How Visible To players Should The Rules Be?

[Maxperson]

"In the clearing ahead, you see a pair of 9' tall humanlike figures. They seem very thin and have minor deformities- one has an obvious club foot, and the other's face looks like it's partially melted due to a malformed jaw. They wear furs and hides with pieces of metal armor stitched into strategic places, and wield spears."


From this description, how does one tell, exactly, if they are dealing with an easily dealt with threat, or a deadly encounter? You can metagame that the DM isn't going to use an encounter of two easily defeated mooks, but you really don't know. Are they as tough as giants? Trolls? Ogres? Bugbears?

No idea. Should you alpha strike by using a powerful spell, or attempt to use minimal resources? No amount of experience can let you make an informed decision, unless you know exactly what these things are from player experience.

Or again, you could metagame and think "well, this is the second encounter, we might face up to 6 more today. Or not."

Now, I could say, "this is a Verbeeg, it's slightly more dangerous than an Ogre." And maybe that's enough.

Or I could say "he has 5 hit dice, one attack, and a Strength of about 20 and a (surprisingly good, based on the description) 16 AC." Now, I know the players can make a proper tactical assessment.

Or you can say, "I think back to the things I learned of giants in my youth and try to recall what this might be." which would prompt the DM to probably ask for a lore check of some kind.

Or you can say(because of the background you wrote and turned in), "My village bordered the Megalith Mountains, where many clans of giants lived. We dealt with giants on a regular basis." Prompting the DM to give you a roll of some sort, or just tell you what it is since you've probably seen one before.

D&D is a game where a little bunny rabbit can actually be a horrible abomination. Description doesn't actually tell the player very much about what they are dealing with. There are, however, cues a trained combatant can glean from someone's stance, how they carry their weapons, the condition of said weapons, and a hundred more intangibles that I don't have the time to describe (or think about in the moment).

Some feel that you should have to have a special feature, like the Battlemaster, to be able to size up foes. I'm in the opposite camp- everyone should be able to do this if they're in the business of facing down deadly foes on a daily basis.

That's what prior experience and lore rolls are for.

There's no need to for the only options to be to metagame or act without any knowledge of what it might be at all.

 

[Maxperson]

I see. So when an enemy hits a PC, how do you communicate how much damage is dealt?

Apples and oranges. A DM describing a scene is not the same as damage dealt to a PC. The former needs no numbers given at all, the latter does unless the DM wants to track everything for the PCs as well as the NPCs. Players need to know the damage if they are going to be able to tell the DM when their PC falls unconscious and for other things. That's very different from the AC of a monster which the players don't need and which is no extra work for the DM to track.

 

[Maxperson]

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.

2 seconds less time.

Player: I hit AC 22.
DM: Roll damage.

That exchange added less than a second to the time. Then the player rolls adding a second or so. 2 seconds, 3 at the outside, isn't a big deal.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Or you can say, "I think back to the things I learned of giants in my youth and try to recall what this might be." which would prompt the DM to probably ask for a lore check of some kind.

Or you can say(because of the background you wrote and turned in), "My village bordered the Megalith Mountains, where many clans of giants lived. We dealt with giants on a regular basis." Prompting the DM to give you a roll of some sort, or just tell you what it is since you've probably seen one before.

That's what prior experience and lore rolls are for.

There's no need to for the only options to be to metagame or act without any knowledge of what it might be at all.

Yup. Folks, I know assuming only two options makes discussion easier, but this issue is as much a spectrum as almost everything else is.

 

[Reynard]

I think there's something to be said for that initial uncertainty when the fight starts, that potential "Oh no, we made a bad decision" moment.

 

[Thomas Shey]

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.

I think this has kind of a bad take on what goes on in combat, especially melee combat; assessing your opponent is always part of it, in time frames shorter than that. That doesn't mean you'll know things that are intrinsically opaque, but doing things like assessing how the opponent moves and what it looks like in terms of apparent armor and the like is something a trained combatant will be doing constantly.

 

[pawsplay]

I've done plenty of combat sports and boffer stuff, and it takes about 0.3 seconds to figure out if your opponent's footwork is any good.

 

[soviet]

Sure, but I'm comfortable with that.

That's great. It's a tradeoff. Neither way is intrinsically better or worse.

 

[Maxperson]

I've done plenty of combat sports and boffer stuff, and it takes about 0.3 seconds to figure out if your opponent's footwork is any good.

+1 good, +3 good or +5 good?

 

[Manbearcat]

Even most tactical CRPGs don't give you that detailed stat information as default. The more I think about, the less I would want to play with people that just see a collection of numbers and not an ogre or whatever. Magic is even more fun if you lean into the themes and story of the cards.

Well, for some people and some games it can be both:

* They "see" (imagine) an Ogre. This is the clouds that Vincent Baker is referring to here.

* They "see" (actually interact with) a collection of numbers, keywords, currencies, resolution procedures, incentive structures, clocks/timers, inventory/loadout schemes, relationship values, and moves (or powers or knacks or whatever they're called in a given game) that collectively serve as the game layer language which represents said Ogre so that actual people in meat space can (a) correctly orient to said "clouds" (elements of the imagined space), (b) play the game in front of them which entails composing (if you're a GM) and managing (if you're a player) a compelling, game layer-related decision-space. This is the boxes that Vincent Baker is referring to here.

When I run Dogs in the Vineyard, I don't "see" dice pools and "raises" and "sees" (etc). I compose situations that provoke the judgement or mercy of young priests who are trying to manage the stewardship role of their faith and all the imaginings that entails. Same goes for Blades in the Dark or Torchbearer or Stonetop or The Between or D&D 4e or Mouse Guard or whatever. No one at the table is just "seeing" a collection of numbers or throws of dice or keywords or Resistance Rolls rather than Ogres, the faithful falling to Sin and Sorcery, corrupt Bluecoats shaking down a corner store, and the stink of soot, machine shavings, dense smoke, and showers of sparks in Coalridge, or x, y, z imaginings.