D&D 5E Player knowledge and Character knowledge

[Yardiff]

When starting a new character how do you decide how much of your knowledge as a seasoned player is available to your character?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Ask your DM whether your background would reasonably entitle you to any special knowledge. Otherwise, forget that you've ever played the game before.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I don't.

I don't bother even one bit as a DM or a player to separate what any player knows from what their character knows - that's not a helpful thing to focus on.

Instead, I focus finding the separation between things the character could have some reason to do whether they involve specific knowledge or not, and things which the character cannot possibly have a reason to do - and leave asking what the player is thinking or knows out of it.

 

[Li Shenron]

"Metagame at your own risk" is what I always tell my players as a DM. And as a player, I take my risks and accept unwanted consequences.

 

[S'mon]

I'll apply what seems reasonable - "Trolls are vulnerable to fire!" - unless the GM tells me not to. Sometimes though I'll deliberately have my PC use out of date knowledge from prior editions - "Scrags only regenerate in water!" -as something my PC might reasonably know, even if I suspect the ruleset we're using (there, 4e) has no such rule.

I'll not have my Primeval Thule Nimothan barbarian discuss the finer points of Lortha'quun the Great Old One's abilities just because I was reading that section of the campaign guide the other day, though.

 

[Croesus]

I'll apply what seems reasonable - "Trolls are vulnerable to fire!" - unless the GM tells me not to.

As a GM, I tell my players something similar. If I want their characters to know certain general knowledge, I don't change things, including the names of creatures. A troll? It's vulnerable to fire. A "krollik" - maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Halflings? Small folk who like to eat a lot and are nimble. "Harrots"? Small folk who are...who knows.

Using common terms in the game allows me as GM to communicate certain info to players that I expect their characters to know (or think they know). Changing some things also allows me to throw something new at them, just to keep them on their toes and add that delightful feeling of "What the heck is that?"

 

[Guest 6801328]

I make no attempt to separate the two. It's artificial and doesn't really contribute to the fun. Might as well say, "This character isn't going to use any words with the letter 'q'..."

Pretending to be challenged by an obstacle in order to pretend to solve it is just completely uninteresting.

The exception is if I'm playing with people who don't have the knowledge; then I'll keep my mouth shut.

But if we've all played D&D long enough that we know about trolls/fire, what's the point of pretending otherwise? An overly rigid, prescriptive form of "roleplaying"? No, thanks.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[iserith]

When starting a new character how do you decide how much of your knowledge as a seasoned player is available to your character?

My rule of thumb: If applying a bit of "player knowledge" is going to make the game experience more fun for everyone and help create an exciting, memorable story, then I'll use it. If it won't, then I don't. Oftentimes this is more a matter of how, rather than whether, it's used.

I do advise my players that using "player knowledge" can be risky if it's based on unverified assumptions.

 

[Blue]

I make no attempt to separate the two. It's artificial and doesn't really contribute to the fun. Might as well say, "This character isn't going to use any words with the letter 'q'..."

It's no more artificial than your character may be trained in Arcana and you are not. Your character has abilities and skills. They don't overlap with your knowledge. I can tell you how to make gunpowder but that doesn't mean my character can.

Let me give a couple of examples. When I was in college, I had a DM who ran multiple different groups in the same world at the same time. Things happening in one group could affect others. Plus time would not be perfectly sync - group A could spent 3 weeks traveling in half an hour while group B was in a dungeon crawl for four sessions before taking some downtime and resyncing. Several people were in multiple of groups depending on availability.

If one of us would suddenly start looking for anti-undead items and stocking up on holy water because we knew that a wraith scare in another group blew up and was spreading towards our location that would be really cheesy.

Another example - we had one DM who read and ran modules for his group and was a player in a group I played in. If he suddenly knew the traps, and that under the fountain was a secret treasure cache, and the BBEG had weakness if we smash these statues in another room, that would have sucked the life out for the rest of us.

This doesn't mean you can't use anything. Skeletons being undead should be obvious. As a DM if you have an appropriate trained skill or background you can justify a lot. "Hey, I'm a bard, any heroic stories about using fire to defeat trolls floating around?"

But there are times you really need to keep what you know as a player off of the game for the enjoyment of everyone in the group.