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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 7612452" data-attributes="member: 6801228">You want to disprove my point, but you are actually proving it. White Plume Mountain is an old module, published in 1979 by TSR in an era where they expected player skill and knowledge to be highlighted and used. The same with The Tomb of Horrors, it is designed for the players to check everything and the characters are just the board pieces they are using to interact with the Tomb. It has been forty years since then. The game has evolved, and this applies to trap design as much as it does to player interactions. We've been down the long, winding road, I don't understand why we what to pretend like modern DnD is the same as it used to be. Yes, you should always be polite and understand when talking to other people. At least face to face, it gets harder and harder to do that over the internet. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />I've actually never played 3.5 beyond a single starter set adventure. Had the rulebooks and read them for a while, but no one ever wanted to play after that first game. We talked about playing, just never did. Played 4e once and ran it once, and I've been playing 5e for years. So, I guess I was just corrupted by the one game of 4e I played and it taught me all those 3.5 -isms that have rooted my games. I'd hope you would understand that after reading pages and pages to catch up and then writing three to four pages worth of response on word to copy and paste back into ENworld that I might take the occasional shortcut in formulating a response. I mean, it is rather annoying to have to state things like "an intelligence check using Arcana Proficiency" instead of just saying "an Arcana check" and then having to remember to preface that with "a player will declare an action such as thinking back to their education as a wizard to recall the effect thunder magic has on earth elementals, then the DM will determine if there is a chance for success, a chance for failure, and a meaningful consequence for failure and then only after that might they call for a d20 to be rolled, which a player should try and avoid." And doing that every single time UNLESS I WANT ALL CAPS FURY DIRECTED AT MISCHARACTERIZING YOUR POSITION. It does get a little tedious after a month. You know what, fine. Let me dust off that 3.5 PHB I buried. Let us see here, pg 4 "The Core Mechanics: Whenever you attempt an action that has some chance of failure, you roll a twenty-sided die (d20). To determine if your character succeeds at a task (such as attacking a monster or using a skill), you do this:" It then lists out roll, add, check against DC and explains that meeting or beating the DC means you succeed and rolling below it means failing. Maybe in this part on pg 5, What Characters Can Do "A character can try to do anything you can imagine, just as long as it fits the scene the DM describes. Depending on the situation your character might want to listen at a door, search an area, bargain with a shopkeeper, talk to an ally, jump across a pit, move, use an item, or attack an opponent. Characters accomplish tasks by making skill checks, ability checks, or attack rolls, using the core mechanic" This must be the rule you are looking for right? After all, it says character accomplish tasks and then give a list... though the first quote also says you only roll when there is a chance of failure. Hmm. I'll keep digging around. The Player's Role? "As a player, you use this handbook to create and run a character. Your character is an adventurer, part of a team that regularly delves into dungeons and battles monsters. Play where everyone feels comfortable and there's a place to set ....[List of potential supplies]... and character sheets. The DM sets each scene and describes the action. It's your job to decide what your character is like, how he or she relates to the other adventurers, and act accordingly. You can play as... [another list, they loved listing different archetypes in this book]... With your character in mind, respond to each situation as it comes up. Sometimes combat is called for, but other situations might be solved through magic, negotiation, or judicious skill use." Is this the rule that says players shouldn't use out of character knowledge in 3.5? It sounds like it, after all it is calling for players to play with their character in mind, to keep their character in mind when reacting. Of course, in 5e, there is an entire section of the book dedicated to player's backstories and personalities. So, while the rules never directly state you should keep your character in mind while responding to situations... it seems kind of heavily implied doesn't it? Your background and personality get their own chapter in 5e, while 3.5 they get a single paragraph each, with multiple pages written about the gods of greyhawk and the alignment system. But, this isn't about personality, this is about using out-of-character knowledge. I doubt I'll find it in the races or classes section, so let us skip to skills. Surely if it is anywhere, it will be there right? Well, what do you know, a whole sidebar about it. "It's pretty simple to measure a character's knowledge of things the player doesn't know. That's what a Knowledge skill check represents-for instance, the player of a character with many ranks in Knowledge (geography) isn't required to memorize all the geographical data about the campaign world to use his character's skill ranks. The opposite case, however, is harder to adjudicate cleanly. What happens when a player knows something that his or her character does not have any reason to know? For instance, while most veteran players know the black dragon breathes acid, it's entirely likely that most inexperienced characters don't know that fact. Generally speaking, it's impossible to separate completely your personal knowledge (also called player knowledge) from your character's knowledge. Ultimately, the decision on how (or if) to divide player knowledge from character knowledge must be made between the players and the DM. Some DMs encourage knowledgeable players to use their experience to help their character's succeed. Other prefer that characters display only the knowledge represented by their skill ranks and other game statistics. Most fall somewhere between those two extremes. If in doubt, ask your DM how he or she prefers to handle such situations. The Dungeon Master's Guide has more information on this topic."So, I guess that is the final verdict. I was corrupted by the sidebar in the 3.5 PHB that said that is was up to the DM whether or not players should use out of character knowledge. Wait, no, I was probably lured in by homebrew table cultures of people in my area to think that using out of character knowledge was discouraged. I mean, 3.5 said either way is fine, and 5e doesn't even talk about it at all except in that section where they talk to DMs about how they might want to handle this exact issue. The rules in these two games are just so entirely different, I'm shocked I got them so mixed up.</blockquote>

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