Is My Power Level Showing ?

There's a recurring problem in certain kinds of ttrpg, in particular in Dungeons & Dragons. The question of How powerful is this guy ?

Imagine I'm talking to some lady in a tavern, she's strapping a longsword, her clothes are clean and relatively up market, she has a minor scar on her cheek. How dangerous is she ? Does she have five hit dice or fifteen ? If things turn sour and we get into a tavern brawl together is this going to be a fair match-up or is she going to absolutely trounce us with one hand behind her back ?

I have been on the weird end of this as a player. Fighting some city guards, just some guys with shield and spear and, as it turned out over the fight, thirty hit points. Thirty! Really ? These shmucks ? Was the extent of my thoughts. It was not a particularly big problem but it did harm my sense of place within the narrative a little and sometimes those little road bumps add up.

The issue is one of expectation. I thought these were just guys, not level five veterans of several campaigns. I hadn't been given the information with which to make an informed decision and so when I was surprised, when my expectations were broken, it felt off.

Do you think we can take him ?

There are two things that I think my DM could've done in that scenario. Hi Mark, by the way, if you happen to be reading. Don't worry, it really was a very tiny moment, I am hyper focusing. You were a great DM. That time in the tower with the mirror-men and the psychic hamster is to this day one of the most entertaining sessions of D&D I've played. I'm still not sure to this day if my guy came out of that or the doppelganger did.

When running games myself I've hit upon two thinking-on-my-feet 'solutions' to this 'problem'. They are both different ways of handing more information to the players. One in narrative terms, and one in game mechanical terms. 

Chekov's Sword Arm

The first I think is an extension of the way stories are told in general, which itself is exploiting a very useful quirk of human psychology for writing. Give more dangerous things more description.

If you've ever had a weapon pulled on you then you may have had the experience of being very aware of exactly where the thing is, how sharp it looks, how strong the person is, whether they're tense or calm, and so on and so on. This occurs even if the weapon is in fact quite innocuous if you only have little experience of it. For example being a teenager and your less mature friends pointing a bb-gun at you like it's loaded with marshmallows and not in fact actual metal projectiles. Don't you know those things could blind you ? Seriously stop pointing it at me Rob it's not funny.

Sorry I got distracted for a second there.

Dangerous things take up a lot of space on the field of consciousness. It's very important to know where they are and what they're doing at all times. It's very hard to draw your attention away from them. You may notice that in film or text anything which is explained in lots of detail or has a lingering close-up takes on more importance. The expectation is that this object, whatever it is, is important or going to be important. And so I have settled into directing more narration onto things which I think are more important.

So far so obvious right ?

Occasionally I think this is a detriment. If used injudiciously you may find yourself very heavily directing the attentions of the players. If you never describe anything that turns out innocuous in detail the players, consciously or not, will realise they can tell what the important thing is and I think some of that sense of reality is lost. Solutions all become subtly obvious. So I try to pick several things in a scene-of-import to describe quite clearly in order to dilute this power. Then I counter-act with the second 'solution'.

This Is A Level Five City Guard

Be permissive with knowledge of game statistics. I'm not afraid to just tell the players that some creature looks like its claws do three dice of damage. I can hear some people recoiling from this. They feel like I'm battering down the fourth wall, and I sympathise to an extent though I disagree whole heartedly.

Mechanics like hit dice and the damage done by a dragon's claws represent real things in the world of the game. It should be very clear to anyone who can see that a dragon's rippling arms and gigantic claws could cleave any person you pluck off the street in two. Simply saying "the dragons claws do three dice of damage" sends this information very quickly, and it also gives the players a sense of how much terror they should be feeling for their characters in terms that are directly actionable. They know how many 3d6 hits they can survive, it's written right there on their character sheet.

I however don't give out this information without some prompting most of the time. Exception made for things like armour classes, which I give out as soon as attacks are being made against the creature, I've not got any patience for the "what is this creature's AC ?" mini-game that people like to play, it should be obvious to you how hard it is to deal damage to something. I just want you to roll and tell me what damage to mark off man, we're on the clock here.

Are You Sure This Is A Problem ?

The players never complain, they always have fun. Perhaps I am reading far into my performance (as some GMs are wont to do) and fiddling over tiny minutiae of the game. But for anyone reading who has concerns about this kind of thing try telling your players straight up, in game mechanics terms, just how screwed they are. Some players will hate it but not all of them, not even most of them I think. I do it and the magic and wonder of my game hasn't collapsed leaving us with but a board game due to this little lean on the fourth wall. I suspect yours wont either.