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

[pemerton]

At least to me it is not really not about advantage, at least not mainly. I think the point of roleplaying is to get immersed and inhabit a viewpoint of a fictional person, and part of doing that is to accept that this person will have different amount of knowledge than you the player. If you're incapable of doing that, what's even the point of playing?

To me, this seems to have at least two implications:

(1) It doesn't matter whether or not the player has their PC use fire on the trolls. One player decides that their PC heard a story in a tavern from an old-timer and uses fire; the other player decides that their PC is ignorant of trolls and just plinks away with regular arrows. Both are playing their PCs as they conceive of them. And no harm is done.

(2) The classic D&D monsters with their baroque immunities and vulnerabilities are basically otiose in this sort of play. Those monsters were invented to challenge players, and to force them to learn different winning formulas, Over time (and perhaps over the course of multiple PCs), players would improve their knowledge of the game elements - trolls, ochre jellies, yellow mould, etc - and be able to defeat them more handily and thus do better at the game. (This is a point that @hawkeyefan has also made.) Once play is no longer focused on challenging players, such that the notion of "unfair advantage" doesn't really apply, why do we bother having all these different trick monsters? They've outlived their usefulness.

 

[pemerton]

I don't know quite when the idea gained currency that players who know how to play the game, who know what trolls are and how they work, etc should pretend that they don't. But to me, whatever the merits of that approach in itself (I'm not a big fan, but some people seem to enjoy it), I don't see that it has any connection to notions like "cheating" or "unearned advantage".

It only makes sense in a "players against the world" or "puzzle solving is a big part of the game" context.

I'm not 100% sure what your "it" refers to. I think you are saying that notions of "cheating" or "unearned advantage" only make sense in players vs world or puzzle-solving play. If so, I could quibble - eg they might also make sense in some sorts of arena-based play, or PvP play - but I think we're in broad agreement

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'm not 100% sure what your "it" refers to. I think you are saying that notions of "cheating" or "unearned advantage" only make sense in players vs world or puzzle-solving play. If so, I could quibble - eg they might also make sense in some sorts of arena-based play, or PvP play - but I think we're in broad agreement

I was staying away from PvP situations for the same reason I was avoiding the question of players-vs-GM.

 

[pemerton]

Consciously deciding not to do something because of out of character information is still acting on out of character information.

But it's not having your character act on out of character information.

Now I'm not entirely sure that that is a coherent notion - it's certainly fourth-wall breaking! - but I think it might be what some other posters have in mind when they are disagreeing with you and @hawkeyefan.

 

[Vaalingrade]

The problem with just straight calling metagaming cheating is that:

1) This is a game, so there will always be metagaming, you horrible cheater

And

2) It is always described to assume gaining an advantage. But the player who has played D&D for more then twenty minutes and knows the trolls and fire trick is also metagaming if they decide to screw up and not use their dragonborn fire breath on the thing, so no matter what you do, once you gain knowledge, you're a dirty cheater.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

2 some groups actually LIKE replaying played through modules to see about different results. Like for the nostalgia, Ran the 5e Tomb of Horrors for my group despite most of them having been through it decades ago - just to see how it would go, the whole point was to see how well they ACTUALLY remembered the module and if 5e could get the feel down at all.

I have run sunless citadel 4 times, I have run castle ravenloft/curse of strahd 1 time each but also played through it a half dozen times

 

[Charlaquin]

But it's not having your character act on out of character information.

Now I'm not entirely sure that that is a coherent notion - it's certainly fourth-wall breaking! - but I think it might be what some other posters have in mind when they are disagreeing with you and @hawkeyefan.

I agree, it’s not a coherent notion. The character acts only as directed by the player, and the player is acting on out of character information. Therefore the character can only be acting on out of character information.

What I think you have hit on here though is that it’s not about how the character acts, it’s about how they don’t act. If they act in a way that the DM thinks they wouldn’t unless they had the information, that’s verboten.

 

[Maxperson]

If a player knows - from reading a rulebook, or from past play experiences - that trolls are vulnerable to fire, or that a lightning bolt will split an ochre jelly into two smaller jellies, or whatever else about the weird spreads of resistances and vulnerabilities in D&D, how is it cheating to use that knowledge in play? How is using that knowledge an "unearned advantage"?

The player earned the knowledge through play or through reading, and is now using it. That's how most games work.

That's not how games work. Games have rules. That's how games work. You don't get to use everything you read just because you feel like it. If the PC doesn't have the knowledge, it is not appropriate to use what you read to gain advantage that the PC would not have. It's like playing clue and then guessing the three aspects correctly because you opened the packet and read the cards.

To cash this out in the context of D&D: the Moldvay Basic rulebook advises prospective players (who are not intending to be GMs) to read the whole book, except for the sample dungeon. This includes the monster chapter. And clearly Gygax intended players to carry their hard-earned knowledge with them. That's why he suggests that new players should start playing with other new players rather than experienced players, so the new players can have the experience of learning for themselves (he does flag the possibility of experienced players playing mercenaries or similar hirelings, who will help make up numbers and help with the rules but not make decisions or give advice). And it's also why he is so disdainful of players who play high level PCs but who haven't "earned" the right to do so by dint of serious play (this is his main objection to Monty Haul D&D).

Gygax is not God. His outdated views of the game don't have any inherent impact now. You can opt to view things as he did, or you can opt to view things differently.

I don't know quite when the idea gained currency that players who know how to play the game, who know what trolls are and how they work, etc should pretend that they don't. But to me, whatever the merits of that approach in itself (I'm not a big fan, but some people seem to enjoy it), I don't see that it has any connection to notions like "cheating" or "unearned advantage".

The idea happened when a lot of people moved past D&D being purely gamist and started inhabiting their characters and acting from that viewpoint instead of their own.

 

[Maxperson]

(1) It doesn't matter whether or not the player has their PC use fire on the trolls. One player decides that their PC heard a story in a tavern from an old-timer and uses fire; the other player decides that their PC is ignorant of trolls and just plinks away with regular arrows. Both are playing their PCs as they conceive of them. And no harm is done.

Players don't get to decide what happens in the game world, so they have no ability to decide that their PC overheard a tavern story.

(2) The classic D&D monsters with their baroque immunities and vulnerabilities are basically otiose in this sort of play. Those monsters were invented to challenge players, and to force them to learn different winning formulas, Over time (and perhaps over the course of multiple PCs), players would improve their knowledge of the game elements - trolls, ochre jellies, yellow mould, etc - and be able to defeat them more handily and thus do better at the game. (This is a point that @hawkeyefan has also made.) Once play is no longer focused on challenging players, such that the notion of "unfair advantage" doesn't really apply, why do we bother having all these different trick monsters? They've outlived their usefulness.

Why do you think part of playing D&D isn't challenging the players? Why bother having combat at all if we're not going to be challenging the players/PCs?

 

[Irlo]

Players don't get to decide what happens in the game world, so they have no ability to decide that their PC overheard a tavern story.

For my part, I'd rather play in a game in which I could decide that I overheard a tavern story than one in which I had to roll knowledge checks for monster trivia. To each their own!