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

[Crimson Longinus]

Again, where is that written?

I know, I know...you're going to dismiss that question as needless sophistry. But as long as you keep stating things like this as if they are objective facts, and saying/implying that people who don't agree with you are bad players or dumb* or whatever, then I'm going to ask you to defend your assertions.

Do you want to have a house rule where the GM gets to decide what characters know? Go for it. It's a very traditional way to play, so it's not like it's completely out in left field.

But please stop pretending as if you are playing by official rules, and the rest of us are not.

*No, nobody has actually accused us of being 'dumb', but that's the unspoken implication of things like, "If you can't tell the difference between player knowledge and character knowledge..."

I'll repeat:

Has the GM the power to decide facts about the setting and are the characters part of that setting? If the GM, decides that in the setting all elves are blue, then they are blue, including possible player character elves. If the GM decides that a certain thing is not generally known, then it is not. If the GM decides that the setting has certain tech-level then the people in that setting cannot just start to operate at a higher tech level.

What part of this you disagree with?

 

[Guest 6801328]

Well, trolls are a problem in theory. If for some reason the trolls are uncommon in the setting or the characters for some other reason cannot reasonably have knowledge of them and the characters do not normally use fire as part of their attacks (like they're not a caster with fire spells or something,) then yes, the characters shouldn't jump on using fire on the trolls as that simply is not a think a person in the setting with that amount of knowledge would do. But this would be a stupid way to set up things on the GMs part so in practice this should not come up in the first place. As I have said many times, a mystery that is a mystery only for the characters and not to the players is generally is not a good idea and this troll example would definitely fall into that category.

That's fine, but this is a perfect example of what you have called the "line". So let's say that trolls are common enough that adventurers would know about them, but Vailndra is not. That's an arbitrary line. Where is that line, for any given campaign?

What some of us have realized is that not worrying about, simply erasing the line and leaving it to the player to decide for themselves what their character thinks they know, not only doesn't hurt anything, it's actually made our games better.

And there's strong evidence that WotC arrived at the same conclusion.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I'll repeat:

Has the GM the power to decide facts about the setting and are the characters part of that setting? If the GM, decides that in the setting all elves are blue, then they are blue, including possible player character elves. If the GM decides that a certain thing is not generally known, then it is not. If the GM decides that the setting has certain tech-level then the people in that setting cannot just start to operate at a higher tech level.

What part of this you disagree with?

That the GM does not get to decide what the characters think; they only get to decide what the truth is.

Why is that apparently so hard to understand?

 

[iserith]

If the GM decides that a certain thing is not generally known, then it is not.

To be clear, this has no bearing on what a player may establish the character as thinking.

It may play into how the DM adjudicates an attempt by the character, as established by the player, to recall lore. But until that happens, it doesn't matter to what the player says the character thinks. That is, unless you've established a table rule to the contrary.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

That's fine, but this is a perfect example of what you have called the "line". So let's say that trolls are common enough that adventurers would know about them, but Vailndra is not. That's an arbitrary line. Where is that line, for any given campaign?

That is for the GM to decide like any other setting detail.

What some of us have realized is that not worrying about, simply erasing the line and leaving it to the player to decide for themselves what their character thinks they know, not only doesn't hurt anything, it's actually made our games better.

Sure go for it. You could even apply it to other things too, Just let players decide facts about the setting too, make it more collaborative world creation. Or just don't even have GM, just make it a group effort. And this is not a joke, I routinely do this in freeform RP that has not GM, I just don't want to do it in D&D and I don't think the designers meant that either.

And there's strong evidence that WotC arrived at the same conclusion.

No. It is perfectly clear that the GM is supposed to set up and adjudicate the facts about the setting. Not that what WotC thinks would affect how I run my games.

 

[billd91]

To be clear, this has no bearing on what a player may establish the character as thinking.

You have also made it clear that you don't really get the problem here. The problem here is that the character may be thinking and acting on something that is unknowable to the character and is doing so because the player is interjecting something they know into the situation because they encountered the information elsewhere. At that point, it doesn't matter that the character only "thinks" it rather than it being the truth as established by the DM if the DM was also relying on the published material. The difference between thinking and knowing is immaterial.

