Kinda changing rules without telling players.

[Murrdox]

There is a difference to what players should know, and what their characters know.

In terms of level drain, any trained cleric should know something about how level drain works... it's one of the most basic abilities of greater undead. Unless the cleric in question educated himself in isolation or a town that was ignorant of everything around them, he's heard about how level drain works. There are hundreds of ways that characters can learn things aside from personal experience.

If you introduce a curse into the party... they should be able to know what they need to DO to get rid of it... but they shouldn't know exactly what level cleric they need to find to cast the "Remove Curse" that is necessary - research on the curse would be required.


I still think your ruling was fine... but I think house rules should be agreed on before hand. I know that I'd be annoyed if my DM made changes to rules without informing us. All you really need to tell them is "Oh, by the way, I'm changing how DR works... magic enchancement will no longer necessarily trump other kinds of DR, such as silver, holy, etc."

Now, after being informed of that, if your players then proceed to buy weapons that are silver, holy, black obsidian, +1, lime green colored and whatever other DR types exist, just so they are prepared for every given situation, they're metagaming and you should stop that.

We're getting into the larger problem here of players assuming that their characters know everything that they do. Some players can pull off character ignorance just fine, others get annoyed and think their characters should have the stat blocks of all the monsters memorized, and immediately know that Rakshasas die to crossbow bolts, etc.

There's nothing wrong with simply saying that their magical weapons don't beat the DR of the were-rats - as was said previously, you could invent were-rats that had DR of black obsidian or anything else, and it'd be fine. You're the DM, you're allowed to make things up and change things as you see fit. However, when changing a RULE, its generally a good idea to tell your players about it. After that, it's up to the group to curtail metagaming.

 

[Drakron]

No, that player was CHEATING and using meta-knowledge that his character had no way of knowing to try to use a spell that should work.

Meta-knowledge is PCs using knowledge they sould not have.

He was in not "cheating" since he knows D&D 3rd ed core rules over DR and found strange that damage done by his weapon were not bypassing DR as acording to the rules.

If the character was 10th level and using a spell the exact same way in the exact same situation that he had before then he has every right to expect a certain result.

He have every right to expect the results of the core rules plus any house rule in effect that he was informed.

The first time anything is done in a completely new to the character situation he should NEVER expect to know exactly what will happen. That is cheating pure and simple.

No, cheating is reading the module and using that information to get the best possible result.

Also characters have a past and neither they or the world was created 5 minutes ago, some knowledge exist of creatures they never personaly seen or fight but that could be get from a passing adventurer tales or bard song.

If that still makes no sense look at it this way. Unless a Player uses META knowledge the Magic Weapon spell made no sense to use. Granting it to a barbarian that was already hitting with every blow and doing decent damage was a complete waste of a spell. What is a +1 hit and damage to a character doing +8 attack and 2D6+6 damage? Its trivial. But if that character uses meta knowledge and knows that the spell will negate the DR and allow all his damage to go through then he is pure and simple cheating.

Its gives more damage and a +1 to damage in each round means 10 extra points of damage being inflicted after 10 hits.

A +1 is quite useful for non fighter classes (rogue for example).

Also you are accusing him of meta knowledge and cheating when in fact he just pointed out as a player that the rules were not being enforced.

The fact is, you alter the rules mid game and did not informed the players of that fact and worst, that players sould only know the PHB rules with everthing else being "DM knowledge".

The rules are ALL the rules being enforced in the game table, either then being core rules or house rules.

 

[Agback]

Dude, you are getting the levels confused. The player was reminding you, his character was not. The characters know nothing about twenty-sided dice or attack bonuses, but you aren't whinging about the fact that the players kept telling you their roll totals.

Another thing is that in my opinion you are letting the word 'master' go to your head. You and your friends have got together to play a game, which you are all supposed to enjoy. Secretly changing the rules does not help the others enjoy themselves. On the contrary, it makes them feel frustrated until they find out what happened, and cheated afterwards. And your rationalisation (that your players are incompetent to manage part of their responsibilities: keeping character and player knowledge separate) is an insult. You expect your players to trust you that your monsters and NPCs will not act with perfect knowledge of the world and the rules: trust your players. Remind them of the issues if you feel you must, but don't inflict gratuitous insults.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Brown Jenkin]

As a player I would object to rule changes without my knowlege. As has been pointed out everyone has agreed to play a game by certain rules, and if rules are changed without my knowlege we are not playing the game I agreed to. How would you feel if you were playing chess and your opponnent moved his king five spaces. When you object he states that it is his board and peices and that you are therefore playing by his rules. When you ask if there are other rule changes he says that there might be but he won't tell you because he wants you to feel like you did when you first played chess. The only way around this I can see that would be in any way acceptable is if the DM before hand makes it clear to the players that he is trying to recapture the fun of playing for the first time so rules have been changed and the players will only find out those rules by trial and error.

I personally don't want to recaputure the fun of playing and not knowing the rules but that is me. If everyone else agrees that they want to play this way then fine but I feel that this is something that everyone has to be in on for it to be fun. I am not saying in a regular game that monsters can't be changed up but not the rules (the laws of physics and magic).

