D&D General Should a low level character know to burn a troll?

[Warmaster Horus]

Do you know that fire should be used to stop a troll from regenerating and kill it irrevocably? You do? And yet you don't even have trolls living in your world. What gives you the gall to think that intelligent races that have been dealing with trolls and other supernatural-types for the whole of their cultures' existence don't have the same knowledge?

 

[Morrus]

What gives you the gall to think....

Calm down.

 

[TarionzCousin]

Such passion! This thread almost makes me feel young again.

Almost.

 

[TheSword]

I see the issue. You are coming into this discussion with the presumption that a player should separate character knowledge from player knowledge and that to not do so is evidence that they are doing something they shouldn't just because they can (which is a good enough definition of immaturity for this discussion)

I'm saying that's not everyone's preferred playstyle. Since they don't prefer separating character knowledge from player knowledge then they shouldn't do so. Thus, those players aren't doing anything immature. They aren't doing something they shouldn't only because they can. They are in fact doing something they should!

You see the sticking point right?

Ahh I see the sticking point but it doesn’t need to be one. I don’t believe that using player only knowledge is good or bad. I make no value judgement on the right way to play or not.

I just think that not using your own knowledge requires restraint which itself requires a certain amount of maturity.

I also don’t think it’s the right way to play. It’s just my preference, particularly in a game where player only knowledge would spoil suspense or aesthetics.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Ahh I see the sticking point but it doesn’t need to be one. I don’t believe that using player only knowledge is good or bad. I make no value judgement on the right way to play or not.

I just think that not using your own knowledge requires restraint which itself requires a certain amount of maturity.

I also don’t think it’s the right way to play. It’s just my preference, particularly in a game where player only knowledge would spoil suspense or aesthetics.

You mean the suspense of wondering when you've pretended you don't know long enough and can finally use fire on the troll?

 

[TheSword]

I need only to have met people who are immature and perfectly capable and willing to separate player and character knowledge, and the reverse, to objectively prove that it isn’t a matter of maturity.

Well you could. Except whether a person is mature is a matter of opinion. If they can show enough restraint not to act on their knowledge because they recognize it hasn’t been ‘fairly’ early then I would probably say they are more mature than you give them credit for.

 

[TheSword]

You mean the suspense of wondering when you've pretended you don't know long enough and can finally use fire on the troll?

Well the example I gave, was a Zombie Apocalypse like the Walking Dead. Where it is difficult to expect genuine fear from a character who would have seen zombie films.

I also gave Curse of Strahd as an example. It’s harder for level 1 players to show suspense if they have our knowledge of Vampires if in your world. And implausible if he is a unique creature in a different plane.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Well the example I gave, was a Zombie Apocalypse like the Walking Dead. Where it is difficult to expect genuine fear from a character who would have seen zombie films.

I also gave Curse of Strahd as an example. It’s harder for level 1 players to show suspense if they have our knowledge of Vampires if in your world. And implausible if he is a unique creature in a different plane.

This is lazy GMing, though. Instead of actually presenting something new, you're just defining known things as unknown things and demanding your players play along. I hardly think "let's humor the GM so he keeps running for us" is a strong hallmark of maturity. This certainly looks bad on the GM's side.

 

[Beleriphon]

This is lazy GMing, though. Instead of actually presenting something new, you're just defining known things as unknown things and demanding your players play along. I hardly think "let's humor the GM so he keeps running for us" is a strong hallmark of maturity. This certainly looks bad on the GM's side.

Which is why I fallback onto The Angry GM to explain. The topic is a bit broader, but the concept applies. As a warning, salty (like salted cod levels) language.

 

[ad_hoc]

To the extent that this is an interesting question (and it is), and to the extent that it keeps popping up in threads (and it does, as an analogy), I think it helpfully illuminates three different styles of play.*

In the beginning, there was the idea of "skilled play." If you look back, you see that while players inhabited a role (proto-roleplaying), players were also assumed to have some skill at the game itself. That is why early modules featured puzzles and traps and riddles and so on that were meant to be solved by the players, not the PCs. And the different abilities of monsters were known (or not) by the players, not the PCs. This was so well-known that one of the earliest Dragon Magazines (before the Monster Manual!) mocks the problem and has a way for DMs to create random monsters!!!

Then we can discuss the concept of "role playing." People that were more interested in role playing became focused on the divide between the player and the PC. The player might know that a troll could be stopped by fire (having encountered one in the last campaign), but the PC might not. So the player would have to determine if the PC had that knowledge- did their history, background, intelligence, and so on, mean that they would know this? Would a noble-born Cleric know it? How about a peasant fighter recently released from the army?

Finally, there is the concept of "dice play." With the advent of later parts of 2e, and especially 3e on, their was an increased emphasis on the use of dice to resolve non-combat situations.** Here, instead of looking solely at skilled play (what the player knew) or the role play (what the PC knew), the player would determine if the PC knew that information the same way that the player would determine if the PC hit an opponent; by rolling. This made it worthwhile to invest in an applicable skill to know, um, stuff.

This is a great breakdown.

I'm between a #1 and a #2.

I'm really glad that 5e got away from 3e's #3.

I'm going to steal this to talk about the differences in philosophy if that's alright.