PDA

View Full Version : How do I handle PC lack of knowledge



valadil
2009-04-17, 09:21 AM
Okay, here's the deal. I just got done with running a plot heavy game. One of the players was spying on the party and commiting minor acts of treason in his spare time. Eventually the group found out and confronted him.

The problem is that the game was played bi-weekly at best, it was relatively long term, and the player had poor memory. He could barely remember what happened in his backstory, let alone last session. In his defense there was a lot of plot to keep track of. Sometimes it would be as simple as forgetting a name. Sometimes he'd forget the character a name was attached to. At any rate, this got very difficult when the group confronted him and he had to start lying.

So when the group found out about the spy and interrogated him, they'd ask questions about his backstory and the spy would fabricate something. The thing is, I couldn't differentiate when the character was lying from when the player was lying. I don't think the player even realized what he knew and what he didn't. Some events he remembered well and lied through as his character. Other events he didn't know about so he made stuff up. I couldn't just interrupt each lie to check if he knew he was lying or if he'd simply forgotten. It also wouldn't be fair to pass notes with him explaining his backstory while the other characters waited mid interrogation - that would just slow the game down to a crawl and nothing would happen until the group got bored and gave up on it.

At any rate, this problem was rather detrimental to the game and we never figured out what to do about it. For what it's worth, I was keeping public notes which were available to all the players, but there was no way for me to ensure that the notes got read. Does anyone here have any suggestions for how to handle this kind of situation? I'm trying very hard not to place the blame on the player who couldn't remember, but the more I think about what I could have done, the more it seems like it wasn't my fault.

Tehnar
2009-04-17, 09:37 AM
I have tackled this problem in two ways. We use a forum for our gaming group, where people post character sheets, talk about sessions, store houserules, etc.

First, I keep a up to date timeline, and try to keep a listing of NPCs my group meets, with a short description, and how they met the NPCs.

Second, I encourage player kept journals, and that they are published online.


We also have a long time between sessions, and having a lot of information online really helps. People can easily access it, ask questions. There are lots of free forums you can use for this.

valadil
2009-04-17, 09:42 AM
That is a good suggestions, but brings us to another question - how do you get players to actually check the group's online resources? I had 5 players and a wiki. None of them edited the wiki. 1 used it for reference. 2 checked updates when when I posted. 2 ignored it entirely. They are all programmers who are internet savvy (and should have time to check the damn wiki while waiting for their builds to compile, dammit).

Tsotha-lanti
2009-04-17, 09:48 AM
The GM is the one who's come up with all this stuff and is keeping notes anyway; it's a pretty easy matter to make a "cheat sheet" for a player.

Tehnar
2009-04-17, 09:59 AM
I post everything there on the forum. So XP, loot, any prophetic dreams or visions. If the players don't check that, then they don't know.

Also if a player doesn't remember something his character should have, I let them off easy the first time, but next time if he doesn't know it, his character doesn't either (and I don't mean names or trivial facts like that). If they are not paying attention or reading on the forum then their characters don't need to know.

Another_Poet
2009-04-17, 10:02 AM
I would use two different tactics, which both revolve around "room control"

1. The "Get Your Story Straight" Room

I would take 10 minutes before a game and ask to meet with the spy player in a separate room. Or if the weather's nice, outside. Say to him, "Well, it's been a while since our last session. Do you remember much of what you found out last time? Do you need a refresher on anything?" Probably that alone will get the guy asking the right questions and he can build up the story he's gonna tell the other PCs. If he doesn't seem to get it at first, or says he thinks he's good, then I would ask more specific questions of him.

"Here are some of the things they're likely to ask about... How will you answer those?"

"What will you tell them about the golem in the bird fountain?"

"Do you really want to marry the countess, or was that a bluff?"

etc.

Just 10-15 mintues and he should be all refreshed and ready to go.

