I've been DMing for just over a year now and my first campaign is coming to a close. Only recently I've realised that I ran the campaign in a way so the PCs had to discover everything in the realm as if it was their first time visiting. Every creature they encountered was like a new discovery for them and they had to figure out what its attacks were, what its weakness is ...ect. In some ways that's fun I guess, but I reckon if you grew up in the realm you would know a lot of stuff even before you've encountered some of the creatures.
Take Ochre Jellies for instance. When your PCs encounter it, do you automatically tell them a lot of information they would know just because it's general knowledge? I'm sure people in the realm would know that slashing Ochre Jellies would make them split? Or do you make them roll a skill to see if this is knowledge they have (Nature? History?). Or do you let them figure out the specs of a creature by themselves?
It would seem weird to me that a group of adventurers wouldn't know to avoid the tailspikes of a Manticore because he can use them as a projectile. It would be weird that they don't know Kobolds are easier to kill than Goblins. And all the lore and stories about dragons would surely contain information about how to defeat them, or what their resistance would be, wouldn't it?
Anyway, how do you define what is general knowledge to your players and how do you give them that information when it is relevant to the situation?
I think this ultimately requires you as the DM to think about what is "common knowledge" in the world played at your table.
For very common creatures - ie. kobolds, goblins, generic skeletons - I, personally, would allow the PCs to have a fairly high level of knowledge of strengths, weaknesses, etc. The idea is that people communicate and common threats are one of the things that are highly likely to be passed along.
For less common creatures it would depend greatly on the character's backstory, the region they are adventuring in, whether they spent any time preparing or researching before setting out, and how much they invested in said research. If a character's origin is an area that does not commonly see Rakshasa then, unless that character spends time doing research on them, they're not going to have much to go on outside of, perhaps, a general description of what they look like if even that much.
If you're in doubt, though, depending on the rarity of the creature in question you can always choose to assign an arbitrary DC value and request an Int check (History, Nature, Arcana, or just straight Int depending on the nature of the creature) and ask the first player to ask if their character knows about that creature to roll vs. your chosen DC. I say "first player" because I'm not personally a fan of the "Does my character know about X?" followed by a chorus of "What about mine?"
You could even expand upon this and classify creatures. Something along these lines, perhaps
General knowledge, to me, would be things commonly communicated between groups. What do goblins look like? What do they sound like? What common tactics do they employ when raiding villages? What weapons do they usually attack with? This sort of thing.
I kind of miss the "Rarity" note that older editions had in the creature descriptions as it was a great way to know at a glance how common or uncommon a certain creature was.
Part of it depends on where the PCs came from. If they're from the city, the might not know a lot about the wilderness. If they are from a small village, there might be a lot of rumors about monsters that are half truths. Goblins and Kobolds can be fairly common threats so details about them might be well known. For some things this is a good way to go. When you start a campaign with "goblins attack!" everybody knows the deal.
Think about what the heroes may or may not have heard. Are ochre jellies common? Is there somebody in their community that is an adventuring veteran who entertained them with stories? If not, they might not know. However, if a PC has Nature or History skill they might have studies the creatures of the realm. For the most part people in medieval society didn't travel very far from home so the local threats are well known, but something a week away is all new.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
The way I approach this is very different to many GMs and I know many disagree but, when it comes to monsters and creatures I generally don’t care about meta gaming and if my players know it, their characters can as well if they don’t there characters don’t.
For instance take a troll. A troll can be a horrendous challenge to a group of lowish level players, it regenerates damage and has a weakness to fire. Now a brand new group of players attack that troll. They are going to try different things until they work out what damages it. They might get lucky and the first person to attack is the wizard with fireball, or they might take round after round before using fire. In this case I don’t call for nature checks because part of the challenge and fun is overcoming this adversity and learning by doing, not just relying on your high nature character to know.
now let’s repeat that encounter I have an experienced group of players who have faced a troll, maybe one dms and has the monster manual. In game this is the first time the party have faced it but they are worried. If the wizard attacks with fireball straight away is he meta gaming? Should I enforce they waste rounds “discovering” it’s weakness, or should I make them take some arbitrary roll to see if they know. The approach I take is not to care. As you allude this is a living breathing world; the characters have existed in it for years prior to this moment. During the adventure loads of stuff happens off screen, that visit to the inn you roleplsyed out in 10 mins, they where there all evening drinking. Sat round a campfire with an NPC, you don’t play out hours of chat.
So my player knows a troll is weak to fire, or slashing damage splits an ochre jelly, great, so does his character. How does he know, see the above. I don’t need a detailed backstory or explanation but if you want one, as a child he remembers the fairytales he was told of trolls being killed by fire, or he read it in a book. Or maybe once in an inn a fighter was told a heroic story of an npc killing a troll by burning it.
The fact is me and my players don’t need to worry about worrying about it, we can just get on and have fun.
