Vampire: Can I come into your house?
Homeowner: I don’t know, can you?
Vampire: Doh!
I run a D&D group for teens and one of the most common question the players ask is, “Can I…?” fill in the blanks.
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As someone who has been a dungeon master since the early 1980s, I suffer from the curse of knowledge. I already have a pretty good idea of what’s possible, what’s allowed, and what’s verboten for players to do in a D&D game.
Teen players who have never played D&D until they joined my table don’t know what’s possible.
A big part of the reason why these teenagers ask so many “Can I?” questions is because they don’t know what’s possible in the game.
I suspect that many of their preconceived notions of what can be done in the game of D&D are shaped by what they see in the movies. If they see Iron Man or Spiderman do something wild and crazy in the movies, why can’t their 1st level dwarven fighter do the same thing in a dungeon filled with goblins and the occasional skeleton?
I’ll admit that these “Can I?” questions get a wee bit irritating after a while, but that’s 100% because of my own expectations — my Curse of Knowledge — not because of the players or their cognitive abilities. These kiddos are bright and exhibit insane levels of creativity at times, but ignorance of the rules and ignorance of the laws of physics within the game is not their fault. It’s inconvenient and somewhat limiting at times, but it’s not a blame sort of thing.
Instead of the predictable, “I don’t know, can you?” or “You can try” responses, I’m working to address these “Can I?” questions from the players in a different way.
Some worthwhile responses might be, “What are you trying to accomplish?” followed by, “Here are some suggestions that might work,” or “You could try that but the odds of success are very, very small and the results probably wouldn’t help.”
One time a player asked to beseech their god for divine intervention. I gave them a standard 1% chance (rolling d100) for their god to answer (1e AD&D DMG), and guess what happened? The player rolled 01 on percentile dice. So I ran with it and gave the party a boon from the player’s god. It was an “epic” moment (their word and mine) and has been an oft repeated story ever since.
Finally, as a DM suffering from the curse of knowledge, I recommend reminding yourself that players new to D&D of any age aren’t familiar with the typical tactics and actions they can take in the game. That can be a good thing sometimes as they might suggest a course of action that is truly outside the box yet surprisingly effective.
Present to the player what some common approaches might be in the situation but remind them that those are just examples, not the complete list. Don’t take away their sense of agency but let them know what the odds likely are before they act, then let them make the decision. If you rule something as simply impossible (the 2nd level druid asking if they can wild-shape into Tiamat, for example), be kind in your explanation. If something is unlikely but possible, assign some odds and let the dice decide. Just be prepared to improvise if they succeed and let the fun take shape organically.
On second thought, it might be worthwhile to let that fledgling druid wild-shape into the God of all Good Dragons.
