Do you want to Ask the Angry GM a question? It’s easy to do. Just e-mail your BRIEF question to TheAngryGameMaster@gmail.com and put ASK ANGRY in the subject. And include your name so I can use your proper appellation when making fun of your question, your inability to proofread, your poor understanding of brevity, your name, your personal habits, or your failings as a game master, be they real, imagined, or invented for the express purpose of having something to make fun of. And yes, you should consider that a warning. If you want politeness, go ask the Hippie-Dippie-Sunshine-and-Rainbows-and-Bunny-Farts-GM. If you want the best damned advice about gaming anywhere on the Internet for free, well, you’d better be able to take a few punches. Oh, and remember, this column is written at least two weeks in advance and can only address a fraction of the questions it receives. So, if you have an emergency and you’re under a time constraint, go on Twitter and ask Perkins or Crawford to s$&% something out for you. If you ain’t paying for it, you can have either quality or speed, but you can’t have both. And I only offer quality.
Now, on with this week’s question(s).
David asks:
You’ve written before about having to break old habits for players that have played under other GMs or having to teach new players good habits to play the game according to the way you GM. What are some of the “good habit” lessons you give to those players? Or is that mostly covered in your articles? Any examples of good vs. bad would be greatly appreciated. I’m a relatively new DM playing with relatively new players.
First, David, if you’re relatively new and your players are relatively new, what the f$&% are you worried about breaking habits for? Your players probably don’t have any bad habits you have to break.
Let me get this out of the way first: lots of GMs talk about “problem players” and “bad habits.” And they are real a$&holes about it. I can think of one famous internet d$&%head who routinely goes on rants about how people who optimize their characters and play to win are terrible gamers who should be banned from “ruining the game for everyone else.” That same d$&% also screams about “gatekeeping,” just to show the level of cognitive dissonance in these a$&hats. Oh, and I can point to two actual, paid, professional f$&%ing game designers who have done exactly the same thing.
The thing is, there really aren’t problem players. There really aren’t people who just outright play the game “wrong.” Yeah. I’m saying that. The giant a$&hole who is constantly telling GMs all of the ways they can run a game wrong. Me. People who scream about problem players need to be punched with a copy of Robin’s Laws of Game Mastering. And considering Robin himself included a section about “problem players” in that book, you can start with him. Tell him “Angry says ‘hi.’”
Okay, obviously, there ARE problem players. But they aren’t problem PLAYERS. They are problem PEOPLE. Because they are selfish, self-centered, antisocial, obnoxious, rude, or poorly socialized. They lack the basic social skills needed to understand how group games work. Their parents screwed them up by not teaching them how to interact with other people properly, filling their heads with bulls$&% about self-esteem and how special they were, and didn’t hit them when they deserved it. And when you find those people – those sad, sad people – your best bet is to leave them alone. Because you can’t fix them and they will make you miserable trying.
Now, every GM – and most players – have a list of “habits” they consider “bad.” Lots of GMs hate so-called power-gamers because they – the GMs who hate them – suck at running games. I hate the f$&%abouts the pranksters and jokers and special snowflakes and the idiots who go out of their way to fail because failure “makes better stories.” Some people hate thespians and character actors.
And beyond those sorts of broad player stereotypes, there are also all sorts of micro-behaviors. Some GMs can’t stand players who tend to use combat as their go-to solution. Some GMs can’t fathom why players don’t want to interact with their NPCs. Some GMs want their players to run away from too-powerful enemies. Some GMs want their players to engage with mysteries and puzzles. Or write complex backgrounds. Or take an active role in solving the campaign problems instead of a reactive role.
It all comes down to this: there’s lots of ways to run and play a role-playing game. Even a game like Dungeons & Dragons which is pretty centered on a narrow sort of play experience. But most people – especially newer players – tend to have a very limited view of play experiences. They take their cues from the GM who teaches them how to play. Whatever game they learn to play, that becomes their understanding of what the game is about. And when they eventually move to another table, they might discover that their understanding doesn’t quite mesh with what the other people at the table are expecting.
