I feel I have a decent grasp of the rules of D&D, but am severely lacking in the lore department. In case it matters, we're playing The Hoard of the Dragon Queen adventure, which I've never played before, and still consider myself a very novice player.
I rolled up a character that has 14's for both intelligence and wisdom. On a few occasions, I've asked the DM if my character would know some bit of lore or information (I have the Researcher feature from having a Sage background, and for this reason the DM gave my character the dragon scholar feature from the adventure as well). Often the DM simply asked me the question back, "I don't know, does he?" On a couple of occasions, I've tried to make the case, "My character has the researcher feature and might know this information, but I as the player don't know anything about *blank*." But I don't seem to get any more information.
Am I misplaying these features? Is there something about these features I don't understand? I feel like my character should be smarter and know things, but I as the player simply do not know. It's easy to play a dumb character (or at least one dumber than yourself), but I'm finding it extremely hard to play a character I believe knows more information than I do as the player.
Such player vs character intelligence distinction is usually DM-dependant, some are more lenient or permissive than others. Personally as DM i like to help such player character by giving out more informations or hints it either automatically knows, remember or deduce, or have an easier chance to via Intelligence checks, with advantage or lower DC, making sure to indicate it's due to its superior intelligence.
All in-game knowledge should always go through a DM filter anyways. Knowledge skills and backgrounds are pretty tricky for many DMs to handle too, so don't be too hard on yourself.
Basically what I mean by DM filter is that even if a player rolls 25 for a knowledge check, they might still know very little about the specific subject if there simply is very little existing knowledge to begin with.
So even if you were an expert historian with a 20 int. If information regarding the thing does not exist, then it doesn't. And in this case the result of rolling a 20 and having the BG could be that you know a tiny little thing about a subject that nobody else has even heard of.
As a DM I would actually appreciate a player with very little real life knowledge. I don't need to worry about metagaming since the player only knows what I want them to know. 😄 Usually I modify monsters etc. a bit to make meta-knowledge possibly false, so the players can't rely on it. Usually I change very little, but my players know it's possible that their irl knowledge is inaccurate.
You could ask your DM to give you some pieces of information that you can use to get the feeling of knowing something the others don't.
And when you roll for knowledge, the DM can speak through you. Like "you know that this is an old Dragonborn burial ground". Then you can start discussing it and you can repeat the piece of info in-character or just act like your character said it and continue discussing from there if the info is so long that repeating it would cause the game to feel draggy.
So I recommend talking about it with your DM. There are plenty of ways to make your character feel knowledgeable. 🙂
Such player vs character intelligence distinction is usually DM-dependant, some are more lenient or permissive than others. Personally as DM i like to help such player character by giving out more informations or hints it either automatically knows, remember or deduce, or have an easier chance to via Intelligence checks, with advantage or lower DC, making sure to indicate it's due to its superior intelligence.
Exactly this. If we are being honest with ourselves, most if not all those who roll up a wizard are going to fall short of the PC’s intellectual potential. It should fall on the DM to help the player feel like they are among the smartest around.
I feel I have a decent grasp of the rules of D&D, but am severely lacking in the lore department. In case it matters, we're playing The Hoard of the Dragon Queen adventure, which I've never played before, and still consider myself a very novice player.
I rolled up a character that has 14's for both intelligence and wisdom. On a few occasions, I've asked the DM if my character would know some bit of lore or information (I have the Researcher feature from having a Sage background, and for this reason the DM gave my character the dragon scholar feature from the adventure as well). Often the DM simply asked me the question back, "I don't know, does he?" On a couple of occasions, I've tried to make the case, "My character has the researcher feature and might know this information, but I as the player don't know anything about *blank*." But I don't seem to get any more information.
Am I misplaying these features? Is there something about these features I don't understand? I feel like my character should be smarter and know things, but I as the player simply do not know. It's easy to play a dumb character (or at least one dumber than yourself), but I'm finding it extremely hard to play a character I believe knows more information than I do as the player.
Thoughts? Help and guidance would be appreciated.
I would have a private conversation with your DM about this. They definitely do not seem to come from the same school of thought as Plaguescarred or myself. Hopefully, they are open to feedback and meeting your needs as a player. Ask them if they are willing to help you meet your needs as a player. Some DMs simply aren’t and it would be better for you to know this sooner rather than later. I have seen how it impacts players to have a DM make the PC wizard look unintelligent or even just remarkably average; the player feels like they don’t belong in wizard’s robes and that just sucks.
Player vs Character comes up in a number of areas and it can also interact with meta gaming:
Memory: Players can use high intelligence or the keen mind feat to replace bad note taking (or not taking notes). "Hadn't we met some NPC who know something about that? My character would know who it was, where we met them and what they said" Some DMs are more forgiving of such player forgetfulness than others.
