D&D 5E Player knowledge and Character knowledge

[Guest 6801328]

The irony here is that in another thread Max was accusing me of using a "slippery slope" argument, and here he is introducing jackhammers and...when that wasn't extreme enough...nuclear weapons.

 

[Mallus]

The irony here is that in another thread Max was accusing me of using a "slippery slope" argument, and here he is introducing jackhammers and...when that wasn't extreme enough...nuclear weapons.

There's *is* a touch of irony there, now that you mention it.

What I find amusing about it, though, is at this point in my gaming life, I'm okay with players wanting a campaign where they start some sort of technological/industrial revolution. It's as valid as a campaign built around saving princes/princess and defeating yet-another Sauron expy. If your players are really excited about trying to do a thing, build the game around it (if you can).

edit: it's not like The Waterdeep Project would be significantly more ridiculous than stuff like Planescape or Spelljammer.

edit2: make that the Heavy Waterdeep Project.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

If there are genuinely no elves then it wouldn't matter whether or not a character claims to have encylopaedic knowledge of Drow politics. Some people on these forums probably would claim such a thing, and as far as I know there are no elves in the world, so I imagine a character in that world claiming such a thing would probably appear as haplessly nerdy to the residents of that world as....well, you know where I'm going with that. Why would the DM possibly care if the player described his character that way? If there are no Drow then there's no game impact.

If, on the other hand, the DM is planning to introduce Drow, perhaps gating them from another plane, then they do in fact exist.

Yep. But if this is the first contact a world has had with them, its a little odd. If having given an explanation as to how his character has that sort of knowledge, is the DM within her rights to say "That isn't really possible in this setting. Could you give a different explanation please?"

Here are two more things I acknowledge:

1) There are such things as "cheating", "being a jerk", "ruining the fun for others (and yourself)" etc. But those exist regardless of where you come down on roleplaying, player agency, etc. So using examples of being a jerk to defend a certain mode of roleplaying is avoiding the deeper question entirely. You may play at a table where buying a silvered short sword to go werewolf hunting is considered to be breaking character, and would therefore spoil the fun for others, in which case you shouldn't do it. But that doesn't make it "bad" roleplaying.

I honestly wasn't sure where you draw the line between acceptable use of OOC knowledge and unacceptable use. Is it the level of knowledge used? (So MM knowledge is acceptable, but adventure book isn't for example?)
Or is it more to do with the use that it is put to? (so when the character is off on their own, using their knowledge of the adventure is OK, but while with the rest of the group who didn't preread it, the player shouldn't act on their knowledge because it would spoil the fun of the others?)

 

[iserith]

Purposefully flouting agreed-upon genre conventions or the like (e.g. trying to build modern-era nukes in D&D) is acting in bad faith. It is a distraction from the discussion in my view.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Purposefully flouting agreed-upon genre conventions or the like (e.g. trying to build modern-era nukes in D&D) is acting in bad faith. It is a distraction from the discussion in my view.

Yep. And its easy enough to say modern science doesn't work in a fantasy world that does not follow those physical laws. After all in D&D isn't fire an element instead of a chemical reaction?

 

[ChrisCarlson]

Yep. And its easy enough to say modern science doesn't work in a fantasy world that does not follow those physical laws. After all in D&D isn't fire an element instead of a chemical reaction?

Heck. It's not just an element. It has its own deity!

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

It is a distraction from the discussion in my view.

That does seem to be the intent behind bringing it up in the way it was in this thread.

Purposefully flouting agreed-upon genre conventions or the like (e.g. trying to build modern-era nukes in D&D) is acting in bad faith.

But this depends on what campaign setting the campaign is taking place in - a Mystara campaign in which the characters are attempting to harness nuclear technology is just a campaign that is utilizing unique elements of the setting's established history, and even has the spelled out consequences that it will draw the attention of the Immortals who have been actively trying to hide away all such technology since the Blackmoor civilization thought they had a handle on things and basically ended the world because they thought wrong.

 

[Yardiff]

That does seem to be the intent behind bringing it up in the way it was in this thread.

QUOTE]

Unclear what you mean here.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I honestly wasn't sure where you draw the line between acceptable use of OOC knowledge and unacceptable use. Is it the level of knowledge used? (So MM knowledge is acceptable, but adventure book isn't for example?)
Or is it more to do with the use that it is put to? (so when the character is off on their own, using their knowledge of the adventure is OK, but while with the rest of the group who didn't preread it, the player shouldn't act on their knowledge because it would spoil the fun of the others?)

I'm not sure it's something where the boundary is definitive and fixed. And it varies by table. Clearly (based on these forums) there are players for whom you MAY NOT BURN TROLLS unless the character you are currently playing has experience with them. In others it's understood that if you're both a DM and a player you might know a lot of what's in the MM.

I would say my litmus test is: "Are you spoiling the fun for somebody else by using your knowledge?" And if the answer is yes, don't do it. So if all the players at the table know that Shadows are vulnerable to radiant damage, and none of them are into the variant of roleplaying where using player knowledge "breaks immersion", then feel free to use that knowledge to your advantage.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Unclear what you mean here.

That the way in which building nuclear weapons was brought up in this thread seems to have been intended to distract from the discussion going on in the thread prior to that point.