When I talk about untraining “bad habits,” I’m being my usual, charmingly facetious self. I’m saying that players sometimes show up at my table with an understanding of the game experience that is very different from the game I run. For example, my fantastic adventures which include high action, complex NPCs, and difficult choices and sacrifices often throw prankster f$&%abouts and powergamers both for a loop. And special snowflakes are often thrown off by the fact that they have to EARN their respect in the Angryverse. But I don’t actually mean those players are BAD. They just aren’t playing – or expecting – the game I’m running. And, I will only bend so far to meet them. Because I get to have fun too. And I’ve outgrown a lot of that crap.
Now, good GMs – who aren’t like the a$&hats online who piss and moan about problem players – good GMs understand that there are lots of different styles and that every game is a compromise between five players and a GM. Or however many there are. But that the GM is going to set most of the tone. And thus, when welcoming new players into the fold, such GMs need to help the players adjust to their style. And that can’t be done simply by saying “here’s the game I run, so that’s what you should expect.” It just doesn’t work that way.
Generally, what I do whenever I start a new group, is make sure that certain things happen in the first few sessions of the game so that the players can see, first hand, my style. For example, I make sure that, right off the bat, there is at least one strongly characterized NPC around who is genuinely interested in the PCs and who has a vested interest in teaming up with them. Someone who asks them questions about their own past but who also has their own goals and is willing to share their own interests. Usually, there’s a few NPCs strongly characterized NPCs around. And they aren’t good people or bad people. They are just people.
I do that so that the players can see that my world is populated with real people with whom they can interact. Not caricatures or quest givers or furniture. Real people. NPCs are very important in my world. And every NPC has a story. I also make sure there is at least one ugly choice or difficult situation with nasty consequences, and I don’t pull any punches. Like a traumatized kid, the sole survivor of a tragedy, who is convinced the party means her harm and that the party has to deal with. And if they deal with her badly or something awful happens, they have to live with it.
I also make sure there is plenty of action and one or two open-ended problems or mysteries and that the party has to deal with some authority figures and that the gods and spirits come up right away. And then I pay attention to how the party responds to those things. If they respond poorly, that tells me I need to either adjust things or train them with a few more similar situations until they get used to things.
Of course, sometimes, people don’t mesh. And that’s fine, too. The point of leading with strong indicators of your style is to also let players decide that your game isn’t really for them. And then they can find a different game. I’ve had to let players – and even whole groups – go because they wanted to play a game I had no interest in running and they didn’t like the sort of game I wanted to run. Not often. More often, I’ve compromised. But that’s just a choice every GM has to make. How far do you compromise on the game you want to run before you scrap the group and start again?
This is ALL very personal. The habits, the compromises, the choices. It all depends on the GM and the players and the game. So, I CAN’T tell you what habits count as “good” or “bad” or how to deal with them. Honestly, I can’t even tell you how to identify and showcase YOUR style. Because it takes years to build your style and even longer to recognize that you HAVE a style.
For right now, David, you don’t need to sweat any of that. Because when you’re a new GM running a game for new players, you all get to decide together what the game is about. And that makes you pretty f$&%ing lucky.
David ALSO asks:
Feel free to ignore this part, but I have another question that may be a little more in depth if you’d happen to have time to respond via email: I am a huge fan of your article about not making unnecessary rolls, especially Intelligence rolls to see if you “know” or “remember” a piece of information (And I know to only roll if there is a chance for success, failure, and consequences). Either the player knows or doesn’t know. However, this approach has got me anxious and makes me start to question what should and shouldn’t get rolls. If a player walks into a room and wants to take a quick visual scan for traps, why make a Perception roll? Why wouldn’t the character just see the trap based on the action rather than based on a random roll? Maybe this scenario and question are a bit of overthinking based on reading a lot of theory articles and having little actual experience of running a game, but where do you draw the line between succeeds based on action vs. succeeds based on a die roll?