Matters of lore: You as a player can only know things that you have been told, your player is very likely to know the name of the monarch but you only do if your DM told you (or if you are in a published world have read it from other sources), if your DM has told you, see above, if they has not then you can not be expected to know the answer.
Beastiary (and similar). A player who has played a bit will know skeletons are vulnerable to bludgeoning damage, but does the PC? They might have read of such things in their time before the campaign started and this would be more likely for a more intelligent character and for such things I think a roll is appropriate, in my opinion a new player with a high intelligence character should be prompted by the DM to roll a check to see if their character knows. An experienced player with a low intelligence character shouldn't suddenly change their longsword for a war hammer (though again they could ask to roll to see if their character knows). There are other much rarer monsters which would have higher DCs to know anything about.
Generally speaking I think you should be rolling to see what your character knows but it is up to the DM to decide when that is appropriate, something might be so obscure that your PC would not know it, at other times it is clear he would know it without a check. It would also be up to the DM whether it is a matter of arcana, history, religion or whatever.
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I feel I have a decent grasp of the rules of D&D, but am severely lacking in the lore department. In case it matters, we're playing The Hoard of the Dragon Queen adventure, which I've never played before, and still consider myself a very novice player.
I rolled up a character that has 14's for both intelligence and wisdom. On a few occasions, I've asked the DM if my character would know some bit of lore or information (I have the Researcher feature from having a Sage background, and for this reason the DM gave my character the dragon scholar feature from the adventure as well). Often the DM simply asked me the question back, "I don't know, does he?" On a couple of occasions, I've tried to make the case, "My character has the researcher feature and might know this information, but I as the player don't know anything about *blank*." But I don't seem to get any more information.
Am I misplaying these features? Is there something about these features I don't understand? I feel like my character should be smarter and know things, but I as the player simply do not know. It's easy to play a dumb character (or at least one dumber than yourself), but I'm finding it extremely hard to play a character I believe knows more information than I do as the player.
Thoughts? Help and guidance would be appreciated.
Such player vs character intelligence distinction is usually DM-dependant, some are more lenient or permissive than others. Personally as DM i like to help such player character by giving out more informations or hints it either automatically knows, remember or deduce, or have an easier chance to via Intelligence checks, with advantage or lower DC, making sure to indicate it's due to its superior intelligence.
All in-game knowledge should always go through a DM filter anyways. Knowledge skills and backgrounds are pretty tricky for many DMs to handle too, so don't be too hard on yourself.
Basically what I mean by DM filter is that even if a player rolls 25 for a knowledge check, they might still know very little about the specific subject if there simply is very little existing knowledge to begin with.
So even if you were an expert historian with a 20 int. If information regarding the thing does not exist, then it doesn't. And in this case the result of rolling a 20 and having the BG could be that you know a tiny little thing about a subject that nobody else has even heard of.
As a DM I would actually appreciate a player with very little real life knowledge. I don't need to worry about metagaming since the player only knows what I want them to know. 😄 Usually I modify monsters etc. a bit to make meta-knowledge possibly false, so the players can't rely on it. Usually I change very little, but my players know it's possible that their irl knowledge is inaccurate.
You could ask your DM to give you some pieces of information that you can use to get the feeling of knowing something the others don't.
And when you roll for knowledge, the DM can speak through you. Like "you know that this is an old Dragonborn burial ground". Then you can start discussing it and you can repeat the piece of info in-character or just act like your character said it and continue discussing from there if the info is so long that repeating it would cause the game to feel draggy.
So I recommend talking about it with your DM. There are plenty of ways to make your character feel knowledgeable. 🙂
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Exactly this. If we are being honest with ourselves, most if not all those who roll up a wizard are going to fall short of the PC’s intellectual potential. It should fall on the DM to help the player feel like they are among the smartest around.
I would have a private conversation with your DM about this. They definitely do not seem to come from the same school of thought as Plaguescarred or myself. Hopefully, they are open to feedback and meeting your needs as a player. Ask them if they are willing to help you meet your needs as a player. Some DMs simply aren’t and it would be better for you to know this sooner rather than later. I have seen how it impacts players to have a DM make the PC wizard look unintelligent or even just remarkably average; the player feels like they don’t belong in wizard’s robes and that just sucks.
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Player vs Character comes up in a number of areas and it can also interact with meta gaming:
Generally speaking I think you should be rolling to see what your character knows but it is up to the DM to decide when that is appropriate, something might be so obscure that your PC would not know it, at other times it is clear he would know it without a check. It would also be up to the DM whether it is a matter of arcana, history, religion or whatever.