Spellcasters are taught and spells and knowledge are handed down. How Magic Weapon and Greater Magic weapon work should be known to the spellcasters. In 3E the laws of Physics and Magic state that magic trumps materials when it comes to DR (The concept of DR will also be known). If I am a spell caster I will choose and cast spells the way that they are known to work. As a player of a spellcaster I would be upset if I didn't know how my spells work since there is no reason that my character wouldn't know this. If the rules (the laws of physics and magic) state that magic doesn't always trump materials for DR that is something my character and myself should know. What a particular monsters vulnerability is should not neccesarily be known but whether magic trumps materials certainly will be.

I am not defending whining about a point over and over, but I do think that the players should know how the rules have been changed or that the rules are being changed without thier knowelege to bring surprise to the game. If they want to play that way fine, but everyone should be on the same page.

[Edit: Spelling]

 

[JacktheRabbit]

He was in not "cheating" since he knows D&D 3rd ed core rules over DR and found strange that damage done by his weapon were not bypassing DR as acording to the rules.

So tell me.

How does Dalla the 16 year old 2nd level fighter who just recently quit the town guard know exactly what the DR is of every foe they could ever fight and how to defeat it?

Please do tell me.

Cause when a player talks to me during game time that is who they are talking as. If she cannot know that then its the player using meta knowledge and doing little better than cheating.

 

[Mallus]

<snip> How would you feel if you were playing chess and your opponnent moved his king five spaces.

RPG's are nothing like chess. Its a bad analogy. Let me try my hand at one involving chess...

You sit down for a game of chess with a stranger, in a strange land. You have a rudimentary idea of how to play. During the game, your opponent moves his king five spaces. You think that's odd, an illegal move in fact. But no one watching the game --the inevitable kibitzers-- thinks the move is unusual. You begin to think that they play a different kind of chess around these parts. Armed with that knowledge, you revise your stratgegy...

 

[Brown Jenkin]

RPG's are nothing like chess. Its a bad analogy. Let me try my hand at one involving chess...

You sit down for a game of chess with a stranger, in a strange land. You have a rudimentary idea of how to play. During the game, your opponent moves his king five spaces. You think that's odd, an illegal move in fact. But no one watching the game --the inevitable kibitzers-- thinks the move is unusual. You begin to think that they play a different kind of chess around these parts. Armed with that knowledge, you revise your stratgegy...

If I'm in a strange land playing chess with a stranger I might expect something different (prehaps it is realy GURPS), but I am playing chess (D&D) at home with my friends. When I play chess with my fiends I expect that we are playing by the same rules that we both know. If we choose to play differently that is fine but we should both be playing by agreed on rules. Not everyone finds enjoyment in not knowing the rules or assuming that growing up in a land of magic and monsters that they are completely ignorant of everything around them. Your logic on playing in a strange land only works if your characters have been transported to a different place where magic and physics work differently from what they grew up with.

 

[Drakron]

So tell me.

How does Dalla the 16 year old 2nd level fighter who just recently quit the town guard know exactly what the DR is of every foe they could ever fight and how to defeat it?

Please do tell me.

To start its a lv 2 fighter and that means ... experiance.

Also since its a town guard, I suspect quite strongly it also trains its guards in some unique aspects of certain creatures, as undead and lycanthopes (just because its relative uncommon does not mean they dont know or prepare against such creatures).

Also people that battled those creatures could have pass that town and traded tales.

Also Lycantrophy is a relative low level and known magical curse and there must some temples on that city that have information on it.

Cause when a player talks to me during game time that is who they are talking as. If she cannot know that then its the player using meta knowledge and doing little better than cheating.

So when a player really needs to use the bathroom its actually the character that have a nature call?

Most DMs separate when the player is talking and when his character is talking since there are many times that players question the DM about somethings that really dont make any sense the character is asking that question (visual descriptions for example).

 

[Brown Jenkin]

So tell me.

How does Dalla the 16 year old 2nd level fighter who just recently quit the town guard know exactly what the DR is of every foe they could ever fight and how to defeat it?

Please do tell me.

Cause when a player talks to me during game time that is who they are talking as. If she cannot know that then its the player using meta knowledge and doing little better than cheating.

Dalla would know many things from training with the gaurd. They would teach her that some monsters are not hurt by ordinary weapons and that if they run accross one of these the "SWAT" team with special weapons needs to be called in. She will know whether the "SWAT" team had only magic weapons or whether they have a arsenal of different material types for different creatures. They would teach her about common monsters that cause trouble in towns and cities like Lycanthropes. Her training will consist of both her own insights and those of her veteran superior officers who will tell her stories of thier own experiences and she will be taught by the church/wizards guild about special threats they have heard of and want to keep the town safe from. She will also have heard stories growing up about all kinds of things in the world (just like when we were sixteen we knew about much of the world through stories [books and movies]) both folktales ands stories from wandering bards.

 

[Mallus]

Your logic on playing in a strange land only works if your characters have been transported to a different place where magic and physics work differently from what they grew up with.

<Inigo Montoya> I do not think that my analogy means {to you} what I think it means {to me}</Montoya>

What I meant was that every starting player is 'travelling to a strange land' when they begin play in a new campaign. A place where they have only a rudimetary knowledge of how things work.

I'm assuming that at the start of play, low-level characters don't have a large body of 'adventure's common knowlege'. This is just the kind of game I run and like to play in.