Determining character knowledge

[KorvinStarmast]

I absolutely will. I do want to explain where I went wrong, though. Although I've been playing off and on for 30 years, this is really the only community other than my playing friends I am part of for D&D, and this is the first time I've seen anyone react this way to that term.

Thanks for your gracious reply. The discussions where I most often see 'role playing' versus 'roll playing' conflict get started is where the social encounters are being left to the dice (or there is an overemphasis on using dice) rather than actual role play. As with much else that is combined with differences in style and taste, so I won't digress further since I do not want this thread to get derailed.

This is my view of it; my girlfriend doesn't play D&D, but even she knows you kill Werewolves with Silver bullets, and Vampires with a stake through the heart and exposure to sunlight, and these monsters don't even exist in our world. But due to legends and stories, this is pretty common knowledge, even for people who have no interest in our games.

In a world where these creatures very much do exist, and when you are playing a character with a vested interest in knowing what way is most expedient to end the particular creatures existence, you can bet they have picked up many of the more common tales.

Yeah, that's how we approach it. Have for years.

Sure, this wont be the case with ultra-rare or completely unheard of monsters, but the Troll under the bridge has got to be one of the more common scary dangers parents tell their fantasy-world kids, so the idea that they don't know that you have to burn them is fairly ludicrous. Even if for whatever reason you are playing a character that believes these creatures do not exist (a bit weird for Trolls, but possible for Vampires, Werewolves and the like), they will likely have heard the more common legends, so when that man transforms into a terrifying half-wolf monstrosity, they will likely be able to recall that silver is meant to be used against these.

Bingo.

If you DON'T know it, you can ask your DM if your character knows something about it, but please, please, please, specially now with online play, don't open up the monster's stats and play from there.

If I could second this motion.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Every system is silly sometimes, and you can always deny any chance. But it's quick, and way better imo than what I saw before where you have everyone make active rolls to know stuff and the variance outweighs the character building choices. For everything in the MM, ime, it works fine, because CR also logically highly correlates with rarity and obscurity in setting (a world with more CR20 monsters than there are owls is ecologically unsustainable). A smart or educated person knows about bears even if they're not common, a dumb, uneducated person knows about elephants if they live in a place where they are common, a smart, educated person knows about elephants in a place where they're not, and a smart educated person doesn't know about them if they are obscure. All matches up with my expectation based on knowing about ancient-medieval Europe and India.

Though I'd also note - why should anyone without a history proficiency know about the King's champion? If he introduces or announces himself, everyone will understand of course, but a Druid who spends most of their time talking to birds might not know that he favors a big two handed polearm and is famous for his tripping attacks (or whatever you wrote up for him).

At 10+CR, the king's champion is completely unknowable and unknown except for those with either max intelligence (who can know anything about him 5% of the time under stress) or those who are experts in history, who also have a tiny chance of knowing under any kind of stress. Wolves can only be known 50% of the time by commoners. Same with bears (except worse).

While at the same time, a creature that was created as a one-off in a secret lab on Tuesday (CR 1/4) can be known in all detail by just about anyone.

CR and rarity don't correlate, except at extremes. There's a huge spread of rarities within each CR, and a huge spread of CRs within each rarity band. And 10+CR may have worked mechanically in 3e, where you could get skills much higher. It doesn't in 5e. Basically it condemns everyone to not knowing anything most of the time, even proficient people.

For example, to know the vulnerabilities of a troll (CR 5), that's a DC 15 check. Which is a 50% chance for someone of the appropriate level who has INT as a secondary and proficiency OR is capped on INT. And even someone with both still has a 35% chance of failure.

And don't even get me started on how you should be able to figure out most stuff with an Intelligence (Investigation) check just by watching it move.

The lesson is--don't be stingy with information. Let people know things. It's both much more natural and much more interesting than watching them fumble in the dark by trial and error. Denial of knowledge that they should have is denial of agency--you can't make meaningful choice without at least some degree of knowledge of the consequences.

[diplomancer]

At 10+CR, the king's champion is completely unknowable and unknown except for those with either max intelligence (who can know anything about him 5% of the time under stress) or those who are experts in history, who also have a tiny chance of knowing under any kind of stress. Wolves can only be known 50% of the time by commoners. Same with bears (except worse).

While at the same time, a creature that was created as a one-off in a secret lab on Tuesday (CR 1/4) can be known in all detail by just about anyone.

CR and rarity don't correlate, except at extremes. There's a huge spread of rarities within each CR, and a huge spread of CRs within each rarity band. And 10+CR may have worked mechanically in 3e, where you could get skills much higher. It doesn't in 5e. Basically it condemns everyone to not knowing anything most of the time, even proficient people.

