D&D General Harshest House Rule (in use)?

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Yes, as said, I'm unwilling to stop the game every couple of minutes and tell the players things their character knows.

But how can a player role play their character if the player doesn’t know the things the character does / should? It’s the DMs world, shouldn’t the DM tell players some basic info their character should / does know?

What are you talking about here?

See @SteveC ’s post right after yours (post #120)

 

[bloodtide]

But how can a player role play their character if the player doesn’t know the things the character does / should? It’s the DMs world, shouldn’t the DM tell players some basic info their character should / does know?

As I said, for new players I do recommend they play clueless characters.

And sure, "some basic info" will be in the player handout. But, it's about useless. Even just a small town, the players won't get more then a paragraph of things. And a single paragraph won't tell you much about a town at all. To just scratch the surface you'd need a 500 page guide book, a 500 page who is who and a 500 page history book. And the player would have to read and memorize all that before the game. And for a city, it's more like a 2000 page book....

But sure, some players read that paragraph about a single town....then dance around the table saying they are the super duper expert of all knowing about the setting.

See @SteveC ’s post right after yours (post #120)

Okay....well that post makes no sense to me.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

As I said, for new players I do recommend they play clueless characters.

Well I am glad my DM is more creative than that!

Okay....well that post makes no sense to me.

I’m not surprised!

 

[Vaalingrade]

Yes, as said, I'm unwilling to stop the game every couple of minutes and tell the players things their character knows.

As the DM, you play the rest of the world, so it's kind of part of the job to present knowledge and sensory details the characters would have that the players don't.

 

[SteveC]

Okay....well that post makes no sense to me.

I'm not sure how much I can simplify it, but I'll try. A character has parts to it that talk about who they are in the world. The Noble background means they are some sort of noble in the game's society. A Sailor has been to sea on a ship and not capsized it. Those backgrounds mean they know things. Similarly, a character's class means they know things as well. A Cleric knows the rites and hierarchy of their faith.

As the DM, you run the game with this in mind. It's your job (and this is in my opinion of course) to communicate how your world works in those areas where the character's Class or Background or any other character feature means they should know it.

And the DM can just give them that information while they are narrating the scene.

 

[the Jester]

I have long liked the idea of a “new characters always start at 1st level” house rule, but due to its obvious extreme harshness have never been bold enough to actually implement it.

That's how my game rolls.

5e has a lot of elements that help enable mixed level play, and the fact that levels 1-3 fly by is a big piece of it. You have to be judicious to pull it off, but I vastly prefer pcs whose history happened through play.

 

[bloodtide]

And the DM can just give them that information while they are narrating the scene.

I disagree and this is exactly what I don't want to do.

As the DM, you play the rest of the world, so it's kind of part of the job to present knowledge and sensory details the characters would have that the players don't.

I agree, I just don't want to stop the game every couple of minutes to do it.

 

[SteveC]

I agree, I just don't want to stop the game every couple of minutes to do it.

I'm not sure if you're trying to say you can't do this or you shouldn't do this.

If it's can't, I can assure you that you can do this without slowing the game down. When you as the DM are starting to describe a scene, you just throw in what the players know outside of the pure physical description. This is typically an additional sentence or two and perhaps 10 seconds. Then you ask "what do you want to do?" After that, they can ask you questions. That's all part of running a scene of pretty much any traditional RPG.

If you think you shouldn't do it, I'll say "okay," and I don't think I have anything further to say. That's not how I run a game, nor how I prefer it do be run by someone else. If your players are having fun, great. I know that ... that would not be a game for me.

 

[Lanefan]

This is such a good point. There's so much info about the world that a character actually living in it would know that it just amazes me that the DM doesn't talk about or provide.

While it's true that any given character will know a lot about its world, I posit that the vast majority of that knowledge would rarely if ever be applicable while adventuring.

A farmer will know a lot about the soil and plants where her farm is, and probably a fair bit about livestock. She'll also very likely be familiar with weather patterns in her home area, and with the night sky*; and she'll be familiar with wildlife local to her farm. This knowledge comes with the farmer when she joins an adventuring party as a Fighter.

A baker will know about yeast and dough and grain and what temperature to set an oven to, and may (if he was selling his own goods) or may not (if he wasn't and someone else was doing the selling) know some about trade and commerce. He'll also know his way around the town or city where his home and bakery are. This knowledge comes with the baker when he also joins the party as a Fighter.

In neither case is any of this (here understated and in fact fairly extensive) knowledge of any use whatsoever when fighting Orcs three countries south of home.

Casters of any type will very likely have a wider scope of "book learnin'" knowledge picked up during their pre-adventuring training, but by no means will they be omniscient and sometimes what they've been told or taught might not be correct at all.

* - exception: knowledge of the night sky can be of use in the field, for navigation.

 

[Lanefan]

As I said, for new players I do recommend they play clueless characters.

And sure, "some basic info" will be in the player handout. But, it's about useless. Even just a small town, the players won't get more then a paragraph of things. And a single paragraph won't tell you much about a town at all. To just scratch the surface you'd need a 500 page guide book, a 500 page who is who and a 500 page history book. And the player would have to read and memorize all that before the game. And for a city, it's more like a 2000 page book....

That, obviously, is overkill.

But basic lore and history of the world-region-realm should IMO be available to the players in a form they can access outside of game sessions (a website is handy here); and if the campaign is to be set mostly in-around a specific town or city some basic lore about that would be useful as well.

Even just a short gazetteer listing each realm or nation in the area, the major cities or towns or locales within that realm, what type of culture it is, what species generally live there, who the current ruler or head of state is (if such info is widely known), and so forth is a good start.

"Pomfrey is a monarchy roughly based on War-of-the-Roses era England. Mostly Human with a scattering of Hobbits. Knights in shining armour are more common here than almost anywhere else, and the Cavalier class originated out of this culture of noble chivalry. Main city (and by far the largest in the whole northlands) is Waterdown, pop. 85,000; this city is considerably more cosmopolitan than the rest of the nation and many species can be found here. Pomfrey is at almost constant war with Rellham, its culturally very similar neighbour to the east; yet both nations share Waterdown as their capital. Current rulers: King William and Queen Charlotte."

To me, that's enough to give a quickie overview of Pomfrey should a player be curious either in or out of character. If Waterdown turns out to be or become important I'd obviously have to flesh it out a lot further.

For the nation the campaign starts or is based in, more detail than this is required; particularly historical detail to explain how things got to where they are today.

Whether or not the players ever read any of this is irrelevant to the fact that by putting it out there where they can read it, I've done my job.