How much do characters know about game mechanics?

[pauljathome]

In previous editions I've always taken something of a middle ground.

Clearly SOME of the game mechanics ARE visible to the character. A wizard knows when he acquires new spells, characters in the world realize that a gobln just can NOT hurt them when they're fresh and unwounded, everybody knows that in a fight they fight at full effect until they drop unconscious, etc. The world the characters lived in was NOT the world of reality or even of movies. If you wanted that world, pick a different set of rules. The rules were sufficiently simulationist that the gap between character and player view was reasonably small

So, for example, characters have some concept of hit points and level. Oh, not exact numbers but some reasonable impression of what they entail in world. They KNOW that, after awhile, a single goblin just isn't a threat.

One of the costs of 4th editions gamist over simulationist approach is that the gap between character and player knowledge becomes significantly larger. That gap has become sufficiently large for me that I no longer have the remotest clue what my character is experiencing in combat. Once combat starts I almost completely treat D&D as a miniatures war game and just ignore characterization except for choosing meta tactics (save the child, kill the guy I really hate, etc).

I'm afraid that I just have to dismiss all the rationalizations I've heard about "the opportunity for that particular attack comes up only once a day". In world, the characters are going to notice that this opportunity comes up at most once a day and almost always does come up exactly once a day when adventuring.

This is especially true for all the powers that just totally break normal reality. How does a rogue occassionally manage to shoot 8 crossbow bolts at once when normally he has to take time to load? Why can my wizard who is held in a web spell move when the Warlord yells at him? Etc etc etc.

The above really isn't intended to start an edition war. There are costs and benefits to 4th edition.

 

[pauljathome]

Actually, given the diagonal rules for D&D,

Mostly a rant but it speaks directly to the character knowledge question.

I absolutely loathe the 4th edition diagonal rules. Especially since the 3rd
edition ones were such an elegant solution.

If you think about the implications of the rules then its clear that the
physics of the DND world, as perceived by the characters, are RADICALLY
different than our own.

To take a couple of examples that the characters WOULD notice.
1) A wall spell cast by a wizard has different lengths and configurations depending on where it is cast. If you have two corridors coming in at a 45 degree angle, each of identical width, the wizard IS going to notice he can block one with a straight wall and not block the other with some crooked wall.

2) People ARE going to notice that distance is different than in our world. That guy over there on the diagonal IS as close as the guy over there on the straight line and not 40% further away as he is in our world. Moving in a zig/zag way is as fast and efficient as moving in a straight line. The world is some form of hyperwarped torus.

 

[Barastrondo]

The elegance versus accuracy trade off is probably better named abstraction versus roleplay. The degree to which the characters interact with the world in the same way their players do, are acted out in that world by the players, is the same degree of roleplaying happening in the game. The more or less one must act out their role in the game, the more or less one is roleplaying in that game. The choice is: what elements do we want to roleplay, and which do we want to abstract (or must abstract as in magic). 4e, as you point out, is really more of an abstraction game than D&D was previously.

I agree that abstraction is a good term, but not on the idea that its opposite is roleplay. Abstraction is an enabler for certain kinds of roleplay, in particular the ability to roleplay characters whose skill sets include things you don't know about. For example, picking locks is almost always handled by an abstract skill check, regardless of game. I don't really agree with the idea that thieves are being "less roleplayed" than fighters because the GM and player aren't playing through an elaborate minigame that involves a description of the lock's inner workings, puzzling out how to handle which tumbler to remove, and the like. You could probably do a really good lockpicking or trap disarming minigame, come to think of it, by following Dread's lead and breaking out the Jenga, but I'm just not comfortable that saying "this is more roleplay."

You're definitely spot on about good gaming being about where you choose to use abstractions and where you choose to use more elaborate subsystems or decision-making processes. When I said "elegance," I was pretty much thinking of how 4e handles that: it uses abstractions freely in pursuit of a really strong "keep the action moving" design goal. I just don't agree that roleplay as measured by a "more or less" standpoint can be determined by anything but the group at hand. A game with a lot of abstracted systems can pack a hell of a lot of roleplaying into four hours: it's just got the equivalent of a tight editor who doesn't like overly long descriptive passages of, say, picking locks.

 

[Jekolm]

Actually, given the diagonal rules for D&D, having the world be chunked up into squares has some funny effects on geometry: a circle 10 feet across has an area of 100 square feet! (In our world it is about 78 square feet). Bascially, the characters would live in a spacetime that is rather strongly curved, where we live in one that is largely flat.

This starts to get ugly when the DM normally sets his grids up along the cardinal North-South, East-West axes, and then every once in a while does not. If characters notice the change in movement along the diagonals... theological issues could erupt over such areas that are so clearly warped.

That could make for an interesting story arc in a game, much less the foundation of a campaign or setting if used right. I may be trying to use that as a less serious aside when my game starts back up after the summer ends.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

I play 3.5, so I do not know about 4E movement rules. But for me, the battlemat squares are just abstractions for the player's benefit.

For spells and stuff, A spellcaster knows how many times they can cast a certain spell, so in a sense they do know a bit about game mechanics, but they do not see it that way.

 

[Kask]

How much do characters know about game mechanics?

In my world? Well, characters know that as wizards practice their arts they gain knowledge and abilities and gain control over more powerful magic. Clerics, as they continue to further their gods aims and goals in ever increasingly challenging situations, are granted more powers. As fighters gain more combat experience (and others) they become more skilled adversaries and gain the favor of gods? so as to be harder to damage.

 

[Janx]

Generally, the people I play with know what is in character to say, and what isn't.

Thus, their PCs don't tend to talk about game mechanics or numeric stats.

