Players keeping stats secret

[Arnwyn]

Not "nuts" at all.

Knowing too much about another character's stats just increases the amount of metagaming and can absolutely destroy role-playing opportunities.

Both myself and my group prefer to keep their character stats and the like secret until it comes out during gameplay (within a reasonable limit, of course - all my players are willing to share their character's class, and maybe a few other tidbits).

 

[drakhe]

I would prefer my players not knowing each others stats because I can't imagine a bunch of total strangers ending up in an Inn and swapping stats and skills "Hi I'm Dork the rogue and I have 5 ranks in pick lock"

Especialy classes like rogues, I feel they would be very sparse at best with info about there activities.

Since my current group are all beginners (never played before) I had to repeatedly explain to them that "in character" there are no hitpoints, skills, stats and whatnot. And I try to avoid them planning an ambush in terms of "my AC is better, I'll go first..."
I try to make them play it out.

The hobby is called roleplaying, not min/max'ing a character.
Away from the table, I have no problem with players talking about thes emore abstract rules-related topics (in fact a very interesting half-an-hour is when one of the guys drives me back home, we discuss this stuff and I give hints what they could do and he gives his view on how or why he did something). It's just that I "prefer" players stay "in character" as much as possible. And little by little they learn and become bolder and bolder

In one of the groups I play in (DnD2e) it's almost the exact opposite. We hardly roll dice, an especialy well crafted attack may very wel be rewarded with a graphic description of the result instead of rolling to-hit and damage and such. I've even played 2 or 3 session without character sheet and I didn't even miss it. And we never ever bother with stats of the other players, we go with what we learn in game.

 

[Desdichado]

I've played games like that. It's not so weird, it just depends on the play style you like. You, obviously, like the tactical aspect and gaminess of playing. I really like the roleplaying, and this is a tool that really enhances that. You have to roleplay things out; you can't just describe yourself as what your character class is, or what the numbers on your sheet are.

 

[the Jester]

For quite some time in my campaign a pair of halfling twins went about disguised as gnomes, and even though they failed several disguise checks (I'd say things like, "something looks funny about his nose- it seems to be kind of peeling off his face"), the other players didn't realize they were halflings for a long time. It was very cool

Roleplay the stuff about finding out about each other. It's more fun, imho.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Yeesh, I do seem to be in the minority here. I'd always thought that everyone was passing their character sheets around the table, not hiding information.

I can see the point about a new group of characters getting to know each other and feeling things out through roleplaying. However, I think that for some groups, it's better to cut to the chase by revealing classes, skills, and feats - in game terms I'd say that the characters already knew each other and have become familiar with each other over time. (Prior to the campaign beginning.)

We'll see how it goes! If the group is blundering around and not accomplishing anything because they won't share their information or work together, that could be annoying for both them and me. In which case I might encourage them to open up a bit more about their PCs.

 

[Crothian]

I try to keep player and character knowledge as close as possible. For my new game I'm trying to have them not tell anyone much about their character till session one. I also want them to keep future choices a secret, unless it's something they would tell the others.

 

[WayneLigon]

I'd have to say that it's pretty weird. We always share info; we all know each other's sheets, etc. In many ways, we have to: if Bob can't show up for a game, he gives his sheet to John, or whoever, so the character can still be played. It just seems odd not to know such things.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

We've never been over-zealous on making every detail of our characters group knowledge, but this whole "secrecy" thing is so silly to me. It's like those people who think "only the DM can see the MM or DMG"...

 

[Sixchan]

I've never done it like that before. There has been too much metagaming in my group lately, so I might give this a shot.

 

[AngelTears]

I prefer gettting as far away from the character sheet as possible. This has to do with that I am in gaming for the roleplaying aspect not the rollplaying aspect.

In several campaings the GM forbds us from knowing each others stats, or even on knowing our own charactres stats. We of course have a background story behind each character, so we are not totally blind.

But I have also GM'd games where we did not have any character sheets whatsoever.