For example, to know the vulnerabilities of a troll (CR 5), that's a DC 15 check. Which is a 50% chance for someone of the appropriate level who has INT as a secondary and proficiency OR is capped on INT. And even someone with both still has a 35% chance of failure.

And don't even get me started on how you should be able to figure out most stuff with an Intelligence (Investigation) check just by watching it move.

The lesson is--don't be stingy with information. Let people know things. It's both much more natural and much more interesting than watching them fumble in the dark by trial and error. Denial of knowledge that they should have is denial of agency--you can't make meaningful choice without at least some degree of knowledge of the consequences.

Remember, it's a passive check. Though if I was to use that formula in general probably better to make it DC=8+CR

[MinotaurWarrior]

At 10+CR, the king's champion is completely unknowable and unknown except for those with either max intelligence (who can know anything about him 5% of the time under stress) or those who are experts in history, who also have a tiny chance of knowing under any kind of stress. Wolves can only be known 50% of the time by commoners. Same with bears (except worse).

While at the same time, a creature that was created as a one-off in a secret lab on Tuesday (CR 1/4) can be known in all detail by just about anyone.

CR and rarity don't correlate, except at extremes. There's a huge spread of rarities within each CR, and a huge spread of CRs within each rarity band. And 10+CR may have worked mechanically in 3e, where you could get skills much higher. It doesn't in 5e. Basically it condemns everyone to not knowing anything most of the time, even proficient people.

For example, to know the vulnerabilities of a troll (CR 5), that's a DC 15 check. Which is a 50% chance for someone of the appropriate level who has INT as a secondary and proficiency OR is capped on INT. And even someone with both still has a 35% chance of failure.

And don't even get me started on how you should be able to figure out most stuff with an Intelligence (Investigation) check just by watching it move.

The lesson is--don't be stingy with information. Let people know things. It's both much more natural and much more interesting than watching them fumble in the dark by trial and error. Denial of knowledge that they should have is denial of agency--you can't make meaningful choice without at least some degree of knowledge of the consequences.

There's no percentage - It's only passive checks (unless you are using a resource to do research, such as a library). Rolled knowledge checks are terrible because the variance is so high. More often than not an uneducated idiot will roll higher than the specialist in a medium sized group.

And granting free knowledge is also denial of agency - you can't build a character to either know more or less than other players.

When I play an 8 int character with no knowledge skills, I'm signing up to not know the ins and outs of the world.

When someone else plays a wizard or bard with the relevant Lore, they get to have that pay off by giving us advanced insight into the fight ahead.

And if you look at virtually any story, from the classics to modern movies and Videogames, stumbling in the dark at first is part of the fun. Avengers Infinity War would have been way less cool if Peter Parker had the same level of knowledge of Thanos as did Gamorra.

In play, I think it sucks if someone just goes, "Oh, the Terrasque has no ranged attacks and isn't that fast. Let's get mounts and we'll kill it" or any of the other major monster weaknesses. It's a lot worse than "Oh dang, I guess I'll need to keep hitting this troll until we figure it out".

[KaussH]

So to me, allowing player knowledge to be the same as charicter knowledge is a little unfair to players who havent read all the books or played forever. ( note, i have played forever, mostly as a gm) . I do tend to homebrew and mod monsters just for that reason, so everyone is on the same level.

I get why pcs might want to be able to use their advanced info for their low level charicters, i just dont agree with it. :)

In addition , as gm, its my job to provide the pcs with a chance to learn weaknesses and styles and ect about monsters. If you go in with player info, you may well be wrong.

Now dont get me wrong, rolls can be used to see if you know stuff, but as gm i get to decide whats common, rare, almost unknown about things.

[PhoenixPhyre]

There's no percentage - It's only passive checks (unless you are using a resource to do research, such as a library). Rolled knowledge checks are terrible because the variance is so high. More often than not an uneducated idiot will roll higher than the specialist in a medium sized group.

And granting free knowledge is also denial of agency - you can't build a character to either know more or less than other players.

When I play an 8 int character with no knowledge skills, I'm signing up to not know the ins and outs of the world.

When someone else plays a wizard or bard with the relevant Lore, they get to have that pay off by giving us advanced insight into the fight ahead.

And if you look at virtually any story, from the classics to modern movies and Videogames, stumbling in the dark at first is part of the fun. Avengers Infinity War would have been way less cool if Peter Parker had the same level of knowledge of Thanos as did Gamorra.