Now an addendum to that, my players don’t go looking stuff up for the sake of it and, very rarely I might tell a player you don’t know this. For instance an aboleth enslave. But those occasions are very very rare. Or, shock horror, I might change that monsters stats and abilities. Player I attack troll with fire, me, great nothing happens.
now let’s repeat that encounter I have an experienced group of players who have faced a troll, maybe one dms and has the monster manual. In game this is the first time the party have faced it but they are worried. If the wizard attacks with fireball straight away is he meta gaming? Should I enforce they waste rounds “discovering” it’s weakness, or should I make them take some arbitrary roll to see if they know. The approach I take is not to care. As you allude this is a living breathing world; the characters have existed in it for years prior to this moment. During the adventure loads of stuff happens off screen, that visit to the inn you roleplsyed out in 10 mins, they where there all evening drinking. Sat round a campfire with an NPC, you don’t play out hours of chat.
So my player knows a troll is weak to fire, or slashing damage splits an ochre jelly, great, so does his character. How does he know, see the above. I don’t need a detailed backstory or explanation but if you want one, as a child he remembers the fairytales he was told of trolls being killed by fire, or he read it in a book. Or maybe once in an inn a fighter was told a heroic story of an npc killing a troll by burning it.
As I see it this is a completely valid approach. At the end of the day everyone should be having fun so if it makes it more fun to allow players to use their own knowledge of the game, and everyone's okay with it, then I would completely agree.
For a DM who wants to enforce "character knowledge", using the experienced player who happens to know that a Troll is weak against fire therefore he starts the combat with a Fireball scenario as an example, one way to handle this could be to look at how that character has been played. Does the character typically open with such spells? Or does he usually start out buffing or trying to use control spells? In a situation like that one could make certain assumptions as to why he's opening with Fireball.
But instead of confronting the player at the table right then and there in front of everyone, I would instead let it slide for the sake of the game and then talk to the player later.
Ultimately, it's best for everyone at the table to, at the start, discuss how they all want to handle this sort of "player knowledge vs character knowledge" situation. After the 15th campaign having encountered a troll with a new character the chances that players are going to want to have to bumble their way through having their character collect information on how to combat trolls is low, after all.
Meta-gaming is a huge problem, especially with experienced players. Even the ones that try to segregate the player knowledge from the character knowledge are going to have an inherent bias. So if a table is full of highly experienced players, the only way to keep the game fresh is for the DM to alter he stat blocks of the monsters, to something the players could have no knowledge of.
Meta-gaming is a huge problem, especially with experienced players. Even the ones that try to segregate the player knowledge from the character knowledge are going to have an inherent bias. So if a table is full of highly experienced players, the only way to keep the game fresh is for the DM to alter he stat blocks of the monsters, to something the players could have no knowledge of.
Totally agree with this! In fact, In my current campaign (only 3 sessions in) I've decided not to use a SINGLE "base-skinned" monster. I use RAW statblocks still, but the monster I describe is totally different. For example: I had them fight a large serpentine monster with scythe-like arms. I used the "Crocodile" statblock and called its bite a slash. I plan on using this the WHOLE campaign so that they have no idea what to expect
Meta-gaming is a huge problem, especially with experienced players. Even the ones that try to segregate the player knowledge from the character knowledge are going to have an inherent bias. So if a table is full of highly experienced players, the only way to keep the game fresh is for the DM to alter he stat blocks of the monsters, to something the players could have no knowledge of.
Totally agree with this! In fact, In my current campaign (only 3 sessions in) I've decided not to use a SINGLE "base-skinned" monster. I use RAW statblocks still, but the monster I describe is totally different. For example: I had them fight a large serpentine monster with scythe-like arms. I used the "Crocodile" statblock and called its bite a slash. I plan on using this the WHOLE campaign so that they have no idea what to expect
Personally I really disagree with this, I have been DMing for years and used to think that monster stats should be secret but over the last 5-6 years I have come to be more and more open and allow my players to bring there out of game knowledge into the game as per my answer above. Yes sometimes I will switch stats around but usually I find knowing that my players know the strength and weaknesses of a monster makes me think more about the tactics of the encounter and how I make it more interesting in other ways. One group I dm for we actually play with a copy of the monster manual open on the table, players are free to refer to it if they want.
If you want to have a 'puzzle' monster you should probably create a custom monster; sure, back in 1975 figuring out that you need to burn a troll might have been a puzzle monster, but not in modern D&D. However, most monsters don't need to be puzzles.
If you want to have a 'puzzle' monster you should probably create a custom monster; sure, back in 1975 figuring out that you need to burn a troll might have been a puzzle monster, but not in modern D&D. However, most monsters don't need to be puzzles.
Under what conditions would a new char, say 2nd level, have any exposure to any kind of monsters, outside of legend, and 2nd, even 3rd hand information. Staying in-game, players should not know a monster's stat block unless they have fought it before, or it is considered something "of common knowledge or common legend", sort of like your basic troll. But the new variants, nah, players can't know the specifics.
Meta-gaming is a huge problem, especially with experienced players. Even the ones that try to segregate the player knowledge from the character knowledge are going to have an inherent bias. So if a table is full of highly experienced players, the only way to keep the game fresh is for the DM to alter he stat blocks of the monsters, to something the players could have no knowledge of.
