From: ess3791@zeus.tamu.edu (Storm)
Subject: Re: When players and characters experience doesn't match.
Followup-To: rec.games.frp.dnd
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: Texas A&M University, Academic Computing Services
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1992 20:35:00 GMT

In article <drool.080g@retreat.Bah.Rochester.NY.US>, drool@retreat.Bah.Rochester.NY.US writes...
>In article <1992Jul23.132120.1694@galileo.cc.rochester.edu> jzku_ss@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Joeski) writes:
>> 
>> This is where we got confused.  The player playing the ranger says,"hmmm,
>> do I know what this is?" Knowing wery well that he does.  (I can't 
>> remember the name of it right now, but it corrodes metal for lunch, 
>> including weapons) I'm thinking the same thing as the ranger, then we
>> both realized that we were 1st level, so we shrugged and went after it
>> swinging, fully expecting our weapons to be bye-bye in a moment or two.
>.... stuff deleted
>> Anyone else got a similar experience? Where players' experience almost
>> got in the way of their characters?
>> 
> 
>Oh, very much so!  Many of the folks in our group, including myself, keep
>a list of creatures faced and the attributes observed on a per character
>basis.  Of course, adventurers can share information, so when a party 
>encounters, say, yellow mold, if one of them has it on their list and knows
>its properties, then the group can back off.  

Yeah, although sometimes it can be really hard to do this to your character.
For example, yesterday, another player and I (both 3rd level thieves) were
separated from the rest of the party and found an old tomb, filled with lots
and lots of webs.  Now, the experienced player in me thought: Uh oh, this could
be giant spiders, which have neat little poison attacks which the rest of
the party probably will not be able to save us from.  But, we went in 
anyway, and got attacked by two giant spiders, failed our saves versus poison
and basically lived due to Dm kindness because the rest of the party was more
interested in the treasure than saving us.

Oh, and in reference to the note passing topic that's going around, I feel
that some secrecy is necessary if you really want the players to act in a 
normal way.  In the same encounter as above, when the other thief and I were
unconscious, dying, and tied to the ceiling by spider thread, another thief
and a thief/cleric (it's a campaign of thieves :-) ) came down, killed the
spiders and proceeded to loot the room.  Now, the problem is that they found
3 items: boots and cloak of elvenkind and a bag of holding, which they kept
to themselves and decided not to tell us about.  They had made a fair amount
of money off of an earlier mission and told us that they purchased these items
along with some other magic that they had really purchased.  I don't know
whether we would have ever figured out that they had found these items on
the job rather than having bought them, but since it was all done in the open
we basically will never get the chance to find out.  I mean, if we ever start
inquiring about how they got those items, the Dm can easily rule that we are
only doing it because we know that they didn't buy them.  Whereas, I could see
us being suspicious that one of them managed to purchase several potions, 
bracers of defence, an elven cloak, a bag of holding, and a bracelet that is
endowed with a psionic defence mode for about 5000 gold, but since we overheard
what happened we can't do anything about it.

This is why I like passing notes, because it is not always realistic to try
and make people separate what they know from what their character knows.

-Storm

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