D&D 5E player knowlege vs character knowlege (spoiler)

[Cadence]

This thread keeps running away when I'm not at the keyboard, so I'm late here, but I'd like to weigh in. The issue here, to me, isn't that the player asks for an F-14, but rather how the GM decides to operate on that. It is literal? Is the GM forced to only consider the request as a literal ask for a literal F-14 (metaphorically within the fiction of the game, of course)? I contend no. The ask is based on the reference frame of the player, and, like many asks, needs to be translated into the game.

It feels like you're questioning what much younger me and my character were thinking and wanting. I wanted an F-14, and was thinking one like in the photographs I had seen. And who wouldn't want rockets and radar in a world of carts and horses!

So, then, what's the difference? Magnitude. Asking for an F-14 is a pretty big departure from the game fiction so it confounds our normal translation because of this and because we haven't trained ourselves in translating F-14s the way we have the more common statements. So, we evaluate it not in need of translation into the fiction, but as something that breaks the fiction. And, in most fantasy games, I'll agree a literal F-14 breaks the fiction to a greater or lesser degree. What to do about it? Declare that impossible and demand a different action, or work harder to translate? I say work harder.

How can what a player has a character visualize (think) break the fiction? I could have sworn that characters can think anything and it isn't the DMs job or purview to police character thought. Why is this different than gun powder or a printing press?

The ask for an F-14 is almost never going to be for the physical reality of an F-14, but for what that represents. You can talk with the player and find out what they're actually asking for in terms of abilities that they initially presented as an F-14 because that was their understood frame of reference. Once you do that, you can find a way to implement that into the fiction in a way that doesn't break the fiction -- and, usually, it requires very little change! For example, you could implement an F-14 in the fiction as something with a very similar form factor but powered not by electronics and aviation kerosene, but magictech. The effect achieves what the player is asking for, via their reference frame, but now translated into the fiction in a way that doesn't break the fiction.

That seems like an awful lot of work to get into what a character was thinking and adjudicate it. I could have sworn that wasn't something adjudicable. It does mean our later worries about needing to wish for someway to refuel, or investigating how to create fuel, wouldn't have been as difficulty. :=_

But seriously, I'm pretty sure the folks who are open to pausing in the rare instances where something seems off for the game world could easily have that discussion with their player about what the player really wanted. I was just trying to figure out how everyone else would deal with it. Needing to be translated into fiction and not wanting to break genre feel like reasonable things to me. They don't seem to be in RAW and I'm not sure I would have thought to bring them up in session 0.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I'm not sure I've ever experienced someone picking up a new D&D family game (D&D, AD&D, PF, 13A) and waiting to play until they had read all the rules. It feels like they typically skim for what look like big differences and then go with what they used before in other versions of D&D until they come across a reason to double check or someone who has. I don't think I've ever seen them, for example, use an interpretation from Fate or Toon or Traveller or Vtm2e to fill in for a new-version rule they haven't double checked.

Yes. And what is weird is the adamant, and sometimes emotionally charged, pushback when somebody points out the changes.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Oh, I'm not hung up on gunpowder. Or on the other things you're vaguely waving at -- these aren't problems I have in my games, largely because I don't make the blanket assumption to start with that these things could exist exactly as they do in the real world. As I noted, if you do this as a GM, then you're already creating the problem you care about. Don't, and you won't. If you allow that gunpowder exists, but work to prevent any realization of gunpowder, then I'm not sure what your goal is, but it's not terribly coherent.

I don't think that it is terribly unusual to have historical settings. And no, this is not an issue for me in practice, as any sensible player would understand that their ancient Egyptian doesn't know how to make gunpoweder and thus would never attempt it.

But, even if you do, you still get to adjudicate the actions necessary to bring these things to life. I'm fine with a player asserting that gunpowder can exist and it's a precise mixture of elements. I can also test any attempt by that PC to implement this via the resolution mechanics, or any attempt to tell others that it exists via the resolution mechanics. If I'm allowing for gunpowder to exist, I damn well better be onboard with PCs discovering/inventing/creating it.