In play, I think it sucks if someone just goes, "Oh, the Terrasque has no ranged attacks and isn't that fast. Let's get mounts and we'll kill it" or any of the other major monster weaknesses. It's a lot worse than "Oh dang, I guess I'll need to keep hitting this troll until we figure it out".

8 int characters live in the world. They know lots (or they die). They're not ignorant, just uneducated. That sounds miserable. I want players to have knowledge of the world so tha they can make meaningful choices. There is no agency without knowledge. And random flailing isn't agency.

[MinotaurWarrior]

8 int characters live in the world. They know lots (or they die). They're not ignorant, just uneducated. That sounds miserable. I want players to have knowledge of the world so tha they can make meaningful choices. There is no agency without knowledge. And random flailing isn't agency.

A character with 8 INT and no skills, in my system, knows every common CR <5 creature. But they don't know as much as the learned wizard. Just to clarify.

Do you play with the whole dungeon map revealed, DM screen down, or do you have PCs rely on their abilities to acquire that knowledge?

[PhoenixPhyre]

A character with 8 INT and no skills, in my system, knows every common CR <5 creature. But they don't know as much as the learned wizard. Just to clarify.

Do you play with the whole dungeon map revealed, DM screen down, or do you have PCs rely on their abilities to acquire that knowledge?

But no one, anywhere, knows about the king's champion. At least not until level 20, maxed intelligence, with expertise.

Passive vs 10+CR is fatally flawed. It never gives you the right answer except by accident, and still requires heavy DM intervention. Better to just do DM intervention from the get go and not mix character knowledge (at the fiction level) with game UI stuff (CR).

[PhoenixPhyre]

I run knowledge checks as degrees of success. You get some information for free (DC 0, no action required), then more depending on how well they do. That way you get the best of both worlds.

[MinotaurWarrior]

But no one, anywhere, knows about the king's champion. At least not until level 20, maxed intelligence, with expertise.

Passive vs 10+CR is fatally flawed. It never gives you the right answer except by accident, and still requires heavy DM intervention. Better to just do DM intervention from the get go and not mix character knowledge (at the fiction level) with game UI stuff (CR).

In my experience it gives the right answer 99% of the time. Your CR15 King's champion is homebrew handwaving already, but honestly, why should a PC know anything about Jarlaxle Baenre (the only CR 15 humanoid on DnD beyond) for free? It's by design that 10+CR makes it impossible to "just know" about high CR monsters. Someone with +5 can take 20 with a lot of resources to find out about him.

Again, I'd like you to actually answer my question: if "There is no agency without knowledge" do you play with revealed maps?

[Ionathus]

This is where backstories come into play. Is your character from the capital region of the continent? Then they may know more about the laws and functions of the government than somebody that is from an outlying farmland region. Is your character a Cleric that grew up in a church? They probably know more about the generalities of religions across the world than a Cleric that was just one day appointed by a god/goddess.

I have a character in one campaign that is an elven war veteran that fought against the Drow and Orcs. So that character knows a bit more general knowledge about them than other characters in that campaign. But at the same time, this character knows very little about the sea, foes found there, extraplanar events, or goings-on in the human world because of this. And that comes into play with the DM when I'm making knowledge checks or asking if my character would know something.

This is my approach, as well.

I also give Proficiency Bonus for things that aren't on the character sheet: the Wizard devoutly worships Kelemvor but doesn't have Religion proficiency? I'm still letting them make an INT check and add their Proficiency bonus if the information directly regards Kelemvor. Technically it could be a Religion check, but they're proficient in Kelemvor's worship and I want the check to reflect that storyline choice even if they didn't choose that skill.

The other thing I do is occasionally just give people things for free based on proficiency. "Anyone proficient in Nature? Okay, cool -- you recognize this mushroom." For easy checks, it's a nice little bonus to have your proficiency recognized. I don't do it when the stakes are high, but I also remember none-too-fondly the time my Druid PC failed to recognize basic trees because I rolled a 2 for Nature. I didn't get to make Nature checks very often, so I never got to feel validated in my skill choices.

[SiCK_Boy]

I get why pcs might want to be able to use their advanced info for their low level charicters, i just dont agree with it. :)

How do you enforce it? That is the main problem I see with DMs who want to "force" separation of player knowledge from character knowledge. Do you literally take control of a character? Rocks fall and they die if they start throwing fire at a troll in the first 3 rounds?

