Character vs. Player: Can you really know?

After my brother had asked for help creating a character in a new d20 Modern campaign he was in, I came across an interesting text box in the Core Rulebook beside the entry for the Knowledge skill. If I hadn't developed such a distaste for d20 and class-based roleplay systems such as Dungeons and Dragons, I may have played a few campaigns with d20 Modern and been more familiar with the book. But as it was, the content of the book and this text box in particular came as a fresh take on things.

The information panel was entitled Player Knowledge versus Character Knowledge, and it explains the classic roleplaying paradox of how you-the-player and you-the-character naturally have different knowledges. If you work as an auto mechanic and you're roleplaying a paramedic, well, naturally your character has knowledge about medicine and biology that you probably don't, and visa versa with engines. 

So, here's the text in full, because I want to go over the details of this interesting point of view.

It's pretty simple to measure a character's knowledge of things that the player doesn't know. That's what a knowledge check represents. For example, you may not know an awful lot about how major corporations protect their earnings from taxation, but with ranks in Knowledge (business), your character might.

The opposite case, however, is much harder to adjudicate. What happens when a player knows something that their character doesn't have any reason to know? For example, while most veteran players know that a Barrett Light Fifty deals 2d12 points of damage, it's likely that inexperienced characters might never even have heard of the weapon, much less know how powerful it is.

It's impossible to separate your personal knowledge (player knowledge) from your character's knowledge. The decision on how (or if) to separate player knowledge from character knowledge must be made between the players and the GM. Some GMs encourage knowledgeable players to use their experience to help [their] character succeed. Others prefer that character display only the knowledge represented by their skill ranks and other game statistics. Most fall somewhere between these two extremes.

If in doubt, ask your GM how [they] prefer to handle such situations.

What do you think? Is this a paradox that's been problematic for you during your roleplaying games? Have you struggled to separate character knowledge from player knowledge? If you do, do you think the way it's been represented in this panel is accurate to your experience? 

Funnily enough, I don't.

As I started reading, I thought it might turn out to be a very insightful piece of advice for people taking their first steps into the world of roleplaying games, you know, about the dangers of metagaming, interesting ways of getting around it, and tips for how to roleplay complex characters with vastly different knowledges than you-the-player. But by the time I reached the end of the first sentence, I felt like I was stepping far out of the world of quality and artistic storytelling I had come to love in roleplaying games.

The gun example is clearly aimed at metagaming. For those of you who don't know, metagaming is a term used in roleplaying games to describe the practice of playing the "game" with the understanding that it is a "game", rather than some ideal of simply acting as your character would and nothing more. So, when the character in question goes to choose a weapon, the character may not have any knowledge about guns and would choose based on some unrelated principle, rather than on its relative damage in the system, which only the player knows. Standard metagaming.

But what interests me more is the example given prior to that, about the business character attempting corporate tax evasion. This is where the real question of knowledge lies: not in game rules and damage dice, but in how you roleplay your character as the character. 

The way I see it, this paradox isn't really a paradox at all, and should never come up in your roleplaying session. You can get around it in two ways:

1. Actually know what your character knows.

This could take the form of creating characters that have similar knowledge to you, but will most likely involve a heavy amount of research. If your whole character concept is business management or stock investing, then it wouldn't hurt to look up a few economic terms to throw around in your business dealings, or browse wikipedia for how all kinds of know-how about your characters subject of expertise. If you're playing a character in the military, research the ranks, the etiquette, the squad tactics, the equipment, if you're not already familiar. Playing a scientist? Check out the periodic table. Playing a musician? Get a list of famous composers from the Romantic era and a list of their major works. Nothing major, but something to work with. 

There are some situations where this works and it's easy, and there are some where this would be fairly difficult. But what about situations where this would be impossible? Fantasy and Sci-fi for example. You can't exactly research how a mage's guild might operate, or what the ingredients of an Enlarge Person potion are, or what part you need to fix your hyperlight fusion drive, or the social customs of your character's alien race. But here's where it gets good..

2. Make it up. Just make it up, roleplay a little, improv a little, and hope that your GM will roll with it rather than shut you down, but that's what RPGs are all about! Be the character, don't be the dice. 

The great thing is, there's so much out there from which you can be inspired, that you can draw on, and that you can mine for precious idioms and lingo. It's research of a different kind, but it's research you've been doing your whole life: watching, listening, reading, playing, and generally loving all your favourite fiction. 

Don't know how much damage your ship taken? Make it up. Channel your inner Data and ramble off some Star Trek mumbo jumbo.

Don't know what the incantation is to that polymorph spell? Make it up. Channel your inner Hermione and ramble off some Harry Potter mumbo jumbo.

Planning the next wave of your attack? Make it up. Channel your inner Wallace and make ramble off some Scottish mumbo jumbo.

The list of characters you can mimic or emulate is endless. There isn't a genre in roleplaying games that doesn't and hasn't already existed in many other forms for longer periods of time, rife with material for you to pilfer. It's just so drab and boring to roll the dice, and immediately move on with the idea of success without gossying it up a little, or worse, have the GM fill in all the blanks for you. 

In the end, whether you know, or don't know, or pretend to know, it's all imaginary. But what's really satisfying? Getting high rolls sometimes and not other times? Or creating a fantastic scene, orating a fantastic monologue, or developing your fantastic character? Let your fiction life live.