I know, right? So why is it a required assumption for your case? That's what you postulated -- that a PC declaration to invent gunpowder could be easily foiled by the GM, but a step-by-step delineation of the process in detail would prevent the GM from foiling it. I mean, the assumption that the GM would want to foil it is shaky, as I talk to above, but here you've clearly made it the case that the GM cannot know what the actual process is because the GM can't recognize or stop it until it's too late. This assumption is necessary because you've skipped any step where the GM can adjudicate an action, leaving the GM at the mercy of the methodological player. It's weird -- the GM has set that gunpowder exists exactly as in the real world, and you have the GM adjudicating as if they know the formula for your first case, but then set up the second where the GM is powerless in the face of the exact formula. It's just odd, I agree!

Nothing you say here makes any sense. In your paradigm GM cannot deny actions that are physically possible such as mixing these ingredients. And only in your paradigm whether the GM knows the formula matter because in mine we won't ever get that far.

Oh. You meant clarifying the situation as the GM telling the player what their character is allowed to know. Yeah, I suppose we are in violent disagreement here, as well. I thought you meant clarifying things like how far the orc is from the PC, which is a player confusion, not a PC confusion, but you mean something more, like telling the player that their PC doesn't even know it's an orc, so they can't call it an orc. Yeah, good on that first bit, not good on the second.

Because knowledge is part of the fictional reality. And funny thing about 'you don't know it's an orc.' I have literally played this exact thing. I were playing in a campaign where the setting was such that at least initially it seemed that the humans were the only sapient species that existed. Early on we learned about existence of demons. But at one point we encountered these tusked green creatures. They didn't speak our language and we never learned what they were called. So never in-character did we call them orcs, because the characters obviously couldn't have known that.

All it seems to be here is that you've taken monitoring and controlling PC play and lumped it into clarifying the flow of game information between GM and player. This is a category error, in that the kinds of information flowing here aren't the same. One is physical information about the game world, the other is the GM telling the player how to play their character.

Your category error is this arbitrary distinction between physical and mental. Both can be just information about the fictional reality. Your character can't reach that' and 'your character don't know that' are not fundamentally different types of statements, they both clarify to the player the reality in which the character exists.

My apologies, then. It's unusual, in my experience, to encounter someone with a lot of experience in playing different games that also insists that you use rules and understandings from one game in another. You've been very consistent in applying previous edition thinking to 5e, so it seemed that you might lack a wider experience.

Majority of tabletop RPGs follow my assumptions here. There are some though which give the players some meta-level control. In such games it is pretty much always explicitly spelled out and follows some defined mechanics.

 

[Fenris-77]

Likely because it's not about roleplaying in my view - it's about control cloaked in group identity.

I think a lot of gaming arguments boil down to this.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I'm not sure I've ever experienced someone picking up a new D&D family game (D&D, AD&D, PF, 13A) and waiting to play until they had read all the rules. It feels like they typically skim for what look like big differences and then go with what they used before in other versions of D&D until they come across a reason to double check or someone who has. I don't think I've ever seen them, for example, use an interpretation from Fate or Toon or Traveller or Vtm2e to fill in for a new-version rule they haven't double checked.

And, have they had clean and issue free play resulting from their skim?

 

[Seramus]

The most humorous implication of not policing player knowledge is a party who never speaks to each other. The player speaks, and other characters think they know what that character is thinking. It's permanent Telepathic Bond.

For example. A rogue is scouting dark tunnels, and the rest of the party is getting live updates on what the rogue sees. Or the wizard gets mugged while shopping, and the party across town come running.

Granted, this absolutely would make the game run faster. I won't deny that for a second.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I don't think that it is terribly unusual to have historical settings. And no, this is not an issue for me in practice, as any sensible player would understand that their ancient Egyptian doesn't know how to make gunpoweder and thus would never attempt it.

In my mind this isn't a metagaming problem, it's a problem with varying expectations at the table.

But beyond that, you are putting a value judgment ("any sensible player") on what is really a subjective opinion. Sure, in this extreme case (gunpowder in ancient Egypt) it seems clear-cut. But the real problems in metagame-policing emerge when there's a difference in opinion about what is appropriate and what is not. What about if you're playing a 10th century Viking game? Gunpowder existed in China during that time; I could see one player's conception of fantasy roleplaying, even historical fantasy roleplaying, being more than just sticking to the established timeline.

Or a more down-to-earth example: how appropriate/possible/likely is it for a 5th level character in Chult to recognize the name Valindra Shadowmantle? Opinions are going to vary widely.