Totally agree with this! In fact, In my current campaign (only 3 sessions in) I've decided not to use a SINGLE "base-skinned" monster. I use RAW statblocks still, but the monster I describe is totally different. For example: I had them fight a large serpentine monster with scythe-like arms. I used the "Crocodile" statblock and called its bite a slash. I plan on using this the WHOLE campaign so that they have no idea what to expect
I do this quite often. I even do it when the players are new to D&D. I enjoy throwing things at the party that I find interesting in the hope that it will be fun for them.
I was under the impression that the OP had new players so they couldn't draw a lot upon player knowledge.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
Under what conditions would a new char, say 2nd level, have any exposure to any kind of monsters, outside of legend, and 2nd, even 3rd hand information. Staying in-game, players should not know a monster's stat block unless they have fought it before, or it is considered something "of common knowledge or common legend", sort of like your basic troll. But the new variants, nah, players can't know the specifics.
I generally give people rolls against Arcana, History, Nature, or Religion (depending on the creature) to know things about them, but if I expect 'figure out special tactics to beat this monster' to be a significant part of a fight, I'm going to use a custom monster (in part because most published D&D monsters really don't require any interesting tactics).
Meta-gaming is a huge problem, especially with experienced players. Even the ones that try to segregate the player knowledge from the character knowledge are going to have an inherent bias. So if a table is full of highly experienced players, the only way to keep the game fresh is for the DM to alter he stat blocks of the monsters, to something the players could have no knowledge of.
I completely agree with this. This is a great approach.
Thanks for all your replies. There's a lot to consider here.
There's 2 main reason why I was wondering about this in the first place.
First of all, as Wysperra mentioned above, my table is full of new players and even after a year of playing the campaign they still feel like they've "just started playing the game" . They approach encounters in a way so that they don't do something silly/stupid. They're very cautious knowing for them it's the first time encountering a creature. Which makes them and their characters play without confidence. That's why I want to put their characters knowledge more in the picture. "I know you don't know know how to beat a mimic, but at least your character knows, so don't worry."
Secondly, when my players have to "discover" every creature, city, npc, forest,...ect. it makes the world feel new. It's like the world is being discovered at the same time the players are discovering it. When in fact I want to make my world feel lived in and with history and lore. If a character lived his entire life in Neverwinter it would be absurd not to know a lot about Phandalin and most other locations in the Sword Coast.
Anyway, I'm prepping Waterdeep Dragon Heist for the next campaign and I'm going to try and incorporate general knowledge a lot more this time. Thanks for the replies and insights!
It's kind of related to high-magic vs. low-magic worlds. In a high-magic world, everybody knows manticores prowl the wilds. In low-magic worlds, people might have heard fairy tales of vampires and unicorns, but probably believe they are made up. They might know some legendary lore about their weaknesses, but such lore might or might not be accurate.
In any case, you probably only know the details of the few most common fantastical creatures, unless you are a scholar specializing in them. You might also know some generalizations, such as that fire prevents regeneration for some creatures.
I generally just allow my player characters to know what the players know, unless they are obsessed gamers who have memorized the monster manual, in which case I'd expect them to show a high degree of "professionalism" by keeping their player and character knowledge separate, and only taking an action if it would make sense based on what their character knows.
Beyond that, I would allow an arcana or nature check as a free action to remember some knowledge a character could plausibly know about a monster.
My campaign is a bit toward the low-magic end, and many of the creatures my characters encountered are rare and little known outside scholarly circles. Plus they're homebrewed, so there's little chance the players have foreknowledge.
If you want to have a 'puzzle' monster you should probably create a custom monster; sure, back in 1975 figuring out that you need to burn a troll might have been a puzzle monster, but not in modern D&D. However, most monsters don't need to be puzzles.
Under what conditions would a new char, say 2nd level, have any exposure to any kind of monsters, outside of legend, and 2nd, even 3rd hand information. Staying in-game, players should not know a monster's stat block unless they have fought it before, or it is considered something "of common knowledge or common legend", sort of like your basic troll. But the new variants, nah, players can't know the specifics.
Why not? DnD is a land of story telling, if you think back to similar ages in our mythology The Greeks all knew the answer to the riddle of the Sphynx, they all knew that story in one form or another. There is a character class who's specific role is to go out and tell and learn stories of all sorts. The Bard. It is perfectly believable that a story about a great creature with a giant eye stopped the wizard that fought it from casting a spell under it's gaze is a story that has got out amongst the world. The word beholder may never be mentioned but you can believe that the facts of the story are there. There is little in the monster manual that wont, in some way, be known out in the world by even a farmer. This is a universe where Gods are real and may provide proof of that day to day so therefore it is a world where even fairy tales are believed to have some basis in fact. You can believe the player characters do actually have information about these monsters. Especially when you consider your elf player might be 200 years old and had a library full of stories to read during his 100 younger years and it actually doesn't break the game either. What it does do as a DM is make you better at putting encounters together tactically, plus, the characters knowing about a beholders eye attack doesn't stop them being caught in it it doesn't make the Beholder an easier enemy to attack. I regularly DM with an open monster manual anyone at the table is free to look at if they wish (they generally don't if the monster is new) and since I have started doing that my encounters have actually got better because I am not relying on the "puzzle of the monster" being the surprise for the encounter instead I am thinking about utilising the environment, or the tactics of the monsters, or the smaller encounters I set up in the lead up. I know I am not the only one who does this. I would suggest you give it a go, it might not work for your group but don't assume that until you try it.
