Character Knowledge

This week, I ran across a bit of DMing advice to just tell the players the hallway has a trap. Which makes one wonder when searching for traps would ever get used, or worse, how could we ever spear a character who stepped onto a pressure plate?

But the crux of the idea got me thinking, why would a character who isn’t actually their player, not pick up on all sorts of details that the game master isn’t fully communicating to a player who also isn’t really there?

Much has been said about separating player knowledge from character knowledge, which is sloppy at best. Less has been said about sharing character knowledge with the player.

What Does Your Character Know

True Story: Ages ago in a sci-fi game, the GM made my pilot character look dumb because I called a superior female officer “sir” instead of “ma’am” because the GM’s mother was addressed as such.  The scene went stupid from there because I as a civilian player would have no clue of this, but the character having gone through officer school would. Gotcha-GMing is bad GMing.

In most cases, your character grew up in the realm of dragons and dungeons. They know a good many people in the local area along with their reputations, good or bad. They know of the gods and holidays. Don’t forget the associated foods, gifts, and customs. They know where almost all the shops are in their local community. These characters have a familiarity to the normality of living in such a place that players and dungeon master do not.

This means that when a holiday comes up that the players never heard of, their characters have. They also have memories of past years’ traditions. As a dungeon master, you are telling the player how it goes, but the character already knows. Which also allows you to invite the players to think of what their character’s memories are. That could be seed for plot.

The Unspecified Stll Exists

The shifty merchant is as shifty as you tried to portray him. The heavily trapped dungeon hallways is surprisingly clean. The players, despite your best efforts, suspect nothing. Meanwhile, their characters silently scream as they point out all the warning signs that their detached players are missing.  A die role for perception just doesn’t suffice.

There are so many more details in a scene than can be conveyed and remembered by the player to consider for use in a later moment. Yet, in real life, your eyes are constantly taking in that information and your brain can snap to an idea to examine or use a mundane object. Like right now, the table I am writing this on is cluttered with so much stuff that you’d forget most of it if I rattled it all off as a description. But sitting here, I know there’s a mortar and pestle, drinking horns, and a pouch of green dice at the ready should I need them. Also, the box for a non-Lego facehugger is under some papers.

There is a trove of information that being present carries in a way that being told about glosses over. Imagine sending your friend to your workshop to grab something that isn’t sitting right out in the open and all you have is your telephone (no videochat or photos). They just don’t know the area like you do, and the ability to explain things is constrained. This is why a picture is worth a thousand words. It’s why the written word is easier to work with than spoken because you can go back and look at parts of it as needed.

Practical Know-how

Enough selling, let’s get to some things to try as a dungeon master. As always, your mileage may vary, and in fact will have exceptions that will come up. As DM, that’s inherently your job to discern and decide.

Don’t try for the Gotcha

Players make bad mistakes all the time. They forget things, especially with more time between sessions, but also just details you may have given amid a slew of information. Don’t run your game such that you’re putting the screws to them for missing or forgetting something.

If a player is forgetting something and you know it, tell them. Because their character knows.

Tell Them What Your Putting Down

If you are playing a merchant to be shifty because they’re lying, or trying to clue them in that the room is trapped, sum up at the end of the description with “The merchant is lying.” Or “this hallway is trapped.”

This changes the encounter from being a perception die roll decider to players making decisions about what to do. They don’t know what the truth or trap is, but they know they need to figure some things out.

This may cut out the need for passive Perception checks, but the players would still need to searches or trap disarming, or manually probe a hallway with a ten foot pole. We’re just eliminating missing something the character in the scene would not.

Let the Players Make Stuff Up

The DM is the final arbiter of the rules, and what’s in the world. That doesn’t mean they have to create every single detail. The players can be a source of content that fills in the blanks.

For the purposes of covering gaps in a scene or backstory, players should feel comfortable in making up basic facts that reasonably and plausibly would exist. A writing desk in the corner of the room with a stack of papers would also have a quill and pen. That’s literally where one goes to write something. If the DM didn’t say there was one there, it’s still probably there barring a special reason it isn’t (like a huge splotch of ink on one wall and broken glass below it).

Just because the DM didn’t say something existed, doesn’t mean it doesn’t. On the other hand, players offering such details are not free to paint a working tunnel entrance on the side of the cliff. They can search the papers for a clue to what was going on, but they can’t declare that one of those papers is really a Wish scroll,

Considering my last point, your players may have some really cool ideas. When you announce that tomorrow is the Festival of Orange, you might have a basic idea. But your players could have a field day making up traditions their character’s families celebrate.

Give them the space to help.

Assume Character Competence

I have reservations that first level characters are not tenth level characters, and thus are not masters of their craft. However, that doesn’t mean they are clueless and inexperienced. They know how to use and care for their weapons. As with most people, they have knowledge in other subjects related to their skills and background.

A character who came from a farming community knows a few things about growing seasons and harvesting practices. Probably more than the player or dungeon master. So feel free to make stuff up that makes sense. Unless you have an actual expert player, it’s close enough for the game. As the write Stephen King has advised, don’t let facts get in the way of a good story. Or armchair scholars.

Knowledge is Fun

Let’s wrap up. Rely on the characters’ actual memory, senses, expertise to fill in the gaps on the forgotten, unknown, and unspecified. Everyone will have more fun and less frustration and the game will run smoother.