D&D 5E (2014) player knowlege vs character knowlege (spoiler)

[Guest 6801328]

What I'm trying to gauge from @Crimson Longinus (and @Maxperson) is whether they will accept evidence showing that the game treats their position on "metagaming" as a table rule or whether no amount of evidence will change their mind on this matter. I'm not even trying to change their mind on as to abandoning such a table rule. Just what it will take for them to leave off on asserting that there is rules support for their position on "metagaming."

Heh. Good luck with that.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

What I'm trying to gauge from @Crimson Longinus (and @Maxperson) is whether they will accept evidence showing that the game treats their position on "metagaming" as a table rule or whether no amount of evidence will change their mind on this matter. I'm not even trying to change their mind on as to abandoning such a table rule. Just what it will take for them to leave off on asserting that there is rules support for their position on "metagaming."

Well more than you have shown thus far obviously!

Not that I sure why you care. I am more talking about roleplaying in general, D&D 5e is just one of the many rule systems one can use for that.

 

[iserith]

Heh. Good luck with that.

Well, if no amount of evidence will suffice, then we aren't dealing with reason anymore and everyone in the thread can decide whether it's worth trying to reason with someone who is unreasonable.

But if evidence exists that they will accept, they can change their position and we can move past that piece and then debate whether the table rule actually achieves any of its purported goals.

 

[Charlaquin]

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 think this cuts to the heart of the issue. To the anti-metagaming folks, the problem is not that the character thinks any given thing. It’s that the character thinks a thing that the player knows (barring any changes the DM may have made that undermine what the players may know based on published information). The problem isn’t that the character used an attack that does fire damage, the problem is that the player knows trolls are weak to fire, and therefore the DM can’t trust that the player arrived at the decision to use an attack that does fire damage independently of that preexisting player knowledge. It is, ironically, a meta-game concern.

Personally, I don’t find what the player knows to be at all a reasonable metric by which to judge what a character can or can’t think. It’s rooted in a weird sort of concern over roleplaying purity. You’re not allowed to roleplay your character that way unless you can prove your own knowledge as a player hasn’t tainted the decision, either with a pre-established pattern of play (e.g. I always attack monsters I haven’t encountered before with fire first) or a successful check to establish knowledge (e.g. Do I know trolls are weak to fire? 17 on my knowledge check.) I frankly find it creepy and thought-policing.

This, by the way, is why I joked about anti-metagaming DMs nor properly separating player knowledge from character knowledge. I don’t think the joke landed right in part because it wasn’t clear enough that this was what I meant.

So what is to be done?

In my opinion, nothing at all. Allow the players to establish what their character thinks, without any attempt to police why they want their character to think that. If you wish to combat players’ ability to take advantage of this policy, make changes to published material from time to time so that player knowledge about published material is no longer 100% accurate, and relying on it is no longer an effective strategy. It doesn’t take many changes to encourage the players to take steps (such as knowledge checks) to confirm whether or not the things they decide their character thinks are accurate before acting on them.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Well they are both at least some sort of fruit. It's really a continuum and as you will see some people would be fine with this too. But this was really just to illustrate why the think/know difference really is bullcrap.

I don't think it is. I don't necessarily play that way, but I absolutely see the reason for doing so, and how it's a consistent approach. I probably lean far more that way than in trying to maintain secrets that are no longer actually secrets.

So what do you think is gained or maintained by not allowing the PC to know Valindra is a lich and may be up to no good?

 

[iserith]

Well more than you have shown thus far obviously!

Great, it sounds like you're open to additional evidence to prove that the game treats the position on "Metagaming" as a table rule.

Not that I sure why you care. I am more talking about roleplaying in general, D&D 5e is just one of the many rule systems one can use for that.

This is a thread labeled "5e" about a situation that arose from a group playing D&D 5e, specifically a D&D 5e adventure, "Tomb of Annihilation." Since everything one needs to know about the game exists within its rules books, then we need look no further than said rules books as backup for our assertions about the game. You and Maxperson have at several places in this discussion asserted that the rules support your position on "metagaming." In fact, they do not, and they classify this as a "table rule."

DMG, page 235. In this chapter, entitled "Running the Game," the designers draw a line between the rules of the game and table rules for how the game is played. In the section called "Table Rules," it is suggested the DM set expectations about "Table Talk," which is (no surprise) about how players will talk at the table. One such bullet point to cover in setting these expectations is as follows:

"Decide how you feel about a player sharing information that his or her character wouldn't know or that the character is incapable of sharing as a result of being unconscious, dead, or far away."

Therefore, the D&D 5e rules specifically say that this consideration is not a rule, but a table rule, one that each group must decide for themselves. It is not a rule of the game, but rather a table rule for how the game is played given the group's preferences.

Now, I hope we can move past any further assertions that a "no metagaming" position is called for by the rules and focus on whether such a table rule is actually helpful or not.

 

[Charlaquin]

Recalling lore is explicitly an ability check in 5e. Players cannot decide to just succeed at ability checks. What a player can do is try to present things in a way to minimize the DM's likelihood of calling for a roll or saying no, but it's not up to the player to say yes to the ability check. The DM is the one who gets to say if the outcome is in doubt or not.

A player simply deciding that he know she is a Lich(success at the intelligence check) is the same as a player simply deciding that his PC jumps 5 feet farther than his strength score(success at the strength check).

If we follow this assertion through logically, that a player can’t establish character knowledge without first succeeding in a check, the game quickly becomes absurd. Does my character know how to tie her shoes? Better make a knowledge check. Does my character know her mother’s maiden name? Knowledge check. Does she know basic arithmetic? Knowledge check.

 

[Guest 6801328]

So what do you think is gained or maintained by not allowing the PC to know Valindra is a lich and may be up to no good?

Hopefull we'll see a good answer...meaning an answer with practical implications, that doesn't rely on an extreme edge case to show all the bad things that can happen when you allow player knowledge...but so far all I've seen is "because it's WRONG!"

 

[Charlaquin]

The players need to confirm all sort of thing and the GM gives information about all sort of things. How tall is the wall, where is the celestial dire badger how much the stack of enchanted carrots cost or how the mayor looks. This literally is no different. Why don't you just let players to decide those things as well?

Because those things are part of the environment, which the rules clearly lay out as the DM’s responsibility to determine and describe.

 

[Guest 6801328]

If we follow this assertion through logically, that a player can’t establish character knowledge without first succeeding in a check, the game quickly becomes absurd. Does my character know how to tie her shoes? Better make a knowledge check. Does my character know her mother’s maiden name? Knowledge check. Does she know basic arithmetic? Knowledge check.

Or, to take examples that more closely parallel the differences between the real world and the fantasy world: Does my character know what elves and dwarves are? Does my character know magic exists? Does my character know that gelatinous cubes are dangerous monsters and not cute pets?

If we truly want to separate player knowledge from character knowledge, we would have to ask the DM about every single one of these things. And countless more.