If a DM did this to you, how mad would you be?

[4th number]

So say you roll a Spellcraft or Knowledge or Martial Lore (etc) check and hit the normal DC to know something. The DM hits you up with some knowledge that later turns out be be not just wrong but seriously harmful (in the sense that it leads you into a trap or to working for a bad guy or similar)?

What the hell?!, you ask your DM. The answer is that your mentor, the NPC who, canonically, taught you everything that you know* about [x], is actually a villain who systematically systematically misinformed you for his own reasons. You correctly recognized a man as a cleric of Kermit, but it turns out that who you thought was the god of frogs, puppetry, and pig farming is actually the god of all that plus kitten eating.

Is that fair? Does it become fair if an established part of the game is that backstory NPCs are likely to show up?

*Ah, you say, "But if they've put ranks in it since the start of the game, they must have learned from other sources." I say, "Yeah, this idea would be unfair in that case, but let's just say that they haven't put any additional ranks into it since the start of the campaign. Cool?"

[Tvtyrant]

I personally wouldn't be mad, but some people no doubt would be. I guess it depends on how against having your mentor be evil you are.

[Acanous]

this is railroading by DM fiat. Some folks like that kind of game. Some do not.
If it was essential for his plans that you not know something, he probably should have made it a closely guarded secret, only known to a few people (DC 35ish) which would have made it impossible for lower level characters to hit at all.

Cults of Asmodeus and the like actually do go around pretending to be other churches, which fools *clerics*, so if it's one of those, it actually makes sense (low DC tells you what they publicly pretend to be, high tells you what they actually are).

The way you've phrased it though, sounds like poor planning followed by enforced railroading. If your DM is new, give him a pass. He probably didn't have a good idea of how knowledges work. If he's been doing this a while, show him the skill, tell him you'll go along with it *this one time*, but that you expect him to inform you of such changes to the skill system in future games.

[Grinner]

Is it fair? Never. But that's the point.

If this disinformation was introduced as a plot point, the DM should take advantage of it. It would represent information commonly acknowledged as fact being found false.

If the DM's doing it just for giggles, then no, it's not okay. Particularly if this becomes a recurring thing.

The way you've phrased it though, sounds like poor planning followed by enforced railroading. If your DM is new, give him a pass. He probably didn't have a good idea of how knowledges work. If he's been doing this a while, show him the skill, tell him you'll go along with it *this one time*, but that you expect him to inform you of such changes to the skill system in future games.

Knowledge doesn't necessarily mean that you know the undeniable truth of something. It only means that you know the lore surrounding it, some of which may be false.

[1337 b4k4]

If this

your mentor, the NPC who, canonically, taught you everything that you know* about [x], is actually a villain who systematically systematically misinformed you for his own reasons.

is true, then it's no more unfair than your mentor turning out to be the BBEG, or the King really being the vampire that's stalking the community or really any other twist. However, it isn't unfair for you to request that in the future the DM tell you from what source(s) your knowledge comes from. But ultimately if you were supposed to trust your mentor, and you did trust your mentor, then this plays out exactly as it was supposed to, and it's not railroading provided that there was some way for you to have discovered this deception (even if that would be very difficult)

[Slipperychicken]

If I succeeded on the appropriate DC? I would be super mad. Coupled with other offenses which would surely be present in such a campaign, I could storm out right then and there.

If you have Knowledge ranks, that represents factual knowledge. Success on a Knowledge check is just that: Success, you know the facts. Misinformation or faulty teaching would be represented by possessing fewer ranks, or a penalty on the skill check. Any 4 INT loser can believe his tea leaves will predict the lottery's winning numbers, or that rock music was invented by the devil, but he needn't spend skill ranks to acquire these notions. He gets these misconceptions by failing Knowledge checks, not succeeding in them.


EDIT: Think about it this way. Suppose you build a Fighter with large attack bonuses and damage, then make a successful attack roll, rolling a natural 20 against an opponent's AC indicating an automatic hit, then the DM says "well, your master trained you wrong so you fail, regardless of your attack bonuses and natural 20, and instead strike yourself for damage". Is that fair? Is that good DMing? No, on both counts. It violates the trust placed in the DM to honestly adjudicate the rules, more likely than not infuriates his PCs, and forever tarnishes his credibility as a DM.

[Grinner]

If you have Knowledge ranks, that represents factual knowledge. Success on a Knowledge check is just that: Success, you know the facts.

What if the facts are simply wrong? What if the entire body of lore concerning Asmodeus is just Pelor's propaganda?

