How Visible To players Should The Rules Be?

[hawkeyefan]

Of course the problem there is that the person operating them already does. We just take it on faith that the GM will be good enough at firewalling that knowledge.

Do we? I don't think we do that too much. I think most GMs operate with potentially complete knowledge of the PCs and their capabilities, and uses that knowledge regularly. I think knowing the characters' capabilities (and the players') is a vital part of being a GM in many games.

They may not take full advantage of it at all times, but I don't think they tend to firewall it. Why would they?

This should also be true for the player. The GM also has take it on faith that the player is also good enough at firewalling that knowledge.

Or, they can just share that information and let the players use it. Anything that might not be readily apparent to the characters can be made to be... it's up to the GM.

I forget who, but someone upthread literally wanted the whole statblock in order to have immersion and agency.

I may be recalling the wrong post, but I think that was more about the fact that having that information allowed for more agency.

As for immersion, obviously that varies quite a bit. Some people lose it as soon as a number is mentioned. Or at least, certain numbers... other numbers that they've long ago onboarded as acceptable are perfectly fine!

I think for me, it's about players being informed to a level that approximates what the characters will have. I'm less concerned with how exact numbers are considered than I am with being able to make a reasonable decision in the game the way my character would in the fiction. If my ability to do so comes from some bit of math, and the character's comes from spatial and temporal awareness in his environment, that's fine. I don't need the factors to be identical so much as I want the level of information to be equal.

 

[Lanefan]

You will know your own character's stats because you have either have a sheet of paper, a fillable PDF or even an online D&D Beyond page containing their stats.

And this is one unavoidable example where player knowledge and character knowledge have to diverge, in that the in-fiction character largely won't know its own exact numerical stats* but the player usually will. For game purposes this seems to have worked OK for long enough that I think we can count it as accepted practive.

* - exception: if training-to-level is a thing in the setting, characters would "know" their levels by counting how many times they had stopped for training.

Lastly, how would you feel if the monsters knew everything about your character stats? Be careful of what you wish for, you might not like it.

Too true!

 

[Lanefan]

I can't help but think a game that revolves around having to learn basic stats like AC and the like is less focused on more meaningful discoveries. Minutiae like that just don't interest me compared to what the characters are doing in the fiction... what they're trying to accomplish and why.

Except if they're busy trying to learn basic stats like something's AC, that tells me that what they're almost certainly trying to accomplish in the fiction right now is the winning of a combat against that something.

Bigger considerations like why they're in said combat or what they're fighting for or where they're going next can wait till after the dust settles.

 

[Lanefan]

Then you should be advocating for information dense decision-spaces. In D&D that means numbers/values + transparent procedures.

Realism dictates that while observation can often get you close-ish, nothing is certain until it's measured and verified.

I can go outside, look at a telephone pole, and guess how tall it is; but until-unless I climb up and measure it* all I'll have is a guess. Is it 17 feet tall? 20 feet? 22 feet? I can't tell from down here. I can look at a person across the street and think "that guy looks tough" by the way he dresses, walks, and so forth; but until-unless I see him fight (or fight him myself) I've no way of knowing whether my assessment is accurate or whether he's just a poser.

* - or look up "standard telephone pole lengths" on google, but our medieval-fantasy characters ain't got the interwebs and even if they did, (unlike their players sometimes!) they likely wouldn't be browsing in mid-combat.

 

[Lanefan]

This ignores the base question which I've presented repeatedly of how good a job GMs do of conveying the answers non-numerically. Most of the rest of it doesn't matter if the GM is going to present it in a way that doesn't convey anything useful.

True. I'm assuming here that the GM (or the module, if relying on boxed text) is at least reasonably good at description, and halfway consistent with it.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Except if they're busy trying to learn basic stats like something's AC, that tells me that what they're almost certainly trying to accomplish in the fiction right now is the winning of a combat against that something.

Bigger considerations like why they're in said combat or what they're fighting for or where they're going next can wait till after the dust settles.

My point is that it shows a difference in focus. I expect that a game that concerned with hiding the AC is going to tend to be frustrating when it comes to sharing information. That I'm going to have to 10 foot pole my way through everything.

