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I was wondering what you and other players would do when coming across a new monster in a campaign. You obviously want to try to figure out what weaknesses this creature has, what it's resistant to, etc.

Is it more usual to ask 'out of character', or is it more common to roll some kind of in-game check to identify the creature?

user-781943
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Guy in fireball distance
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    (I do not understand the close vote, though. This is a straightforward question: How do players/characters figure out creature weaknesses?) – Novak Feb 10 '20 at 04:51
  • @Novak i meant the creature as an example I was trying to think of other stuff like what if someone picks up the deck of the many things and doesn't know what it does do they have to roll a knowledge check or can they ask out of game, but yes I will change it. – Guy in fireball distance Feb 10 '20 at 05:24
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    @Guyinfireballdistance in that case, you may want to keep the focus narrow, or I'll think it's too broad, too. (I know, we're picking your question apart, constraining you, telling you how to ask it, etc. I promise you we're trying to be helpful, though.) – Novak Feb 10 '20 at 05:33
  • The linked question discusses a potential answer, but there are other potential answers too. While some frame challenges on that question may come close to answering this question, it certainly isn't a duplicate. Related: Is it best practice to reveal monster information about resistances/vulnerabilities/immunities to the players? – user-781943 Feb 10 '20 at 06:18
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    Welcome to RPG.SE! Take the [tour] if you haven't already, and check out the [help] for more guidance. As currently phrased, the question seems likely to attract opinion-based answers; simply asking what's "more usual" is likely to result in a bunch of people just responding with what they do in their own games. Such a question seems primarily opinion-based, with no way to choose a single "best" answer. If you clarify the reason you're asking, or what goal you're trying to accomplish, we might be able to explain the best way to accomplish that goal. – V2Blast Feb 10 '20 at 07:39
  • @V2Blast I think the question is "how do you handle X", but perhaps Guy in a fireball distance hasn't used this site enough to know the idiomatic way to phrase the question. – user-781943 Feb 10 '20 at 07:46
  • @pwi that is correct I'm sorry I took the tour and this is my second question I'm trying to figure things and I apologize for my mistakes – Guy in fireball distance Feb 10 '20 at 17:43
  • @Guyinfireballdistance Are you asking about monsters that players/PCs would reasonably know about (eg vampires, or trolls) or novel monsters that they do not know about? – user-781943 Feb 11 '20 at 05:52
  • For ones that they don't know about for example how would players try to fight a Mywerm – Guy in fireball distance Feb 13 '20 at 05:16

4 Answers4

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However your table wants

Is it more usual to ask the other players 'out of character', or is it more common to roll some kind of in-game check to identify the creature?

Yes, it's usual and yes, it's common. And unless you poll every group that's ever played (or at least a statistically significant sample - PhD anyone?) you won't know which is more frequent. Look, some people like to create deep and complex worlds where each session is a new revelation and some people just like to chop things into mincemeat - you do you, ok.

Metagaming

I hate that word.

For a start it has two meanings:

  1. The game about the game. Looking at the character classes and choosing to play a ranger rather than a wizard is a metagame decision; just like a coach watching video of their opponent in this week's football match and consequently adjusting strategy is metagaimg. This usage is not problematic and is usually not what's meant when a role-playing gamer uses the term.

  2. Particularly in a role-playing game; it's applying knowledge that the player has that the character ostensibly doesn't have. It's this usage that is problematic and I will now indulge in a short rant because the concept sets my teeth on edge.

Its a game of make-believe elves in a made-up world using rules that cannot be anything but the most abstract model of non-reality!

I cannot for the life of me see that rolling a d20 to see if you "hit" is not metagaming1 but claiming that your character, who supposedly grew up in a world where vampires are real, knows that sunlight hurts them isn't. Hell, vampires aren't real in this world but everyone knows your best defense is a garlic-wrapped wooden stake!

OK. Rant over.

Basically, it's offensive metagaming if it breaks your table's verisimilitude and it's ok metagaming if it doesn't. So, you and the people you play with need to set your own boundaries on this, just like you need to decide how naked you can be while you play.

Options

  1. It can be fun to find out by trial and error. For the DM, yes, this is a laugh riot. For everyone else, it can be an exercise in frustration. I've sat on both sides - don't do this.
  2. Finding out by being clever. This is good for the DM and the players. The DM places clues. The players find the clues. The players put the clues together. The DM and the players feel clever. Feeling clever is fun. For example, the Spear of Osiris in The Mummy Returns - while this was incredibly clunky for a movie it is 100% perfect for a role-playing game because players don't have scriptwriters to tell them the answer. See the three clue rule.
  3. If the player knows the character knows. This rewards experience and, in most games, people with more experience are better at the game than those with less. Why not in role-playing games? How does the character know? Who cares. Or, see below ...
  4. They just know. I know the difference between a lion and an antelope. This is amazing because I don't live in Africa, have never been to Africa and have never hunted/been hunted by either. How can I possibly know something about the creatures that I have never encountered? Books, stories, myths, legends are all things that exist on Earth - why aren't they in your fantasy world?

