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A GMing telling the players about the gameworld is not like real life
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7578871" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>There are at least two differences here:</p><p></p><p>(1) It is generally considered that <em>sneaking a peek at a module</em> is cheating. Modules tend to say things like "If you're a player, don't read past this point." Whereas learning that trolls are vulnerable to fire is not cheating. It's part of learning to play the game well.</p><p></p><p>And related to this, <em>re-playing</em> a module you've already played isn't a core activity for D&D, and arguably it's not something the game is designed around. Whereas there is a clear intention that the Monster Manual is to be re-used from campaign to campaign.</p><p></p><p>(2) If it turns out that a player is re-playing a module, most of the time it is easy for that player to avoid deploying his/her knowledge of the module. Nothing will go wrong, for instance, if the player doesn't mention that there is treasure in such-and-such a chest. There may be some exceptions to this - eg the idea of replaying ToH yet remaining silent makes almost no sense. The "player" in that case would really be more like a co-GM playing a NPC.</p><p></p><p>Whereas a player who knows that trolls are vulnerable to fire, yet declines to use fire to fight some trolls his/her PC has encountered, is actively subverting the play of the game. S/he is not trying to win the combat, and is precluded even from taking the actions that a newbie player might take in that situation to try and win the combat. It's degenerate!</p><p></p><p>But attacking trolls with fire is <em>not</em> a case of acting as if the situation is not real and the whole gameworld a fiction.</p><p></p><p>If you know that trolls are vulnerable to fire, but are pretending that your PC does not, <em>when does it become natural to try fire</em>? Players who are <em>actually</em> ignorant of the trolls' vulnerability, but whose PCs are engaged in combat with trolls, will try various stuff to try and beat the trolls - including, pehaps, fire.</p><p></p><p>If you already know the puzzle, how do you work this out? <em>Actors</em> who portray characters solving puzzles to which the actors already know the answer are following a script, and contrive their response. But how is a player in a RPG supposed to do this?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7578871, member: 42582"] There are at least two differences here: (1) It is generally considered that [I]sneaking a peek at a module[/I] is cheating. Modules tend to say things like "If you're a player, don't read past this point." Whereas learning that trolls are vulnerable to fire is not cheating. It's part of learning to play the game well. And related to this, [I]re-playing[/I] a module you've already played isn't a core activity for D&D, and arguably it's not something the game is designed around. Whereas there is a clear intention that the Monster Manual is to be re-used from campaign to campaign. (2) If it turns out that a player is re-playing a module, most of the time it is easy for that player to avoid deploying his/her knowledge of the module. Nothing will go wrong, for instance, if the player doesn't mention that there is treasure in such-and-such a chest. There may be some exceptions to this - eg the idea of replaying ToH yet remaining silent makes almost no sense. The "player" in that case would really be more like a co-GM playing a NPC. Whereas a player who knows that trolls are vulnerable to fire, yet declines to use fire to fight some trolls his/her PC has encountered, is actively subverting the play of the game. S/he is not trying to win the combat, and is precluded even from taking the actions that a newbie player might take in that situation to try and win the combat. It's degenerate! But attacking trolls with fire is [I]not[/I] a case of acting as if the situation is not real and the whole gameworld a fiction. If you know that trolls are vulnerable to fire, but are pretending that your PC does not, [I]when does it become natural to try fire[/I]? Players who are [I]actually[/I] ignorant of the trolls' vulnerability, but whose PCs are engaged in combat with trolls, will try various stuff to try and beat the trolls - including, pehaps, fire. If you already know the puzzle, how do you work this out? [I]Actors[/I] who portray characters solving puzzles to which the actors already know the answer are following a script, and contrive their response. But how is a player in a RPG supposed to do this? [/QUOTE]
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