How Visible To players Should The Rules Be?

[aramis erak]

AC is shorthand*. It's actual definition "Armor Class" is even an misnomer, as you can have a high AC without wearing actual armor at all!

I could say "he's wearing no visible armor, but you can see the telltale signs of an Abjuration effect, likely Mage Armor, carries a shield, and is remarkably swift"...or I could say "he has AC 19" and it means pretty much the same thing.

Only the same to experienced players; for inexperienced, they won't know the math involved.

Arguably, one could attempt to dispel a Mage Armor where you can't a suit of physical armor, and that's a consideration that could be made, if I ever saw anyone actually do it (outside of the high-level 3.5 Dispel meta). And as for Dex bonus, well heck, you don't even lose that anymore, so it's also practically no different from physical armor (unless you need an indication of whether or not a target has a high Dex save, and you could just say that if someone asks).

*I realize this isn't a D&D specific thread, but many systems have a defense rating of some kind, and even those that don't have some other form of defense that makes you less likely to suffer harm in combat.

And yet, your whole exemplar array is D&D specific.

Now let me address another comment I've seen several times so far- giving the players information "for free". The DM is the only source of sensory input for the players. They see what you tell them they see, they hear what you tell them to hear. I don't know about other people, but no description, no matter how detailed, can substitute for what their characters could conceivably sense- ie, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Agreed.

Plus, in the heat of the moment, you might forget a detail that the players would have otherwise picked up on. It happens- I once infamously mispronounced a word I had only ever read while reading a text block in an old 1e adventure, and thus my players missed a critical detail about an encounter! So in my opinion, it's very likely that much of the time, players are getting less information than they would if they themselves (let alone their characters, who are likely superior to them in many ways) were in this situation.

I've found that tends to happen mostly in other people's groups... but then again, only a few of my friends have wider vocabularies in English than myself; PN comes to mind immediately. But there are times he or I will need to explicate some jargon for the other.

My players, generally, have learned to go ahead and ask if I break out a $2 word they don't know.

I'd rather err on the side of giving them more than letting them walk into a "gotcha" moment that shouldn't have been one, but even so, there shouldn't need to be a "special ability" to let someone know whether it's a good idea to engage a situation or flee from it (as fleeing gets harder the longer you've engaged in a combat).

That depends upon the margins and the players. My current sunday group is willing to flee even fights they're winning if the risks look to high; the did so this sunday just past. 4 Werewolves vs a mixed 6-7th level (mostly demi-human) D&D party... they panicked as the summoned wolves started joining.
Meanwhile, my other group, they're happily tackling things in Dragonbane that damned near kill the party each session.

 

[Corinnguard]

But if the GM just flat-out tells the players that the foe's AC is 17, she's lying; in that what the GM isn't saying is that the attacker's shield is +2 and his armour is +1 with displacement, meaning his actual AC is 20 and your first "hit" will in fact miss. And if the GM says the attacker's AC is 20 that's going to significantly change the PCs' approach, in that the numerical info the GM is giving them doesn't line up with what the characters can see and thus they'll know this guy's packing magic.

Two sayings came to my mind when I read this:

"Looks can be deceiving."

and

"Don't judge a book by it's cover."

Instead of wearing something that might tip off the players to the possibility that they are packing magic, the NPC deliberately wears gear that looks like he found them in a junkyard. He was really trying to get the party to underestimate him. And it would have worked until the party began to notice that something was off about the way the NPC was easily shrugging off their attacks. They would have then asked the DM if it was okay to make Insight, Investigation and/or Perception checks. Which is what the DM was hoping they would do. Once they made their checks, then they would change their tactics against the NPC.
If the DM told the party that the NPC was packing magic, they wouldn't see the need to make a skill check and there wouldn't have been a need to change their tactics.

There's something inherently conflicted about the person who is responsible for my understanding of the game world actively trying to deceive me.

I'm not saying that it never has a place, but I just don't think "how can I lie to them?" needs to be a major consideration.

If the DM is lying to the players, then I have to think there is a good reason for why they are doing so. A Lie of Omission. The DM is going to tell the party something about the foes they are facing. But they aren't going to tell the party everything. Instead they are hoping that the party figures it out on their own.
Also, the DM is not the only person who is responsible for understanding the game world. Some of that understanding needs to come from the player themselves.

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.

Their implied surroundings. Like Reality, Unless Noted - TV Tropes

The DM is the only source of sensory input for the players. They see what you tell them they see, they hear what you tell them to hear.