One possible answer is "The DM decides by fiat". That is one way of approaching this, and it works, I guess (I mean, I played that way for a long time). But it also works to let each player decide for themselves, and have others react to it.

Nothing you say here makes any sense. In your paradigm GM cannot deny actions that are physically possible such as mixing these ingredients. And only in your paradigm whether the GM knows the formula matter because in mine we won't ever get that far.

I don't think you are understanding what @Ovinomancer is saying, because the above makes no sense.

Because knowledge is part of the fictional reality. And funny thing about 'you don't know it's an orc.' I have literally played this exact thing. I were playing in a campaign where the setting was such that at least initially it seemed that the humans were the only sapient species that existed. Early on we learned about existence of demons. But at one point we encountered these tusked green creatures. They didn't speak our language and we never learned what they were called. So never in-character did we call them orcs, because the characters obviously couldn't have known that.

And you think this bolsters your argument?

For f$#%'s sake how trivial would it have been to just slightly change them so the players actually wouldn't know what they are, instead of pretending to not know? I read "so never in-character did we call them orcs" and I don't think, "Wow, great roleplaying." I think "what a total f*$%ing waste of precious game time."

Your category error is this arbitrary distinction between physical and mental. Both can be just information about the fictional reality. Your character can't reach that' and 'your character don't know that' are not fundamentally different types of statements, they both clarify to the player the reality in which the character exists.

"Category error" has a technical meaning and that's not it.

But, that aside, there is a distinction between knowing/believing and acting, and I think you know that. You are deciding to treat them the same, in the sense that both are ultimately under control of the DM. Which is one way of approaching it.

Somewhere you have to have a "line" between the player's control and the DM's control. The problem I see with your approach is, as discussed at the top of this post, that your line, whether you call it believable vs. non-believable, or good roleplaying vs. bad roleplaying, or "would happen" vs. "would not happen" is arbitrary and the rulings are subjective. The DM jumps in when he/she thinks a player has overstepped, and it requires everybody at the table to have the same expectations for it to work.

The advantage of the character thought vs. physical reality line is that it is distinct and clear: the player gets absolute control over the character's thoughts/emotions/motivations/knowledge/beliefs, the DM gets absolute control over the physical environment.

 

[Ovinomancer]

It feels like you're questioning what much younger me and my character were thinking and wanting. I wanted an F-14, and was thinking one like in the photographs I had seen. And who wouldn't want rockets and radar in a world of carts and horses!

Well, yes, I very much am doing exactly this. You didn't want an F-14 for the sole sake of having an F-14, you wanted it for what it did and represented -- unabashed power-fantasy represented by being able to deliver massive power virtually unthreatened. It's just that younger you put that in an F-14 wrapper and no one else at the table unpacked it.

I'm reasonably confident you didn't want an F-14 because you wanted to do the avionics loading and configuration for missions, and you didn't want to do loadout to fuel charts for mission planning, and you didn't want to do engine maintenance, and you didn't want to sit in the very cramped cockpit and pee into the catheter on long missions. No, an actual F-14 was very probably not at all what you wanted. Instead, you wanted what younger you though an F-14 represented.

How can what a player has a character visualize (think) break the fiction? I could have sworn that characters can think anything and it isn't the DMs job or purview to police character thought. Why is this different than gun powder or a printing press?

Sigh. I suppose that if the player really insists that the character is exactly picturing an F-14, that's fine -- but when it comes to adjudication things can fall apart if such things cannot exist within the world as defined by the genre expectations agreed to. That's pretty much not what's happening though -- instead the player is saying "F-14" but really intends a set of desires that is held within whatever concept of an F-14 the player has. I've worked on planes, although not an F-14, so my concept of a fighter isn't all blowing up targets and whizzing around the sky -- it's grounded very much in all of the work that occurs to allow the pilots to do a bit of that alongside a lot of unglamorous things. So, if you say "I want an F-14" in my game, our pictures of what that would mean are probably very different. It's better to look at that request as an ask for a set of concepts that need translating rather than an actualized desire for all an F-14 represents in reality. And, it's better to do that than use such an odd premise -- that a player wants all that a real F-14 is in game -- as a way to poke holes in a play approach.

That seems like an awful lot of work to get into what a character was thinking and adjudicate it. I could have sworn that wasn't something adjudicable. It does mean our later worries about needing to wish for someway to refuel, or investigating how to create fuel, wouldn't have been as difficulty. :=_

Yes, and that's the job of everyone at the table -- to find the way that what's really wanted can be brought into play.