True. I'm assuming here that the GM (or the module, if relying on boxed text) is at least reasonably good at description, and halfway consistent with it.

I think the point here is that no matter how good a GM or boxed text may be at this, they will fall short compared to what the character can perceive and intuit from their "actual" surroundings.

 

[pemerton]

@pemerton and my partner are two of a few handfuls of people I know who are marathon runner capable and have massive cycling mileage under their belts. I would absolutely defer to pemerton on the subject. My partner basically had this to say on marathon running and long distance cycling (she is also a degreed chemist and biologist); all of this tracks with my intuition on the subject (for what that is worth). The significant chunk of cycling and marathon running involves the engagement of active processing. However, once resources become extremely depleted and systems taxed, there is definitely a "handing off" to automaticity in marathon (or marathon+) running and at some point, overwhelmingly so (the threshold for this is individual-based). The threshold for this in cycling (where she hasn't experienced this depletion and taxation because the, presumed, mileage required to do so) has to be waaaaaaaaaaaaaay up there when contrasted with running.

I just want to reply to this, in case my prowess comes across as exaggerated: I don't run marathons, but fairly regularly run 10+ km and fairly recently ran a half-marathon. I'm not a particularly remarkable athlete, but probably somewhere towards the upper end of practised endurance for a middle aged Australian man who has worked as a researcher and academic teacher for his whole adult life.

I try to at least once or twice a week go for a long distance walk. I haven't rode a bike in years and I don't like running.

When I do go for a walk, I tend to stick to familiar routes that I have walked many times over the years. I can imagine that you have rode a bike or have run along familiar routes as well. So you don't need to think about the route unless you want to go down a different street because it's there, or you are curious about what lies down it. Instead, you allow yourself to think about other things. I go for long distance walks because walking gives me a chance to be introspective about myself and whatever catches my interest at the moment.

<snip>

You probably have done quite a number of things in RL where you were thinking about something while performing rote behavior. So has everyone including myself. Why can't a Fighter do the same thing?

I also walk quite a bit, sometimes to get from A to B but more often with my partner.

Part of what I enjoy about running is that it is - mentally - a very different experience from walking. Walking, at least for me - and it sounds like also for you - does not require a great deal of attention to body and surroundings. (The exceptions to this I've experienced is when recovering from leg injuries and coming off crutches, ankle braces etc.) Whereas running does, in the ways I've described upthread.

Cycling in urban traffic is similarly mentally demanding in a way that walking isn't, although whether that's a source of pleasure or fear can depend on mood and severity of traffic! I am not concentrating on where I need to go. I am concentrating on not being killed by the many hundreds of kilograms of metal and plastic moving all around me at speeds that would be fatal if a collision were to occur, especially as I am often moving at a speed that means if something goes wrong I will have little control over what happens next. Attaining and maintaining that speed also means that I am frequently thinking about my legs (how they're moving), my feet (where they are on the pedals - I am rather clumsy/uncoordinated and so don't use clips or cleats) etc.

I am sure that a fighter has practised particular moves many times - this is the "successful repping" that @Manbearcat describes - but I would expect every ounce of cognitive fibre to be concentrated on how they are moving, what the ground is like beneath and about them, how their opponents are moving, etc. I can't imagine that, while fighting in a deadly fight, a fighter is also - say - worrying about what they will cook for dinner, or planning the agenda for tomorrow's board meeting, or the sorts of things one might thing about while going for a walk along a safe and well-known route.

 

[pemerton]

You know in Level Up the fighter (the class most likely to be able to gage fighting ability like you all are insisting) actually has access to an ability that lets them do that.

That's one option - to gate the knowledge behind a successful use of a rationed ability (whether rationed in use, rationed out to some players but not others, or both). I have used this in 4e D&D (Monster Knowledge checks).

Another option is just to tell the players. I typically do this in Burning Wheel.

If we accept that the former option is consistent with realism or immersion, then the latter seems to be so too - I mean, it can't make the obtaining/granting of knowledge more or less unrealistic that some or other at-the-table rationing scheme is used. The difference is about game play.

