20 Questions

Okay, here’s the difficulty: you are not your character. You don’t exist in the same world, you don’t have the same skills, understanding of ethics, etc.. For instance, you know, right now, how far away the nearest big city is. You would know to react to a guy walking down the street with an ax. You know what sorts of things you can reasonably expect to find in someone’s house when you go for a visit. You know where you are, who you are, how to act, how to react, what’s weird, what’s not, and in some senses you know what to do on a day to day basis.

On the other hand, you have no idea the etiquette behind the use of invisibility in city limits, you don’t know how to judge between Claymores in terms of quality, you don’t know how to make friends with the forest creatures, you don’t know whether it’s a toga or a robe that’s proper attire for a night at the theater in Starfell. In essence, you don’t really know much at all. At any point during our game play, you’d be at a loss to know how long your characters even been awake that day. See what I mean?

What’s worse is that this is fantasy which means that there really isn’t a frame of reference at all. Is the world like Camelot or Conan, Middle Earth or Xena, Warrior Princess. At least in a game set in ancient Egypt, there are books you can look up. There’s a wikipedia entry. In the Dungeons and Dragons world, there is no such wikipedia, nor any other reference material.

So, what do you do?

The solution to this problem is a kind of re-imagining of the game as to what it is you’re trying to do as a player. In some ways, your character sheet and the rules of the game give you a basic guideline of what you can do at any moment in time as far as game mechanics go. But keep in mind, the mechanics are just there to support a role-playing environment; they’re the game part of the role playing game. What I’m talking about is getting you to concentrate on the role playing part of the role playing game.

To do this, I want you to think of Dungeons and Dragons as a kind of grand esoteric version of twenty questions. I’m serious. The people who have the most fun playing Dungeons and Dragons are the people who ask the most questions. In the same way, the longer a person has played, the more questions they ask. Really, aside from trying to figure out what your character will do (and deeply related to that), asking questions is the quintessential part of playing a role playing game.

The best part is you can ask about anything. You can ask about customs (is that guy’s hat normal?), physical space, race relations, the normal attitude your character might have about something, backstory, history. I’m serious. You as a player can ask about anything. It’s the D.M.’s job to sort of immerse you in the game world, but the job is complimentary: you have to ask the questions for this to work.

Now, it never hurts to give the D.M. a bit of a background as to why you think you would know the answer to the things you’re asking. Some stuff is common knowledge, but if you’re asking something like, “does that guy’s hat have anything to do with the Thieves guilds of this city?” it’s always nice to remind the D.M. that your character’s been working with the city watch for ten years.

Sometimes the D.M. will relate your question to one of your character’s skills, and so, it’s always good to remind the D.M. if the question you’re asking is related to a high skill (say +5 or more). So, if you want to know what kinds of relics are likely to be found in the area, it’s good to mention that your asking as a person with a +6 in appraise, local knowledge, profession: historian, or profession: merchant, just so the D.M. knows where you’re coming from and how much you would know.