Thanks for all your replies. There's a lot to consider here.
There's 2 main reason why I was wondering about this in the first place.
First of all, as Wysperra mentioned above, my table is full of new players and even after a year of playing the campaign they still feel like they've "just started playing the game" . They approach encounters in a way so that they don't do something silly/stupid. They're very cautious knowing for them it's the first time encountering a creature. Which makes them and their characters play without confidence. That's why I want to put their characters knowledge more in the picture. "I know you don't know know how to beat a mimic, but at least your character knows, so don't worry."
Secondly, when my players have to "discover" every creature, city, npc, forest,...ect. it makes the world feel new. It's like the world is being discovered at the same time the players are discovering it. When in fact I want to make my world feel lived in and with history and lore. If a character lived his entire life in Neverwinter it would be absurd not to know a lot about Phandalin and most other locations in the Sword Coast.
Anyway, I'm prepping Waterdeep Dragon Heist for the next campaign and I'm going to try and incorporate general knowledge a lot more this time. Thanks for the replies and insights!
There is nothing wrong with the world feeling new, there also is nothing wrong with you, as DM, filling in the gaps in the characters knowledge. I do this all the time.
Player, "we are looking for an inn in the town" (town is one the player should be familiar with) Me (DM) "You know that the Dragon Scale Inn is just the other side of town, it is run by Zalric a half elf and his wife Toma a Tiefling. You have stayed there a few times, enough that they know you at least, probably not enough for a standard discount but you think with a party such as this you could get a deal there. You know that the main merchants guilds used to use it as a meeting point every 3rd weds because you once tried to arrange a quiz night on the same night. You can probably get a room, some food, and maybe information about the Gang you are trying to track down there.
You know the world, the players don't and generally never will, they are not reading the background you have and are not writing the story you are writing changing that background. it is also a great way of giving information to players as they need it rather then bombarding them with long paragraphs of exposition about the history of a region that may never be relevant.
But also don't assume the characters will know it all, this is not an age of the internet, information about the next town over will rely on gossip, merchants and farmers travelling back and forth and travellers wandering through sharing knowledge. If the town is 4-5 days travel and there is a chance of attack by bandits and goblins etc then most people will stay in the town. Very quickly you get to a distance, possibly within just 10 miles where not much solid information is known. Even if your small town or village has a library the books may be woefully out of date or the information just wrong. Think about your favorite fantasy novels or films, usually the main protagonist is discovering the world. In Lord of the Rings the hobbits discover many things for the very first time. As level 1 adventurers your players are just stepping on that road, they have no idea where it might lead or the world they are walking into.
The way I approach this is very different to many GMs and I know many disagree but, ...
So my player knows a troll is weak to fire, or slashing damage splits an ochre jelly, great, so does his character. How does he know, see the above. I don’t need a detailed backstory or explanation but if you want one, as a child he remembers the fairytales he was told of trolls being killed by fire, or he read it in a book. Or maybe once in an inn a fighter was told a heroic story of an npc killing a troll by burning it.
The fact is me and my players don’t need to worry about worrying about it, we can just get on and have fun.
I have the same view. I think of it as a combination of folklore, tales of actual encounters shared in one's village during childhood and lessons learned when training to become a PC. You don't get to learn everything about all the monsters (you can't read the MM at the table during the game), but you are allowed to act on whatever preconceptions you have concerning the monster you are facing, including believing it is hostile or non-hostile. As the DM, I am allowed to change the stats of any monster, or give the monster an appearance that differs from the official one posted in the books. So that Brown Mold may actually be a Yellow Mold that is covered in much dust and grime.
In a like manner, I would give my players a sketch of what they knew about the realm they grew up in. But their sketch will have very misleading information about distances concerning places they haven't visited, and a great deal of missing information of things they were never told. An interesting exercise would be to give each player a different map and see how they combine them and try to fix discrepancies.
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If you want to have a 'puzzle' monster you should probably create a custom monster; sure, back in 1975 figuring out that you need to burn a troll might have been a puzzle monster, but not in modern D&D. However, most monsters don't need to be puzzles.
Under what conditions would a new char, say 2nd level, have any exposure to any kind of monsters, outside of legend, and 2nd, even 3rd hand information. Staying in-game, players should not know a monster's stat block unless they have fought it before, or it is considered something "of common knowledge or common legend", sort of like your basic troll. But the new variants, nah, players can't know the specifics.
