we say and do in RL, and what happens in the game world. One round of combat takes about 6 seconds in the game world. In the real world, both conversations would probably take less than a minute, and that would probably depend on what is the average talking speed.