how much to tell players about areas before rolling?

[thegrumpyyoungman]

okay so i'm crafting an entire world for my upcoming dnd session. this will be a fresh start from the previous ones as ive learned quite a bit and read tips and stuff on how to make dnd awesome. i'm enjoying crafting my world...and i'm starting small in a concentrated area....kinda like the zones in World of Warcraft.

so my starting zone has about 15 different places of interest that i'm going to let the players explore as the game goes on over time. im building in history and details for each area and really trying to give each place its own look and feel. that being said, im fast forwarding to the actual game where the players are walking up to the this certain area and ready for me to tell them something about it.

my question is, how much do i tell them? i mean, i want them to know all of the details and history of the place (yes i know too much detail seems like a book. my details are brief so not to worry about that), but i also want to be realistic about it. if the players walk up to the ruined tower, should i just tell them what they see and that's it? or should i give them the history behind the tower and why it's ruined, but maybe not tell them about the secret hidden inside or whatever.

in the DM guide it talks about checks and passive checks and then assigning DC's to checks for history, knowledge, etc. in looking at one of my eladrin players, his knowledge is very high and thus he will know quite a bit about the areas that he comes to. so i want to immerse the players in this world im creating, but i also want to leave some mystery out there. what do you guys do???

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, you can set a graduated set of DCs for each area. So maybe History DC15 - some basic info, DC20 - some more interesting details, DC25 - some really cool juicy details. Also not all the lore needs to be tagged to one skill. History might tell you about what is written of the place. Arcana might tell you something about the magic lingering around it, and Dungeoneering might tell you something about the most likely way to get into a structure of this type. Probably different PCs will have good bonuses at each skill.

You can also have information exist in other places. Buried in mouldering tomes in some library for instance. Maybe someone can find a guy that will sell you a copy of the map made by the last people to investigate (streetwise could be real helpful here). Ritual magic is also pretty handy for getting information. I'd expect the party might consider casting various divination rituals depending on their level and how much they think they need to know.

Story hooks are another thing. They can be information, but also quests etc involving a place which will encourage the players to go from one place to another or just give them an excuse to visit a new place.

For some places lore may also simply be really well known. Everyone around these parts knows the story of the desecration of The Temple of Light...

 

[thegrumpyyoungman]

Well, you can set a graduated set of DCs for each area. So maybe History DC15 - some basic info, DC20 - some more interesting details, DC25 - some really cool juicy details. Also not all the lore needs to be tagged to one skill. History might tell you about what is written of the place. Arcana might tell you something about the magic lingering around it, and Dungeoneering might tell you something about the most likely way to get into a structure of this type. Probably different PCs will have good bonuses at each skill.

You can also have information exist in other places. Buried in mouldering tomes in some library for instance. Maybe someone can find a guy that will sell you a copy of the map made by the last people to investigate (streetwise could be real helpful here). Ritual magic is also pretty handy for getting information. I'd expect the party might consider casting various divination rituals depending on their level and how much they think they need to know.

Story hooks are another thing. They can be information, but also quests etc involving a place which will encourage the players to go from one place to another or just give them an excuse to visit a new place.

For some places lore may also simply be really well known. Everyone around these parts knows the story of the desecration of The Temple of Light...

right but what about passive skill checks? i'm a newb dm so forgive me if i have the rules messed up here...but passive = 10 + skill bonus right? if that's the case then my eladrin player has the following in the bonus column of his skill section:

arcana = 11
history = 11

so that means his passive is a 21 every time. right? and that's just at him being level 4...once he levels that number will go up, so does that mean i bump up the DC for stuff or just make him more knowledgeable?

 

[Stoat]

Pick three interesting details about each of your 15 places of interest.

When the PC's arrive at that place, tell them those three details.

Example: A ruined tower
1. This place was built by Clerics of Ioun.
2. It was burned down by Orcs a long time ago.
3. Its basement used to contain a magical map of the entire kingdom.

If the players want to ask for more detail, let them. Set DC's for knowledge checks as you see fit. I would use Easy DC's for things that are common knowledge, Medium DC's for things that are only known by a few and Hard DC's for things that are only known by specialists or experts.

I don't generally use passive checks for knowledge skills. I only use passive checks for Perception ans Insight.

 

[thegrumpyyoungman]

Pick three interesting details about each of your 15 places of interest.

When the PC's arrive at that place, tell them those three details.

Example: A ruined tower
1. This place was built by Clerics of Ioun.
2. It was burned down by Orcs a long time ago.
3. Its basement used to contain a magical map of the entire kingdom.

If the players want to ask for more detail, let them. Set DC's for knowledge checks as you see fit. I would use Easy DC's for things that are common knowledge, Medium DC's for things that are only known by a few and Hard DC's for things that are only known by specialists or experts.

I don't generally use passive checks for knowledge skills. I only use passive checks for Perception ans Insight.

ah ok...i think the passive knowledge check stuff is what was throwing me off here. i like the idea of just not using them passively. thanks for the tips.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I would area with the idea of telling them some basic stuff with no rolls, especially stuff that sets one area apart form other areas.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

OK, there are actually two slightly different (but almost identical) concepts here:

1) Passive checks - These are used in cases where a PC/creature's skill factors into something that is being done to/against them, such as when someone tries to hide from you and has to exceed your passive Perception.

2) Take 10 - This is where in a non-critical situation a character is allowed to simply state that they rolled a 10 on a skill check. Whether or not a given situation allows this is entirely up to the DM. It is intended so that a character can guarantee success on a fairly mundane task under ideal circumstances (a rogue studying a trap on his workbench can take 10 on his disarm attempt).

Knowledge checks don't GENERALLY fall under either of these cases. Take 10 COULD apply, but the general concept with knowledge checks is to determine whether or not in the PCs store of knowledge of a subject they happen to have ever come across information on a given subject (IE whether they actually know a given fact in their area of knowledge or not). IMHO this doesn't generally warrant a take 10, except maybe if the PC is sitting in his library and can look things up. During an adventure I'd always ask for a knowledge check. Even the most erudite scholar could conceivably never hear about some moderately easy to find information just because the subject of History or Arcana is so vast that they never happened to read "Phanstern's Codex of Ancient Wizard Towers" or whatever.

In other words a Wizard with Arcana bonus of +11 COULD get a result of 12. He may just come up blank on that specific fact. He could also get a 31 and be wonderfully informed on that specific thing. This system works pretty well in a general sense. It can seem a bit inconsistent if a character makes a lot of checks on closely related things that logically form one sub-area of knowledge. OTOH usually that kind of case is part of a Skill Challenge and several checks count together as part of success.

 

[aco175]

If it is part of the story, make sure you tell them weather painly, or having them roll, but auto succeed.

I started a campaign once where I gave each player a map with some notes on it with local knowledge that character would know. The elf knew something cool about the dark forest and the dwarf knew about the mountain ruins. I also includes a few contacts or friends in a random town or two. Some of the information came up early in play , while some came to light almost at the comclusion, and some not at all. Each player enjoyed this and I want to try this again. The only drawback was when they found out thay each had different information on their map and copied all of it onto each map, which ruined a bit of fun for me, but it worked for them.