How Visible To players Should The Rules Be?

[Maxperson]

Interesting. I've usually run into the opposite problem, where people kind of zone out on the description and can only interact with mechanics, but everyone's brains are different to an extent, so it's probable.

I think, however, that descriptions and mechanics can complement one another, for a wider range of people, than simply one or the other. Obviously, YMMV, as we all play with different people.

Yeah. I've found a very few who just want to hulk smash stuff and zone out on description, but by and large, the little bit of description I provided upthread doesn't zone folks out and provides FAR more information to go on than numbers. Numbers will almost always fall behind description in importance to decision making.

I agree that technically adding in the numbers gives some more options, but how much really? I argue very little. It's clear from my examples that description provides MUCH more to go on. I'm going to show my examples again.

DM 1: You see a troll with an AC of 15, 55 hit points and a speed of 30. What do you want to do?

And...

DM 2: You see a massive troll standing at the far end of the room. In the middle of the room is a large pit. In the corner stands a barrel that appears to be leaking oil. Every few feet along the walls a lit torch burns, adding a haze of smoke to the room. Near the troll the ground is broken and covered with rubble. What do you want to do?

How much does AC 20 help vs. "hard to hit?" Virtually no help at all. 19, 20, and 21 are almost the same, so why do you need to know 20? 55 hit points gives very little information given the variable nature of damage. 45, 55 and 65 can all easily go down in the same number of rounds and hits.

The description on the other hand provides you with tactical information that can make a huge difference. The miniscule amount that numbers "help" isn't worth it to those of us who would rather just have the information that our PCs would have.

 

[James Gasik]

Consider a Bard's Inspiration die, with a value of a d6. If I roll a 14 on the die, knowing if the enemy has AC 17, 19, or 21 is very valuable to me. A 17 I'm likely to hit if I use the die. A 19 far less likely. A 21 is impossible.

Now I appreciate the school of thought that using resources should be a gamble, but at the same time, if I see a player about to use a Flaming Sphere on a Devil, I want to give them a chance to not waste their entire turn and burn a resource on it. That seems more fun to me than "haha, gotcha, but don't worry, in the future, if you encounter this specific kind of devil you'll know better- it's a learning experience" when there's many creatures that could be described as "devilish" who aren't immune to fire.

So for me, yes, there is value in knowing the specific numbers and rules elements in play. It doesn't matter if you like the idea of players having this information or not, you can't say there is no inherent value in them having it.

As a GM, I don't consider myself the adversary. I want the party to succeed, but it's my job to make sure that it's not easy for them. At the same time, I want to do so as fairly as possible. I already have all the advantages I could ever want to work with.

If I want to crush the party, I can design encounters that will do so. I don't feel I need the extra advantage of holding back information without a good reason to do so.

An example of this comes from an AL game I ran. There was this smarmy jerk playing a Bard that I really thought was making the mod less enjoyable for the group. I wanted to teach him a lesson.

They were fighting Gnolls, and he thought it would be a perfect demonstration of his awesomeness to Command the creature. What I knew, and apparently he didn't, was that the target of Command has to understand the Command. And that the Gnoll enemy only spoke Gnoll according to his stat block. I could have just let it lie there.

Instead, I asked him to make an ability check (I think I chose Intelligence) with a flat DC of 10 for his character to realize their error. He rolled a 5. I told him the spell had no effect. He immediately jumped on me saying the spell can affect Gnolls. I told him to read the third sentence of the spell.

"What, Gnolls don't speak Common? Everyone speaks Common!"

I slid the stat block towards him and pointed at the Languages listed. He got huffy and refused to cast any spell for the remainder of the session, plinking at things with his bow. I later heard he complained about how "unfair" I was.

Some would have let him waste the spell straight up. Others would have informed him of his mistake. I chose to let the dice decide. I don't believe there is a "correct" way to handle this scenario, but I felt my way was more fair to the players, assuming that the characters can be more competent than their players.

YMMV.

 

[overgeeked]

Now I appreciate the school of thought that using resources should be a gamble, but at the same time, if I see a player about to use a Flaming Sphere on a Devil, I want to give them a chance to not waste their entire turn and burn a resource on it. That seems more fun to me than "haha, gotcha, but don't worry, in the future, if you encounter this specific kind of devil you'll know better- it's a learning experience" when there's many creatures that could be described as "devilish" who aren't immune to fire.

I don’t see it as a gotcha. The PC wouldn’t know until they tried or did some research to find out. If the player knows and uses that knowledge, they’re metagaming. Which is another problem.

 

[James Gasik]

Is it metagaming when I, as the DM, rule that the player can have that knowledge? When I rule that the character might have that knowledge even if the player does not?

 

[Lanefan]

Consider a Bard's Inspiration die, with a value of a d6. If I roll a 14 on the die, knowing if the enemy has AC 17, 19, or 21 is very valuable to me. A 17 I'm likely to hit if I use the die. A 19 far less likely. A 21 is impossible.

And that's exactly the sort of meta-mechanic I 'd like to see forever excised from the game.

Were it me and I had such an inspiration mechanic (which I never would), your Bard would have to commit to using it and roll the d6 before the to-hit die is rolled.

Nothing should be allowed to modify a die roll after the results of that roll are known.

If I want to crush the party, I can design encounters that will do so. I don't feel I need the extra advantage of holding back information without a good reason to do so.

An example of this comes from an AL game I ran. There was this smarmy jerk playing a Bard that I really thought was making the mod less enjoyable for the group. I wanted to teach him a lesson.

They were fighting Gnolls, and he thought it would be a perfect demonstration of his awesomeness to Command the creature. What I knew, and apparently he didn't, was that the target of Command has to understand the Command. And that the Gnoll enemy only spoke Gnoll according to his stat block. I could have just let it lie there.