That may be enough on its own. If not, I would make sure that he does all his spy runs where the other players (not characters) can see them. Right around the main table like everyone else. Basically, you let the other players to witness thins their PCs can't witness, so that they can self-police the situation with this forgetful guy. You have to trust them to limit their own metagaming, of course, but at this point it seems that will be more reliable than trusting the spy to do his job right.

Good luck.

ap

valadil
2009-04-17, 10:03 AM
Tehnar, I like that idea. In our last campaign people used the wiki a bit more and it's probably because that's where we did all our loot division. I'll try that in the future, though it wouldn't have helped in this game (it was in the Game of Thrones campaign setting and the players were a noble house so gold didn't matter and loot was plain or masterwork).

I can deal with memory loss to a point. When the player forgets what his own character did 3 sessions ago, I can't just have his character forget too.

arguskos
2009-04-17, 10:07 AM
So, I see y'all talking about wiki's, forums, and the like, and I've actually been wondering about such a thing. What good sites do you recommend for usage? We're all pretty tech-savvy, so most stuff (short of a ACTUAL Wikipedia-like wiki) is fine.

Choco
2009-04-17, 10:23 AM
They are all programmers who are internet savvy (and should have time to check the damn wiki while waiting for their builds to compile, dammit).

Oh man, you have my sympathy there. Most of the people I game with are the same way... they sometimes spend ALL DAY doing nothing but surfing random sites on the web (yes I know this as a fact, I have seen them do it), yet they are "too busy" to spend 10-15 minutes a week to read my campaign documents... And then they complain that they don't know what is going on and thus can't RP properly, yet if I try to use game time to explain some of the longer and more tedious (and time consuming...) things that I published in the documents for the sole purpose of NOT having to deal with them in game (and we all agreed before the game started this was the best way to do it..), they get bored.

Sadly, my only solution that has worked has been to dumb the plot down for the main games, and throw in an occasional 1 on 1 session focusing on plot intricacies with the one player who actually cares about the story. That has actually kept everyone happy and even encouraged RP between the group when the 1 knowledgeable character explains things to the group. Oddly enough, they enjoy getting the same information from another player much more than from me, probably because it is interactive for them instead of me reading to them, but it works so it's cool. If you could find a way to do something similar, like make sure only the players that pay attention are given the information, then perhaps the rest of the group will actually enjoy trying to get that info from them in character more than you reading it to them.

valadil
2009-04-17, 10:45 AM
Tsotha, the game was pretty plot heavy and I'm not sure how much I could have condensed it. If the players have 5 page cheat sheets, I'm still not sure how much they'd read. I guess I could have printed up the summaries I did on the wiki for little or no extra effort on my part.

Another_Poet, I sort of tried the get your story straight room idea. When the player arrived earliest we'd go over his shenanigans. We also started each session with one player telling his POV on last week's session (which I can't recommend highly enough, especially if players are forgetful). I probably should have been more forceful in going over things with the spy each time instead of just when it was convenient.

As to doing spy stuff with players (but not PCs) watching, it's an interesting idea. I'd usually rather the players not know, so that roleplaying their lack of knowledge comes easier. But that didn't work this time. I'm open to trying it next time, provided I have a group I can trust to not metagame.

Arguskos, we host our own wiki (as I mentioned w're all programmers and either run our own servers at home or have accounts elsewhere). We use mediawiki which is the same software that wikipedia uses. I've heard of free wikis you can use online like a forum, but I don't know any off the top of my head. I use dreamhost for all my website hosting needs (it's not the best, but I can't argue with $10 a month) including my own wiki.

Choco, I really like your idea of letting players be sources of information (that way I don't have to narrate anything). I was able to let other players hand out information, just not with the spy. It worked great. Players who had read the books the game was based on were allowed to play nobility because they were clueful about the setting. Another player, who I did trust to remember everything, was in charge of the messenger ravens - any time the castle got a message, it went through him. That worked out great.