Of course, you can and should mix and match - trolls are common so everyone knows about fire, but kdsja2 are rare, so only the most arcane tomes and learned sages know about their vulnerability to tulip bulbs.

1In the second sense - it clearly isn't in the first sense because that is the game.

2Don't bother looking for kdsja, I just made them up.

Dale M
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    Might be worth adding that the PCs can research something with a scholar or at the whatever passes for a library (should they exist in any number in the world in which you play). This assumes that you have (properly) foreshadowed what they might face. And point 1 is a matter of opinion tbh, I have been on both sides of that myself and seen it done well and poorly, if done well it can be a bit of an accomplishment to have figured that out in the thick of it. Done poorly it is definitely terrible. – Slagmoth Feb 10 '20 at 16:50
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    Ah, the mythical kdsja. Beasts forged from the raging fires of the mythical Keys of the Keyboard Home Row plane. – Eriol Feb 10 '20 at 19:03
  • If you pick option 3 then your complaint about d20s and vampires disappears, so I'd recommend picking that option :) It's only if you try and divorce the player from the PC that metagaming complaints get really weird. – user-781943 Feb 11 '20 at 01:45
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    +1, esp. the lines about meta gaming. Thanks for succinctly expressing a perspective I have been trying to share for years (and the other answerers would do well to read this one!). – Eric Feb 11 '20 at 04:22
  • It seems to me this question is actually asking about monsters that the player doesn't know about (otherwise why would they need to ask OOC?). In which case the question isn't "do players need to try every spell before they try fire to kill a troll" it's "can the players ask the DM what the kdja's weakness is OOC". I think that significantly changes the context of your discussion about vampires and knocks out option 3, leaving "play it out in game" (1/2) and "just tell them out of game" (4). – user-781943 Feb 11 '20 at 05:56
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    I don't understand why you include the Spear of Osiris as example? Could you elaborate on that? Why is the Spear of Osiris a good example of "finding out by being clever"? I never watched the movies and probably won't ever and I don't understand, by reading the linked article, why it's a good example. – Olivier Grégoire Feb 11 '20 at 08:53
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    @OlivierGrégoire because there are cartoon hieroglyphs that show how the scoter they’ve been lugging around for ages turns into the spear that kills the BBEG – Dale M Feb 11 '20 at 09:58
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    I REALLY like this answer. I feel like players need to recognize that the rules are only an abstract model to the proposed 'reality' of the game world. And that technically by playing by the rules they are metagaming. I got in an argument on reddit about how I felt changing a particular rule would more appropriately allow a character to do what is realistically possible, someone argued that my proposed changed to the rule would be metagaming. It better modeled a possibility within reality but wasn't worded in a way that made it sound like the rule came from the character's perspective. – Dezvul Feb 12 '20 at 00:16
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    Also, I think a lot of DMs undermine the information that a character should, or is likely to know in their own world. I've played with plenty of DMs that require a check to see if we know anything, in every situation. The only exceptions they have are when we are told about it in character in the campaign, sometimes from common sources. I would think that, if a country farmer is able to tell us something about xxx creature, even if he never had any experience with such a creature, we should probably have already known that!!! But it would've been metagaming to know before the farmer told us. – Dezvul Feb 12 '20 at 00:28
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No metagame at my table

Each DM can handle the situation however they want, but in 5e metagame info generally isn't given to players, they are expected to interact with the game world. At my table I never give players metagame information. If they want to figure out the weaknesses and resistances of a monster, they need to think about how they would go about that.

The same process and logic applies to other situations, but let's discuss the monster as an example:

Observation

The simplest way is to observe the creature and its surroundings. What kind of environment is it living in? What does it appear to eat? Does it have any telling wounds? Can we stake it out and try to figure out its habits?

Research

If the monster is a significant threat, I expect players to do their research and observation. Go read books, go talk to old guys in the bar, watch the monster from afar and determine its habits.

Learn by doing

A dangerous but straight forward method is to attack the creature, and if an attack is ineffective switch to something else. If you hit with a bludgeoning attack and make good rolls but the monster doesn't seem to care, that's a good hint that bludgeoning just won't cut it.

Learning by experience

I like to theme arcs and have players learn during the arc. Fighting a goblin one off doesn't give much room for learning and research. However fighting against goblins for days or weeks gives lots of room to learn from experience. Over time their conversations with NPCs, observations between battles, and experience in combat all add up. The players go through the whole process of being surprised by the goblin's capabilities, experimenting with tactics, and finally becoming effective goblin hunters.