(And I know I keep coming back to this troll example, but I do it because I think it's extreme aspects makes it a good way to point out the absurdity / difficulty of implementing strict restrictions in a game; if you can't force a player to waste attacks on a troll, how will you adjudicate and force penalties / restrictions when the player is even more subtle?)

Many people have provided examples where new players / less experienced players should not be deprived of the fun of discovering the world and the game, and on those things, I agree. As a player, I would not deliberately go out of my way to deprive them of this chance - but then, I won't make bad tactical moves for their sake either.

Again, if the game wanted to better enforce this separation of knowledge between player and character, there should be more mechanics supporting it.

A character with 8 INT and no skills, in my system, knows every common CR <5 creature. But they don't know as much as the learned wizard. Just to clarify.

Do you play with the whole dungeon map revealed, DM screen down, or do you have PCs rely on their abilities to acquire that knowledge?

I don't think anyone is arguing for a revealed dungeon map. For the same reason that nobody is arguing for the DM to just give the Monster Manual to any PC who asks a question about a monster.

The question is rather, if a player does know the dungeon map (for example, because he DMed that same adventure previously), how is that player supposed to separate his player knowledge from his character knowledge, and how would the DM go about enforcing any restriction in that matter. Personnally, as much as I prefer to have competent allies in a fight, if I was to play an adventure with a map I know (I doubt I would participate in such a game, but who knows), I would probably just let everyone know that I have full knowledge of the map, and as such, I would let all dungeon navigation to be handled by the other PCs. I would also expect the DM to change things around (so that the monster from Room A is either replaced with something else, or moved to Room B instead); even then, I think that kind of experience would just not be fun for me, and it could easily turn into a problem with the other players. I'm much more tolerant of player knowledge as applied to setting knowledge (someone familiar with all the religions in FR because they've read all the sourcebooks since the eighties) and monster knowledge (technically a subset of the setting knowledge; it's just that monsters use a generic sourcebook in most editions) than when it is applied to plot knowledge (such as knowing the full layout of the dungeon, or knowing which NPC is a traitor).

[KaussH]

How do you enforce it? That is the main problem I see with DMs who want to "force" separation of player knowledge from character knowledge. Do you literally take control of a character? Rocks fall and they die if they start throwing fire at a troll in the first 3 rounds?

(And I know I keep coming back to this troll example, but I do it because I think it's extreme aspects makes it a good way to point out the absurdity / difficulty of implementing strict restrictions in a game; if you can't force a player to waste attacks on a troll, how will you adjudicate and force penalties / restrictions when the player is even more subtle?)

Many people have provided examples where new players / less experienced players should not be deprived of the fun of discovering the world and the game, and on those things, I agree. As a player, I would not deliberately go out of my way to deprive them of this chance - but then, I won't make bad tactical moves for their sake either.

I would turn to the player and out of game ask" so why in game are you using fire on this creature, instead of your (whatever their normal attack is) . Then the player has a chance to a) give me the logic chain. B) go "yah, I wouldn't know that would i" or c) say something like "I know out of game they are weak to fire."

Now since I note in session 0 not all creatures have the normal stats, there is a decent chance there are some breeds of trolls that are not weak to fire.

But outside the above, no enforcement. Just a question and answer moment (which I may well as for a number of odd tactics, since I find it is nice if the gm has some idea why they are doing x odd thing, so I can plan for results.) And then dice rolls and results.


Now in this case, fire is a pretty easy go to for "kill the monster" so as long as it's an in game excuse, that's all good.


Now when a pc pulls out a less obvious meta info trick, like acid on a troll, that question is a little more important.

[Tanarii]

Passive vs 10+CR is fatally flawed. It never gives you the right answer except by accident, and still requires heavy DM intervention. Better to just do DM intervention from the get go and not mix character knowledge (at the fiction level) with game UI stuff (CR).

Agreed. I mean, if a DM has no idea how common knowledge of a random creature he's pulled out the MM is ... it's still better to make it up than base it on CR. But even as a general rule, Lore about high CR creatures could well be far more well known than esoteric low CR info. C.f. werewolves, vampires, trolls.

Of course, the best solution is not to use Lore checks as state-of-the-world checks to determine if a character knows something or doesn't in the first place. Knowledge checks are a thing of older editions. 5e has Lore checks to recall lore already known in a high stress situation, not knowledge checks to determine if a character ever learned something.

You can use them as Knowledge checks instead. But that doesn't mean you should.

[PhoenixPhyre]

In my experience it gives the right answer 99% of the time. Your CR15 King's champion is homebrew handwaving already, but honestly, why should a PC know anything about Jarlaxle Baenre (the only CR 15 humanoid on DnD beyond) for free? It's by design that 10+CR makes it impossible to "just know" about high CR monsters. Someone with +5 can take 20 with a lot of resources to find out about him.

