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A GMing telling the players about the gameworld is not like real life
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<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7578804" data-attributes="member: 29398"><p>In order:</p><p></p><p>1. Yes. Knowledge level regarding a town (a part of the setting) would be GM-determined in concert with looking at your character's background and history to see if you've ever been here before or have any other legitimate reason to know much about the place. (and if you don't have a background/history done up, dice are plan B)</p><p></p><p>2. Maybe. This one would largely depend on class, stats, and background. Any wizard, most clerics, and some rogues would reasonably have had some basic math training; as would almost anyone from a wealthy or merchant-based or trade-based background. But a simple farmer who has taken up fighter as an adventuring class? Nowhere near as likely, and a GM trying to play to medieval realism (where peasants got next to no formal education beyond what they were told in church) might enforce this.</p><p></p><p>3. Probably. The GM (and you-as-player if you've been in for the whole campaign) will know whether she's ever used trolls as foes before in that campaign. If no, then it comes down to how else might your PC know this; and most GMs would either give you a roll of some sort or give the collective party a roll to see if this useful nugget of info had ever crossed your transom (and - less likely but still relevant - whether you happen to remember it under stress!). But note that by 'give a roll' I also mean 'force a roll' if players start using knowledge their PCs might not have.</p><p></p><p>That's taking it to the extreme, I think.</p><p></p><p>You're right in that we don't know everything our characters know. The question is how do we handle this lack of knowledge at the table, particularly when there's a clear advantage to having said knowledge (e.g. the troll example). My feeling is that the default should be that the character doesn't know something unless there's evidence that it does (which can be provided by a successful die roll). Never been to this town? Unless my background says I've been here before the best I can hope for is that a die roll tells me I've heard about the town from others, or from past study. And it's on me as player to be honest enough to make (or call for) these sort of rolls.</p><p></p><p>Where I don't see all that much of a difference between these. Unless something informs to the contrary and says the PC has the knowledge you're still operating your PC with knowledge of troll-lore that it doesn't have.</p><p></p><p>Same can be true of the doors. Maybe your PC received divine guidance and knows going in that Door #1 is the killer and Door #2 is safe. But without this the PC is left to guess.</p><p></p><p>That sounds like a roaring table argument just looking for a place to happen.</p><p></p><p>If one of the PCs legitimately knows about troll vulnerabilities then one would hope she'd tell the rest of us before we die. But if none of them know then none of them know, and it's on us as players to play accordingly even if it means running our PCs into a ditch. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 7578804, member: 29398"] In order: 1. Yes. Knowledge level regarding a town (a part of the setting) would be GM-determined in concert with looking at your character's background and history to see if you've ever been here before or have any other legitimate reason to know much about the place. (and if you don't have a background/history done up, dice are plan B) 2. Maybe. This one would largely depend on class, stats, and background. Any wizard, most clerics, and some rogues would reasonably have had some basic math training; as would almost anyone from a wealthy or merchant-based or trade-based background. But a simple farmer who has taken up fighter as an adventuring class? Nowhere near as likely, and a GM trying to play to medieval realism (where peasants got next to no formal education beyond what they were told in church) might enforce this. 3. Probably. The GM (and you-as-player if you've been in for the whole campaign) will know whether she's ever used trolls as foes before in that campaign. If no, then it comes down to how else might your PC know this; and most GMs would either give you a roll of some sort or give the collective party a roll to see if this useful nugget of info had ever crossed your transom (and - less likely but still relevant - whether you happen to remember it under stress!). But note that by 'give a roll' I also mean 'force a roll' if players start using knowledge their PCs might not have. That's taking it to the extreme, I think. You're right in that we don't know everything our characters know. The question is how do we handle this lack of knowledge at the table, particularly when there's a clear advantage to having said knowledge (e.g. the troll example). My feeling is that the default should be that the character doesn't know something unless there's evidence that it does (which can be provided by a successful die roll). Never been to this town? Unless my background says I've been here before the best I can hope for is that a die roll tells me I've heard about the town from others, or from past study. And it's on me as player to be honest enough to make (or call for) these sort of rolls. Where I don't see all that much of a difference between these. Unless something informs to the contrary and says the PC has the knowledge you're still operating your PC with knowledge of troll-lore that it doesn't have. Same can be true of the doors. Maybe your PC received divine guidance and knows going in that Door #1 is the killer and Door #2 is safe. But without this the PC is left to guess. That sounds like a roaring table argument just looking for a place to happen. If one of the PCs legitimately knows about troll vulnerabilities then one would hope she'd tell the rest of us before we die. But if none of them know then none of them know, and it's on us as players to play accordingly even if it means running our PCs into a ditch. :) [/QUOTE]
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