Recently I read a post about some people consider it cheating to use a piece of paper to takes notes. I Balked. Why? So I deep dived into the topic to understand it better.
Should GMs allow players all information?
Should Players Meta play?
Its a common enough topic that I might not have considered writing a blog for it, so I don't want to go into it and bore you if you've read it all before, so let me just preface this with a paragraph or three on secret information.
Hidden information games, come in two varieties, Known (but often forgotten) and Unknown (but discoverable). outside of this, are random hidden, which I find, and seems a majority of the internet agrees, is not a great mechanic and is often used only in poorly design or children's games. So not worth discussing here.
Unknown but discoverable, makes 100% sense. You might start a game, such as Pagan, where you have 9 possible suspects, you whittle down the list by A) watching your opponent give them more power, and B) eliminating the suspects, until either of you have enough information to win.
Unknown Information in Roleplay
I don't hear of it often enough, but I do not understand why players get to know the stats of the enemy? Unless their character has encountered this creature often, and knows their standard moves, it makes zero sense. The first encounter should be caution, you don't have a clue about it, learn what it is, and how it reacts. It might even be friendly, but might be unknowingly deadly too.
The interaction of players with the unknown, is half of what roleplay is about. Yet we throw that out the window for combat.
Known but Forgotten
But, Known but forgotten? A Game like Catan, you can see what cards a player picks up on their turn, you can memorize this, and as such always know at all times what all players have. But, this means you need to have a great memory or some cool memory tricks to hold this info. So some players are driving Ferrari's and some have Corolla's, So should a game create speed limits? doesn't seem fair to me.
This leads me to think, If the point of the game is to compete over who has a better memory, then ok. but its not fun, and you'll soon find yourself not playing games anymore if you're at either end of the spectrum of memory.
So instead players with poorer memories should be allowed to take notes about who has what cards, to level the playing field a little.
That said, in roleplay, we have a stat 'INTELLIGENCE' which dictates how much memory a character should have.. Its worse, we're talking about a roleplay game, where the characters Intelligence doesn't always match the players Intelligence, how can we level that playing field? shouldn't we be be using this as a game mechanic?
Notes in Roleplay
Players are not often banned from taking notes in a roleplay game, but I propose that there should be limitations and encouragements based on character Intelligence scores.
When you should take notes, how much notes you take on any given topic, daily allowances vs limits to maximum notes? Even if we did, players might personally remember everything.
I encourage players with lower than 10 INT to not write things down and 'forget' anything that happened in any previous session that wasn't "big". I might jot down those big items to remind the team, i.e. weakest link, I keep those level of notes for players, but above that, players are encouraged to jot down 1 item per 3 pts INT above 10.
Recently, because I'm running Westmarches, there are 20+ players with 50+ characters, so I've got people writing down the names of the other characters they've met and dealt with, and again, based on their INT score, they can tick that many to 'instantly' remember their details, vs all the rest they need a reminder key, something we're still working on. i.e. if they were both on the quest for the red key, and the red key gets mentioned, then they recall the whole person, not just their name or thing.
I some of my players use the characters weapons as their actual knowledge, as a more interesting nuance "Oh, you two, Bow guy and Shield girl, sure, we met 3 years ago in that tavern".
The more interesting (to me) is that players are learning about how people remember each other, real life education from playing a game.
It becomes it own little meta game, should I tick 2-3 pieces of information? or create a memory key and link that to a bunch of information. I have memorized the 7 secret dials for the dungeon we are coming up on, but to do that I need to drop the names of my rivals and the recipe for that +1 Intelligence soup. How can I group it to a memory key?