As a plot device, this scenario doesn't seem unreasonable.

[1337 b4k4]

If you have Knowledge ranks, that represents factual knowledge. Success on a Knowledge check is just that: Success, you know the facts.

Per the SRD, this is not true. Knowledge represents:

"a study of some body of lore, possibly an academic or even scientific discipline."

Therefore a knowledge check is what you know from your study of that subject or lore. If as the OP suggests, all the knowledge his character would have regarding the subject comes from a single source, then misinformation would be reflected in that knowledge check. Further, if the check really was as simple as the OP states "You knew X and Y about a subject, and while X and Y are true, Z is also true and that would change your plans" that is still reflected in the knowledge check rules.

Edit
-------

Suppose you build a Fighter with large attack bonuses and damage, then make a successful attack roll, rolling a natural 20 against an opponent's AC indicating an automatic hit, then the DM says "well, your master trained you wrong so you fail, regardless of your attack bonuses and natural 20, and instead strike yourself for damage".

Your effectiveness or lack thereof as a fighter would be obvious to your character regardless of the bad training your master provided. Bad information provided from your sole source of information would not.

[Slipperychicken]

What if the facts are simply wrong?

Facts can't be wrong. They are by definition the very opposite of being wrong. That's why they're facts, and not lies.

Definition of Fact

something that has actual existence <space exploration is now a fact>
: an actual occurrence <prove the fact of damage>

: a piece of information presented as having objective reality

[enderlord99]

Success should tell you the real facts. If you don't want someone to know something no matter what, just don't tell them: don't ask them to make a check before lying to them anyway. Incomplete information is fine, but incorrect information would result from failures.

[GolemsVoice]

It's a bit iffy, since I don't think players should be punished for successfully using a skill, but in the end, yes, information can be false sometimes, especially if all information on a specific subject comes from one source who deliberately falsified it.

As a player I'd feel a bit miffed, but nothing major.

[Grinner]

Facts can't be wrong. They are by definition the very opposite of being wrong. That's why they're facts, and not lies.

It is unfortunate, then, that the skill Knowledge does not represent the knowledge of fact, only what is presumed to be fact.

If they're wrong, they're not facts. They're falsehoods. Success should tell you the real facts if you don't want someone to know something no matter what, just don't tell them: don't ask them to make a check before lying to them anyway.

Hell no, you should make them roll the skill check. Otherwise, they know that something is up.

[ko_sct]

Well, I would be okay having been fed false information.

I could see cases were a character would roll high but still be wrong because what he learned was false, but this should be only in a very specific situation, like, everything you though you knew about this specific kind of monster was all lie. Not something like; your skill points are meaningless and you know nothing.


But in this specific scenario I'd be pretty mad. Why ? Because it doesn't make any sense ! Why would my master spend year teaching me false information when he could do better with his time ? I mean, sure, he could be telling me lies about a type of monster he despise or want to see all dead some day, but everything he teached me ? why ? that make no sense... When you take a student you want to get something out of him one day. Could be his money, could be his power, his standing, his allegiance or just knowing he's in security, but the scenario you describe would piss me off.

[enderlord99]

Hell yes, you should make them roll the skill check. Otherwise, they know that something is up.

...And then telling them more misinformation the better they roll? No. Telling them to roll is fine if you ignore the result, I guess, but not if "better" results (higher rolls) are actually worse ones.

[Grinner]

...And then telling them more misinformation the better they roll? No. Telling them to roll is fine if you ignore the result, I guess, but not if "better" results (higher rolls) are actually worse ones.

Perhaps, but that's really beyond the scope of the rules, as the DM doesn't often know what was studied, only that information was learned.

Going back to the Pelor example, the party's cleric could have spent her entire life studying religious scripture in a temple of Pelor, only to find out later that Pelor is actually evil. The bait-and-switch on the part of the GM would be justified, albeit only once. Additionally, the cleric would entirely justified in asking for certain compensations, like correct information and perhaps a change in patron.

But again, this shouldn't be a recurring thing.

[enderlord99]

Perhaps, but that's really beyond the scope of the rules

So, you want to argue RAW?

"Curmudgeon! Could you come here for a second?"

[Grinner]

So, you want to argue RAW?

"Curmudgeon! Could you come here for a second?"

That has nothing to do with RAW...

If you roll really well on a Knowledge(Pelor's Propaganda) Knowledge(Religion) check, then your character knows a lot about a particular piece of propaganda. It's not true, but it's what your character knows.

[Amphetryon]

Facts can't be wrong. They are by definition the very opposite of being wrong. That's why they're facts, and not lies.