Again, I'd like you to actually answer my question: if "There is no agency without knowledge" do you play with revealed maps?

I forgot. the NPC "Champion" is CR 18. So even worse. And if it takes a DC 28 check to know who he is, then the king himself doesn't know his own champion. And that's absurd. And the commoners, who have watched him fight all the time in the arena...don't recognize him when he walks down the street. And that's absurd.

And commoners don't even know what a bear is, because DC 11 > passive of 10. Bear lore is a failure, full stop.
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Agency requires enough knowledge, not complete knowledge. So you need enough to be able to predict likely consequences, not everything. But less knowledge hits agency worse than more knowledge. You can infringe on agency by withholding information that the characters would (in fiction) have. You can't infringe agency by giving extra info.

[Unoriginal]

Related point: what do you do when you've already played through the adventure once?

[SiCK_Boy]

Related point: what do you do when you've already played through the adventure once?

One approach could be to just take it as a videogame. Try to speed run through it, or get a "perfect score".

Another is to hope the DM can throw just enough surprises that it still feels like a different challenge and adventure, even if some story beats are the same.

You could also focus on different aspects of the game than you did the first time. Rather than focus on encounter challenges or the plot, you could focus on relationships with other PCs or NPCs.

If the adventure is large enough / sandboxy enough, you may be able to just make all different choices. If you went left the first time, go right this time, for example. But most adventures, even the big sandboxes, usually have a funnel at the end leading to the final confrontation which may be difficult to alter for a DM, so it rarely is a sustainable option throughout the whole adventure.

You can also just take a backseat, let the other players make decisions (presuming they are playing the adventure for the first time), and simply roll your dice in combats and not do much else.

Personnally, if I ended up at a table where I've played the adventure already, I would probably just offer to be an assistant DM rather than replay it. Otherwise, I would be at risk of taking the adventure way off the rails too quickly, especially for the parts I didn't enjoy the first time.

[Tanarii]

Related point: what do you do when you've already played through the adventure once?

Run it as the DM.

[TigerT20]

I forgot. the NPC "Champion" is CR 18. So even worse. And if it takes a DC 28 check to know who he is, then the king himself doesn't know his own champion. And that's absurd. And the commoners, who have watched him fight all the time in the arena...don't recognize him when he walks down the street. And that's absurd.

And commoners don't even know what a bear is, because DC 11 > passive of 10. Bear lore is a failure, full stop.
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Agency requires enough knowledge, not complete knowledge. So you need enough to be able to predict likely consequences, not everything. But less knowledge hits agency worse than more knowledge. You can infringe on agency by withholding information that the characters would (in fiction) have. You can't infringe agency by giving extra info.

1. You don't make a check if there's no chance of failure or success. Your DM doesn't make you roll to make sure you don't get lost if you travel by road, do they?

2. I think it's meant to be for having knowledge about the monster, not just knowing it exists. It's not 'oh wolves are a thing' it's 'wolves hunt in groups, we should try to seperate them' or 'certain oozes multiply if you slice them'

[Frogreaver]

Agency requires enough knowledge, not complete knowledge. So you need enough to be able to predict likely consequences, not everything. But less knowledge hits agency worse than more knowledge. You can infringe on agency by withholding information that the characters would (in fiction) have. You can't infringe agency by giving extra info.

I suggest this is a very narrow and inaccurate view of agency. It seems you are talking solely about the agency of optimizing your choices toward your goals. But even that doesn't require knowledge. It only requires the ability to learn. You see, after some number of repeated arbitrary choices, you can with the capability of learning determine with no initial knowledge whether a courses of action are probabilistically more likely to achieve your goals. This is agency. Agency has never been about optimizing a single choice (based on evaluating likely consequences), but rather how all your choices work together toward increasing the chances that you achieve your goals.

[SiCK_Boy]

I suggest this is a very narrow and inaccurate view of agency. It seems you are talking solely about the agency of optimizing your choices toward your goals. But even that doesn't require knowledge. It only requires the ability to learn. You see, after some number of repeated arbitrary choices, you can with the capability of learning determine with no initial knowledge whether a courses of action are probabilistically more likely to achieve your goals. This is agency. Agency has never been about optimizing a single choice (based on evaluating likely consequences), but rather how all your choices work together toward increasing the chances that you achieve your goals.

