D&D General Should players be aware of their own high and low rolls?

[bloodtide]

I would think this sort of mix is nigh-universal. The stereotypical party of four has one sneak (a Rogue-type), one quiet person without sneaking skills (a Wizard-type), one probably-armoured person who can't sneak well (a Cleric-type) and one certainly-armoured person who can't sneak worth a damn (a Fighter-type). Rare would be the party of all sneaks and rarer yet would be the party with none.

It's not. Though sure an amazing number of gamers will say the game MUST ONLY be played this ONE way.

And I have a special loathe for the Bully Four players. The type that picks the class/race/character THEY want to play...and then Bullies or Forces another player to be one of "The Four" that is left.

It's a quick way to get booted from my game.

 

[Maxperson]

And part of improv acting is “yes, and.” I don’t know if you’ve ever tried improv, but stopping a scene to say, “wait, no, your character wouldn’t do that” would not go over well in that context.

Or any context. I haven't heard that in more than 30 years back when I was in junior high and high school.

There are a lot of problems with this though, not the least of which is how you do you decide if a character knows something or not. In some cases it might be obvious, but in many cases it isn’t.

That's what skills are for.

 

[hawkeyefan]

It's really pretty simple:

Separate what the PC would know (or likely or reasonably know) based on their backstory, background, race, class, experiences in the game, etc. from what the player knows because they are sitting at the table and viewing/hearing/experiencing things their PC isn't.

How do you determine what they’re allowed to know from their background and other details though? I mean, sure some things will be obvious. But most people know dome stuff that will surprise people. They also don’t know stuff that people may expect them to know based on their job or upbringing and so on.

So how do you decide that a PC never had any opportunity to learn about something in question?

 

[Maxperson]

That seems far less adversarial than using one they know and then expecting them to play dumb or else admonish them for “cheating”.

That's why I don't play with cheaters. I pick people who like to play the way I do. It works out well.

Right. I play a wizard who has, among other spells, burning hands. Me not using it against trolls because the wizard has never encountered trolls before is me changing my actions due to out of character knowledge. It swings both ways.

And as I've said every single time this old "counter" comes up, if you use fire spells in every combat I would have no problem if you went straight to fire when you encounter a troll. You're playing in character, not using troll knowledge.

My issue is with the Diviner who uses poison spray suddenly shifts to burning hands when the troll comes and his PC has no knowledge of trolls.

How do your players know what monster abilities they’re “allowed” to know about?

It's readily apparent for the most part. Between backgrounds(the written kind), game play, area of birth and skill proficiencies, I often know without a roll. Sometimes a roll is necessary if the outcome is in doubt.

 

[hawkeyefan]

In some cases it's bloody obvious.

If I'm the party Cleric, waiting at camp with the Fighter and Wizard while the Thief is off scouting a way into the castle for us, I-as-character have no way of knowing what the Thief is doing or finding or so forth and thus I-as-player shouldn't know this either. For all I know she's dying at the bottom of a wall she failed to climb; or conversely, she's sailed through the mission and will be back to us in 5 minutes.

But if the Thief's scouting isn't handled by note or in another room, I've met only a very few players who, on meta-learning she's fallen off a wall and is dying at its base, wouldn't immediately have their characters leap to her rescue even though in-character they have no way whatsoever of knowing she's in trouble and aren't expecting her back for another half-hour. Not acceptable here.

Have you never read a story, or heard about a situation in real life, where someone got a bad feeling and then did exactly what you’re denying can happen?

Your world is one where someone can’t get a hunch and go check on someone who’s likely doing something dangerous. It’s bonkers.

All to preserve what? Verisimilitude? By denging something that happens all the time in the real world? That doesn’t seem verisimilitudinous at all.

 

[billd91]

So how do you decide that a PC never had any opportunity to learn about something in question?

The game kind of makes it our job to do so. If we think it’s reasonable, they know it. If it’s too obscure, they don’t. If it could go either way, roll the intelligence (knowledge skill) check.

 

[bloodtide]

Do you somehow catalogue everything each PC knows?

How do you decide what they do or don’t know?

I have an easy way:

1.The character is free to know everything (non-mechanical) that the player knows. If the player knows some fluff or lore, then the character does too....if the player wishes to use it.

2.Whatever a player "thinks" they know may or may not be true.

3.Players always have the option of getting in touch with me any time out side of the game for lore, information, and reading material. This is also a great problem player stopper as they will never do this....

 

[hawkeyefan]

And as I've said every single time this old "counter" comes up, if you use fire spells in every combat I would have no problem if you went straight to fire when you encounter a troll. You're playing in character, not using troll knowledge.

My issue is with the Diviner who uses poison spray suddenly shifts to burning hands when the troll comes and his PC has no knowledge of trolls.

Let’s look at the latter. Let’s say I don’t use Burning Hands very often… it’s typically a last resort when enemies get close.

But this time, I run up and blast a troll with it.

What do you do?

I mean, certainly it’s not impossible for this to have happened. Certainly wizards may occasionally try nee tactics, right?

You simply deny the possibility that the character made a random decision that worked out?

That’s metagaming. You’re altering actions based on out of fiction knowledge.

That's why I don't play with cheaters. I pick people who like to play the way I do. It works out well.

I don’t play with cheaters either, Max. Putting a smiley emoji at the end doesn’t make the shade less douchey.

It's readily apparent for the most part. Between backgrounds(the written kind), game play, area of birth and skill proficiencies, I often know without a roll. Sometimes a roll is necessary if the outcome is in doubt.

Why is dragon breath common knowledge (but not the kind of BW by dragon type, somehow) but not fire versus trolls? Seems arbitrary. Which goes back to the DM being a major contributor to metagame situations.

 

[hawkeyefan]

The game kind of makes it our job to do so. If we think it’s reasonable, they know it. If it’s too obscure, they don’t. If it could go either way, roll the intelligence (knowledge skill) check.

I don’t like the idea of blocking any actions declared by players. They get to decide what their character does, not me.

Gating it behind a check seems a bit more reasonable than just blocking it, but it doesn’t really solve the issue. At some point, you have to let them use fire on the troll, or whatever’s in question.

It seems more like a need to control things by the DM.

 

[Vaalingrade]

So metagaming (defined as using player knowledge) is not cheating in the sense that there's no official rule against it. But it might be cheating, if for example the people at a table share that as a house rule.

It's one of those things that hardly ever get discussed until someone does it in a way someone at the able doesn't like (as this being a game, there will always be metagaming) and then they leap upon them like a lion on a gazelle, only thier claws are unwarrented shaming.