OC Moonwood Settlements (you might not know of)

[Swift]

Five minutes on the forgotten realms wiki will give you so much more information about the Silver Marches than most PCs will ever learn. I can understand the concerns some may have, but this is no worse than sharing a link in chat.

The other problem is that any player whose watched the NWN2 loading screen during a mod update gets a fantastic amount of meta information given to them since we have no way of hiding area names when using the auto-updater, so any time we add new areas, observant players are immediately aware of exactly what has been added (in a general sense) and could easily use that knowledge to look up canon information.

Concerns about meta are valid but, in my opinion not all that relevant. There is little here that, as others have stated, wouldn't be known by locals or talked about as rumor or myth. That they may see use in the current plot is beside the point.

Bottom line: we can't hide the areas we have. Every area is already on every players machine. Trying to hide or obscure canon information on those areas is not possible regardless of its relevance to plots. The information is freely available, it's how you choose to use it that really matters

[Ithildur]

Swift, you're not implying people are hacking around inside the files on their machines surely?

Even the OP along with several others would disagree this is commonly available info 'for free' (as evidenced by the suggestions of Knowledge skill usage).

Five minutes poking around the FR wiki (which isn't the best source actually) and various books would yield info on the all kinda of info about the Marches, sure, so you have no problem that I post them liberally as if they were vaguely general/free knowledge info in this forum at my whim?

Also, Zelk has stated that the info that we see on the new loadscreens are based on Knowledge skill of your PC; afaik that still stands. I suppose for DM's it's all available, but we draw distinctions if someone's taken on DM responsibilities, and expect them to do the same.

People worked hard to get pnp Knowledge skills as a feature of ALFA; I'd be somewhat dismayed if it's being ignored. I'm also aware metagaming happens to some extend even by accident even in the best of games, but it's destructive to the RP/story if everyone's passively accepting things, certainly to the point of expecting files being hacked locally and such.

[Swift]

A couple of things:

1) No hacking is required. All out modules sit in a folder in a My Documents sub-directory. They aren't hidden in any way.

2) Perhaps I was too vague. The screen I mean is the initial one you see before you load into the mod, the one you choose your character from and get stuck at while mods update. Every new file is listed there and yes, that means you can easily see when we have added an area or updated en existing one (if the walkmesh has changed)

3) The more people know of the Marches, the greater the possibility for creating new and unique characters. I really don't think pretending information doesn't exist just because it might spoil something is a very good idea. I really don't see how what was done here is any worse than going "Hey, here's some information about Rivermoot" or "This is Silverymoon, here's what we know about it." It's all meta information, so why is this particular information so bad? Because the areas aren't in yet? Because they might be used in a plot?

We expect players not to act on OOC information. If you do and you are caught, we as DMs will have no hesitation in slapping down some justice.

[johnlewismcleod]

With all due respect, Swift...It seems to me you're missing Ith's points (and beginning to worry me).

Your argument seems to be along the lines of "if it's easy to cheat, then it's not cheating".

Edit for poor word choice: The argument could be summed up as: "If it is easy to do, then it cannot be wrong to do it".

I think we're all agreed at this point that the original posting of these new area descriptions is not a "big deal" once tagged appropriately as OOC...but the natural progression of the argument you offer could as easily apply to other things, for example:

Someone catches a glimpse of a new mob tag, looks it up in the Forgotten Realms library, and then posts "Hey, everyone...here's something you might encounter IG".

Everyone here has made valid points on a subject that's not at all black and white. It's a shame the author got bruised feelings (and I offer my sincere apologies if I contributed to that), but it would be helpful if we all tried to understand the points each are trying to make.

That's my last word on it.

Do carry on

[kid]

Your argument seems to be along the lines of "if it's easy to cheat, then it's not cheating".

I would not consider reading info about where your toon was born and raised cheating.
you could stumble into things your toon may not know.
and in that case...
your toon will not know them until a DM tells you otherwise...
I still don't understand the fuss.

The issue would be how you RP things. thats about it.
we cannot wipe the minds of our players.
vets on the server know plenty of meta. yet they do not ruin the fun for themselves,
players or DMs by simply properly RPing what they DO know.
Thats it.

exmple:
I know someplace has lots of loot... woot.
my toon never heard of the place ): = me no go there.
Tada! really not that hard.

[t-ice]

The more knowledge the players have about the culture and geography of the areas their characters presumably live in, the better characters they will create. Better in the sense that the characters will grow organically from the world and come readily with hooks for stories that arise from the same, as opposed to PCs being glued on top, and DMs forcibly growing these entanglements.

It's certainly possible that knowledge on "these kind of (reclusive) peoples live there" will lead some player to play a character that is far more omniscient than the char sheet numbers suggest. But it is a far minor evil compared to the major good of players readily having more common knowledge that many characters ICly living in the world have. People being clueless about settings is far more of a impediment to greatness than using setting meta, and squirreling information only obviously makes it worse.