Why not? DnD is a land of story telling, if you think back to similar ages in our mythology The Greeks all knew the answer to the riddle of the Sphynx, they all knew that story in one form or another. There is a character class who's specific role is to go out and tell and learn stories of all sorts. The Bard. It is perfectly believable that a story about a great creature with a giant eye stopped the wizard that fought it from casting a spell under it's gaze is a story that has got out amongst the world. The word beholder may never be mentioned but you can believe that the facts of the story are there. There is little in the monster manual that wont, in some way, be known out in the world by even a farmer. This is a universe where Gods are real and may provide proof of that day to day so therefore it is a world where even fairy tales are believed to have some basis in fact. You can believe the player characters do actually have information about these monsters. Especially when you consider your elf player might be 200 years old and had a library full of stories to read during his 100 younger years and it actually doesn't break the game either. What it does do as a DM is make you better at putting encounters together tactically, plus, the characters knowing about a beholders eye attack doesn't stop them being caught in it it doesn't make the Beholder an easier enemy to attack. I regularly DM with an open monster manual anyone at the table is free to look at if they wish (they generally don't if the monster is new) and since I have started doing that my encounters have actually got better because I am not relying on the "puzzle of the monster" being the surprise for the encounter instead I am thinking about utilising the environment, or the tactics of the monsters, or the smaller encounters I set up in the lead up. I know I am not the only one who does this. I would suggest you give it a go, it might not work for your group but don't assume that until you try it.
The average farmer in our world cannot name the 20 brightest stars in the sky or the leaders of the G7, though this information is readily available. Encyclopedic knowledge is characteristic of highly intelligent people. So I think if the bard has 19 Int, he might know nearly all the attributes of every monster in the monster manual. But an 8-Int Fighter might only know some aspects of common monsters. So allow players to roll an Int check to learn some hints about a monster. And players who've memorized the monster manual should ask for a check, and if they fail, act as if they don't know what they know until they observe it in the fight. That way a troll still can be a puzzle monster. You give newer players a chance to figure it out instead of just telling everyone what to do as the veteran player.
If you want to have a 'puzzle' monster you should probably create a custom monster; sure, back in 1975 figuring out that you need to burn a troll might have been a puzzle monster, but not in modern D&D. However, most monsters don't need to be puzzles.
Under what conditions would a new char, say 2nd level, have any exposure to any kind of monsters, outside of legend, and 2nd, even 3rd hand information. Staying in-game, players should not know a monster's stat block unless they have fought it before, or it is considered something "of common knowledge or common legend", sort of like your basic troll. But the new variants, nah, players can't know the specifics.
Why not? DnD is a land of story telling, if you think back to similar ages in our mythology The Greeks all knew the answer to the riddle of the Sphynx, they all knew that story in one form or another. There is a character class who's specific role is to go out and tell and learn stories of all sorts. The Bard. It is perfectly believable that a story about a great creature with a giant eye stopped the wizard that fought it from casting a spell under it's gaze is a story that has got out amongst the world. The word beholder may never be mentioned but you can believe that the facts of the story are there. There is little in the monster manual that wont, in some way, be known out in the world by even a farmer. This is a universe where Gods are real and may provide proof of that day to day so therefore it is a world where even fairy tales are believed to have some basis in fact. You can believe the player characters do actually have information about these monsters. Especially when you consider your elf player might be 200 years old and had a library full of stories to read during his 100 younger years and it actually doesn't break the game either. What it does do as a DM is make you better at putting encounters together tactically, plus, the characters knowing about a beholders eye attack doesn't stop them being caught in it it doesn't make the Beholder an easier enemy to attack. I regularly DM with an open monster manual anyone at the table is free to look at if they wish (they generally don't if the monster is new) and since I have started doing that my encounters have actually got better because I am not relying on the "puzzle of the monster" being the surprise for the encounter instead I am thinking about utilising the environment, or the tactics of the monsters, or the smaller encounters I set up in the lead up. I know I am not the only one who does this. I would suggest you give it a go, it might not work for your group but don't assume that until you try it.
The average farmer in our world cannot name the 20 brightest stars in the sky or the leaders of the G7, though this information is readily available. Encyclopedic knowledge is characteristic of highly intelligent people. So I think if the bard has 19 Int, he might know nearly all the attributes of every monster in the monster manual. But an 8-Int Fighter might only know some aspects of common monsters. So allow players to roll an Int check to learn some hints about a monster. And players who've memorized the monster manual should ask for a check, and if they fail, act as if they don't know what they know until they observe it in the fight. That way a troll still can be a puzzle monster. You give newer players a chance to figure it out instead of just telling everyone what to do as the veteran player.
I think its something that is table dependant, but personally for me as a dm intelligence does not define a characters class specific knowledge. A fighter would be expected to know the specifics of their class, eg monster info etc how to fight it and as part of that I dont expect the to not pick up on and remember, oh that barbarian told me the best way to kill X in a pub once. I would not expect them to know other non fighter things unless int is high, no farmers don't know the brightest stars in the sky, but they did when they needed to. A farmer might need to know how to scare off a troll etc. You learn the things that you need to keep you alive and thrive in your environment. Now if there was a brand new player at the table I would talk to my eperianced players and ask them to play slightly different, but, for me and my players it is about story telling not specifically monster killing, it is why I don't run dungeon crawls.
