How Visible To players Should The Rules Be?

[soviet]

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.

It isn't that the character would know the numbers, it's that the character would have an intuitive sense of 'Can I climb that?', or 'Can I beat him in a fight?', or 'Can I run to that bus before it leaves?'. This is based on muscle memory and real experience but also a million different perceptual readings and brain processes.

In play we necessarily don't experience all those things and we rely instead on a very brief description from another party, with resolution then filtered through that person's (largely uncommunciated) sense of what's plausible. In such a game I have very little sense of what my character can achieve until I actually do it and see if I succeed.

I suggest that in real life the band of 'I dunno if I'll succeed at this' is pretty narrow. Mostly we know whether we can or can't do something. I have a pretty clear intuitive sense of my own abilities even if I couldn't articulate it in numerical terms.

The numbers in a game are an abstraction of that assessment and intuition that puts the player closer to the position of the character in terms of outcome prediction.

 

[soviet]

Way to ignore the whole "It's a spectrum" concept!

What?

 

[Thomas Shey]

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!

Its possible to some extent to hide these sort of things, but that requires some deliberate (and sometimes risky) actions over and above routine combat processes, and as such are usually represented by things like bluffing and the like.

 

[overgeeked]

It isn't that the character would know the numbers, it's that the character would have an intuitive sense of 'Can I climb that?', or 'Can I beat him in a fight?', or 'Can I run to that bus before it leaves?'. This is based on muscle memory and real experience but also a million different perceptual readings and brain processes.

I think you wildly overestimate what people can intuit. People think they can climb things they can’t all the time. People think they can take someone in a fight and get their ass handed to them all the time. People run after buses that are already driving away all the time.

In play we necessarily don't experience all those things and we rely instead on a very brief description from another party, with resolution then filtered through that person's (largely uncommunciated) sense of what's plausible. In such a game I have very little sense of what my character can achieve until I actually do it and see if I succeed.

Yes, and that mirrors real life.

I suggest that in real life the band of 'I dunno if I'll succeed at this' is pretty narrow. Mostly we know whether we can or can't do something. I have a pretty clear intuitive sense of my own abilities even if I couldn't articulate it in numerical terms.

Most people wildly overestimate their own abilities.

The numbers in a game are an abstraction of that assessment and intuition that puts the player closer to the position of the character in terms of outcome prediction.

The numbers in the game give the player a definitive sense of what they can or cannot do, what their odds are in any given situation, which is entirely unrealistic. No one can look at a wall and estimate their precise percent chance of climbing it. In a game with numbers you can.

 

[soviet]

I think you wildly overestimate what people can intuit. People think they can climb things they can’t all the time. People think they can take someone in a fight and get their ass handed to them all the time. People run after buses that are already driving away all the time.

Yes, and that mirrors real life.

Most people wildly overestimate their own abilities.

The numbers in the game give the player a definitive sense of what they can or cannot do, what their odds are in any given situation, which is entirely unrealistic. No one can look at a wall and estimate their precise percent chance of climbing it. In a game with numbers you can.

So, to be clear, you don't let players see the stats of their characters either? Because 'in real life people don't know their own capabilities'.

 

[pawsplay]

Even if you did hand players the stat blocks for the monsters, the use of a d20 for resolution means they will have insufficient information to judge the outcome of any given battle. That's a lot of possibilities.
The main reason you don't just hand over stat blocks to the players is to hide specific tactics, and specific powers or weaknesses. There is nothing to be gained by withholding the stat block of a standard orc warrior, and nothing to be gained by attacking the PCs with a gang of non-standard, powerful orc warriors without signalling that in some way.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Just a brief reminder: this is a TTRPG thread, not a D&D specific one.

 

[Reynard]

It isn't that the character would know the numbers, it's that the character would have an intuitive sense of 'Can I climb that?', or 'Can I beat him in a fight?', or 'Can I run to that bus before it leaves?'. This is based on muscle memory and real experience but also a million different perceptual readings and brain processes.

In play we necessarily don't experience all those things and we rely instead on a very brief description from another party, with resolution then filtered through that person's (largely uncommunciated) sense of what's plausible. In such a game I have very little sense of what my character can achieve until I actually do it and see if I succeed.

I suggest that in real life the band of 'I dunno if I'll succeed at this' is pretty narrow. Mostly we know whether we can or can't do something. I have a pretty clear intuitive sense of my own abilities even if I couldn't articulate it in numerical terms.

The numbers in a game are an abstraction of that assessment and intuition that puts the player closer to the position of the character in terms of outcome prediction.

You know how good you yourself are. You don't know how good they are until they start swinging.

 

[pawsplay]

You know how good you yourself are. You don't know how good they are until they start swinging.

You don't know how good you are until they start swinging.

 

[Reynard]

You don't know how good you are until they start swinging.

That's just not true.