Why So Secretive?

[dither]

I had this idea recently, I'm sure I'm not the first: why does the DM hold all the secrets to the game? Encounters, monster stats, and so forth? I had this idea recently of telling the players upfront how many encounters I had planned for "the current day" in a game and letting them plan accordingly so they could decide how they were going to get there and estimate what sort of resources they were going to use.

I figure I'll still save some surprises, like timing of enemy appearances and perhaps what the monsters look like and how they act, but considering the fact that RPGs are an exercise in critical thinking, resource management, and group storytelling, it makes sense to me to at least share the Table of Contents with the participants so they know what to expect and can plan ahead.

I figured, at the very least, it could help "bring back" boxed text in a way that's meaningful. I mean, if you already know what's coming, you can listen for key bits of information in said text-box that may prove relevant to your character. I suppose I could still withhold the exact statistics of the monsters and their powers, and surprises seem to come from the dice anyway.

[RobbyPants]

It's mostly a throwback to how D&D was always run.  In the beginning, it was likely Gygax and Arneson who knew all the rules in the first place.  That, and the game seemed to be very DM-centric anyway.  Plus if the players didn't know certain metagame concepts, it was harder for them to make metagame decisions.  Back when I played 2E, metagaming was seriously frowned upon.

In theory, the idea is to have the players making in-game decisions from their character's standpoint.  This is cool and all in that it (potentially) helps with immersion.  Of course, there are a lot of strong arguments to having players know the rules in and out so they can make informed decisions (I'm one of those people).

[Mixster]

It's mostly a throwback to how D&D was always run.  In the beginning, it was likely Gygax and Arneson who knew all the rules in the first place.  That, and the game seemed to be very DM-centric anyway.  Plus if the players didn't know certain metagame concepts, it was harder for them to make metagame decisions.  Back when I played 2E, metagaming was seriously frowned upon.

In theory, the idea is to have the players making in-game decisions from their character's standpoint.  This is cool and all in that it (potentially) helps with immersion.  Of course, there are a lot of strong arguments to having players know the rules in and out so they can make informed decisions (I'm one of those people).

The only problem I have with the non-metagame variant, is that it's extremely hard to roleplay.

[veekie]

^^
Yeah, a lot of people have difficulty keeping IC and OOC knowledge apart.
How many experienced D&D players know monster resistances well enough by description that they ever fireball something that doesn't burn much?

[skydragonknight]

Whenever my OOC knowledge heavily outweighs my IC knowledge, unless I can rationalize why my character does the right thing, I roll the dice to see if my character does the right thing by dumb luck.

Example: Warmage fighting a Mimic. Warmages tend not to have ranks in Knowledge (Dungeoneering). As a player I know not to hit it with acid, but my character would want to throw an orb at it, and acid is generally a good orb to throw, so in that case I'd roll up which orb is used randomly.

[dither]

Yeah, a lot of people have difficulty keeping IC and OOC knowledge apart.

I'm having a hard time seeing why there's a need to keep the two separate. Sort of like "those who don't know their Fantasy Tropes are doomed to repeat them," sort of thing. I think trying to keep the two separate *hurts* immersion. If you spend all your time sorting out what you know from what your character knows, you have less energy to focus on what your character *does*.

[RobbyPants]

Both hurt immersion for different reasons.  Merging the two ends up with the two unlikely results of in-game veteran run by a newb who doesn't know jack, and in game newb run by an RPG veteran who knows everything.

I'm not saying 3E's Knowledge rules are perfect, but they do a decent job of separating the two and making it less arbitrary.  Otherwise, everyone writes some crap in their backstory so they know all monster's weaknesses.

[veekie]

Yep, and consider what is known IC, for example, about vampires.

We, OOC, know the classic vampire vulnerabilities well due to their prevalence in popular media, but consider the ignorant militia guardsman IC, upon finding a blood drained corpse, to go prepare stakes and hammers. That's not something he'd be expected to know.

That's just on an extremely light level. Advanced players who know the strengths, weaknesses and threats of most given creatures can do far far differently from newbies. E.g, Demons and electrical damage. A newbie would use Lightning Bolt on a demon unknowingly, wasting his actions.