In 4e D&D, it is taken for granted that monster stats sit within some broad "level-appropriate" parameters (roughly, individual monsters not much more than 2 levels lower or 4 levels higher, and overall encounters not much more than 1 level lower or 4 levels higher, at least until the later tiers where up to 8 levels higher becomes feasible). The Monster Knowledge check provides tactical benefit within the context of those known parameters.

Burning Wheel has no notion of "level" and a fortiori no notion of "level appropriate encounter". Telling players things like "The guards aren't particularly tough - they have Spear B3" is just part of establishing stakes and context for action declarations. If a player wants to make their PCs knowledge of foes a particular focus of play, they can do that by bringing in appropriate PC build elements and action declarations. For instance, the wizard Aramina has the instinct *Always Assess before casting a spell." So when I'm playing Aramina I can call on that instinct and get the appropriate Perception roll, establishing - as part of my action declaration - what advantage I hope to get from assessing the situation. If I fail, the GM might introduce some additional element that Aramina had initially overlooked - "Oh, yeah, you notice that that one is wearing a Jade Ward that will negate your spell casting". Or might impose some sort of debuff - "You try to assess the situation, but the sun reflects off one of the guard's shield bosses and dazzles you - take a +1 Ob penalty for the first exchange." Or whatever else makes sense given the established scene and its stakes.

So Level Up's approach is not solving a problem. It's just setting out a different possibility for game play.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's one option - to gate the knowledge behind a successful use of a rationed ability (whether rationed in use, rationed out to some players but not others, or both). I have used this in 4e D&D (Monster Knowledge checks).

Another option is just to tell the players. I typically do this in Burning Wheel.

If we accept that the former option is consistent with realism or immersion, then the latter seems to be so too - I mean, it can't make the obtaining/granting of knowledge more or less unrealistic that some or other at-the-table rationing scheme is used. The difference is about game play.

In 4e D&D, it is taken for granted that monster stats sit within some broad "level-appropriate" parameters (roughly, individual monsters not much more than 2 levels lower or 4 levels higher, and overall encounters not much more than 1 level lower or 4 levels higher, at least until the later tiers where up to 8 levels higher becomes feasible). The Monster Knowledge check provides tactical benefit within the context of those known parameters.

Burning Wheel has no notion of "level" and a fortiori no notion of "level appropriate encounter". Telling players things like "The guards aren't particularly tough - they have Spear B3" is just part of establishing stakes and context for action declarations. If a player wants to make their PCs knowledge of foes a particular focus of play, they can do that by bringing in appropriate PC build elements and action declarations. For instance, the wizard Aramina has the instinct *Always Assess before casting a spell." So when I'm playing Aramina I can call on that instinct and get the appropriate Perception roll, establishing - as part of my action declaration - what advantage I hope to get from assessing the situation. If I fail, the GM might introduce some additional element that Aramina had initially overlooked - "Oh, yeah, you notice that that one is wearing a Jade Ward that will negate your spell casting". Or might impose some sort of debuff - "You try to assess the situation, but the sun reflects off one of the guard's shield bosses and dazzles you - take a +1 Ob penalty for the first exchange." Or whatever else makes sense given the established scene and its stakes.

So Level Up's approach is not solving a problem. It's just setting out a different possibility for game play.

Fair enough. I'm down with monster knowledge checks too, and in a game like Burning Wheel I doubt I'd have any issue just telling the players whatever, because in games I'm not familiar with I'm inclined just to do what the rules say. But to me, you need to work at it somewhat and/or have specific training to get that kind of detail; the expediency of the GM just giving it to you in D&D "for free" is not worth it to me, because to me that feels unrealistic and overly gamist.

 

[pemerton]

This whole post comes off as rather elitist to me, like anyone with experiences similar to yours should feel the same way as you, and feeling otherwise is "laughable".

My experience, in other fields of expertise, is that people who are equally expert tend to be able to assess a relevant situation in similar ways. Or to recognise something they missed when it is pointed out to them.

My fields are more cognitive than physical. But certainly I would assume that a serious fighter could tell, from observing me, that I'm not one!