Let me address this first: I get LOTS of requests for e-mail responses. I get LOTS of e-mails asking me to look over people’s stuff, to help them write plots, to give them personal advice, and all of that. Now, I’m not getting after you, David. I’m using you to address this question for everyone. I do not have the time to give personal advice and personal answers and personal critiques and personal reviews to everyone who wants them. I’m sorry. I wish I could. I don’t. Sorry.
Now, as for the question itself, you’re conflating two very different points. But the difference is kind of subtle, so I’m happy to clarify. Especially because it allows me to review what I consider to be my single most basic rule of all GMing ever. But both points have to do with when to roll dice to resolve an action. Or rather, when to use the rules to resolve an action.
Let’s start with basic action adjudication. That’s my term for “the GM deciding what happens when a character does something in the game.” Now, you have a rulebook filled with rules that help you figure out what happens when a character does something. They involve ability checks and skill ranks or proficiency bonuses or characteristic dice and dice pools or Fudge dice and aspects or whatever. But those rules aren’t the first step. They are the second.
When a player says, “my character takes this action,” the FIRST thing you – the GM – do is determine what the character is trying to accomplish and how they are trying to accomplish it. Then, you have to decide if they can actually succeed. Can the thing they are doing actually bring about the result they want? Can kicking the door break it open? Can stabbing the orc kill it? Can pleading with the guard get them released from the cell? Is success possible?
After you’ve determined if success is possible, you have to determine if failure is possible. Is it possible that, for some reason, their best effort doesn’t bring about the desired result? Could their solid kick possibly fail to break open the door? Could their attempt to stab the orc fail to connect? Could the guard refuse their pleas?
Once you’ve determined that failure is possible, you then have to determine if the players could simply do the same thing over and over again until it succeeded with no consequences or risk? Could the party just keep kicking and kicking until the door breaks open or is there a chance a monster will hear them and kill them before they break open the door? Can they just keep stabbing and stabbing at the orc or will the orc counterattack or evade or call for help? Will the guard actually eventually be worn down by just repeating the same pathetic plea?
If an action CAN succeed and CAN fail and if there is a RISK or CONSEQUENCE that keeps the party from trying over and over, you need to go to the rules. You roll the dice. Whatever. If the action can’t possibly succeed, or if it can’t possibly fail, or if the party can just keep trying over and over until it succeeds, you don’t bother with dice.
Now, the thing is, these rules assume a practical, reasonable thought process from a functioning human brain. Because you can take the thought process to a stupid extreme. For example, you can argue that it is entirely possible to fail to climb a ladder into a bunk bed, slip, fall, and shatter your hip. Thus, you need a die roll just to get into bed every night. You can also argue that a person who is strong enough to kick open a door, assuming perfect knowledge of the tensile strength of the door, can’t possibly to kick open a door. And those thought processes lack any sense of perspective or any understanding of human fallibility or unpredictability as well as any sense of dramatic tension. In short, they are a guideline for a practical, well-functioning brain.
Why roll the dice? Well, because the character taking action lacks perfect knowledge. I know I’m strong enough to kick open a locked, residential door. I have pretty great legs, current knee injury notwithstanding. I could kick through a cow. But that doesn’t mean I will land a perfect kick every time. Or that the particular door might be slightly tougher than I expect. Or that I can’t quite get the leverage I want. Or that the door frame won’t warp and bow instead of splinter and break. The dice make up for the normal unpredictability of everyday life and the lack of perfect knowledge.
More importantly, because the dice add dramatic tension and challenge and fun.
But you’re not just asking about my general rule for action adjudication. Because you brought up something else, David. You asked about my objection to Intelligence checks to know things. And you also mentioned Perception checks to spot something hidden in the room. And that falls into another, completely different rule I use to adjudicate actions. And that is, they have to be actual actions. They can’t be things that just automatically happen.
For example, when you see something you recognize, you will recall the important facts about it. Notwithstanding the corner case of “knowing you’ve seen something before but not being able to place it” or “having some information on the tip of your tongue.” Yes, that does happen. But it’s far from a common occurrence. And when it comes to Intelligence checks in RPGs, the information is usually necessary right now, or it’s a moot point. It’s not really helpful to say: “Hey, remember that thing that had that petrifying gaze attack that killed three of our friends? Yeah, I knew what it was. I just couldn’t remember at the time. That’s why I didn’t warn everyone to avert their eyes!”