Everything that makes people learn more about our common fantasy world is a good thing. Every bit of information a member takes in immerses, binds and motivates that person towards this common project and pastime of ours.

2c

[Swift]

With all due respect, Swift...It seems to me you're missing Ith's points (and beginning to worry me).

Your argument seems to be along the lines of "if it's easy to cheat, then it's not cheating".

Not really, no.

Players use meta information every day, every time they log in and play, without even realizing it. Every time your brand new character encounters a troll, the first thing you think is "Trolls regenerate, they hit hard and they need acid or fire to properly kill." Only after that is an IC response formed. Every character that is made on TSM by an existing player knows the layout of the city, where the shops are, who sells what and so forth. Most repeat characters automatically know where the statics are and most do not think twice about their PCs simply doing them. And thats all fine. Once you learn something, you cannot un-learn it. This is why its not what you know, but how you use that knowledge that really matters.

Literally every detail about the Silver Marches that your character would not know is meta-information, but we are alright with that, because it helps players to have a general knowledge about the region they are playing in. That is why I really don't have a problem with people pointing out material of a geographical nature.

The more a player knows about the region, the more they will enjoy it. There is remarkable depth to the older, well fleshed out areas of Faerun like The Silver Marches. I encourage all players to read up on the place, the people, the politics and the problems. It will enrich your enjoyment. I rarely actively DM, but reading about the region has certainly made me enjoy working behind the scenes alot more than previously. Do it. Read up. Enjoy. Just use your knowledge in an appropriate manner.

Meta-information is fine. Meta-gaming is not.

[Blindhamsterman]

well said Swift.

[Ithildur]

Metagaming is indeed separate from potentially having access to information. No one disagrees with that.

How the information is handled makes a big difference in contributing to metagaming or not, particularly more obscure information. Once again, I think this kind of info may be fine in the Realmslore forums or posted here in a way that makes it accessible as background info if it's general/common type of info or with knowledge checks, DM permission, etc. If it's not general knowledge, then it needs to be handled with thought. Heero's thread in Realmslore forums on Eilistraeean worship may be a good example; it's food for thought, possible consideration when thinking of backgrounds (although whether it fits ALFA's canon lore is unclear), etc. but it's probably not the sort of thing to post as general IC knowledge available in the Marches at a player's whim.

I don't understand why that's so hard to get.

We just finished a session with Viigas where characters rolled knowledge checks to work with information (that may or may not have been important) on dwarven deities. I could have looked up all the info and tried to use it as IC knowledge without rolling, or even better had it posted here in a quasi-vaguely IC manner and said 'hey, this stuff's easily found on the web, I posted it here and no one had issues, so it should be available knowledge, what's the big deal?'

Are we really ok with this? Cause if we are, I'm sure I can really go to town and dig up all kinds of interesting info on the Marches ... and then post them here, maybe come up with with some Knowledge check DCs on my own.

[Swift]

I don't understand why that's so hard to get.

Because you are talking meta-information in general. I have consistantly been talking about the specific information from the original post. Just to reiterate.

That is why I really don't have a problem with people pointing out material of a geographical nature.

No, I do not believe that posting information about geopgraphical locations is bad, because unless specifically stated that they are unknown, I would not classify the knowledge of the locations as overly obscure. I mean, really. Everyone knows that lycanthropes plague the Moonwood, you really think their source (Claw Hollow) is not known about? Its exact location may be a mystery to all but a few (which certainly would require a Knowledge check of some sort), but the fact it is there? I do not think so. I simply will not agree that the Moonwoods and by extension the places in it are such a mystery to the people of the marches (particularly those that live in and around it) that the information should not be made available.

Use it wisely, just like every other piece of realmslore you come across.

[t-ice]

Squirelling away meta information can ironically have the effect of increasing meta gaming. Trying to hide from players what characters wouldn't know propagates the notion of mixing player and character knowledge. It gives the notion that use of your own common sense and judgement is not that necessary and what the player knows is fair game as "common" knowledge.

[oldgrayrogue]

Meta-information is fine. Meta-gaming is not.

This. 'Nuff said.

[Curmudgeon]

I am disappointed that some expansion of the server that was planned to be introduced by way of IC events may now have been compromised by a discussion of canon, specifically because the content I have been looking at has been posted so soon. If this was intended to hurry along the process of introducing this content, I'm sorry to say that it has had the opposite effect on me.

Builders are requested to treat requests for content as private matters. Please don't spoil everyone's fun by taking away the wonder and surprise of discovery.

As for players who check out what new areas have been introduced by looking at the downloaded file names, this is metagaming of the most egregious sort. I had hoped you would all be above that.

Topic locked.