Kinda changing rules without telling players.

[Taren Seeker]

Finally, a change to Lycanthrope DR really ISN'T imo "a basic ground rule of how things work" - it's not 'Dungeons & Lycanthropes' you know...

S'mon, as several people have pointed out to you and DocM himself admitted, his change to the DR rules apply to EVERYTHING, not just lycanthropes. I don't know why you keep posting that.

So yes, DR wrt special materials is a basic ground rule, one that's probably well known in a standard-magic D&D world. If PC's know that some creatures can only be hurt with special weapons like silver then knowing that a common 1st level spell will not help to overcome that should be an easier check, or just granted knowledge.

DocM, you keep pounding the pulpit that anything in the DMG is out of the province of the PC's and players. So does that mean that the PC's in your world don't know that they can spot creatures at long distances (since the -1 per 10' rule is in the PHB), don't know how to listen for invisible creatures, set up an ambush, what racial variants are, what NPC's are capable of (experts, commoners and the like), what the effects of extreme environments are, how long it will take to craft that +1 longsword, etc? If you decide to allow a player to take Loremaster, do you let them to look up what the abilities are and decide if it's something they want to do, or do you tell them what their class abilities are after they take it?

There's a LOT of overlap in these two books. The DMG is not an exclusive book of rules & info for yourself only; it's a book that helps you communicate its content to your players. Your PC's have lived in your world for 15-20 years, so treat them like it. Tell them what they should know, rather than call them cheaters for assuming.

You've mentioned how much you dislike being called names in this thread, but think about how your players feel when they're called cheaters for trying to follow what they think are the rules.

That being said, I also can't believe that I've been sucked into this thread. I will most likely regret it.

 

[Arnwyn]

So yes, DR wrt special materials is a basic ground rule, one that's probably well known in a standard-magic D&D world. If PC's know that some creatures can only be hurt with special weapons like silver then knowing that a common 1st level spell will not help to overcome that should be an easier check, or just granted knowledge.

Okay, I had to respond here because I started laughing at this. A few people keep yammering about what low-level characters know, much like the above statement. Sorry folks, but your comments mean very little. You're talking about something that will be different for *everyone's* campaign, and something that can be decided only on an individual campaign basis - something DocM has clearly done. It's a non-issue.

DocM, you keep pounding the pulpit that anything in the DMG is out of the province of the PC's and players. So does that mean that the PC's in your world don't know that they can spot creatures at long distances (since the -1 per 10' rule is in the PHB), don't know how to listen for invisible creatures, set up an ambush, what racial variants are, what NPC's are capable of (experts, commoners and the like), what the effects of extreme environments are, how long it will take to craft that +1 longsword, etc?.

This is one of those "going to absurd lengths" kind of paragraph. Of course characters know they can spot creatures, listen for invisible creatures, blah blah blah. Why would they need the DMG for that, though? Do they need every single book to tell them what they can specifically can or can't do, especially when it's absolutely obvious? A laughable suggestion, that.

 

[Rackhir]

Stalingrad... The War Dragged On

 

[Taren Seeker]

Okay, I had to respond here because I started laughing at this. A few people keep yammering about what low-level characters know, much like the above statement. Sorry folks, but your comments mean very little. You're talking about something that will be different for *everyone's* campaign, and something that can be decided only on an individual campaign basis - something DocM has clearly done. It's a non-issue.

Pardon my...yammering, but since DocM allowed a check to know that the lycanthropes require silver, a fairly specific peice of info, why wouldn't they know a basic ground rule of this affect as well? I don't find it to be consistent, which is something that should be strived for in anyone's campaign. Unless they're in Pandmonium or something like that, which even has a consistency of it's own.

This is one of those "going to absurd lengths" kind of paragraph. Of course characters know they can spot creatures, listen for invisible creatures, blah blah blah. Why would they need the DMG for that, though? Do they need every single book to tell them what they can specifically can or can't do, especially when it's absolutely obvious? A laughable suggestion, that.

It's about as absurd as DocM's absolute decree that the DMG is never for the players, only for the DM. Hence:

There's a LOT of overlap in these two books. The DMG is not an exclusive book of rules & info for yourself only; it's a book that helps you communicate its content to your players. Your PC's have lived in your world for 15-20 years, so treat them like it. Tell them what they should know, rather than call them cheaters for assuming.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

Okay, I had to respond here because I started laughing at this. A few people keep yammering about what low-level characters know, much like the above statement. Sorry folks, but your comments mean very little. You're talking about something that will be different for *everyone's* campaign, and something that can be decided only on an individual campaign basis - something DocM has clearly done. It's a non-issue.

[snip]

Exactly. Each campaign is different and each campaign needs to decide on this before play starts. It seemed that the problem was not Doc changing the rules but how he did it. If everyone involved in the campaign was clear going in that the characters wouldn't know much about the world then Doc was right and the player was using metaknowlege inapropriately. If Doc did not make that clear then there was a legitimate possibility that this was a missunderstanding between the DM and Players over how the campaign was supposed to work. As I have said before, it is important that everyone is informed beforehand what type of champaign is being run.