Recalling information is automatic. It’s autonomous. It’s part of what your brain does without you having to take action. To make a choice. And you can’t decide not to do it, either. If your brain knows something, you can’t try to “not remember.” Again, barring some odd corner cases. Because we’re being practical.
The same is true with using your senses to see things in a room. When you walk into a room and glance around, you’re going to see the things in there. And hear them. And smell them. That’s why you have senses. To sense things. And while you might not see things that are obscured – or purposely hidden – you really have no say in that. It’s just something that’s automatic. If there’s a trap in a room, you MIGHT notice it at a glance or you MIGHT NOT, but that’s not going to come down to any conscious effort on your part. At least not initially.
I don’t adjudicate non-actions. If a player doesn’t have to actively make a choice to do something, if the character isn’t actually visibly acting with agency, I don’t waste die rolls on it. I give information to people who have the right skills freely or based on how many ranks they have in the skill. I compare passive Perception scores to the DC needed to spot a trap or hidden creature.
Beyond that, if the players want to know more or if they want to discover anything that might be hidden, they have to find a way to uncover that information actively. The character can’t just think really hard and hope something pops into their head. The character can’t just glance around hoping to see something. They already did that. That’s how their eyes work. To search an area, they have to move around the space and peer under things and prod and poke. Searching for traps is an active process. And it puts them in danger of blundering into the very trap they are searching for. Gaining information might involve researching it in a library or visiting a sage or an oracle or casting a spell.
I actually consider all that passive crap – knowledge and lore and recognition and basic senses – to be part of narration, not adjudication. That’s the other basic GMing skill. When I describe the situation to the players – before they take actions – I use their skills and stats to decide what they see and what they know about the situation. I provide that information. And then, when they take actions, I use action adjudication to figure out what happens.
Really useful advice on the second problem! I’ve been having that one myself, but it’s more of me not finding suitable passive perception rules for Pathfinder.
It’s called Taking 10.
Oh lord, that makes sense! Thanks!
I love everything that you write and think you’re a genius. Sometimes the extra long articles are too long for me. I love this relatively bite-size format!
I wouldn’t call power gamers problem players. That’s a valid style of play, and I get that. I also get that some people prefer not to power game because they don’t like that style of play. What bugs me is when half the party is optimized for combat and half of it is not. It makes it rather difficult to design combat encounters that challenge the power gamers and don’t kill the non power gamers.
That’s why I like to review characters before the game. If a character is too overpowered compared to the average power of the party, I tell the player to tone it down, and I tell them why. If a character is too weak compared to the average, I help them optimize a bit, unless, of course, they enjoy character death, lol. If anyone refuses to mesh with the party, then that’s someone I don’t want in my game.
It’s a little like tuning an orchestra. Yes, there is a right sound to aim for, but the most important bit is that everyone sounds good together.
Good point!
Of course, there’s always the option of building stuff that allows the other players to shine a bit more (especially out of combat), but yeah, it does get pretty awkward trying to design a combat for the T-800 and three or four young John Connors.
disagree; the group I play with has wildly different power levels and it works out. why:
https://theangrygm.com/a-trifecta-of-unbalance/ & scenario balance (from the article)
I read the article. How does scenario balance change the fact that one player is a tank who can one punch man all easy and most medium encounters, and the rest of the party is so squishy that being involved in a hard encounter might kill them?
Had a party like that once. One player was a warblade. His maneuvers made him capable of both doing impossibly massive damage and shrugging off most status conditions. His armor made him basically impossible to hit, and his hp, while not nearly as overpowered, was still impressive.
One of the other party members was a ranger. He once described his character as “a glass cannon who wasn’t too good at the cannon thing” and that was a pretty good description. Under the right circumstances, he could do almost as much damage as the war blade. Hit him, and he’d break. I honestly forget was player numbers 3 and 4 were doing, character-wise, besides screwing around and nearly dying.