The DM describes where the party currently happens to be, who or what they are dealing with in a monster encounter, etc. The players in turn try to use their imagination to perceive whatever it is the DM is narrating to them.

 

[Campbell]

I play these games for immersion in the characters, setting, and fiction. The dry recitation of mechanics without referencing the fiction would bore me to tears.

I promise you target numbers are not lying in wait, ready to steal all evocative descriptions or engagement with the fiction. Unless damn near every game I have or ran or played for the last 15 years has been a figment of my imagination.

From my perspective if someone's ability to engage with the fiction is destroyed by the smallest mention of a number or a mechanical term it's likely the case that they were never all that engaged in the first place.

I have played and run a ton of Chronicles of Darkness, Legend of the Five Rings Fifth Edition and a whole host of Apocalypse World / Blades in the Dark. I have never seen players that otherwise would have been engaged with the fiction fall into feral rule obsessed gremlins because they knew what number on the dice was needed to succeed.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But people don't generally walk around with the equivalent of ten foot poles in real life. That really says to me that play is gonna be about "gotcha" type elements.... that if I don't ask the right question (which my character would not have to ask, by the way) then I'll miss some key bit of info or similar.



There's something inherently conflicted about the person who is responsible for my understanding of the game world actively trying to deceive me.

I'm not saying that it never has a place, but I just don't think "how can I lie to them?" needs to be a major consideration.

Also, you didn't respond to the second half of my previous post, and I'd love to get your take on the below as a justification for sharing game information like ACs and distances and the like. Several posters have expressed similar sentiments, and most have been responded to vaguely or avoided entirely.



What do folks think of this idea?

@Lanefan @Micah Sweet @overgeeked @Reynard @Corinnguard

GM description may fall short sometimes, but I'd rather risk that than just start throwing around numbers, which used any more than is necessary harms my immersion, and immersion is why I play.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Their implied surroundings. Like Reality, Unless Noted - TV Tropes

This trope covers my entire philosophy of worldbuilding.

 

[overgeeked]

I promise you target numbers are not lying in wait, ready to steal all evocative descriptions or engagement with the fiction. Unless damn near every game I have or ran or played for the last 15 years has been a figment of my imagination.

From my perspective if someone's ability to engage with the fiction is destroyed by the smallest mention of a number or a mechanical term it's likely the case that they were never all that engaged in the first place.

I have played and run a ton of Chronicles of Darkness, Legend of the Five Rings Fifth Edition and a whole host of Apocalypse World / Blades in the Dark. I have never seen players that otherwise would have been engaged with the fiction fall into feral rule obsessed gremlins because they knew what number on the dice was needed to succeed.

That’s cool and all, but I was commenting on another poster specifically saying they did not bother with descriptions as it got in the way of the game and only focused on the mechanics and numbers. I’m not sure what argument you’re trying to have, but it isn’t with me.

 

[James Gasik]

Sure. And if it works for you, great.

Out of curiosity, you don't ever feel like the game just turns into rote tactical monotony that way?

Not at all. Even if there's a known problem, you still have to come up with a solution to that problem, and, from my perspective, it's a lot easier to develop strategies to do just that when more variables are known.

For example, say the party Cleric can cast Bless. Now, the best time to use this spell slot is if you need the extra accuracy. I'm sure someone will do maths and say otherwise, but I would think that Bless has more power if you're up against an AC 19 foe than an AC 14 one. If the Cleric casts Bless on round 1, they will get the most mileage out of their spell slot.

But it goes further than that. A lot of players feel like accuracy is very important, because missing is effectively a waste of their turn. They'll optimize their chance to land attacks and spells to the maximum, because you simply don't know how accurate you'll be against an unknown adversary. What I've seen is, a lot of enemies (in 5e specifically) tend to have a lot less AC than players think.

Now, an observant player will simply track how often their actions are successful and come to these conclusions, but it could be a lot easier if you realize "huh, I'm level 7, and I'm still up against AC's of 15 a lot. Maybe I don't need to raise my attack stat to 20 next level."

Which then possibly gives them incentive to possibly take a neat Feat to give them more interesting things to do than "attack, attack, attack".

This isn't to say I don't give my parties challenges. Every so often, I'll let the party encounter something far beyond their pay grade, like a dragon or a purple worm. They'll see it, they'll be aware of it long before they fight it, and I'll make sure they have every chance to avoid the thing. Just as I'll make them very aware that this thing is nasty.