Scientists regularly revise their knowledge of facts, as evidence becomes available. Forty years ago it was a fact that Pluto was a planet.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Knowledge (religion), considering he's a cleric? It depends on how the DM is the rest of the time. Spellcraft or Martial Lore? Totally infuriated.

[enderlord99]

That has nothing to do with RAW...

Yes it does.

If you roll really well on a Knowledge(Pelor's Propaganda) Knowledge(Religion) check, then your character knows a lot about a particular piece of propaganda. It's not true, but it's what your character knows.

Ignore. The. Roll. Higher numbers usually mean information higher in both quality and volume. They occasionally mean "higher volume but the same quality." They never mean "higher volume but lower quality." If knowledge checks ever tell worse information when you do better, then that's a houserule, and the players should be told (as otherwise it's unfair)... but if you do that, it loses the point. Therefore, the best thing to do is simply ignore the dice and tell them the same thing no matter what. Players should not be punished for rolling well, they just don't have to be rewarded.

...Now to go read more youtube comments...

[Grinner]

Yes it does.

No, it doesn't. It's about basic logic.

Ignore. The. Roll. Higher numbers usually mean information higher in both quality and volume. They occasionally mean "higher volume but the same quality." They never mean "higher volume but lower quality." If knowledge checks ever tell worse information when you do better, then that's a houserule, and the players should be told (as otherwise it's unfair)... but if you do that, it loses the point. Therefore, the best thing to do is simply ignore the dice and tell them the same thing no matter what. Players should not be punished for rolling well, they just don't have to be rewarded.

Well, of course you'd ignore the roll. But again, and I really have to stress this, it's only viable as a plot device. Otherwise, it's just a waste of time.

[enderlord99]

Well, of course you'd ignore the roll. But again, and I really have to stress this, it's only viable as a plot device. Otherwise, it's just a waste of time.

I guess we're actually agreeing, then.

[shadow_archmagi]

I'd say it's acceptable if it's

A. Information that isn't commonly available. If Kermit is actually the god of kitten-eating, and kitten-eating is a secret second aspect that only true religious scholars know? That could be concealed. But if kitten-eating is prominently displayed on his shrines? Well then it makes no sense that your mentor would be able to accurately deceive you.

B. Information that's relevant to the BBEG's plan. If your Mentor is secretly a Kermit cultist planning to kill all the kitties in the world at once, and he knows you wouldn't go along with it if you knew, then that's fine. If he just filled in random parts of your knowledge base with lies (Ha! I'll tell him that Fighting type attacks are super effective against Flying types! Hohohohohohoho it'll be hilarious when he tries to punch a bird) this is not okay, because then you're not only negating the player's ranks, but making having them at all an actively dangerous thing. It'd be like if you decided the Trip/Grapple based Fighter's hometown was being invaded by the Kingdom of the Oozes.

[Emmerask]

So say you roll a Spellcraft or Knowledge or Martial Lore (etc) check and hit the normal DC to know something. The DM hits you up with some knowledge that later turns out be be not just wrong but seriously harmful (in the sense that it leads you into a trap or to working for a bad guy or similar)?

What the hell?!, you ask your DM. The answer is that your mentor, the NPC who, canonically, taught you everything that you know* about [x], is actually a villain who systematically systematically misinformed you for his own reasons. You correctly recognized a man as a cleric of Kermit, but it turns out that who you thought was the god of frogs, puppetry, and pig farming is actually the god of all that plus kitten eating.

Is that fair? Does it become fair if an established part of the game is that backstory NPCs are likely to show up?

*Ah, you say, "But if they've put ranks in it since the start of the game, they must have learned from other sources." I say, "Yeah, this idea would be unfair in that case, but let's just say that they haven't put any additional ranks into it since the start of the campaign. Cool?"

Well it actually is fair if certain conditions are met

Had your character any chance to talk to other experts (or at least somewhat knowledgeable people) in that field?
-If not then everything is fine
-If yes then you should at least get some hint that either your "facts" or theirs are wrong

Had your character any chance to study any book regarding the subject not manipulated by the former master?
-If not everything is fine
-If yes then there should be some hint to the player that something is off

Always have the possibility that the player might find out, it sucks for the dm because a whole plotline might be gone now but hey the player feels good about it so mission accomplished then?

etc

If the dm followed these rules (which would imply it was planned all along) and didn´t just come up with the wrong knowledge plot out of the blue then I wouldn´t be mad at the dm, I would applaud him for it, because it really is good story telling imho.

