For example, I'd stumbled on the problem of how to decide when my character had worked out something that I already knew,
Yeah, I don't know how to deal with that well. If it's make or break knowledge your character would guess sooner or later, I think it's basically undoable, and the group or DM should just decide so it's fair. But often you abstract it just a bit. Eg. The players come up with a plan cooperatively, and assume the characters all contributed appropriate amounts, rather than having the intelligent player with a dumb character or vice versa not say anything.
How does a GM normally describe a situation without giving away the important information
Well, that'd be how to GM :) I don't know, I just do my best... I can tell you what I'd do in a particular situation, but haven't any real insight.
On another note, I didn't know that fire was the only way to hurt a troll.
I just picked that as a classic example, it might not have been 100% accurate (though http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/troll.htm says it roughly was). I don't really know, but I think that Trolls were conceived with regeneration (growing back to full health when hurt), and that there needs to be a way to bypass this, and the most obvious is to burn or acid the remains. Hence, that.
What I don't know is at what point the fairytale monster became the specific dnd monster with regeneration.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-27 02:50 pm (UTC)For example, I'd stumbled on the problem of how to decide when my character had worked out something that I already knew,
Yeah, I don't know how to deal with that well. If it's make or break knowledge your character would guess sooner or later, I think it's basically undoable, and the group or DM should just decide so it's fair. But often you abstract it just a bit. Eg. The players come up with a plan cooperatively, and assume the characters all contributed appropriate amounts, rather than having the intelligent player with a dumb character or vice versa not say anything.
How does a GM normally describe a situation without giving away the important information
Well, that'd be how to GM :) I don't know, I just do my best... I can tell you what I'd do in a particular situation, but haven't any real insight.
On another note, I didn't know that fire was the only way to hurt a troll.
I just picked that as a classic example, it might not have been 100% accurate (though http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/troll.htm says it roughly was). I don't really know, but I think that Trolls were conceived with regeneration (growing back to full health when hurt), and that there needs to be a way to bypass this, and the most obvious is to burn or acid the remains. Hence, that.
What I don't know is at what point the fairytale monster became the specific dnd monster with regeneration.