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I've been DMing for just over a year now and my first campaign is coming to a close. Only recently I've realised that I ran the campaign in a way so the PCs had to discover everything in the realm as if it was their first time visiting. Every creature they encountered was like a new discovery for them and they had to figure out what its attacks were, what its weakness is ...ect. In some ways that's fun I guess, but I reckon if you grew up in the realm you would know a lot of stuff even before you've encountered some of the creatures.
Take Ochre Jellies for instance. When your PCs encounter it, do you automatically tell them a lot of information they would know just because it's general knowledge? I'm sure people in the realm would know that slashing Ochre Jellies would make them split? Or do you make them roll a skill to see if this is knowledge they have (Nature? History?). Or do you let them figure out the specs of a creature by themselves?
It would seem weird to me that a group of adventurers wouldn't know to avoid the tailspikes of a Manticore because he can use them as a projectile. It would be weird that they don't know Kobolds are easier to kill than Goblins. And all the lore and stories about dragons would surely contain information about how to defeat them, or what their resistance would be, wouldn't it?
Anyway, how do you define what is general knowledge to your players and how do you give them that information when it is relevant to the situation?
Cheers!
I think this ultimately requires you as the DM to think about what is "common knowledge" in the world played at your table.
For very common creatures - ie. kobolds, goblins, generic skeletons - I, personally, would allow the PCs to have a fairly high level of knowledge of strengths, weaknesses, etc. The idea is that people communicate and common threats are one of the things that are highly likely to be passed along.
For less common creatures it would depend greatly on the character's backstory, the region they are adventuring in, whether they spent any time preparing or researching before setting out, and how much they invested in said research. If a character's origin is an area that does not commonly see Rakshasa then, unless that character spends time doing research on them, they're not going to have much to go on outside of, perhaps, a general description of what they look like if even that much.
If you're in doubt, though, depending on the rarity of the creature in question you can always choose to assign an arbitrary DC value and request an Int check (History, Nature, Arcana, or just straight Int depending on the nature of the creature) and ask the first player to ask if their character knows about that creature to roll vs. your chosen DC. I say "first player" because I'm not personally a fan of the "Does my character know about X?" followed by a chorus of "What about mine?"
You could even expand upon this and classify creatures. Something along these lines, perhaps
General knowledge, to me, would be things commonly communicated between groups. What do goblins look like? What do they sound like? What common tactics do they employ when raiding villages? What weapons do they usually attack with? This sort of thing.
I kind of miss the "Rarity" note that older editions had in the creature descriptions as it was a great way to know at a glance how common or uncommon a certain creature was.
Part of it depends on where the PCs came from. If they're from the city, the might not know a lot about the wilderness. If they are from a small village, there might be a lot of rumors about monsters that are half truths. Goblins and Kobolds can be fairly common threats so details about them might be well known. For some things this is a good way to go. When you start a campaign with "goblins attack!" everybody knows the deal.
Think about what the heroes may or may not have heard. Are ochre jellies common? Is there somebody in their community that is an adventuring veteran who entertained them with stories? If not, they might not know. However, if a PC has Nature or History skill they might have studies the creatures of the realm. For the most part people in medieval society didn't travel very far from home so the local threats are well known, but something a week away is all new.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
The way I approach this is very different to many GMs and I know many disagree but, when it comes to monsters and creatures I generally don’t care about meta gaming and if my players know it, their characters can as well if they don’t there characters don’t.
For instance take a troll. A troll can be a horrendous challenge to a group of lowish level players, it regenerates damage and has a weakness to fire. Now a brand new group of players attack that troll. They are going to try different things until they work out what damages it. They might get lucky and the first person to attack is the wizard with fireball, or they might take round after round before using fire. In this case I don’t call for nature checks because part of the challenge and fun is overcoming this adversity and learning by doing, not just relying on your high nature character to know.
now let’s repeat that encounter I have an experienced group of players who have faced a troll, maybe one dms and has the monster manual. In game this is the first time the party have faced it but they are worried. If the wizard attacks with fireball straight away is he meta gaming? Should I enforce they waste rounds “discovering” it’s weakness, or should I make them take some arbitrary roll to see if they know. The approach I take is not to care. As you allude this is a living breathing world; the characters have existed in it for years prior to this moment. During the adventure loads of stuff happens off screen, that visit to the inn you roleplsyed out in 10 mins, they where there all evening drinking. Sat round a campfire with an NPC, you don’t play out hours of chat.
So my player knows a troll is weak to fire, or slashing damage splits an ochre jelly, great, so does his character. How does he know, see the above. I don’t need a detailed backstory or explanation but if you want one, as a child he remembers the fairytales he was told of trolls being killed by fire, or he read it in a book. Or maybe once in an inn a fighter was told a heroic story of an npc killing a troll by burning it.
The fact is me and my players don’t need to worry about worrying about it, we can just get on and have fun.
Now an addendum to that, my players don’t go looking stuff up for the sake of it and, very rarely I might tell a player you don’t know this. For instance an aboleth enslave. But those occasions are very very rare. Or, shock horror, I might change that monsters stats and abilities. Player I attack troll with fire, me, great nothing happens.