So what is to be done?

The ideal outcome of a situation like this, I think, is for the player to recognize it, maybe outwardly acknowledge that they know something about it from out of game, and declare that their PC will act on what they believe they would reasonably know given their background and skills, clarifying that extent with the DM if unsure.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

That the GM does not get to decide what the characters think; they only get to decide what the truth is.

Why is that apparently so hard to understand?

Because it really isn't such a meaningful distinction. The player is supposed to portray a believable character in the the fictional setting and thus what they think is informed by what they know. It is not believable for such a character to think things they possibly could not know. Like a player could decide that their character in a game set in the 14th century France constantly quotes modern movies and makes other pop culture references and 'thinks' about future events the player knows about, but that would not be portraying a believable character in such a setting.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

You have also made it clear that you don't really get the problem here. The problem here is that the character may be thinking and acting on something that is unknowable to the character and is doing so because the player is interjecting something they know into the situation because they encountered the information elsewhere. At that point, it doesn't matter that the character only "thinks" it rather than it being the truth as established by the DM if the DM was also relying on the published material. The difference between thinking and knowing is immaterial.

So what is to be done?

The ideal outcome of a situation like this, I think, is for the player to recognize it, maybe outwardly acknowledge that they know something about it from out of game, and declare that their PC will act on what they believe they would reasonably know given their background and skills, clarifying that extent with the DM if unsure.

Yes, exactly!

 

[iserith]

You have also made it clear that you don't really get the problem here. The problem here is that the character may be thinking and acting on something that is unknowable to the character and is doing so because the player is interjecting something they know into the situation because they encountered the information elsewhere. At that point, it doesn't matter that the character only "thinks" it rather than it being the truth as established by the DM if the DM was also relying on the published material. The difference between thinking and knowing is immaterial.

I do understand the "problem" some people have with it. But that problem is caused by a table rule that exists outside of the rules of the game itself. Dump the table rule and you're good to go. (Though this may not be very easy for some who have adopted it as a group identity.)

So what is to be done?

The ideal outcome of a situation like this, I think, is for the player to recognize it, maybe outwardly acknowledge that they know something about it from out of game, and declare that their PC will act on what they believe they would reasonably know given their background and skills, clarifying that extent with the DM if unsure.

Which is a table rule.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Anything is 'possible' in fiction so that is a too vague. But whether the character has heard of this lich is a fact about the world, thus ultimately for the GM to decide. And players are supposed to play their characters as consistent people in the setting and just deciding out of the blue to think that a random person is a lich with no clue or knowledge is not that. (Unless this is something related to the character's established personality. They of course can be paranoid and think every person they meet is some sort of monster in disguise, but this was not the case here.)

What, then, is it the player's authority to decide? This phrasing, that the GM has ultimate authority to determine what a PC knows, places a huge amount of things under the GM's authority in regards to playing the PC. Essentially, the player is in a position where anything they declare can be overridden by the GM, not as a failed attempt, but as a possibility. If I cannot decide that my PC think that that NPC is a lich, for whatever reason, without GM permission (explicit of implicit), then I don't have much control over my PC at all.

The reality is that whether or not the GM decides they need to use this authority is entirely dependent on if the PC asserts a fact that the GM wants to be a secret. Example -- the OP situation is only a problem because the GM wants to keep the lichyness of the NPC a secret. If they don't care, it's not a problem. If the NPC isn't a lich, it's not a problem. To expand that last, many GM's concerned about "metagaming" wouldn't bat an eye at a PC asserting things not true, because that's fun. It's only when the thing asserted is what the GM wants to be a secret that it becomes "metagaming." This means that "metagaming" only exists when the GM is using that same "metagaming" to keep secrets. No secret? No "metagaming."

Thus, "metagaming" is a problem created by GMs and confused with being necessary for proper play. It's only necessary to protect GM secrets -- which is a trivially easy task to avoid as a GM by just not hinging your scene design on secrets that can be easily "metagamed." Or at all. Evidence abounds that people that do not care about metagaming have robust, deep, and immersive games, largely because they just steer around the pothole of "metagaming" instead of driving right over it and insisting everyone pretend there wasn't a bump.