If they want to take it on anyways, they know they'll be rewarded, but they also know I won't pull any punches. And it's usually at this moment that the players actually discuss if and how they can take on this thing, and come up with strategies. They don't always work, but I enjoy watching them be creative and actually consider the strengths and weaknesses of the party as a whole.

In a Pathfinder 1e game, they located the lair of a skeletal White Dragon. This thing laired in an ice cave. Many surfaces were smooth, the floor was actually the frozen surface of an underwater lake, and there were stalactites and stalagmites that the dragon could easily destroy with it's tail, sending shards of ice everywhere to assault it's foes, all courtesy of it's Ice Shape ability- effectively it had Lair Actions though they were not called out as such.

They knew it was undead, immune to cold, and vulnerable to fire. So they loaded up on fire spells and cold resistance, as well as any anti-undead measure they had access to. When they entered it's lair and caught sight of it, I let them know that it was wearing barding made from it's own discarded dragonhide to bolster it's defenses, and I happily told them it's AC before initiative was even rolled.

The fight was brutal and they found out they weren't as prepared as they thought they were, especially when they took damage from shards of ice flying about. And then, when they got the thing to 50% of it's health, it used it's tail slap to strike a weak part of the floor, dunking the party into the icy cold lake below!

So despite having a great deal of information about their foe, there was nothing monotonous about the encounter, and I chuckled at their cries of dismay.

 

[Maxperson]

Characters also don't know their own stats though, right? Otherwise it doesn't make sense. 'I'm STR 17 with +4 proficiency and a +2 sword that when it hits does 2d6+5 damage, and I can take a penalty of -5 to hit for +10 damage. I attack twice per six seconds but once per short rest I can attack another two times. Four times per short rest I can also perform these exact manoeuvres. I have 94 hit points.'

Sure, but it's ridiculous for the player to have to rely on the DM for pretty much everything and for the DM to have to track everything. Players need to know their own information so that THEY can track it. I don't have the time or energy to track 100% of everything. I already track The vast majority of it.

It's an apples(PCs) and oranges(NPCs) comparison.

 

[pawsplay]

A lot of player choices are somewhat diagetic, though. In Exalted, you learn new Charms. In Vampire, you improve quantifiable Disciplines. In D&D, the wizard learns fireball. PCs actually do know their capabilities in some important respects.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I think player experience counts for a lot here. If you tell experienced players that they see orcs, they have a sense of what that means. If you tell them that they see "ogres whose bodies are covered in metal scales and whose eyes burn with eldritxh fire" they have a baseline plus some uncertainty. That uncertainty is good and fun. I do not think telling players AC or other details before they have engaged the bad guys is good or fun.

Okay that’s fine. It didn’t address the question, but okay.

I play these games for immersion in the characters, setting, and fiction. The dry recitation of mechanics without referencing the fiction would bore me to tears.

Right. What about the question I asked? About how sharing the numbers (as well as descriptions) can help bridge the gap created by the inability of any GM to fully describe to a player the situation as fully as the character would experience it?

Any thoughts on that?

If the DM is lying to the players, then I have to think there is a good reason for why they are doing so. A Lie of Omission. The DM is going to tell the party something about the foes they are facing. But they aren't going to tell the party everything. Instead they are hoping that the party figures it out on their own.

Again, I’m not saying that the GM never has a reason for deception. I’m sure we can come up with reasonable examples.

But there’s an inherent conflict at play when the same person whose job it is to portray the fictional world to the players is also trying to deceive them.

And he also knows all their stats and capabilities as well. Not a problem for him, though!

Also, the DM is not the only person who is responsible for understanding the game world. Some of that understanding needs to come from the player themselves.

This is interesting. What do you mean by that?

A player’s understanding of the game world is very dependent on the GM’s ability to accurately portray it.

Their implied surroundings. Like Reality, Unless Noted - TV Tropes

I’m not sure what this has to do with anything.

GM description may fall short sometimes, but I'd rather risk that than just start throwing around numbers, which used any more than is necessary harms my immersion, and immersion is why I play.

That’s fine, I understand your preference. But you haven’t really answered the question.

That’s cool and all, but I was commenting on another poster specifically saying they did not bother with descriptions as it got in the way of the game and only focused on the mechanics and numbers. I’m not sure what argument you’re trying to have, but it isn’t with me.

Who said that? You didn’t quote any poster that I can see… how are we to know about whom you’re talking?

I don’t think anyone has said that. If so, I missed it. Most comments are about sharing both descriptions and mechanics.