Referring to class names is generally OK, as that's just conversational labels

Referring to AC, HP, DC, bonuses and and damage numbers is OOC.

A PC might refer to a stat or skill name, but not the bonus or number

For combat, phrases like the following would be in character:
"harder to hit" (referring to AC)
"does a lot of damage" (referring to weapon damage
"easier to hit" (referring to bonus on magical weapon)
"hurt pretty bad" (referring to how many hit points are left)
"my reflexes saved me" (referring to making a Reflex save)
"he's stronger than he is smart" (referring to Stength and Intelligence)

Since we in the real world don't move in 5' increments, we assume the PCs don't either, nor do they talk about it as if they did

Since we in the real world do refer to people by the role they play, such as nerd, programmer, jock, goth-chick, we assume the PCs mean the same when they same wizard, rogue, fighter and druid.

People (especially Americans) do tend to rank things (like karate belts and job levels) that justifying talking about spell levels may be in character. It stands to reason that since spells have varying, yet consistent power levels based on the experience of the caster, that they would be classified and assigned "levels".

Meaning, it might not be OK to talk about class levels, unless there were a Guild for a class that "identified" and promoted players (even if not enforced by rules).

But it might be OK for PCs to refer to spell levels, as organizations have studied and classified them as part of a teaching curriculum.

In one campaign, I used my martial arts background (I'm a black belt in Ishen Ryu) to create a dojo for a PC, where each level, he was invited to take a test (trial by non-lethal combat) to rank up. Each class level had a name. By the rules, he was whatever level the XP said he was. But socially, he was treated by the level he'd tested to, and wasn't allowed to wear a higher level belt. I also could have given him an XP penalty if he failed the test, but it never came up. In this case though, I was coming up with a way to refer to monk class level, through the flavor of the campaign. This was kind of like 1E Name-Levels, mixed with level training (though not stopping a PC from levelling).

 

[Hypersmurf]

I'm afraid that I just have to dismiss all the rationalizations I've heard about "the opportunity for that particular attack comes up only once a day". In world, the characters are going to notice that this opportunity comes up at most once a day and almost always does come up exactly once a day when adventuring.

This is especially true for all the powers that just totally break normal reality. How does a rogue occassionally manage to shoot 8 crossbow bolts at once when normally he has to take time to load? Why can my wizard who is held in a web spell move when the Warlord yells at him? Etc etc etc.

I love the 'opportunity' rationalisation.

And if the PCs examined it too carefully, and ran statistical trials, and kept logs of when the Rogue used Blinding Barrage, they'd notice that certain things only ever happened once per day and never more frequently.

But when there's a question that breaks the game if the PCs ask it? The PCs don't ask that question. We're in control of the PCs, and if PCs doing X makes the game crash, and PCs not-doing-X doesn't make the game crash, there's advantage to us in ensuring the PCs never do X.

So to me, every PC has some peculiar and inexplicable psychological blind spots that causes them never to ask certain questions - like "How come I can never do this more than once in a given encounter?" - and the problem goes away.

-Hyp.

 

[Alex319]

Originally Posted by Christian:

OK, that's too strong. I would probably alter my mental model based on the class & power source. A wizard or warlock may just need to rest five minutes before he can recharge her arcane batteries that power an encounter power, or six hours to recharge a daily power. But for nearly any martial power, I would definitely model it at the more abstract level.

If wizards having "arcane batteries" that have to be "recharged" makes sense, then why not martial classes having "martial batteries"?

My general point is that this is something that I see a lot - inconsistent standards. People never said that spells having per-day use limitations is "unsimulationist", but they do say that martial abilities having per-day use limitations is "unsimulationist." (Note: I know Christian did not call anything "unsimulationist", and I am not accusing him of doing so. I am simply pointing out a common trend.)

My perspective is that since we don't know how the physics of the game world works, and we know for a fact that it does not work the same way as the real world, we really have little basis for calling anything "unsimulationist" unless it is inconsistent.

Here's an example. Suppose that in the game, there was a magical item that could be used to instantaneously communicate with anyone else having a similar item. But in order to make it not too easy to use, there were some restrictions on its use - it had to be brought back to a special "place of power" for a few hours every day or it would stop working, wouldn't work in certain remote areas, wouldn't work if it didn't have a clear view of the sky, and if you used it more than a certain amount of time a month it would stop working unless you paid extra. Would you consider these restrictions "unsimulationist" as they don't have any logical basis in "reality" and are just there to balance the game?

How about if the game was set in the modern world, and that magical item was called a "cell phone"?

 

[Hypersmurf]

To take a couple of examples that the characters WOULD notice.
1) A wall spell cast by a wizard has different lengths and configurations depending on where it is cast. If you have two corridors coming in at a 45 degree angle, each of identical width, the wizard IS going to notice he can block one with a straight wall and not block the other with some crooked wall.

2) People ARE going to notice that distance is different than in our world. That guy over there on the diagonal IS as close as the guy over there on the straight line and not 40% further away as he is in our world. Moving in a zig/zag way is as fast and efficient as moving in a straight line. The world is some form of hyperwarped torus.

And yet somehow, it never comes up.

Warlord: "Wizard! Can you block that corridor with a wall?"
Wizard: "No, it's too wide."
Warlord: "But I don't understand - it's the same width as the corridor you blocked yesterday. Why does the orientation of the passage change how wide your spell becomes?"

[CRASH]

But if the Warlord's player goes with it...

Warlord: "Wizard! Can you block that corridor with a wall?"
Wizard: "No, it's too wide."
Warlord: "Okay, new plan - Fighter, you cover the entrance..."

Crisis averted!

-Hyp.