So Doc, did you specificly inform your players beforehand that they would have only a limited knowlege of the world around them and that info in the DMG and MM was off limits or did you just assume that they all were aware of this because this is the way you like to play?

 

[Petrosian]

Petrosian.. that rakshasas need blessed bolts… I never hear of rakshasas until I started playing D&D and still have trouble swallowing the idea that a wizard who has spend all his life in England and on his first and only trip to India knows the exact spell to kill the monster the first day he off the boat.

Read what you wrote?

In your specific example, you defined the character's origina land, and it is a known quantity that your player will have a grasp of what is common knowledge and what isn't, and you defined the amount of travel to relevant region as NONE, and you also IMPLIED that rakshasas are native to or not found outside of that localized region.

AFTER you made those definitions clear, you then reached the conclusion about what knowledge is available.

Now, for your players, do that for every monster in the monster manual and every region on your campaign world before you start jumping and frothing over metagaming.

It is NOT defined in DND that rakashasas only come from one region... they are actually defined as "warm forest and marsh" which covers frankly a wide expanse of a standard DND setting.

If you limit rakshasas to those areas and limit knowledge of rakshasas to inhabitants in those asreas, then you are playing relatively fair with PC knowledges.

However, of course they are also outsiders and you should probably consider mages with knowledge outsiders or planar knowledges to also be reasonable candidates for this knowledge.

On the other hand, if you actually IN PLAY limit rakshasas in your world to a relatively small and distant region such as India, then by all means the only reasonable access to such info would be by experience within the land OR by those with magical reasons to know of their otherworldly existence.

But to use rakshasas with the scope DND 3.0 gives them... as outsiders with marsh and warm forest climate preferences, as a creature callable by mid-level spells such as the planar series... then at the same moment invoking the "british first trip to india" and implied "limited rakshas to india only" to determine the availability of the knowledge is double-think.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Exactly. Each campaign is different and each campaign needs to decide on this before play starts. It seemed that the problem was not Doc changing the rules but how he did it. If everyone involved in the campaign was clear going in that the characters wouldn't know much about the world then Doc was right and the player was using metaknowlege inapropriately. If Doc did not make that clear then there was a legitimate possibility that this was a missunderstanding between the DM and Players over how the campaign was supposed to work. As I have said before, it is important that everyone is informed beforehand what type of champaign is being run.

So Doc, did you specificly inform your players beforehand that they would have only a limited knowlege of the world around them and that info in the DMG and MM was off limits or did you just assume that they all were aware of this because this is the way you like to play?

I fully expect my players to only act on specific knowledge their character would know. That is the only expectation. When the battle started I did not call them were-rats. I described them as humans that took on a ratlike appearance. That right there tells you none of the players have encountered these before this battle. It even tells you that none of them have heard much if anything about this creature or I would have told them more than just the basic description.

It is a standing rule in my game. Take me literal when I tell you thinks and never assume anything. If I do not say it then you do not know it. This carries over to many things. The first time they encounter a troll as opposed to say a ogre they are going to have no reason to suddenly think to use fire. When they attack the troll and see the injuries rapidly healing in front of them I will give them a chance to make a skill roll to see if they have heard anything of these monsters before.

Doing things this way makes skills much more important both in and out of combat.

 

[Petrosian]

My point being that if wererats are very rare in Area X (as DocM SPECIFICALLY SAID was the case in his game),

actually i seem to recall it being DR that was changed and not wererats specifically. if magic never penetrated materials dr in the world, then the characters would not have EXPECTED magic weapons to beat silver and would have taken the rumors more seriously.

this was not "rare wererats" but "new DR rules".

 

[blackshirt5]

It is a standing rule in my game. Take me literal when I tell you thinks and never assume anything. If I do not say it then you do not know it. This carries over to many things. The first time they encounter a troll as opposed to say a ogre they are going to have no reason to suddenly think to use fire. When they attack the troll and see the injuries rapidly healing in front of them I will give them a chance to make a skill roll to see if they have heard anything of these monsters before.

Doing things this way makes skills much more important both in and out of combat.

OK, so what you're saying is that unless they make a dice roll or The Almighty DM tells them that they know it, they don't know anything. No character history reasons, none of that?

 

[JacktheRabbit]

OK, so what you're saying is that unless they make a dice roll or The Almighty DM tells them that they know it, they don't know anything. No character history reasons, none of that?

Nope, I never said that. So don't be a prick and try to put words in my mouth.

A character can know quite a bit. All they have to do is take some ranks in knowledge skills and write up a character background.

If were-rats are common in your area and you take even just a couple ranks in "Knowledge: local area" you will have no problem knowing some basic information about were-rats or other common creatures.

If you write up a history and pass it along to me that includes you iving in a certain area your entire life then I will pass along information that your character will know. Characters not from this area will not know it but will shine in the same manner if the party travels to their homeland or an area very similar.