But seriously, I'm pretty sure the folks who are open to pausing in the rare instances where something seems off for the game world could easily have that discussion with their player about what the player really wanted. I was just trying to figure out how everyone else would deal with it. Needing to be translated into fiction and not wanting to break genre feel like reasonable things to me. They don't seem to be in RAW and I'm not sure I would have thought to bring them up in session 0.

I probably wouldn't, because it's an extreme edge case. There's a few things I would bring up that would likely head it off, and that a discussion of genre expectations in play -- this is very much an important topic when setting up a game. And, if done, would probably help this discussion:

"I wish for an F-14!"

"Bob, we talked about this, and everyone agreed this was going to be a stock fantasy game with no technology. An F-14 violates that. Can we work out what a genre appropriate version of what you want would look like, because if you ask me to adjudicate that, it doesn't exist in this game and the wish can't grant it."

There, addresses the issue, seeks solution, and never once dictates what a PC can think, just points out that thinking of things that can't exist doesn't make them exist. The GM controls the adjudication, which includes the ability to say an attempt fails.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The most humorous implication of not policing player knowledge is a party who never speaks to each other. The player speaks, and other characters think they know what that character is thinking. It's permanent Telepathic Bond.

For example. A rogue is scouting dark tunnels, and the rest of the party is getting live updates on what the rogue sees. Or the wizard gets mugged while shopping, and the party across town come running.

Granted, this absolutely would make the game run faster. I won't deny that for a second.

Yeah, free metagaming and the GM not being allowed to limit what the characters think would totally allow this. Again, I have really hard time imagining that the designers intended it to be played this way.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Well, yes, I very much am doing exactly this. You didn't want an F-14 for the sole sake of having an F-14, you wanted it for what it did and represented -- unabashed power-fantasy represented by being able to deliver massive power virtually unthreatened. It's just that younger you put that in an F-14 wrapper and no one else at the table unpacked it.

I'm reasonably confident you didn't want an F-14 because you wanted to do the avionics loading and configuration for missions, and you didn't want to do loadout to fuel charts for mission planning, and you didn't want to do engine maintenance, and you didn't want to sit in the very cramped cockpit and pee into the catheter on long missions. No, an actual F-14 was very probably not at all what you wanted. Instead, you wanted what younger you though an F-14 represented.




Sigh. I suppose that if the player really insists that the character is exactly picturing an F-14, that's fine -- but when it comes to adjudication things can fall apart if such things cannot exist within the world as defined by the genre expectations agreed to. That's pretty much not what's happening though -- instead the player is saying "F-14" but really intends a set of desires that is held within whatever concept of an F-14 the player has. I've worked on planes, although not an F-14, so my concept of a fighter isn't all blowing up targets and whizzing around the sky -- it's grounded very much in all of the work that occurs to allow the pilots to do a bit of that alongside a lot of unglamorous things. So, if you say "I want an F-14" in my game, our pictures of what that would mean are probably very different. It's better to look at that request as an ask for a set of concepts that need translating rather than an actualized desire for all an F-14 represents in reality. And, it's better to do that than use such an odd premise -- that a player wants all that a real F-14 is in game -- as a way to poke holes in a play approach.



Yes, and that's the job of everyone at the table -- to find the way that what's really wanted can be brought into play.

I probably wouldn't, because it's an extreme edge case. There's a few things I would bring up that would likely head it off, and that a discussion of genre expectations in play -- this is very much an important topic when setting up a game. And, if done, would probably help this discussion:

"I wish for an F-14!"

"Bob, we talked about this, and everyone agreed this was going to be a stock fantasy game with no technology. An F-14 violates that. Can we work out what a genre appropriate version of what you want would look like, because if you ask me to adjudicate that, it doesn't exist in this game and the wish can't grant it."

There, addresses the issue, seeks solution, and never once dictates what a PC can think, just points out that thinking of things that can't exist doesn't make them exist. The GM controls the adjudication, which includes the ability to say an attempt fails.

I wonder, would the 11 year old have been extremely disappointed to receive an actual F-14, and then not be able to use it because, for example, there's no runway?

If the answer is "yes" then that's evidence that was actually wanted was, as you say, the idea of an F-14. The good bits, but not all those other bits.