So if you flip a coin 3 times and get head 3 times, you will learn that this coin has two head sides and it’s impossible to flip and get a tail result?

[MaxWilson]

See, where someone might see a "fakely cramped style" - I see as an opportunity of roleplaying.

An let me be clear here - my style and what I am about to explain works for me. And may not work for others. Everyone has their own style. Everyone gets something different out of playing D&D.

So - yes, me as a person knows exactly what a Water Weird is, what it can do, it's limitations, etc. However, my character doesn't. The idea - for me - when I play D&D - is to NOT play myself. I am not playing what >>I<< would do in the body of a Kobold Rogue. I am playing the character of my Kobold - who has spent time (6 months) in the Underdark. What kind of experiences has he had? I want to step inside my Kobold's mind, his shoes, and live as if I were him - not as if I were me.

So yes, I know as a person what a Water Weird is - but my character has never encountered one. So how would HE address some unusual creature, made of water, that seemed to devour the beetle flesh I'd thrown in the water?

Pretending to separate player knowledge and character knowledge is fairly easy in the Water Weird case, or really any case involving generic monster lore. (Which BTW may or may not be correct. Maybe a player holds on off applying fire to a troll not to avoid metagaming, but because he has the nasty suspicion that the DM is in fact metagaming and this _particular_ brand of troll is stuffed full of smokepowder and ready to detonate. And BTW that is now my new headcanon for the origin of smokepowder: it grows in smokepowder trolls.)

It's much harder to willfully replicate the mental state of a player who DOESN'T KNOW that the Barbarian PC in the party was consumed and replaced by an Intellect Devourer four levels ago. In theory you could figure it out based on cues like his increased Int saving throw bonuses, or small changes in his behavior (always being subtly aware of intelligent monsters near the party and positioned appropriately) but in practice once the players know the truth their roleplaying choices lose all that nuance and they pretty much have to choose between "I quickly figure out the truth given a hint" and "I'll never believe it until I'm forced to." There's no longer much chance that anyone can successfully pretend to have only a sneaking suspicion that's been growing for quite some time, has now been confirmed, and that the Intellect Devourer is now in for a nasty surprise ganking tonight from the other three PCs.

Therefore, in situations where such subtle uncertainties are important to gameplay, it's the DM's job to restrict the information to only those players who _should_ know (the one now playing the Barbarian with special powers and a hidden agenda, a.k.a. the Intellect Devourer), to avoid spoiling the fun of other players with knowledge they shouldn't have but do.

Ditto if the secret information is about a bad guy actually being an allied double agent, or a trusted patron ally being secretly insane (so that nonsensical requests turn out NOT to have a master plan). It's hard to un-spoiler yourself.

TL;DR metagaming isn't usually a big deal either way--it's just a roleplaying choice. But there are special circumstances where the need to metagame should be actively mitigated by restricting player knowledge, for the sake of everyone's enjoyment.

I forgot. the NPC "Champion" is CR 18. So even worse. And if it takes a DC 28 check to know who he is, then the king himself doesn't know his own champion. And that's absurd. And the commoners, who have watched him fight all the time in the arena...don't recognize him when he walks down the street. And that's absurd.

And commoners don't even know what a bear is, because DC 11 > passive of 10. Bear lore is a failure, full stop.

But I think the system originator said there's advantage if the creature exists on your continent, so passive gets a +5 bonus, which beats DC 11. Bears are therefore known to peasants who come from places where bears exist, and so are wolves, rhinos, hippos, stegosaurs, and ostriches. However, dimwitted schoolboys know about pachycephalosaurs but not about elephants, and Tyrannosaurus Rexes are obscure, which is a bit odd, since humans are fascinated by superlatives (biggest, strongest, toughest, etc.).

Edit: what he said was

Passive skill vs DC = CR + 10

Certain things Grant advantage (+5) or disadvantage (-5). E.g if you are from a place with horses, you get advantage. If no dinosaurs live on your continent, you get disadvantage.

Active rolls can only happen with resources on hand, eg in a library.

It's not a terrible system but it does have some quirks, although those quirks probably don't matter to non-simulationist players.

[Frogreaver]

So if you flip a coin 3 times and get head 3 times, you will learn that this coin has two head sides and it’s impossible to flip and get a tail result?

So let's assume that for you this is enough evidence for you to believe that the coin does have 2 head sides or is weighted. A coin certainly can have 2 heads afterall or can even be weighted. Is it more harmful to believe it's an unfair coin when it isn't, or a fair coin when it isn't? I'd say the later. In which case your ability to learn (even potentially incorrect information) gave you a potential advantage with no disadvantage that you can act on. That's agency in action.

