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

[iserith]

Have you always known that quote and just remembered it, or just stumbled across it, or been saving it for some reason? It feels like it would have saved me about 4 or 5 questions about 40 pages ago when I was trying to go through the stances of different editions.

In any case, thank you for pointing it out!!

In your view, is that quote evidence that the game looks at concerns like "metagaming" as a table rule?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I think you got some work to do to explain why a "prominently visible feature" is not simply included in the DM's description of the environment.

It is. But it's connotations necessarily are not. i.e. it is a statue of a creature and a succesfull religion roll reveals it to be Oliloloroth, the goddess of marsupials and courage.

Also, the bit you're quoting is in reference to the previous sentence about the game having more structure and the DM and players taking turns in combat. If you keep cherrypicking things to try (and fail) to prove some kind of point about your preferred gameplay being supported by the rules, it may reflect poorly on you. You don't need to follow the rules if you don't like the kind of play doing so produces. That's why we can make table rules, as you have done with your "no metagaming" stance.

No, it is just that you're over-interpreting the rules. It is not a legal document, the game is not a spreadsheet and I know that you think that you got the absolute truth from words written in a casual tone, the rules lawyers always think that. Doesn't make it so though.

 

[Charlaquin]

I'm embarrassed to say I hadn't figured out who or what AL was until this point... :-/

Adventurers’ League

 

[Charlaquin]

And as it have been stated not about seven thousand times, changing the setting/adventure details to thwart metagaming is not something all GMs can or are willing to do and certainly it is not something that they should need to worry about. And personally to me it seems like rather dysfunctional way to address the issue.

And as has been said back equally many times, I and others make changes not to thwart metagaming but to tweak elements of the game to our liking and/or for the purpose of a particular challenge. Doing so also happens to incidentally discourage making assumptions based on out of character knowledge. If out of character knowledge is something you want to discourage, making the occasional change to published material is an effective way to accomplish this goal, and it takes very little in the way of actual changes.

 

[iserith]

It is. But it's connotations necessarily are not. i.e. it is a statue of a creature and a succesfull religion roll reveals it to be Oliloloroth, the goddess of marsupials and courage.

So you describe the statue and then the player tells you they want to try to recall the significance of it based on their time studying in the world's greatest libraries. THEN the DM could ask for an Intelligence check, if there's an uncertain outcome and a meaningful consequence for failure. Why are you trying to overstep your role as DM and trying to take something away from the players?

No, it is just that you're over-interpreting the rules. It is not a legal document, the game is not a spreadsheet and I know that you think that you got the absolute truth from words written in a casual tone, the rules lawyers always think that. Doesn't make it so though.

The rules are plain and simple. They don't require any sort of "rules lawyering." They just might not be what you want to hear because you're used to some other way.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

So I guess what you should have said is that no evidence will convince you that the "no metagaming" position a group takes is a table rule, since direct evidence that the game treats this issue as a table rule isn't enough to convince you. If that is the case, then reason is not going to work here.

No, it is just that you're misinterpreting the text.

"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."

It establishes that player having information that their character couldn't know is a thing. This is given as basic assumption, the text doesn't question this, it is assumed to be the normal state of affairs regardless of how this 'table rule' matter is handled. This is merely deciding whether the player should be allowed to share information with other players about things their characters would not know. That's the point. Whether to keep player in the dark about things their characters wouldn't know, not the opposite.

 

[iserith]

No, it is just that you're misinterpreting the text.

"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."

It establishes that player having information that their character couldn't know is a thing. This is given as basic assumption, the text doesn't question this, it is assumed to be the normal state of affairs regardless of how this 'table rule' matter is handled. This is merely deciding whether the player should be allowed to share information with other players about things their characters would not know. That's the point. Whether to keep player in the dark about things their characters wouldn't know, not the opposite.

I'm not sure why you're confused about this. It's very clearly showing that whatever the group's position on the matter, it's a table rule. Me not caring about it is a table rule. You caring about it is a table rule. Hence why I posted upthread the specific language of the table rule I give to my players with regard to this matter - because the DMG says it's a good idea to do so.

 

[Cadence]

In your view, is that quote evidence that the game looks at concerns like "metagaming" as a table rule?

I don't know if I want to answer until I find out when you became aware of the quote.

Given the lack of explicit mention against it elsewhere that I could find (unlike 2e and before, for example), I have already been buying your argument that the rules were silent on it being bad, and it feels likely it was intentionally left out. This would have made me come to that conclusion earlier. I'm not sure why there would be so much worry about players having knowledge here and sharing it, if it didn't impact what the characters did. It feels like if they had just meant "secrets" they would have said so.

I'm not convinced that if a wave of folks reading PDF copies of modules they were playing to get an advantage became a thing, that Crawford wouldn't say something about how they didn't mean to encourage something that extreme. (Now, maybe if they were paying for the extra module copies...) Similarly if there came a wave of folks who chose low INTs but kept a copy of the MM open on their phone. I guess someone could always ask him on Twitter.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

So you describe the statue and then the player tells you they want to try to recall the significance of it based on their time studying in the world's greatest libraries. THEN the DM could ask for an Intelligence check, if there's an uncertain outcome and a meaningful consequence for failure. Why are you trying to overstep your role as DM and trying to take something away from the players?

They can describe that action if they want, I might even lower the DC if they did. But they can roll regardless, because entering the room and thus seeing the thing was sufficient action to warrant the roll. Because that's how memory works.

The rules are plain and simple. They don't require any sort of "rules lawyering." They just might not be what you want to hear because you're used to some other way.

Sure rules are simple. And thus open to interpretation. You are assigning more meaning to them than the words actually contain.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I'm not sure why you're confused about this. It's very clearly showing that whatever the group's position on the matter, it's a table rule. Me not caring about it is a table rule. You caring about it is a table rule. Hence why I posted upthread the specific language of the table rule I give to my players with regard to this matter - because the DMG says it's a good idea to do so.

Because it is not about what you think it is about! It is not about using OOC knowledge IC. You are simply misinterpreting the text.