Player Knowledge greater than DM knowledge syndrome

[Kichwas]

Admit to the player that you lack the same level of knowledge, ask him to help you through the scenes, and let him know that it will take time before he gets full interaction and full benifits out of the situation.

Prewarn him that for now, they will all be kind of vague and not meeting his requests. At the end of the session tell him to email you the best bits of research for you to catch up.


One thing you can do here is open it up just a little for the player to be abusive about his knowledge - and see if he takes the bait. A good player will hold back, admitting that his PC does not know that, even if he does, or that he's abusing your lack of fore-knowledge. A bad player will take advantage of your weakpoint, and you can then take action to deal with it.

Players know you have human limits, and they know you won't know everything. If you're upfront about it you're more likely to not have trouble or lose respect over it.

 

[Ravilah]

When the party got called north, to the home of the party's druid, the druid's player handed me a stack of notes and character sheets and said I "could include these if you wish."

My response (on the inside) was "yeah, right."

So when the party got up north, it turned out that the horrible blight they have been fighting has already spread up there. The druid's circle had all perished, and only one remained alive long enough to say good'bye and deliver some plot exposition. I had already planned on doing this, but since he had given me all those character sheets I could list off the victims by name.

Don't call me cruel (okay, do. I like it), but the player actually loved this plot development because it gave his character license to go on a vengeful rampage!

 

[Torm]

It's a little off-topic, but this reminds me of something I did to my high school English teacher, once. She had us do a mock court muder trial, and each of us was given a very vague outline of who we were supposed to be. I was assigned to be one of the defense attorneys. We were supposed to get what our witnesses were going to say together, and then trade information with the prosecution, and then put on the trial. Unbenownst to anyone else, I had arranged for one of our "witnesses" to break down on the stand and confess to having done the deed, themselves!

In the end, I was awarded extra credit, but I came very close to getting seriously punished, instead. Teacher didn't know exactly what to do for a bit.

Back on topic, my story illustrates that it's important when you're running a roleplay session to not let the players make up too much for themselves, or they'll use it to pull an end run.

 

[scourger]

Some good advice here. I've been in exactly your situation. When I started DMing 3e, I went with Greyhawk as the default world. One of my players has about 25 years expereince with the world with very extensive knowledge of its commercial development. He was very helpful at first. He even loaned me old sourcebooks that were more helpful than most of the d20 materials. But, then came the munchkinism in a roleplayer's guise. He figured out which combination of classes in what order would give him precisely the powers he wanted and then wrote a detailed background about it. I'm not kidding. I think he statted out about a dozen characters to finalize the progression. for the story, he made up a secret organization that trained him. He even included a deity that isn't in the core game. I incorrporated the deity, but it met with some resistance when the NPC clerics didn't step in to save the day (why would they need the PCs if they could or would do that?). The last straw was when I dropped an NPC' name from his order in the game, and he flipped out. His point of view was that he wanted his corner of the world to be basically inviolate as he created it. I think I even asked him how many DMs he thought could run a game. I also had to explain to him that although he knew a lot about the campaign world, his character had no knowledge skill ranks whatsoever. So, his character didn't really know anything other than the very little he experienced. In my situation, I will take the hint of a previous poster and make him the last of a dead order; if I ever run that game again.

For you, I think you should find out if this character has any skill ranks in any knowledge: local (his home area), nobility, geography, etc. How about diplomacy? Or even other social skills like bluff, intimidate or sense motive? He's an elf lord, but did he take a level(s) in the aristocrat NPC class? If the answers are no, then he's confusing player knowledge with character knowledge. I find the skills system to be a great equalizer in d20. If the players take knowledge, I give them maps and information. If not, they don't get it. They have to expereince it by playing.

 

[D+1]

During the session, his character teleported to Celene, which is his homeland, to conduct bussiness with his family and some contacts there. I was literally stumped at what to do here. He had a long list of names and people of importance he knew and who they knew and so on which he handed me, and I felt as if he expected of me to "do something big" out of all this.

