A GMing telling the players about the gameworld is not like real life

[hawkeyefan]

I wasn't missing anything. I was acknowledging the scenario you presented, and then applying it to a different scenario that involved player signaling. So to make things easier, let's accept that I understand that the players in your example are signaling that they don't want to pretend.

In my example, the players were signaling that they don't want to be surprised by monster strengths and weaknesses. So then, if the DM says, "too bad, you can't know about the unknown strengths and weaknesses until something happens that clues you in, the DM would also be being a bit of a jerk, no? This is also about the players being able to have input in some where on where the game goes and how it's played.

In both examples the players are signaling their desire. So in both examples the DM ignoring the players' signals would result in the DM being a jerk, right?

No because there is a meaningful difference between asking to not have to pretend to not know what you know and demanding that the DM tell you everything you don’t know.

Now, having said that, I do think that playing with all monster stats, including vulnerabilities, being known is a perfectly valid way to play. If this is what the players want to do, then they certainly should let the DM know and they should all discuss it and figure out how to proceed.

But this is an order of magnitude different from not wanting to be forced to play the guessing game RE trolls and fire.

That's the way D&D is played. At least if you are following the rules and intent of the game. Is that problematic for some? Sure. They can change it very easily to suit their needs, though.

Yes. This is how D&D is played. Two things on that.

First, some folks don’t like that and so they criticize it and mention other systems or methods. But you always return to D&D as the basis for your points.

Second, changing D&D is precisely how this conversation started. A poster asked how to make some elements of the fiction require less DM authority.

We are discussing various systems and methods, so always reverting to the default expectations (which also are sometimes vaguely defined and may vary) seems odd.

Absolutely. But it's not about whether it can run perfectly fine with the DM having that kind of authority. It's about whether the players enjoy that sort of game. If they do, then great. If not, they either need to change the game or find a different one.

It’s about what the system does and what the participants are hoping to get out of it. A mismatch in those is where a problem occurs. So a change to the system or even to a new game may be in order. Or else a shift in expectations by the participants might be necessary.

 

[Numidius]

[MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] and [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION]

A party has already encountered The Ranger's favored enemy (say dragons?) so many times that every Pc at the table knows every single stat, power, weakness, full stat block of dragons.
Then They encounter a dragon that is identical to a statted one in the MM, so nothing new at all.

Would the above Commune druid' spell and ranger's ability still be useful to overcome the dragon encounter, or are by now redundant and useless?

 

[Aldarc]

The DM is the one that decides these things, unless the DM changes how the game runs. There are no rules allowing players to make up backgrounds on the fly, or to just decide the players know things about the game world. The DM is the one that decides whether it's a yes, no or uncertain which requires a roll. Thank you for sharing that you don't understand metagaming and the DM's role, though.

1) This is an assertion about your play preferences disguised as rules facts. Do I need to pull up your quote on facts and opinions again?

2) Max, I think you need to actually demonstrate some awareness of how the game exists in a more open space than your own narrow reading of the game rules. One can also note, for example, that although you may say that there are no rules allowing players to make up backgrounds on the fly there are also no rules that prohibit it. Normally there freedom exists within the spaces where rules are silent rather than restrictions. So [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is correct that this is just your unsupportable assertion.

3) Perhaps most damningly, your post, most especially the first sentence, is a glaring admission that you operate by Dungeon Mother-May-I when it comes to character knowledge. The DM decides = The Mother decides when it comes to giving the other participants permissions in play.

 

[hawkeyefan]

In most cases I'd look to the DM first, if only because the DM has to have been there for every session that campaign has been played and thus in theory knows all the info (and if a player is keeping something secret from the other players, in theory the DM knows about that too and can factor it in).

That makes sense. I personally find that I forget as much as the players do, but that it tends to be different kinds of things. Sometimes I'm really surprised by what they remember, and other times I'm amazed at what they forget.

Pretty much, yes.

I would say that the burden of "fitting" is on the new element in just about every case.

Nowhere near as much, as most of the time those can either be tweaked to suit or dropped entirely. Any breadcrumbs I'd dropped earlier as foreshadowing would simply lose any relevance they might have had, is all.

The only time this would become a nuisance is if a player had something in the works that she'd discussed with me-as-DM ahead of time and then someone else - intentionally or otherwise - introduced something that nullified the first player's plans somehow.

I could see that being a concern. I don't know if things could not be reconciled, but I suppose it would depend on the specifics of the two elements.

Sorry, I just don't see it that way.

Perhaps instead it's the equivalent of being thirsty, someone handing me a glass of water (which I drink), and then the same someone telling me two hours later that there's beer in the fridge and has been all day; had I known this at the time I'd likely have had one of those instead.

It's clearly the case of choosing to have a problem where none needs to be.


One thing I'd like to revisit if you don't mind is this bit that you snipped out of your reply:

It seems like it could be a reasonable concern. Which game did you have in mind? Have you played any such games?

 

[iserith]

[MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] and [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION]

A party has already encountered The Ranger's favored enemy (say dragons?) so many times that every Pc at the table knows every single stat, power, weakness, full stat block of dragons.
Then They encounter a dragon that is identical to a statted one in the MM, so nothing new at all.

Would the above Commune druid' spell and ranger's ability still be useful to overcome the dragon encounter, or are by now redundant and useless?