[PhoenixPhyre]

So let's assume that for you this is enough evidence for you to believe that the coin does have 2 head sides or is weighted. A coin certainly can have 2 heads afterall or can even be weighted. Is it more harmful to believe it's an unfair coin when it isn't, or a fair coin when it isn't? I'd say the later. In which case your ability to learn (even potentially incorrect information) gave you a potential advantage with no disadvantage that you can act on. That's agency in action.

Imagine a world where you can flip a coin in a box and a (capricious, possibly malicious) agent could return heads or tails as they wish. Do you have any agency here? Do you have any true knowledge? I'd say no to both. As such, you need true knowledge about the state of the world after each interaction in order to have agency. You gain more agency the more information you have.

Starting from a blank slate, all you can do is act randomly. And random actions have no agency associated with them. As you gain information, you gain agency. With perfect knowledge you have as much agency as you can given your choice set (which is an independent parameter here). With no knowledge you have no agency.

[Frogreaver]

Imagine a world where you can flip a coin in a box and a (capricious, possibly malicious) agent could return heads or tails as they wish. Do you have any agency here?

Yes. You can learn it's pointless to flip a coin in a box and avoid flipping a coin into the box in the future.

Do you have any true knowledge? I'd say no to both. As such, you need true knowledge about the state of the world after each interaction in order to have agency. You gain more agency the more information you have.

Even incorrect beliefs still allow agency. All you need is the ability to learn.

Starting from a blank slate, all you can do is act randomly. And random actions have no agency associated with them. As you gain information, you gain agency. With perfect knowledge you have as much agency as you can given your choice set (which is an independent parameter here). With no knowledge you have no agency.

Starting from a blank slate, your first few acts will be essentially random. Those actions will have consequences. You will learn from those consequences and apply that learning to your future actions so that they are more likely to achieve your goals. That is agency.

What you are suggesting about needing true knowledge for agency leads to "smarter people have more agency than dumber people". It would mean lying to someone takes away their agency. Those are scary propositions IMO.

[ff7hero]

What you are suggesting about needing true knowledge for agency leads to "smarter people have more agency than dumber people". It would mean lying to someone takes away their agency. Those are scary propositions IMO.

They might be scary propositions, but I still think they could be accurate.

Imagine there are a pair of buttons. Both buttons just administer an electric shock, but I tell you one administers an electric shock and the other dispenses your tasty treat of choice. I've just taken away your agency, or some measure of it, by lying to you.

Now let's say I tell you the truth, but you are confused and think an electric shock is a tasty malt beverage. Do you have the same amount of agency as the person who knows what an electric shock is?

[SiCK_Boy]

Maybe things are coming down to a difference in definition of what agency mean.

I cannot speak for PhoenixFyre, but I think the proper definition of agency relates to the ability to make "meaningful" choices (as in, choices that are made with a good understanding of the potential consequences, and ideally, choices that do have logical consequences that matter to the characters/players).

That is probably why the examples you are providing are not too convincing.

If you run an experience in a vacuum, yes, you can draw conclusions and "learn" from them. But you may end up learning the wrong conclusions, and as such, your subsequent decisions made on those wrong conclusions won't be displaying much agency.

In the game, we do have the benefit of having a controlled environment where there is an autoritative answer to almost all questions (the DM knows, and what he says is reality in his world).

As an example (and hopefully we won't veer too far into quantum ogre discussions), if the DM has a random encounter table, and tells the player about the existence of the table, but doesn't tell them what are the odds for the various results on that table, it isn't really giving agency to the players. They may decide to take the "safe" route, but because the DM rolled a 100 on his table, they still face a deadly dragon. Should the players "learn" that this world is so dangerous that they cannot even trust roads? Or that sometimes, **** happens and some freak result (say, the table for "safe road" was 1-99 = meet a friendly traveller, 100 = meet a deadly dragon) can put you in danger. By fully sharing the table, the DM would be maximizing the agency of his players (and it would be even more so the case if he also shared with them the table for the "dangerous forest" that showed 1-50 = goblin band, 51-75 = ogre pair, 76-99 = deadly dryad, 100 = friendly forest god; then the players could adequately determine what risk they are willing to face, and live with the consequence - that's agency).

You don't need "perfect" information to have agency, but the more information you have, the more agency you have in making proper decisions while being aware of the consequences (or potential consequences) of said decisions.

