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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8064336" data-attributes="member: 16814">Oh, okay, if you were just talking about making sure the players and the GM are on the same page about what's going on in the scene, we're in agreement -- this should happen.  This doesn't have anything to do with "metagaming" though, as it's the GM updating the players' understanding (or vice versa) and not anything to do with characters -- except that the downstream effect would be that players can now direct their characters without the misunderstanding of what's happening in game.  This doesn't appear to implicate the GM telling players what their character is allowed to think.Okay, good, then we can dispense with worrying about a player knowing a trap in in a place or whether or not an NPC is lich, then, right?  Because, fundamentally, the only problem with considering these poor roleplaying doesn't come from the player declaring their character thinks something, but that the player declares their player thinks something that is both true and uncovering something secret in the game.  If these are not the issues, we can focus more tightly on those that remain.  I will confess, though, that the only things I see that remains is an aesthetic desire for play to look a certain way. 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.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!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.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.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.</blockquote>

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