By the end of the campaign, I was going nuts. Fortunately, I managed to convince Mr munchkin warblade to play a bard for the next campaign, which made my job much easier. Granted, he did add 6d6 damage to every party hit and could beat a 15 DC on a 2 for nearly every skill, but that’s a different issue.
How do you give the players feedback on how useful their knowledge and perception skills are and how much they should invest in them? “Wait. I think I just failed a Spot check”, is obviously a bit of metagaming most of us would prefer to avoid, but at least the player knows there was something important they missed.
Just tell them outright. Skills are levelled over time, on level ups, the last thing you want to do is say that your player’s choices for the past 3 levels were all wrong.
I’d say one part of that would be to announce which characters noticed/knew something:
Alice and Bob spotted the tripwire, but Charlie didn’t. Hopefully, Charlie’s not on point.
Bob and Charlie remember X, but Charlie also remembers Y.
And if there’s no point in people pushing a skill past 10 or 20 or whatever, just tell them straight up.
I won’t swear this is a good answer, but consider asking them what their passive scores are, more often than strictly necessary….
The ‘bad habits’ that I try to curb are players announcing a skill check to solve a problem and then telling me the roll, before I can even figure out the adjudication. “Oh, they won’t let us by? I roll 12 on diplomacy.” First I need to figure out what they are attempting to determine the difficulty, and if I know their result beforehand it is difficult to do it objectively, since I am deciding whether they succeeded rather than the odds.
Yeah, I got a player who occassionally does that for other players.
“Quick roll a Stealth check!”
That is one of the worst bad habits I’ve seen that doesn’t involve something absurd. How do you counteract it? I would make the player have to announce his intention and what he’s doing and then have to roll again, or else he does the most generic thing possible (“Please let us iin”).
“If the GM didn’t tell you to roll, it doesn’t count.” This will rapidly dissuade people from picking up the dice and just rolling them. From there it’s a pretty easy step to “The GM won’t tell you to roll if all you say is something like ‘Can I roll diplomacy?'” and folks will eventually have to start telling you what their characters actually do.
When does active Perception turn into Investigate and vice versa? Is there such a thing as passive Investigate or is Investigate only used in response to a specific player action? The Player’s Handbook is super unclear on this, on the same page it describes “searching for clues for a hidden object” as an Investigate check and “searching for a hidden door or trap” as a Perception check. I understand passive perception is the possibility of a character noticing something without the player having to declare any particular action, but which actions do you adjudicate as an active Perception check, and which actions as an Investigate check?
In my head I think of these skills as the active and passive sides of the same ability, which seems wrong but I’ve never found a strict definition of what the difference between the two is.
My rule of thumb is: use perception to notice, spot and find things that can be sensorialy detected (e.g. a glyph that can be seen on a door frame, a the sound of creaking wood under a rug, or a crevice that can be felt if you run your hand over a wall) and use investigation to make inferences or draw conclusions about the things you can perceive (e.g. assume the door is trapped after you find burn marks around the frame, realize there must be something hidden under the strangely placed rug, think to look for a secret door after the creature you chased into a room seems to have disappeared but you find signs that it rushed toward the wall).
However, it’s really an artificial distinction — there’s a lot of overlap in these two skills, especially in the ways they are used in modules and such. The distinctions I made above I adjudícate depending on the approach, and even then you could argue for the use of one skill over the one I chose in some of those examples. I’d suggest when this is the case, play to a character’s strengths. Routinely, we tend to practice the skills we are practiced in and good at.
FYI, investigation can also be a passive skill. For example, the Observant feat gives a character +5 to passive perception AND investigation. I’ve never seen another DM but myself use passive investigation, though, people tend to interpret it as a more active skill.
There’s your problem there, you answered it in your last paragraph.