As I see it this is a completely valid approach. At the end of the day everyone should be having fun so if it makes it more fun to allow players to use their own knowledge of the game, and everyone's okay with it, then I would completely agree.
For a DM who wants to enforce "character knowledge", using the experienced player who happens to know that a Troll is weak against fire therefore he starts the combat with a Fireball scenario as an example, one way to handle this could be to look at how that character has been played. Does the character typically open with such spells? Or does he usually start out buffing or trying to use control spells? In a situation like that one could make certain assumptions as to why he's opening with Fireball.
But instead of confronting the player at the table right then and there in front of everyone, I would instead let it slide for the sake of the game and then talk to the player later.
Ultimately, it's best for everyone at the table to, at the start, discuss how they all want to handle this sort of "player knowledge vs character knowledge" situation. After the 15th campaign having encountered a troll with a new character the chances that players are going to want to have to bumble their way through having their character collect information on how to combat trolls is low, after all.
Meta-gaming is a huge problem, especially with experienced players. Even the ones that try to segregate the player knowledge from the character knowledge are going to have an inherent bias. So if a table is full of highly experienced players, the only way to keep the game fresh is for the DM to alter he stat blocks of the monsters, to something the players could have no knowledge of.
Totally agree with this! In fact, In my current campaign (only 3 sessions in) I've decided not to use a SINGLE "base-skinned" monster. I use RAW statblocks still, but the monster I describe is totally different.
For example: I had them fight a large serpentine monster with scythe-like arms. I used the "Crocodile" statblock and called its bite a slash. I plan on using this the WHOLE campaign so that they have no idea what to expect
Personally I really disagree with this, I have been DMing for years and used to think that monster stats should be secret but over the last 5-6 years I have come to be more and more open and allow my players to bring there out of game knowledge into the game as per my answer above. Yes sometimes I will switch stats around but usually I find knowing that my players know the strength and weaknesses of a monster makes me think more about the tactics of the encounter and how I make it more interesting in other ways. One group I dm for we actually play with a copy of the monster manual open on the table, players are free to refer to it if they want.
If you want to have a 'puzzle' monster you should probably create a custom monster; sure, back in 1975 figuring out that you need to burn a troll might have been a puzzle monster, but not in modern D&D. However, most monsters don't need to be puzzles.
Under what conditions would a new char, say 2nd level, have any exposure to any kind of monsters, outside of legend, and 2nd, even 3rd hand information. Staying in-game, players should not know a monster's stat block unless they have fought it before, or it is considered something "of common knowledge or common legend", sort of like your basic troll. But the new variants, nah, players can't know the specifics.
I do this quite often. I even do it when the players are new to D&D. I enjoy throwing things at the party that I find interesting in the hope that it will be fun for them.
I was under the impression that the OP had new players so they couldn't draw a lot upon player knowledge.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
I generally give people rolls against Arcana, History, Nature, or Religion (depending on the creature) to know things about them, but if I expect 'figure out special tactics to beat this monster' to be a significant part of a fight, I'm going to use a custom monster (in part because most published D&D monsters really don't require any interesting tactics).
I completely agree with this. This is a great approach.
Thanks for all your replies. There's a lot to consider here.
There's 2 main reason why I was wondering about this in the first place.
First of all, as Wysperra mentioned above, my table is full of new players and even after a year of playing the campaign they still feel like they've "just started playing the game" . They approach encounters in a way so that they don't do something silly/stupid. They're very cautious knowing for them it's the first time encountering a creature. Which makes them and their characters play without confidence. That's why I want to put their characters knowledge more in the picture. "I know you don't know know how to beat a mimic, but at least your character knows, so don't worry."
Secondly, when my players have to "discover" every creature, city, npc, forest,...ect. it makes the world feel new. It's like the world is being discovered at the same time the players are discovering it. When in fact I want to make my world feel lived in and with history and lore. If a character lived his entire life in Neverwinter it would be absurd not to know a lot about Phandalin and most other locations in the Sword Coast.
Anyway, I'm prepping Waterdeep Dragon Heist for the next campaign and I'm going to try and incorporate general knowledge a lot more this time. Thanks for the replies and insights!
It's kind of related to high-magic vs. low-magic worlds. In a high-magic world, everybody knows manticores prowl the wilds. In low-magic worlds, people might have heard fairy tales of vampires and unicorns, but probably believe they are made up. They might know some legendary lore about their weaknesses, but such lore might or might not be accurate.
In any case, you probably only know the details of the few most common fantastical creatures, unless you are a scholar specializing in them. You might also know some generalizations, such as that fire prevents regeneration for some creatures.
I generally just allow my player characters to know what the players know, unless they are obsessed gamers who have memorized the monster manual, in which case I'd expect them to show a high degree of "professionalism" by keeping their player and character knowledge separate, and only taking an action if it would make sense based on what their character knows.
Beyond that, I would allow an arcana or nature check as a free action to remember some knowledge a character could plausibly know about a monster.
My campaign is a bit toward the low-magic end, and many of the creatures my characters encountered are rare and little known outside scholarly circles. Plus they're homebrewed, so there's little chance the players have foreknowledge.
