DMG & MM: Players Stay Out?

[mhacdebhandia]

They should be playing their PC in-character.

That has nothing to do with it, unless by that you mean that they shouldn't know anything that their characters don't know. I happen to think that's silly.

 

[Imp]

Personally I think the playing-rules-blind and the co-DMing approaches have very different virtues and it's a good idea for people to try both if they can. That said, I tend to, by default, believe that the players have read the DMG and Monster Manuals, but it's usually gauche if they whip 'em out during a game. It might not be an issue in 4E if it's easier to screw around with the monsters.

 

[Lanefan]

That has nothing to do with it, unless by that you mean that they shouldn't know anything that their characters don't know. I happen to think that's silly.

Where I happen to think that player knowledge about equalling character knowledge is the ideal situation, making for better role-playing and a greater sense of discovery as the game goes along.

The DM just has to make sure that the information is given out that the characters *would* reasonably know.

Lanefan

 

[Hussar]

See Geron Raveneye, my memory isn't always flawed.

Moldvay is indeed the one true version.

YOu couldn't avoid reading the booklet. There was only one booklet and it had all the character information in it.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Yeah, I recall seeing it in a british pocket book edition...back then I simply assumed it was the same as my german Mentzer edition, only smaller and in one book. Shows what I knew of the game back then.

Thing is, there's plenty of games out there that come in a "single book" edition, way back from Shadowrun and others to several D20 games nowadays (CoC, Midnight or Lone Wolf look down on me from my shelf ). As long as players can keep the GM information separate from their player knowledge while they are playing, I don't mind this at all, but I can sure say that for my 15-year old self it was easier to have the information for player and DM separated in different booklets. Made it easier to smack my fellow teenaged players on the fingers and shout "DON'T look into that book! Bad! No XP for you!" or something similar, inciting a 15-minute riot that ended with some monster showing up and keeping them busy again.

I guess it's, as usual, up to playing preferences. I know that I'd write down all player-pertinent information for my character, including stats for any summoned creatures (asking them from the DM first time I summon them), and let the rest be the DM's problem. It's a conscious decision to not know some stuff, or not care for it, and to leave the rules interpretation to the DM. As a DM, I found myself ruling more often in the players' favour when they left the ruling on certain things (conditions, magical effects, etc) to me, trusting me to make it interesting instead of boring, than when they quoted page and paragraph to me, which simply makes me take the ruling in the book as literally as possible. Not really a conscious decision, more something that goes automatically. When I'm left to rule something, I try to make the effect interesting in context with the game at hand. When a player quotes a rule to me, it means he wants the effect to work exactly that way. Also means I look up the text in question myself, since I did have players who somehow managed to quote only the beneficial part of some rule, conveniently leaving out some penalty or aftereffect.

 

[sinecure]

Couldn't the DM create all new stuff for a world the players don't know about? It does make sense to me that my character doesn't know about trolls so I shouldn't either. That way I'm not confused when I face one for the first time. Or maybe I am confused because it is the first time? Onr good thing is I could only act upon what I remember from the last time we fought trolls. I being me, not the PC. But I that is sort of the same thing if I'm understanding correctly.

It sounds like it's all about point of view. If you look at the rules as things to reference in order to play the game well, then I should know them. But if knowing them takes me out of my character's point of view, I shouldn't know them. If they are stuff I can ignore, I don't care one way or another.

Maybe 4e will be built with houseruling in mind? That way DMs who want to have unknown rules, can use their own houserules. And DMs who want everybody to know the exact rules, can use whatever are the default options? It's hard to say because a lot of what I would want as unknown would include combat and stuff like that.

 

[SSquirrel]

The nebulous "Sense of wonder" is a load of crap. You can't be 12 and playing your first game of D&D again. If the DM has an interesting game together, I will be properly excited and involved.

Besides, WoTC sells a lot less books under the "DM ONLY!!" policy of the Gygax days. They are designing 4E so that MORE people will want to DM. Which means they probably want to sell, you guessed it, more copies of the DMG.

 

[TwinBahamut]

I don't like the idea of making books off-limits to players. Also, I don't care at all about this overly-vague "sense of wonder" idea, and I certainly don't think that WotC should build the rules to encourage that playstyle. I really don't see why player ignorance is something to be idealized... I never even had a "sense of wonder" in any D&D game, but I have had no problem enjoying the game and various campaigns very much.

Anyways, as a player, I like knowing things. Tracing back DM plots to brief lines in some Eberron sourcebook is fun. Knowing that Kaius, the King of Karnath, is a LE vampire as a player, but dealing with the fact that as far as the PCs are concerned he is the greatest king in the world, is far more dramatic and interesting to me than some cheap "surprise! He was a vampire all along" bait and switch.

Similarly, the fact that I read the stats for the Tarrasque when I first started playing the game would make me more terrified of fighting the thing than any DM's description could ever be. Heck, if for some reason I didn't read the statblock and the DM sent it at me when I was level 9 or such, I would probably just buckle down and try to fight it, no matter how the Dm prodded me, simply because without any kind of foreknowledge it is just another monster. The sentiment that "oh **** it's the Tarrasque" is 100% metagame knowledge, but it is far more real for the players than the PC's in-character reactions, and it is a lot of fun.

If I am to draw an analogy here... Quite often, in movies, books, and TV shows, the perspective of the story will shift completely away from the heroes, and show the actions of the villains or other characters. This gives the viewer more information than the main characters, which lets the viewer come to conclusions more quickly than the characters can, and helps add complexity and dramatic tension. Often, this improves the story quite a bit, and I think many stories could serve to use this technique more, rather than less.

Because the players are the audience just as much as the actors, there is quite a bit of validity in giving them more information than the PC would have access to, simply because it adds the same tension as it does in movies. By definition, this is metagame knowledge, but this just shows that metagame knowledge is not bad in of itself, if your objective is for the players to have fun and be immersed in the story, rather than just have them be characters under your control.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Where I happen to think that player knowledge about equalling character knowledge is the ideal situation, making for better role-playing and a greater sense of discovery as the game goes along.

I disagree. Players who can learn to firewall character knowledge from player knowledge can contribute a lot more to the game than players who are left in the dark about anything their PCs haven't directly experienced.

 

[Hussar]

I've seen this thing brought up more than a few times and I've never been able to comprehend the attraction.

What is it about having players who are stumbling around in the dark, wasting table time because they don't have any grasp of mechanics, that makes for a better experience?

I love having newbies at the table. It's fun. But, heck, give me newbies who've played DDM for a few months first. That's ten times more fun than trying to teach someone cold.