As for the rules supporting it, well its not explicitly written down but the only reasonable explanation for skills is that this is knowledge you somehow acquired over your life, weather it is overheard or studied doesn´t matter.

Otherwise these knowledge checks would pretty much imply that Ao or some other omnipotent being tells you the FACT you need to know which is nowhere said in the rules but something of that importance would need to be in there.

So yes the knowledge checks can only offer you the knowledge you acquired and this could very well be wrong depending on where how and from whom you acquired it.

[Ashdate]

Without a lot of really detailed specifics, my gut feeling would be that I wouldn't be mad. There's so many different variables involved, that unless it was done to be malicious I wouldn't have a problem with it.

For example, perhaps your "mentor" is manipulating you and you don't know it. He feeds you some information about the MacGuffin, and your character takes it as truth. When you then make a knowledge check related to the MacGuffin, your DM applies a penalty to your check (or perhaps just uses a higher DC). I don't really see anything wrong with that. In fact, it sounds like it lead to an interesting situation for the party, where you ended up unknowingly working for the "bad guy". That sounds pretty cool to me, but I guess your mileage will vary.

Perhaps the DM handled it badly? Perhaps you handled it badly? There are so many variables that I'm not sure I could give you an answer to the specific situation. I would suggest sitting down for coffee with the DM and talk about this. But please remember that you only have agency over one character in the DMs story - your own. And also remember that conflict (and even failure!) is what makes games interesting, not success. Unless your DM was doing this to be a jerk to you, he probably had the interests of the game at heart, and I don't think you can blame him for that.

[1337 b4k4]

Incidentally, this is why

a) I dislike knowledge checks in general. If I'm not already certain as to whether the player would or wouldn't know, and I don't feel like saying yes, I would rather the player make a case for why his character would know the knowledge he seeks.

b) Do not tell the DC, or even better roll knowledge checks in secret when I do use them. Of course, I also never couch the results in certain terms, I give the players room to doubt "You recall hearing XYZ", "When you were studying in the library, you read a book which stated QPR", "It's long been rumored that ABC" etc etc.

[Slipperychicken]

Scientists regularly revise their knowledge of facts, as evidence becomes available. Forty years ago it was a fact that Pluto was a planet.

That doesn't mean the facts change. It means we don't have them yet. There's one reality, and higher Knowledge skill brings you closer to it. If your understanding of reality doesn't align with it, that means your Knowledge skill is lower.

[Emmerask]

That doesn't mean the facts change. It means we don't have them yet. There's one reality, and higher Knowledge skill brings you closer to it. If your understanding of reality doesn't align with it, that means your Knowledge skill is lower.

It actually is not clear if there is one reality ^^
Anyway I would not agree, having lots of knowledge about one subject only means you know a lot about it, not however that these "facts" are all true.

Yes you can make some logical conclusions and try to observe if your knowledge is actually a fact and the more you know the better you can try to do this, however if your "facts" are build on one another then it is not more easy ^^

[NichG]

In general, I always expect there to be a body of information in any campaign which is inaccessible via character building. What I mean by that is, there is information which there is simply no way for a character to know, regardless of how high their skill modifier is. Beyond that, I also expect there to be staged DCs for things - a check that hits DC 25 but not DC 50 might get incomplete information such as in the OP's case.

I'd be dubious of the explanation that its because my mentor taught me X, since I will have been increasing my skills throughout my adventuring career, so if most of my Knowledge comes from post-Lv1 skill ranks its a bit odd. But if its early in the campaign I could see it being a safe assumption for the DM. More likely to me would be that the fact that clerics of Kermit eat kittens is probably just not known outside of their order, so its part of the set of information inaccessible to Knowledge checks.

[erikun]

I would say that, the way you presented the situation, it seems fair.
That is:

1.) That the information was provided by your master,
2.) That you took no additional skill ranks in that knowledge since leaving them,
3.) That the information is relevant to your master, and that they would want to keep the knowledge hidden, and
4.) That the corrent counter-information is not obvious.

I would say that all of these would need to be true for it to work out well, though. If the information wasn't relevant to your master - if he just lied about everything, for example - then you should know after some time that he had lied about things and would not trust the other information from him. If you took additional skill ranks, then you should have ran across information that was not included/was contradictory to your master's information. And if it was something obvious - if people in the town nearby spoke of a frog-temple that ate kittens - then that should have been a big warning flag that something was wrong.

Other than that, it looks like producing a plot twist using part of the PCs backstory. As long at the player is fine with it - as long as the player didn't have a specific story or role for their old master - I don't see a problem with myself being that player.