[MinotaurWarrior]

TL;DR metagaming isn't usually a big deal either way--it's just a roleplaying choice. But there are special circumstances where the need to metagame should be actively mitigated by restricting player knowledge, for the sake of everyone's enjoyment.

I agree, and would clarify something that I think is being missed: not knowing stuff doesn't just prevent unpleasantness (e.g. a level 1 small pc on a mastiff kiting the terrasque for an hour), it can also actively add fun.

But I think the system originator said there's advantage if the creature exists on your continent, so passive gets a +5 bonus, which beats DC 11. Bears are therefore known to peasants who come from places where bears exist, and so are wolves, rhinos, hippos, stegosaurs, and ostriches. However, dimwitted schoolboys know about pachycephalosaurs but not about elephants, and Tyrannosaurus Rexes are obscure, which is a bit odd, since humans are fascinated by superlatives (biggest, strongest, toughest, etc.).

People are fascinated by superlatives, but that doesn't mean they know them very well.

The real-life comparison I can draw on would be medieval Europe, Asia, and Africa. There were Europeans with direct experience of exotic animals (e.g. Charlemagne had an Elephant) but a lot more Europeans had incorrect ideas about elephants - that they fought dragons, lived in monogamous couples, and looked like this . Compare that to, say, a random species of Indian duck. People knew there were ducks in India, and that they were small harmless waterfowl.

In addition, high CR creatures are ecologically rarer. So, for example, while we have no direct experience of discovering a new continent with dinosaurs, we do have the experience of explorers in the Americas, where Grizzly bears are much rarer (and rarely encountered) than American bison, and were more poorly understood (/ exaggerated).

There's absolutely areas where this gets unrealistic (for example: PCs are the first people from their culture to wash ashore the Island Lost in Time, which is full of dinosaurs - how do any of them know about them?) but those are really easy to handle. Generally, it's only in situations where auto-success or failure is called for that the system looks unrealistic, and then... that's super easy to handle.

Practically where this comes up is when, say, t1 adventurers fight a vampire spawn. The fighter might think "I'll wear a garland of garlic to protect me!" while the wizard (or someone from a vampire-infested region) can chime in and correct them that that doesn't work, but running water and sunlight will harm it.

[Darth Credence]

(e.g. a level 1 small pc on a mastiff kiting the terrasque for an hour)

Sorry to go off topic, but I don't get this. A level 1 pc almost certainly doesn't have a magic weapon, so they probably can't damage the tarrasque anyway. Maybe some magic. The tarrasque can ultimately move faster than the mastiff - they both have the same movement speed, and the tarrasque has a legendary move action. Once it gets within range of the PC that is attacking it, it will get an opportunity attack with a +19 to hit when the PC tries to run out of range, making it almost certain to bite down on the PC and kill them instantly. If they somehow survive the bite, and make a strength check to escape the jaws, they are now unmounted and will be easy prey. If they disengage, they won't be able to move far enough away to not just get attacked on the next turn, where it will now get five attacks.

I can't see this lasting an hour. If said PC gets the attention of the tarrasque, it is only going to be initial distance/20 rounds until it's all over for the PC (unless they can find somewhere to hide the tarrasque can't get to them, I suppose). Am I missing something?

[Valmark]

Sorry to go off topic, but I don't get this. A level 1 pc almost certainly doesn't have a magic weapon, so they probably can't damage the tarrasque anyway. Maybe some magic. The tarrasque can ultimately move faster than the mastiff - they both have the same movement speed, and the tarrasque has a legendary move action. Once it gets within range of the PC that is attacking it, it will get an opportunity attack with a +19 to hit when the PC tries to run out of range, making it almost certain to bite down on the PC and kill them instantly. If they somehow survive the bite, and make a strength check to escape the jaws, they are now unmounted and will be easy prey. If they disengage, they won't be able to move far enough away to not just get attacked on the next turn, where it will now get five attacks.

I can't see this lasting an hour. If said PC gets the attention of the tarrasque, it is only going to be initial distance/20 rounds until it's all over for the PC (unless they can find somewhere to hide the tarrasque can't get to them, I suppose). Am I missing something?

Yeah with a mastiff you can't do it, you need anything that has a 50 movement feet or more (so the tarrasque can't outrun it).
Though to be precise the opportunity attack wouldn't kill the PC because it's the mastiff that provokes it (end result being the same).

But besides that any random schmuk with a magical weapon can do it. And that's the point- if you KNOW you can do it, what's stopping you? Rise the level a bit and suddenly it's actually a reliable plan (to get magical weapons).

If you don't know that who's going to think 'I can kite the monster devourer of nations to death with my sparkly bow'?