Instead, I asked him to make an ability check (I think I chose Intelligence) with a flat DC of 10 for his character to realize their error. He rolled a 5. I told him the spell had no effect. He immediately jumped on me saying the spell can affect Gnolls. I told him to read the third sentence of the spell.

"What, Gnolls don't speak Common? Everyone speaks Common!"

I slid the stat block towards him and pointed at the Languages listed. He got huffy and refused to cast any spell for the remainder of the session, plinking at things with his bow. I later heard he complained about how "unfair" I was.

Some would have let him waste the spell straight up. Others would have informed him of his mistake. I chose to let the dice decide. I don't believe there is a "correct" way to handle this scenario, but I felt my way was more fair to the players, assuming that the characters can be more competent than their players.

YMMV.

You were a lot nicer in that situation than I would have been. I'd have just kept letting the Command fail, and if the player ever had the character stop to wonder why then there'd be a check (like you did) to see if the Bard realized the problem was lack of understanding (or for all the Bard knew, maybe that particular Gnoll was deaf).

And if the player got huffy on learning why the spell didn't work, that'd be one less player at the table in short order.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Is it metagaming when I, as the DM, rule that the player can have that knowledge? When I rule that the character might have that knowledge even if the player does not?

I would have an issue with it as a player if I felt my PC has no in-universe reason to have that knowledge. I've called out my GM for being too easy on us many times.

 

[Cadence]

Is it metagaming when I, as the DM, rule that the player can have that knowledge? When I rule that the character might have that knowledge even if the player does not?

I happily fill in my players with knowledge I think someone of their [edit: character's] class, level, or background would know if it seems relevant. And I'm happy to have them ask me if their character would know something even if they as players don't.

 

[hawkeyefan]

What is considered relevant varies from person to person. You and Hawkeyefan might not consider what Maxperson said as relevant, but he sure seems to think it's relevant.

Miss Lippy’s car… is green.

 

[hawkeyefan]

The situation determines it. If someone does something that will reveal the information, I can't stop it. It has already been done. It's not about what I want or any kind of timing of mine.

The situation doesn’t determine it. Someone has to actually decide when to share information. That person may base it on what they believe the situation demands… but that doesn’t mean there’s not a person deciding.

And as this thread has shown, there’s clearly a pretty significant gap in opinion about when something would become apparent.

Hence, my tendency to not withhold relevant details without a strong reason.

I'm pretty sure it was you who argued to me that numbers were more important than description. I've shown that to be untrue. You can couple them, but without description the numbers are not very useful.

I said that were more precise.

Whether numbers + description is > than description is subjective.

It’s really not. It’s description… plus numbers. It’s literally more information.

For a lot of us adding in those numbers detracts from the scene and detract from a person's ability to make a choice, because some people will hyper focus on numbers.

I think that the number of people for whom the numbers are a problem would pale in comparison to the number of people for whom a phrase like “pretty difficult” would be a problem.

Yes, but this is apples and oranges. It's apples, because the PC isn't making any attempt to know those things. It's purely player only. Oranges are the folks here arguing that you can look at an ogre and instantly see AC, HP, Move, Dex bonus, magical bonuses and more. Or in the case of one fellow, you can do it because you can reach out and touch a monitor.

The numbers are for players only. The characters see their world. The players get the numbers that represent that world.

Let me ask you this… if you have two fighters and they both use longswords, and one has a +8 to hit with it, and the other has a +10 to hit… do the characters know which of them is a better swordsman?

I mean, the characters don’t know the numbers, right?

That's untrue. It's a troll which I said would be very strong on first glance. Trolls are visibly strong. The two abilities, regeneration and keen smell would likely not be apparent on first glance, but perhaps the scenting ability would be revealed if it couldn't see the PCs, but they could see it and it was smelling them.

I'm not arbitrarily choosing to keep things hidden. The players would only get in word information that their PCs would have, and so that's what I give them.

Special abilities like that are a little different, I’d say. But I would also say that you are arbitrarily choosing to keep them hidden. You can indeed have the troll sniffing at the air, cueing the players about its ability. You can have the troll biting off its own fingers and watching them regrow out of boredom, or some weird inhuman habit. What is “obvious” or not is up to you as a GM. You choose what to share and what to not share.

Now, I’m not saying you have to share everything about an opponent. My approach is if it’s generally observable, I don’t quibble about it and just share it.

I already give them far more than enough to do that. Numbers and monster abilities simply aren't needed for that.

What I said was clear to anyone who understands that realism is on a scale. I'll repeat it with arbitrary numbers to illustrate exactly what I said. I said walls were realism. I said bricks were realism. I said that flies were realism. If walls give us realism of 4, making it a brick wall gives us a realism of 5, and adding in flies gives us a realism score of 6, removing flies does not drop realism to 0 like was implies in the post I responded to. We still have a realism score of 5.

This means that a brick wall with flies on it is more realistic than a brick wall with no flies on it.

Which is just not true. There are plenty of brick walls without flies on them in the real world. Neither of these two things is more realistic than the other.

Which is why your point is unclear.

Having said that, though, I won’t request that you clarify any further. My head hurts.

 

[Krachek]

Let me ask you this… if you have two fighters and they both use longswords, and one has a +8 to hit with it, and the other has a +10 to hit… do the characters know which of them is a better swordsman?

I mean, the characters don’t know the numbers, right?

In professional sports victory is made of fraction of seconds, and thus athlete and trainers have an eye for small details. +10%! both characters and everyone around with some skill in fighting should see that obvious difference.