Players keeping stats secret

[National Acrobat]

As a player and a DM, I prefer that stats and what not be kept secret or at least to a minimun in regards to sharing. It helps with plot device and with the interactions between the players. As a group we generally tell each other the race and the class (or main class) that we are, but that is about it. The rest needs to be divulged in character. It prevents the old player vs. character knowledge thing from influencing decision making.

 

[Fyrie]

That little bit of paranoia is often what breathes life into the game. If you want to make is super special: YOU and only YOU, the DM, know how many hitpoints that person has at any given moment. THis includes in combat. I found this to be really fun. You merely describe the chars current physical state, yet you hav room to fudge.

 

[shilsen]

That little bit of paranoia is often what breathes life into the game. If you want to make is super special: YOU and only YOU, the DM, know how many hitpoints that person has at any given moment. THis includes in combat. I found this to be really fun. You merely describe the chars current physical state, yet you hav room to fudge.

I've been very tempted to use this rule for a long time, but I know my group wouldn't be able to deal with it. Pity, since I think it would cut down with a lot of metagaming if nobody knew how exactly how much damage someone else was taking or had taken.

 

[Umbran]

I believe that such secrecy is unnecessary. I think it leads to paranoia and vitiaties group cohesion.

IME, it doesn't lead to paranoia at all. It leads to role-playing. Rather than simply have everyone know "Joe's got the 18 Strength", people have to lear each other's abilities through description and seeing each other in action. A far more immersive process.

Eventually, stats get mentioned at the table, through DM-player talk if nothing else, so folks get some idea of each other's abilities, in terms of numbers. But until then, they actually have ot play through learning about one another. What a thought!

 

[Zulkir of Dartmouth]

Hey Everyone!

First time poster here!

I have to say, as much as keeping things secret can lead to good RPing it can also lead to a group that is more interested in finding out about each other that the adventure at hand.
If you are "takin' care of business" down in a dungeon and you don't know if the guy who is next to you in the dungeon can fight well, take a hit or search for traps then I don't think anyone that is RPing would have their character down in the dungeon.
I see both sides of this discussion but I think that total disclosure of info is bad, but I also think that total secrecy is bad too.

Thats my two cents.

 

[Walter_J]

Go along with it. You might find that you'll have a heck of a lot of fun in ways you never thought of. I think its great when players role-play among themselves and not knowing much about each other is a great way to start and makes GMing much more relaxing. As the campaign moves along, they'll learn about each other and starting workign more "tactically" and so forth, or maybe not. Either way, I highly recommend you give it a try. Most games I've GM'd and several I've played in were handled this way. Come to think of it, I think that was more the norm for us then anything.

If you haven't started the campaign yet, put some thought into how the characters are going to meet. The last campaign I ran the characters woke up in a "dungeon" room together. Before the game I gave each player a note basically stating you went to sleep wherever you normally would go to sleep, you wake up and this is what you see. After that I kicked back and left the rest up to them. We had a blast.

 

[Dareoon Dalandrove]

In my crappy opinion whos bussiness is it other than the Dms what is on your sheet? The group that I play with are semi-secretive. We talk about feats (what we plan on taking or asking advice), spells (same), but if we get a magic item that maybe some other in the group wouldn't approve of, we generaly keep our mouth shut. As far as stats... there your bussiness. If your a cheating waste of flesh and have all "Natural 20's, it was amazing". Then that's your bussiness. Generally why would the other players know? I like, and have used a surprise manuver. IE I had an item and everyone forgot that i had it. I casually go off to face certain death knowing that I had an out. It was a lot of fun to play up.

 

[Gothmog]

Nope, this isn't nuts at all- its the way I learned to roleplay, and the way I have run my campaign for the last 10 years.

The stats are a way to describe your character when you have to have a quantifiable way of knowing how good he is at something. Most of the time during a session, the stats aren't even really relevant (besides knowing my guy is a quick, witty, and likeable rogue for example). In fact, in the games I run, the PCs know their prime ability scores, class, level, roughly how many ranks they have in each skill, which feats they have, and number of types of spells they have (if any)- but thats it. They do not know their AC, hit points, magic item plusses, etc. I have found that it leads to MUCH more in-depth and interesting roleplaying when the numbers are kept to a minimum. And under NO circumstances are players to speak in meta-game jargon- this rule was actually made by one of the players and everyone agreed to it.

In my experience, a character who knows all his stats and those of his companions will make silly/unwise decisions much more often than someone who doesn't have that same info due to meta-game knowledge. I say give it a shot for a while- its much more enjoyable this way.

 

[Wolfspirit]

I personaly try to avoid meta gaming as much as possible, since I probably know the most about the system it'd be too easy for me. I personaly am in the camp of "I know the barbarian is the strongest, the rogue is best at searching, and I'm going to be the butt of jokes until I die from the fact they no longer let me try to jump over a pit without a rope tied around my waist." That's as close as I really care in character about people's stats. I don't think about how many hit points someone else has before I heal them, I judge by how hurt they appear versus how much of a wound I know they can take.

On the other hand, there's no way in heck my current gaming group could play without letting people look at other's character sheets. Despite the fact that we've been playing more than two years (geez, that long?) we still had one person trying to use a greatsword and a shield at the same time, and things like that. Pure accident, but I'm better than either of our DMs at spotting that kind of stuff.

Oh, and after reading the previous response: AC and hitpoints and magic bonuses are something I'd be ok with players knowing, at least on a meta level. It was a pain enough having the DM have to add modifiers in during combat for un-identified magic items. "I attack and roll a 15" "You miss." "Pluss whatever the heck the modifier on the sword is." "Never mind" I think it would slow things down too much if we had to do that with everything we got.

 

[nopantsyet]

IMC there's no rule about it, but nobody really ever came out and discussed it either. However, when I took a break from DMing I freaked out the others by playing a low-wisdom ranger (long story...) who very confidently got them lost in the mountains and almost died of exposure.

Made me feel good to know I can freak them out from either side of the screen.