They would be useful in verifying assumptions the player may have regarding the dragon's stat, power, weakness, etc. Presumably, the player does not know with certainty that the dragon's stat block is unchanged from the Monster Manual. If the player does know that the stat block has not changed, then it's not as useful.

 

[iserith]

3) Perhaps most damningly, your post, most especially the first sentence, is a glaring admission that you operate by Dungeon Mother-May-I when it comes to character knowledge. The DM decides = The Mother decides when it comes to giving the other participants permissions in play.

When I run D&D games and a player asks me, "Would I know about X?" my response is typically "I can only describe the environment and narrate the result of your actions. Do you have an action you want to take?" I discourage all questions from players in most cases, but this one in particular is a sign that the player comes from the kind of game where the DM has to sign off on what you know before you're allowed to take action (else you risk the ire of the DM and/or the rest of the group). Some retraining to undo the work of previous DMs is often required.

 

[Numidius]

Sounds a bit cold blooded, but I get the re-educational purpose.
Of course, coming from DW experience, I'd return the question to the sender: "HOW exactly would you know about X?" and in case incorporate the new content in the fiction, if interesting.

Sometimes it happened the contrary to me: Gm asking how would I know, implying I could not, and me: "who is asking? If the Gm, I don't feel like an answer is due, if is an Npc asking my Pc... I will give an IC answer thru action declaration" , so to not lend the side to Gm veto.

When I run D&D games and a player asks me, "Would I know about X?" my response is typically "I can only describe the environment and narrate the result of your actions. Do you have an action you want to take?" I discourage all questions from players in most cases, but this one in particular is a sign that the player comes from the kind of game where the DM has to sign off on what you know before you're allowed to take action (else you risk the ire of the DM and/or the rest of the group). Some retraining to undo the work of previous DMs is often required.

 

[iserith]

Sounds a bit cold blooded, but I get the re-educational purpose.
Of course, coming from DW experience, I'd return the question to the sender: "HOW exactly would you know about X?" and in case incorporate the new content in the fiction, if interesting.

Yeah, without the additional context of my table rules document, it does sound cold-blooded. But here is what I tell players up front: "Describe what you want to do by stating a clear goal and approach - what you hope to achieve and how you set about doing it. A question is not a statement of goal and approach, nor is asking to make an ability check or the like." There is no need then to Ask Questions and Use the Answers in this case. (I was a playtester for Dungeon World.)

Sometimes it happened the contrary to me: Gm asking how would I know, implying I could not, and me: "who is asking? If the Gm, I don't feel like an answer is due, if is an Npc asking my Pc... I will give an IC answer thru action declaration" , so to not lend the side to Gm veto.

Typically in a statement of goal and approach for recalling lore, I'm looking for the player to say what he or she wants to recall (goal) and how he or she might know that (approach) e.g. "Having grown up in the wilds, far from civilization, I draw upon my knowledge as an Outlander to identify this strange plant with the yellow blossoms." As DM, I would not imply or state the character could not recall it before the player made the action declaration. Even if I say or the dice say the character cannot recall that information, nothing is preventing the player from having the character think and act as if the plant is a dangerous yellow musk creeper.

 

[Maxperson]

Not being able to recall a troll's weakness doesn't stop you from lighting a torch and hitting the troll with it. Or lobbing alchemist's fire.

Sure, but that's metagaming.

That's a player stating an action to deduce based on available clues whether the statue is something more than a statue. The DM finds the action to have an uncertain outcome and a meaningful consequence of failure and calls for an Intelligence check to which the player would like to say Investigation applies. The DM agrees.

I disagree. It's very clearly an experienced player trying to "find out" if it's a gargoyle monster without saying that his PC knows about gargoyles.

It is absolutely something the player can decide. The player might, however, be wrong as above. So it's skillful play to verify those assumptions by attempting to recall lore about the enemy in question.

This is just not the case. The rule is explicitly about remembering information about them. It is NOT about verifying what the PC already remembers. If the player decides that his PC has the knowledge, he is breaking that rule. If breaking rules is now "skillful play," then next session I'm going to have to let the DM know that I'm not stopping with two attacks, and instead I am going to engage in "skillful play" by attacking until the monster is dead.

 

[Maxperson]

No because there is a meaningful difference between asking to not have to pretend to not know what you know and demanding that the DM tell you everything you don’t know.

Now, having said that, I do think that playing with all monster stats, including vulnerabilities, being known is a perfectly valid way to play. If this is what the players want to do, then they certainly should let the DM know and they should all discuss it and figure out how to proceed.

But this is an order of magnitude different from not wanting to be forced to play the guessing game RE trolls and fire.

I disagree that the difference is all that meaningful. Either the players desires to affect the game through their signaling is important and should be respected, or it isn't. Once you start deciding that this player signaling is okay, but that player signaling isn't, you seriously muddy up the subject. You end up with Schrodinger's DM who is both a jerk and not jerk at the same time, and which he is will be decided by each individual separately.

First, some folks don’t like that and so they criticize it and mention other systems or methods. But you always return to D&D as the basis for your points.

Second, changing D&D is precisely how this conversation started. A poster asked how to make some elements of the fiction require less DM authority.

Well, not exactly. THIS conversation started when the poster asked for advice and used a pejorative in the process. Whether he himself uses that pejorative personally isn't really relevant. If someone is quoting a pejorative as a part of his questioning, he is giving it a measure of validation. He should have chopped the pejorative out or just phrased it a different way.