“I’ve never found a strict definition of what the difference between the two is.”
this is because there isn’t. there are alot of points like this in D&D where to things overlap because designers made an arbitary distinction, the clue here is the ability they’re tied to. did you know there is no such thing as a skill check in 5e. when you make a perception check your making a wisdom ability check, and adding a situational bonus. same with investigation, only for intelligence.
so there’s the distinction, ones about knowing things and applying information processing, and the other is about awareness and the senses.
which is yet another arbitary distinction used on two words which , meant the same thing at one point, intelligence and wisdom.
and on a semantic note, to those who will vehemently argue that 5e has skill checks, how do the official modules ask for a perception check, answer they say makes a Wisdom(perception) check. it’s why the statblocks don’t label every skill, just the ones that the creatures get a bonus in.
Indigo gave the correct definition of the skills, but it usually doesnt matter, because you’ll almost never have a character that has a high score on both skills. So let them just use their best skill and be done with it.
Outside of the RAW use of Perception to detect hidden ennemies, I don’t usually make a difference between those two. If a trap requires a DC of 15 to spot, any character with a passive score of 15 of higher on either Perception or Investigation will spot it.
I actually like knowledge checks. In my mind, it’s not a test of whether a player remembers something; it tests whether they learned it in the first place. Of course, this means that they never have to, and can never, make the same knowledge check twice, which means I need to keep track of what knowledge checks they’ve made.
Also, knowledge checks are good for skills related to that field, like identifying a magical item. I see it in my mind like identifying a rock in geology. There’s a series of things you check for and tests you do, and how well you do them, or know what to look for, is determined by your skill in the field.
It’s also good for research checks when the game doesn’t provide a research skill. Of course, whether the library actually has the info they need is something the dm decides. The research check determines how long it takes to find it, which is relevant when time is a factor. In the several days it takes to research how to stop the big bad’ s plan, the big bad may make progress on his evil plan, which will make him harder to stop.
Of course, you need to tell the players that time is a factor so they don’t screw around.
The difference between the first thing and the others? They are action driven. The players choose to do things in the game world. As I said. That first thing is just a f$&%ing coin toss. “Do you have the information? Let’s find out! *flip* Oh. Too bad! Looks like you never learned it. Wasn’t that satisfying?” And if you force your players to ASK for knowledge checks instead of asking for them the moment they might be relevant, you’re just making them jump through a hoop to get all of the narration. And if they don’t think to ask whether their character has information in their brain the character should just automatically recall if it’s there, you’re all breaking the roleplaying process. Yay! I’ve written all of this before. And there’s still always someone who just doesn’t get it. Arbitrary, non action, non choice die rolls and forcing the players to fish for information are anathema to actual roleplaying. But, hey, run your game any wrong way you want.
I don’t make players ask for knowledge rolls. I tell them to do so, or do it like passive perception. You’re right, making players ask for knowledge rolls is stupid, and having them roll for it is basically a coin flip. However, having them make the coin flip themselves keeps them more involved in the game, which makes it more fun, in my opinion.
That’s also why, sometimes, I will ask my players to make perception rolls, instead of just using passive perception. However, I will never withhold information simply because the players forgot to ask. Again, just a coin flip, but if it goes well, it’s a happy moment for everyone.
If the players ask to roll to see if they know something I neglected to make up, I’ll have them make up the detail if they succeed. Unrealistic, but if realism is really important, why are you playing a game involving magic and dragons? Besides, it adds a bit more cooperative to the cooperative story telling aspect of dnd, which, in my mind, in an important part of any rpg that is too often neglected.
“… and it keeps them more involved in the game, which makes it more fun, in my opinion” is something I find lots of people say. But few of those people have actually tried it both ways and then compared and contrasted.
It doesn’t. Unnecessary die rolls interrupting the narration that aren’t based on player decisions are actually speed bumps. Now, if you want to just insist “I like it this way for arbitrary reasons,” fine. Do what you want. You can run your game any wrong way you want. But if you want to tell me about increased engagement, I expect you to try it for a few months – approximately eight to twelve weeks – and then determine which actually increases involvement. However the f$&% you actually measure that.