When they fight the final big bad goblin boss and he pulls out every trick in the book, the players are able to go toe-to-toe and feel the how powerful their mastery has made them.

user-781943
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    Research only works if the threat is foreshadowed. I read an article on this in an old Dragon Magazine... a White Dragon was terrorizing the countryside but the climate was temperate forest and it was in the summer which seemed odd. The PCs postulated after researching that it likely just was displaced from the snowcaps in the mountains by something else so they stocked up on cold remedies and spells to face the cold breath of the dragon... only to find out that it was an Albino Green Dragon... even after the hints from the DM. – Slagmoth Feb 10 '20 at 16:54
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    @Slagmoth And that is fine, I don't see a problem with that. In real life theories are not always spot on, and research is an iterative process. Next time maybe they will work harder to confirm their theory. That's a great example of players thinking of a theory and sticking with it though! To me that's good gameplay. – user-781943 Feb 11 '20 at 01:35
  • many role playing systems offer spells (identify monster) and likewise many come with a compendium "monsters guide" that hold explanations for many monsters, with areas where you meet them, general description to allow for identification and a list of features / abilities / specialties (hideous kraken like creature with up to 10 arms, lives in swamp , immune to fire, uses acid attack and grappling, blabla) – eagle275 Feb 11 '20 at 13:11
  • @eagle275 Earlier versions of d&d did the same, and I think some published adventures still do so. One would think that visit the local library or tavern would yield a similar description though. – user-781943 Feb 11 '20 at 13:43
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    This approach is fine in the first encounter for the player\character, but what happens when the same player meets the same monster with a different character? Do you make them jump through the same hoops again, learning the monster, when the player knows it already? That doesn't sound like fun. Also how do you reward a player for their accumulated knowledge over many games? Or do you see that as a negative? – Matt Hollands Feb 11 '20 at 14:31
  • @MattHollands To me that's an XY question. I expect players to gather information ingame if they need to. If you present a troll or a vampire, everyone knows the solution. Figuring it out isn't a problem. If you want figuring it out to be a novel problem, then you need to present a novel monster. I don't reward players for accumulating knowledge, the knowledge itself is the reward. If a player plays lvl 1 Wizards 10 times, then I assume they are better at playing a lvl 1 wizard than normal. They don't need me to congratulate them. – user-781943 Feb 12 '20 at 01:40
  • @user-024673 That's a good point, and potentially relevant. You should include it in your answer. Many GMs make the mistake of insisting "that's not something your character would know" even when it doesn't make sense and isn't fun. – GMJoe Sep 15 '22 at 09:41
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It is not usual to ask out of game

Asking out of game is known as 'meta-gaming', and this is not the usual way to do things. @pwi posted a link in a comment, which is highly relevant here.

Of course, every game is different and if you're playing D&D as a mere strategy game like chess or as a "battle game", where everyone clearly knows the capability of every game piece, then that is entirely possible. I don't believe this is generally how role-playing games go; players are expected to take the role of their characters to some extent, like actors in a play. The extent to which this is done varies by group (my group is more 'roll-play' than 'role-play'!), but keeping player knowledge separate from character knowledge is still expected to maintain the RPG experience.

@pwi's answer mentioned many other ways your group can do this, but I just wanted to add some of my own DM/player experience.

Describing Resistances/Immunity

As a DM, if a character hits a creature with a damage type it is resistant or immune to I will often say "your fireball singes it, but it the burns don't look as bad as you expected", or "your fireball explodes around it, but the creature - unharmed - merely grins and turns towards you...".

Character Knowledge

On encountering a new creature, players will often ask if their characters know anything about it. This is where I may call for an ability check of some kind, generally Wisdom(Nature) or Intelligence(Arcana) for more obscure magical creatures.

Success will reveal 'common known' information, but that should still be worded in an 'in-game' way. Don't just say "yes, these creatures have around 66 hit points and resistant to non-magical weapons". Better to say "you've heard these creatures are pretty tough and mundane weapons barely scratch them".

The DC for this check is a bit of a judgement call, based around how common the creature is. The rarer the creature, the higher the DC. Then again, certain legendary creatures may be incredibly rare but knowledge of them is known through tales and stories. Many people will have heard of beholders - but not all the stories about them may be true.

If your players made backstories for their characters, it is also possible that a creature may be part of their backstory or the character came from an area where such creatures are known, so that is also a way their characters could know something about them (including their culture, society etc).

PJRZ
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I like the concepts behind the "Describing Resistances/Immunity" and "Character Knowledge" raised in the comment above - use your words to talk about what a character might notice. Especially when they realize they are heading into combat, how are the sizing up the situation with their wealth of knowledge or intuition. Just saying that monsters appear may make people jump right to initiative rolls etc if there's time to take a gander at what is in front of them.

Resistances for physical damage could be describing a monster's thick layers of scales, almost tree-trunk-thick hide, etc. Resistance for other kinds of damage could be described by how the skin is covered in thick grease, how the eyes look lifeless and inert if immune to psychic damage or charming, or how a fiend is already wreathed in flames so a fireball will only do so much.

You can ALSO play up your own DM metaknowledge of how the players use their abilities consistently, ie a lightning bolt to start a horde battle, and if they make a passive wisdom check, realize the small room might create harmful ricochets if they aren't paying attention to their surroundings in the way a real adventurer would be sizing up the battlefield. This may be too helpful/permissive but just an idea.

It is also helpful once you get through a session 0/1 with a new player group to describe the concept of a stat block in D&D and how a "monster" is just like a PC with abilities, proficient skills, and helpful saving throw advantages, so some attacks or spells will be less successful than others no matter how well you roll.

orielbean
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