Player vs character knowledge

[Gennedy]

I'm sure this has been brought up many many times, but I thought maybe it should be mentioned again. I found myself the other day in a situation where, during an IC debate, that my understanding of a subject was less than my char's would be, and well, heh, I lost the debate due to that.

I figured I would make this post to remind everyone that not all of us know everything about the game world/server. I know alot of us, myself included, play pnp, most likely D&D. And we probably played Forgotten Realms at least once. But I also know alot of players have never played pnp before, meaning they have a distinct disadvantage when playing characters that -should- know what they're talking about.

So.....I guess this post is partly me bringing all this up to remind everyone, and to see what everyone else's thoughts on the subject are.

Thanks guys.

[Porkolt]

I think the rule of thumb here is that if you don't know, your character doesn't know.
 
Which certainly doesn't go the other way around.

[Paha]

As Porkolt said. It's not really possible to play something you really do not know.

[Snoteye]

That depends on the situation. There are things we as people cannot be expected to know while it is entirely conceivable that our characters would and should. That is the whole foundation of skill checks. For day-to-day things the line gets blurred.

[Paha]

Very true there. My idea on the upper was, that you probably should not play a character that would for example be regular resident and should know all around about the setting, when for example a shipwrecked or portal arrived character would fit the general learning process much better.

That kind general is what I had in mind. Naturally there are specifics that one might not know, but should know through their skills and concept.

[Wrexsoul]

I think the rule of thumb here is that if you don't know, your character doesn't know.
 
Which certainly doesn't go the other way around.

The problem with that rule is for those of us who really don't know that much about Faerun in certain regards. I'll use myself as an example - The only DnD I've practised is Baldur's Gate II, the official NWN campaigns, City of Arabel and, of course, EfU. I occasionally nerd around on various wiki's and pick up a thing or two now and then, but my experience still understandably leaves my knowledge of the DnD universe lacking in certain areas. Specifically geography is something I lack a ton of knowledge of - I know the names of some prominent areas and sometimes roughly what the setting is there, but other than that, I'm completely in the dark since I haven't read atlases or played any campaigns journeying through the lands.

By your rule of thumb, this basically means that none of my characters know anything at all about their past lives in reference to geography, customs etc. Which obviously doesn't work out, practically. I think there's a certain OOC courtesy in this matter, actually - For non-consequencial issues, I think it's pretty crude to press matters that characters would have intimate IC knowledge about, but that players would have no reasonable chance of knowing OOCly, and have to make up. We do not live in Faerun, and many of us have only experienced selected parts of it. We can't be expected to be as familiar with it as our "regular world". Remember, often it is much easier to ask a question than it is to answer it.

Similarly, regarding professional knowledge, you have to give a certain leeway to inconsequential issues, otherwise none of us could play anything advanced that we didn't have an university degree in. That would limit myself to playing musicians, and that would be dull. At the moment I play an archaeologist, despite the only knowledge I OOCly have of the discipline is the bits and pieces of information I have from chatting with people studying it, various media and some logical deduction. This doesn't prevent me from, as far as fluff knowledge goes, faking it. Neither does it entail someone with an OOC Ph. D. in historical archaeology to ICly shoot my character down with facts that do not concern other characters or the server.

Now, of course, if the knowledge is of consequence to, or otherwise affects other characters or the server, then you can't make stuff up or try to fake knowledge you do not possess (other than, of course, as an IC bluff >_>). But other than that, let us use our imagination, people, it does no harm and only serves to flesh characters out and enrich the server.

[Egon the Monkey]

As far as backgrounds go, I find the FR wiki (www.forgottenrealms.wikia.com) is a good go-to for a character's former home. Pick a region, put them in an inconsequential village in the country or make them a wanderer from there originally (so you don't need IC knowledge of a locale).

With regards to PC skills and knowledge, you only need to have a really basic level of knowledge on a char you want to be able to specialise in something, and RP the rest. Your engineer PC can emote showing a brilliant plan for a catapult without you knowing a thing about the compression strength of oak beams, but you'd be expected to know you couldn't build the weapon out of bacon, that it'll need ammo and that it's an indirect fire weapon that needs a crew to wind it up.

The thing is though, that if your PC says something blatantly wrong it's out there, in character, and you can get ICly corrected or mocked over it. Asking for a free pass on every error because you personally didn't know leads to stilted RP where the person you're arguing with has to keep ret-conning responses. A decent way to deal with questions where you know less than your PC would is to PM the other player and say "My character whould know this guy's name, he's Cormyrian, can you tell me it please", or whatever. I have done this with both players and DMs. Even if they're trying to outwit you, a good player will want to beat you PC to PC, not on a technicality of who reads the sourcebooks more.

[Divine Intervention]

In all honesty i've never really found this to be an issue, I know almost nothing about FR lore and i've been playing here around two years.  Aside from Deities and Efu specific stuff i've not encountered it much.

[GoblinSapper]

To be fair, the issue in question was a debate reguarding Planar law and Fiends v Demons, and that shit is just confusing with contradictory books, especially reguarding Asmodeus.

[Gennedy]

I hadn't wanted to bring up the particulars of the debate/arguement, as it only sparked my concern on this, but GS is right. Ha, the only thing my char really knows is the planes and....I apparently need to reread a bunch of stuff if i'm going to be able to hold my own on the subject. The worst part about that subject it most of it doesn't hold to any kind of logic we're used to. It's basically all philosophy made flesh, really. Yay for crazy 2nd Ed exestentialism! Which I apparently can't spell.

[The Beggar]

I know everything, and so therefore only play characters that are all knowing. To hamstring my characters with less than limitless knowledge just wouldn't be fair.

Also, they have infinite amounts of humility. If your character needs some I can help.

[Bearic]

I usually do what Egon does if I don't know something my character such, but the other players do know; the whole: "He should know this, but I don't" thing, and usually try beat a Lore check with some random DC - like 15, or so for most random but common things, or 10 if it's really easy.

[The Boom King]

This is the reason I don't play elves- I'd have to memorize what's happened in the last 120 years or so.
 
Or play as an elf who only recently quit being a hermit.
 
I also don't play elves because elves are gay. :P

[GoldenArrow]

Frankly, character vs. player knowledge was one of the major reasons I migrated from City of Arabel. Really! After so long reading and writing in the Forgotten Realms setting, it's difficult to get interested in it, anymore. Better to have a fresh start in a more unique setting, based loosely on what you already know.
 
Dealing with something your character doesn't already know... Well, the best advice I can give is to anticipate something that s/he -would- know. Is your character from Chult? Look up some basic information about Chult while putting him/her together and note down some peculiar things about the culture you can use in basic conversation. Is your character a specialist in botany? Flip through wikipedia for a little while for a general idea of what species names look like, then start making up shit like a motherfucker.  Then, you can more accurately portray someone who would have this knowledge, because you'll have a general idea about it yourself before making the character.

Sucks, I know - but it also helps when you're creating goals and motivations for the character to look into the background of where he's coming from.  What he might be thinking, politically speaking, often tends to directly come from what he's experianced in the past.
 
So, end result; educate yourself prior to character creation.
 
=3 That's my advice, anyway.

[tspawn35]

See i havn't had the issue of my char should know and i don't... I always play the if i don't know neither does my char. I make up things all the time. I don't have an issue with that where I run into isseus is when I know things becase i read the forums (like I am doing know) and find out things like someone has died recently for example I read that deirde just kicked the bucket but my char doesn't because I haven't been on with her yet. So I have to think of ways to make that convo come up naturally without making it seemed forced which is so hard...