I run through the same issue when designing scenes. As a lover of RNG, I think stuff like “hmm, maybe there could be a 50% chance of either door being open from the start!”. Then I remember that 1: the players aren’t going to see this place again, and.mainly 2: it’s unnecesssry work that doesn’t pay off in any way (it’s like rolling to lose your notes…).
So I simply slap it in if I like it.
You wouldn’t believe the resistance to the notion of passive knowledge rolls. The arguments are typical. “we like rolling dice” “My players gotta earn that info”. And no one wants to discuss it. They just wanna down vote into oblivion. Thanks for sharing your wisdom.
I apologise but there are a few things I don’t understand . I’ve reread the article and tried thinking about it but I have a few additional thoughts/questions about what you’ve said.
1) If I’ve understood it correctly, the reason that people can recall information without a knowledge check is based on two principles :
a) in-fiction, a character will either know or not know something.due to recollection being an automatic process that returns a binary True/False value.
b) Game-play-wise, there is no value in delaying (and potentially denying) players information to solve problems when the interesting interactions with the problems involve them having this knowledge. Doing so serves no purpose but to frustrate the game by gating information pointlessly.
However, what about improper recall? It doesn’t seem uncommon at all for people to recall things that are mostly – but crucially, not completely – correct. I may remember that in french the word for “to wind” begin with serpent- but I cannot recall the conjugation for the verb. A character may see a set of three runes and might be able to place two of them but not all three. Which leads to a question about (b) : surely there is game-play and role-playing value in determining which subset of the options before the player group must be the correct one. It could tie into previous adventures, off-handed comments made along the way or other various hints.
Thus, I do not understand why Int (Knowledge) rolls as “how well do you truly know this information” is not a valid way to use them. From what I’ve gleaned from the article (assuming I’ve not misunderstood it), this seems excluded.
2) A more important question I have is how lack of knowledge is determined. It seems a lot more detrimental that someone has no relevant knowledge than if someone has any knowledge of the situation because it determines if they can participate. It feels like the cost of ignorance is qualitatively different from the reward of knowledge. To give a personal example, I played a Fighter with no skill in Arcana but had skill in History. I played a game where the party was investigating a magical artifact in a paladin stronghold. I did not have any skill in Arcana and so was not allowed to interact with the next 15 minutes of role-playing.
However, I can easily think of reasons my character COULD have contributed something. He was part of an old order of do-gooders and might have picked up something along his travels. He might have knowledge of its existence due to his skill in History. He might have had a wizard friend while in the army that dropped hints of it. Unless we assume that every aspect of the character was known at the start of the game, it seems difficult to say that my character simply could not have contributed. The role-play penalty might make sense but again, the game-play penalty is that I did nothing for 15 minutes.
I understand that you talk over character backstories and character concepts with the players beforehand. But what seems present as an assumption, but is not stated in the article, is that players do not discover new aspects of their characters or backstory as they continue to play the game. If they could, then the decision to shut down a character’s interaction on a puzzle due to lack of knowledge seems highly related to influencing the player’s discovery of their character.
These were the two questions I had. I do not know how to shorten them and I could not think of any place to cut the length and still preserve what I meant to say. But I hope this was of value to you and was interesting to read. I enjoy your work immensely; I was just confused on these points.
I think the answer to your second question is that skill proficiencies shouldn’t bar a PC from interacting with an object or contributing to a scene, but as a player you need to declare an action beyond “what do I know about the object/creature/situation?”
If your character doesn’t have the appropriate proficiencies, it follows they don’t have prior knowledge of subjects under that skill’s purview. That knowledge belongs to the people who study such things, and have trained in them and become proficient.
However you can still participate by declaring actions in the moment. If you don’t have prior knowledge about an object, how can you find its purpose, history or properties? Perhaps by experimenting or investigating; “I’d like to see if any of those symbols on the artefact match those on the walls” or “does it feel warm to the touch?” or “does anything happen if I hold it near water?”
If there are no insights to be gleaned by active investigation, that’s too bad, and ideally the GM shouldn’t have taken 15 minutes on it?