Ravyn
2009-04-17, 06:30 PM
I use wikispaces for my campaign wiki; it's pretty effective, and more importantly it doesn't cost me anything. Which means that at least I'm not wasting money when the players forget about it...

Count Chumleigh
2009-04-17, 07:12 PM
The way I see it, even if the player can't remember important setting information, his character damn well better. So what I would do is call for a Bluff check whenever the player says he doesn't know something that the character does know, regardless of whether the player has genuinely forgotten it. It would get ... clunky after a while, I'm sure, but at that point the situation is hardly ideal to begin with.

As for keeping players informed of the situation, I used to use Yahoo! Groups back in the stone age, but nowadays I find simply emailing the players works better. Because, like you said, putting the information online still requires the players to go there. Emailing them, on the other hand, means they have to deal with it whenever they check their inbox.

Cheers,
--Count Chumleigh

daggaz
2009-04-18, 06:20 AM
I wouldnt go out of my way to help this player either..

The above advice about forcing bluff checks on him is real good, but as well, the entire burdon of proof should lie on his shoulders, and the benefit of the doubt should lie with the other players.

If he cannot remember his own f-ing character, while backstabbing the other players, then he should reap as much pain for his (in)actions as possible.

Ancalagon
2009-04-18, 07:08 AM
If you have a player who wants to play a spy, do not be nice if he forgets. If it comes down to it say "If you forget it, your character has forgotten about it". Therefore, the "spy" will be a rather sucky and bad spy.
Confront him with that.

If a player want to play a certain character but is - in this case due to his memory - unable to do so, he must either find a way around this (take, uhm, notes for example on what his character found out) or play a different character.
That's what you should do: Tell him to take notes and learn his character-backstory or that if he cannot do that, he should play another character.

magellan
2009-04-18, 04:25 PM
Gotta agree here: Email is a lot better than forums or wikis, if only for the simple reason that it comes to you, and you dont need to check for updates.

As for players refusing to read the exposition on a wiki and then getting bored when confronted with said exposition face to face ... I hate to say it, but i think that says more about the DM than about the players....

Comet
2009-04-18, 04:47 PM
If you have a player who wants to play a spy, do not be nice if he forgets. If it comes down to it say "If you forget it, your character has forgotten about it". Therefore, the "spy" will be a rather sucky and bad spy.
Confront him with that.

If a player want to play a certain character but is - in this case due to his memory - unable to do so, he must either find a way around this (take, uhm, notes for example on what his character found out) or play a different character.
That's what you should do: Tell him to take notes and learn his character-backstory or that if he cannot do that, he should play another character.
That's kinda harsh, isn't it?
In my opinion, you should not punish a forgetful player like that. Some of us are simply bad at remembering stuff, especially if theres a large timegap between sessions or if the player has other things on his mind.

It's a hobby, you're supposed to have fun together. So the DM should help the player, remind him of the facts and co-operate with him to ensure that he can play the character he wants to play.

Going "No you're a bad roleplayer so you can't play this character pick a half orc barbarian instead" seems like a really mean thing to do, I think.

Some IC punishment could be fun, however. Making the player sweat a little because he forgot some important detail can be enjoyable for everyone at the table. But again, he should be allowed to roll with it and try to improvise his way out.

oxybe
2009-04-18, 04:49 PM
the biggest problem i see here is that we see a double standard on the separation between Player knowledge and Character knowledge. in truth one could say it's the reverse of the old metagame issue:

"If Bob knows that trolls are weak against fire, should his wizard Thaddeus also know it?"

alternately, if it's logical for the wizard Thaddeus to know who the dean of the wizard academy is, should Thad's player Bob forgetting it affect Thaddeus's knowledge?

it could be an information overload. it could also be that... it just isn't interesting to the player. i've had it happen to me that "really cool NPC & his story" just didn't rub onto the player. on more then one occasion. you may want to ask if the game is going in the way the forgetful player would like it to go and what could bring his interest back into the game.