When a player hands you a background you do NOT have to accept it as-is. When a player insists he knows NPC's x, y, and z that YOU have not yet introduced into the campaign you do NOT have to invent them for him. For that matter regardless of whether they are "canon" or not they don't need to exist if you don't want them to.

I could be wrong, but it seems to me that a player such as you describe wants the game to be ALL about his character and he wants to control as much of what happens as possible. Don't let him - and tell him you won't (albeit nicely).

"Say Bob, that's a SPIFFY background. I appreciate the work and thought you've put into it - but you need to keep in mind that the campaign isn't necessarily going to revolve around Celene. And these NPC's that you are claiming to know I have a bit of a problem with. Did your background state that your character knew all these people and did it go into detail about what sort of things were happening in Celene and what these NPC's would or would not do for you? I like your enthusiasm for your character - but there are other characters in the game too - and I am the one who runs the game. So when your character goes to Celene you need to ASK me, not TELL me what's going on there. You need to tell me what you WANT to do and I'll tell you what happens or what chances you have for succeeding. Just want to be sure we know who's doing the DM'ing here."

 

[Liolel]

I agree with the others, tell him that he can't just dump this on you midgame. Also tell him that he can't just create a page full of npcs that would help him in his background. One or two would be ok in my mind, as it leaves a creative player room to make an intresting backround. Having a page full of them tells me that he's just trying to sneak a boost for his character without doing any work ingame for it.

 

[LostSoul]

I disagree with the previous posts. I think it's great that the player handed out a list of NPCs. Now anything that you do with those NPCs the player will see as being part of his story and not just the DM's.

That being said, I think it's up to the player to do a lot of work with these NPCs and how they relate to each other (or at least what the PC knows about them). As DM you take the material he gave you and manipulate it however you wish.

I think that all this material is probably going to hinder the character, if anything (in a good way). He's suddenly defined all these responsibilities that he has for NPCs, and that's great fodder for plot hooks. And if he does try to squeeze out some benefit from these NPCs that you don't feel is right, have it come back and bite him in the ass. ("Sure, I will give you a loan, but you will owe me a favour...")

When you play the game remember to do what ensemble cast TV or movies do. Don't just let one character take all the screen time. Cut back and forth between characters.

 

[ThoughtBubble]

I love it when players want to create part of the world, and I encourage it. But here is a guideline that I maintain. Any knowledge the player gives me is an offering that I can use as I wish. If it's useful, then it'll be used. If it isn't, then it won't. However, it's up to me to use it as I deem fit.

 

[mythago]

I think it's great that the player handed out a list of NPCs.

Sure, but not in the middle of the game session, expecting the GM to immediately integrate that list into the ongoing adventure. That's just glory-hogging.

As a GM, I love it when people give me background info. But I want time to go over it, to figure out how it fits into the rest of my world, and how the rest of the players fit into it as well. I also would want to go over it with a fine-tooth comb. Nothing like having a player throw a fit because you SAID you liked their background, and on page 47 they clearly said that the Elven Prince promised to grant him a one-time payment of a million platinum pieces whenever he asked...

 

[ellestar]

Thanks for the plethora of well thought-out replies.

Answering some questions first; yes, I am the regular DM (and have been since 2nd edition), and no; the characters weren't first level. We started at 10th level, 4 sessions later, and they are now 11th level. His character is a grey elven sorcerer from Celene, who has spent a great deal of his life working as an ambassador for Celene there, using his great charisma and social skills to good effect. This doesn't make it far fetched that he has quite the number of contacts and people of relative importance he knows.

We had another session last night, and it went much better. His character went to see one of his contacts, the current ambassador for Celene, and his former "apprentice" so to speak. He suggested something far fetched to him, and I (going with the advice that what the player has written down is from the characters point of view, not neccessarily what is the truth) rejected his suggestion. He got pretty mad. I don't really know if it was the character or the player who got mad (I can hardly differentiate between them sometimes ).

We have spoken about the "incident" today, over the internet, and there was no bad blood or something like that between us, as we are good friends. He told me that he understood what I had to do, and didn't want to come off as demanding something from me.