Why not? DnD is a land of story telling, if you think back to similar ages in our mythology The Greeks all knew the answer to the riddle of the Sphynx, they all knew that story in one form or another. There is a character class who's specific role is to go out and tell and learn stories of all sorts. The Bard. It is perfectly believable that a story about a great creature with a giant eye stopped the wizard that fought it from casting a spell under it's gaze is a story that has got out amongst the world. The word beholder may never be mentioned but you can believe that the facts of the story are there. There is little in the monster manual that wont, in some way, be known out in the world by even a farmer. This is a universe where Gods are real and may provide proof of that day to day so therefore it is a world where even fairy tales are believed to have some basis in fact. You can believe the player characters do actually have information about these monsters. Especially when you consider your elf player might be 200 years old and had a library full of stories to read during his 100 younger years and it actually doesn't break the game either. What it does do as a DM is make you better at putting encounters together tactically, plus, the characters knowing about a beholders eye attack doesn't stop them being caught in it it doesn't make the Beholder an easier enemy to attack. I regularly DM with an open monster manual anyone at the table is free to look at if they wish (they generally don't if the monster is new) and since I have started doing that my encounters have actually got better because I am not relying on the "puzzle of the monster" being the surprise for the encounter instead I am thinking about utilising the environment, or the tactics of the monsters, or the smaller encounters I set up in the lead up. I know I am not the only one who does this. I would suggest you give it a go, it might not work for your group but don't assume that until you try it.
There is nothing wrong with the world feeling new, there also is nothing wrong with you, as DM, filling in the gaps in the characters knowledge. I do this all the time.
Player, "we are looking for an inn in the town" (town is one the player should be familiar with)
Me (DM) "You know that the Dragon Scale Inn is just the other side of town, it is run by Zalric a half elf and his wife Toma a Tiefling. You have stayed there a few times, enough that they know you at least, probably not enough for a standard discount but you think with a party such as this you could get a deal there. You know that the main merchants guilds used to use it as a meeting point every 3rd weds because you once tried to arrange a quiz night on the same night. You can probably get a room, some food, and maybe information about the Gang you are trying to track down there.
You know the world, the players don't and generally never will, they are not reading the background you have and are not writing the story you are writing changing that background. it is also a great way of giving information to players as they need it rather then bombarding them with long paragraphs of exposition about the history of a region that may never be relevant.
But also don't assume the characters will know it all, this is not an age of the internet, information about the next town over will rely on gossip, merchants and farmers travelling back and forth and travellers wandering through sharing knowledge. If the town is 4-5 days travel and there is a chance of attack by bandits and goblins etc then most people will stay in the town. Very quickly you get to a distance, possibly within just 10 miles where not much solid information is known. Even if your small town or village has a library the books may be woefully out of date or the information just wrong. Think about your favorite fantasy novels or films, usually the main protagonist is discovering the world. In Lord of the Rings the hobbits discover many things for the very first time. As level 1 adventurers your players are just stepping on that road, they have no idea where it might lead or the world they are walking into.
I have the same view. I think of it as a combination of folklore, tales of actual encounters shared in one's village during childhood and lessons learned when training to become a PC. You don't get to learn everything about all the monsters (you can't read the MM at the table during the game), but you are allowed to act on whatever preconceptions you have concerning the monster you are facing, including believing it is hostile or non-hostile. As the DM, I am allowed to change the stats of any monster, or give the monster an appearance that differs from the official one posted in the books. So that Brown Mold may actually be a Yellow Mold that is covered in much dust and grime.
In a like manner, I would give my players a sketch of what they knew about the realm they grew up in. But their sketch will have very misleading information about distances concerning places they haven't visited, and a great deal of missing information of things they were never told. An interesting exercise would be to give each player a different map and see how they combine them and try to fix discrepancies.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
The average farmer in our world cannot name the 20 brightest stars in the sky or the leaders of the G7, though this information is readily available. Encyclopedic knowledge is characteristic of highly intelligent people. So I think if the bard has 19 Int, he might know nearly all the attributes of every monster in the monster manual. But an 8-Int Fighter might only know some aspects of common monsters. So allow players to roll an Int check to learn some hints about a monster. And players who've memorized the monster manual should ask for a check, and if they fail, act as if they don't know what they know until they observe it in the fight. That way a troll still can be a puzzle monster. You give newer players a chance to figure it out instead of just telling everyone what to do as the veteran player.
I think its something that is table dependant, but personally for me as a dm intelligence does not define a characters class specific knowledge. A fighter would be expected to know the specifics of their class, eg monster info etc how to fight it and as part of that I dont expect the to not pick up on and remember, oh that barbarian told me the best way to kill X in a pub once. I would not expect them to know other non fighter things unless int is high, no farmers don't know the brightest stars in the sky, but they did when they needed to. A farmer might need to know how to scare off a troll etc. You learn the things that you need to keep you alive and thrive in your environment. Now if there was a brand new player at the table I would talk to my eperianced players and ask them to play slightly different, but, for me and my players it is about story telling not specifically monster killing, it is why I don't run dungeon crawls.